Mar'20 - Jul'21
Magical Experiences
We all believe in something, sometimes a few of those end up coming as magical. This is my take on all the crazy magical things we designed.
B2C
UX Design
Case Study
your design partner
your design partner
Overview
There is a lot to cover on this so instead of going deep into everything.
I’ll give you an overview of what awesome things we worked on. Let’s get right into it.
What is Hike?
Hike was an Indian tech company, founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and Jake Allen, that shifted its focus from its Hike Messenger to social products after pivoting in 2020. The company shut down its messaging platform and launched Vibe, a social media platform for watching videos together, and Rush, a skill-based, real-money gaming platform
Company & Products:
Hike (Company): Founded in 2012, Hike was an Indian tech company initially known for its messaging app but later rebranded its focus to social and gaming platforms, including Vibe and Rush, which are now its primary offerings.
Vibe: A social media platform designed for users to watch videos together, which was a rebranded version of Hike's previous offering, HikeLand.
Rush: A skill-based gaming platform that hosts various casual games with microtransactions, aiming to build a new game economy where users can play, earn, and grow.
HikeLand: An earlier version of a virtual world mobile-first platform that was incorporated into the newly launched Vibe.
Hikeland
Hikeland: A magical place to hangout online.
One of the first things that I worked at Hike was Hikeland. It was a very interesting problem that we wanted to solve. Hike has always been a place for your closest friendships. If there was a mission statement we’d have, it would be → Great Relationships = Happy People.
The dream with HikeLand was to build a magical place online where great friendships can thrive over shared experiences. A virtual world where people can hangout online, be their most expressive selves and transcend the limitations of the offline world.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Home Experience
We imagined Home with different themes(8) for people to hangout in a virtual world. It was a private place for you and your loved ones to hang out. Home is your living room with a TV(powered by Youtube & Disney+Hotstar), with Voice Calling + Video Streaming, you can finally Watch & Talk at the same time.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Big Screen Experience
Next up Big Screen, just like in life, we want to build opportunities for people to meet other people in a fun way. So, we’ve built ‘Big Screen’ to start with — a place that brings people together around the content they love. Big Screen was running 24x7 around Movies, Music, Comedy, Sports, and much more. Hop into a show anytime, hangout, watch videos with other like-minded people and even say hello to them!
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Profile & Chat Experience in Big Screen
Designed with a fresh perspective on how online interactions should feel. Instead of replicating traditional, cluttered social features, we focused on privacy-first interactions, giving users control over what they share and with whom. Every detail from profile visibility to chat permissions was crafted to make users feel safe, while still enabling meaningful connections within the community. This became our way of redefining online privacy, not as a barrier, but as a foundation for trust and authentic engagement.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Where is Hikeland in all of this?
To bring it all together, we had to ask — Where is HikeLand? Is it on Earth? Is it in Space? Is it another Planet? We think it’s best described as another realm. A new environment altogether built solely from imagination. Our experiences are “Floating Islands” in HikeLand. They may remind you of Avatar’s Mountains of Pandora, or the Floating City in Star Wars (we’re big on sci-fi Hike) In the boundless expanse of HikeLand, soon, it won’t be just our creativity, it will be yours too.
The Launch
The Launch
Learnings from the slick MVP Experience
The most important shift we wanted to make from the social experiences of today is to create a place that doesn’t force any parameter of success such as likes, comments, shares. HikeLand was a place for you to create wonderful friendships. This was an early preview experience or in other words, you can call it MVP as well. So as time passed our understanding of the product kept on increasing.
User Feedback
User Feedback
Listening to our Users
Once an MVP is out the next big thing we put our focus on was user feedbacks on we kept on doubling down our efforts on it. The most requested features among them were:
1. Playing Games with friends on Hikeland
2. Full body HikeMoji Avatars
3. An exceptional call/chat experience while playing with friends on Hikeland
We didn’t disappoint our users & made sure that not just these but also the overall product should stand out more in terms of what we have to offer & hence when we came out of early preview for full launch things we offered to our users were:
Hikeland Ludo
Hikeland Ludo
Social Play Without Distractions
Introduction of Ludo with up to four friends, where players could not only enjoy the game together but also chat and talk over audio calls simultaneously. What made it even more special was that the entire experience was completely ad-free, allowing HikeLanders to focus on playing, talking, and sharing moments without interruptions just like hanging out with friends in real life, but online.
Full Body Hikemoji
Full Body Hikemoji
Giving HikeLanders More Ways to Express Themselves
In response to what our users wanted, we expanded Hikemojis from just faces to full-body avatars complete with wardrobes. This upgrade gave HikeLanders the freedom to dress up their digital selves, experiment with styles, and showcase their personalities in fun, playful ways. It wasn’t just about customization it was about enabling our community to be their funnest, most expressive selves, making interactions feel more personal and engaging.
Road Ahead
Road Ahead
Learnings & Next Move (2021)!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
The Vibe Journey
HikeLand will now be ‘Vibe by Hike’!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
The Vibe Journey
What is Vibe?
With Vibe, we continue to build a magical & safe place online where people can be themselves & make new friends. We’ve quickly learned that the quality of the community is very important. So to begin with → Vibe is an approval-only community (One has to apply to join).
The Rush Journey
The Rush Journey
A brand new product → ‘Rush by hike’!
Rush is a new bite-sized gaming service that aims to channel the competitive spirit of India where players can use their skills to Play, Compete & Win! We have games like Carrom Freestyle, Call Break, Speed Leedo, Quizzy, Bumper Battle, Fruit Fight & many more coming soon.
The Hikemoji Journey
The Hikemoji Journey
HikeMoji is the core identity across both Vibe & Rush.
The sky is the limit here & you won’t be disappointed with all advancements we’re bringing on the HikeMoji in 2021!
We now have 2 Virtual Worlds that focus on a single ‘Job to be Done’ each thus simplifying the UX. A much better approach for today’s world that is unconstrained by cheap, fast data & powerful smartphones.
The Sunset
The Sunset
Sunsetting Sticker Chat
Millions of users spending 35 mins/day. A very loyal user base that has been a fantastic launchpad for us to bring our innovations to the market → HikeMoji & HikeLand.
In Kavin Bharti Mittal’s words: We’re announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan’21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you
Closing Thoughts
Closing Thoughts
Personally, It has been an amazing experience working on such a wide variety of products at Hike.
Loved every bit of how we went through in the past year & super excited for what’s to come. If these are the kind of products you want to work on reach out to us. We hope to meet more undiscovered talent and create amazing products for the world. Going beyond geographic boundaries is as exciting for us, as it is for you, and we can’t wait to see how this year will turn out.
More Works
(VK® — 02)
©2025
More Works
(VK® — 02)
©2025
Mar'20 - Jul'21
Magical
Experiences
We all believe in something, sometimes a few of those end up coming as magical. This is my take on all the crazy magical things we designed.
B2C
UX Design
Case Study
your design partner
your design partner
Overview
There is a lot to cover on this so instead of going deep into everything.
I’ll give you an overview of what awesome things we worked on. Let’s get right into it.
What is Hike?
Hike was an Indian tech company, founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and Jake Allen, that shifted its focus from its Hike Messenger to social products after pivoting in 2020. The company shut down its messaging platform and launched Vibe, a social media platform for watching videos together, and Rush, a skill-based, real-money gaming platform
Company & Products:
Hike (Company): Founded in 2012, Hike was an Indian tech company initially known for its messaging app but later rebranded its focus to social and gaming platforms, including Vibe and Rush, which are now its primary offerings.
Vibe: A social media platform designed for users to watch videos together, which was a rebranded version of Hike's previous offering, HikeLand.
Rush: A skill-based gaming platform that hosts various casual games with microtransactions, aiming to build a new game economy where users can play, earn, and grow.
HikeLand: An earlier version of a virtual world mobile-first platform that was incorporated into the newly launched Vibe.
Hikeland
Hikeland: A magical place to hangout online.
One of the first things that I worked at Hike was Hikeland. It was a very interesting problem that we wanted to solve. Hike has always been a place for your closest friendships. If there was a mission statement we’d have, it would be → Great Relationships = Happy People.
The dream with HikeLand was to build a magical place online where great friendships can thrive over shared experiences. A virtual world where people can hangout online, be their most expressive selves and transcend the limitations of the offline world.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Home Experience
We imagined Home with different themes(8) for people to hangout in a virtual world. It was a private place for you and your loved ones to hang out. Home is your living room with a TV(powered by Youtube & Disney+Hotstar), with Voice Calling + Video Streaming, you can finally Watch & Talk at the same time.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Big Screen Experience
Next up Big Screen, just like in life, we want to build opportunities for people to meet other people in a fun way. So, we’ve built ‘Big Screen’ to start with — a place that brings people together around the content they love. Big Screen was running 24x7 around Movies, Music, Comedy, Sports, and much more. Hop into a show anytime, hangout, watch videos with other like-minded people and even say hello to them!
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Profile & Chat Experience in Big Screen
Designed with a fresh perspective on how online interactions should feel. Instead of replicating traditional, cluttered social features, we focused on privacy-first interactions, giving users control over what they share and with whom. Every detail from profile visibility to chat permissions was crafted to make users feel safe, while still enabling meaningful connections within the community. This became our way of redefining online privacy, not as a barrier, but as a foundation for trust and authentic engagement.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Where is Hikeland in all of this?
To bring it all together, we had to ask — Where is HikeLand? Is it on Earth? Is it in Space? Is it another Planet? We think it’s best described as another realm. A new environment altogether built solely from imagination. Our experiences are “Floating Islands” in HikeLand. They may remind you of Avatar’s Mountains of Pandora, or the Floating City in Star Wars (we’re big on sci-fi Hike) In the boundless expanse of HikeLand, soon, it won’t be just our creativity, it will be yours too.
The Launch
Learnings from the slick MVP Experience
The most important shift we wanted to make from the social experiences of today is to create a place that doesn’t force any parameter of success such as likes, comments, shares. HikeLand was a place for you to create wonderful friendships. This was an early preview experience or in other words, you can call it MVP as well. So as time passed our understanding of the product kept on increasing.
User Feedback
Listening to our Users
Once an MVP is out the next big thing we put our focus on was user feedbacks on we kept on doubling down our efforts on it. The most requested features among them were:
1. Playing Games with friends on Hikeland
2. Full body HikeMoji Avatars
3. An exceptional call/chat experience while playing with friends on Hikeland
We didn’t disappoint our users & made sure that not just these but also the overall product should stand out more in terms of what we have to offer & hence when we came out of early preview for full launch things we offered to our users were:
Hikeland Ludo
Social Play Without Distractions
Introduction of Ludo with up to four friends, where players could not only enjoy the game together but also chat and talk over audio calls simultaneously. What made it even more special was that the entire experience was completely ad-free, allowing HikeLanders to focus on playing, talking, and sharing moments without interruptions just like hanging out with friends in real life, but online.
Full Body Hikemoji
Giving HikeLanders More Ways to Express Themselves
In response to what our users wanted, we expanded Hikemojis from just faces to full-body avatars complete with wardrobes. This upgrade gave HikeLanders the freedom to dress up their digital selves, experiment with styles, and showcase their personalities in fun, playful ways. It wasn’t just about customization it was about enabling our community to be their funnest, most expressive selves, making interactions feel more personal and engaging.
Road Ahead
Learnings & Next Move (2021)!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
HikeLand will now be ‘Vibe by Hike’!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
What is Vibe?
With Vibe, we continue to build a magical & safe place online where people can be themselves & make new friends. We’ve quickly learned that the quality of the community is very important. So to begin with → Vibe is an approval-only community (One has to apply to join).
The Rush Journey
A brand new product → ‘Rush by hike’!
Rush is a new bite-sized gaming service that aims to channel the competitive spirit of India where players can use their skills to Play, Compete & Win! We have games like Carrom Freestyle, Call Break, Speed Leedo, Quizzy, Bumper Battle, Fruit Fight & many more coming soon.
The Hikemoji Journey
HikeMoji is the core identity across both Vibe & Rush.
The sky is the limit here & you won’t be disappointed with all advancements we’re bringing on the HikeMoji in 2021!
We now have 2 Virtual Worlds that focus on a single ‘Job to be Done’ each thus simplifying the UX. A much better approach for today’s world that is unconstrained by cheap, fast data & powerful smartphones.
The Sunset
Sunsetting Sticker Chat
Millions of users spending 35 mins/day. A very loyal user base that has been a fantastic launchpad for us to bring our innovations to the market → HikeMoji & HikeLand.
In Kavin Bharti Mittal’s words: We’re announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan’21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you
Closing Thoughts
Personally, It has been an amazing experience working on such a wide variety of products at Hike.
Loved every bit of how we went through in the past year & super excited for what’s to come. If these are the kind of products you want to work on reach out to us. We hope to meet more undiscovered talent and create amazing products for the world. Going beyond geographic boundaries is as exciting for us, as it is for you, and we can’t wait to see how this year will turn out.
More Works
©2025
Mar'20 - Jul'21
Magical Experiences
We all believe in something, sometimes a few of those end up coming as magical. This is my take on all the crazy magical things we designed.
B2C
UX Design
Case Study
your design partner
your design partner
Overview
There is a lot to cover on this so instead of going deep into everything.
I’ll give you an overview of what awesome things we worked on. Let’s get right into it.
What is Hike?
Hike was an Indian tech company, founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal and Jake Allen, that shifted its focus from its Hike Messenger to social products after pivoting in 2020. The company shut down its messaging platform and launched Vibe, a social media platform for watching videos together, and Rush, a skill-based, real-money gaming platform
Company & Products:
Hike (Company): Founded in 2012, Hike was an Indian tech company initially known for its messaging app but later rebranded its focus to social and gaming platforms, including Vibe and Rush, which are now its primary offerings.
Vibe: A social media platform designed for users to watch videos together, which was a rebranded version of Hike's previous offering, HikeLand.
Rush: A skill-based gaming platform that hosts various casual games with microtransactions, aiming to build a new game economy where users can play, earn, and grow.
HikeLand: An earlier version of a virtual world mobile-first platform that was incorporated into the newly launched Vibe.
Hikeland
Hikeland: A magical place to hangout online.
One of the first things that I worked at Hike was Hikeland. It was a very interesting problem that we wanted to solve. Hike has always been a place for your closest friendships. If there was a mission statement we’d have, it would be → Great Relationships = Happy People.
The dream with HikeLand was to build a magical place online where great friendships can thrive over shared experiences. A virtual world where people can hangout online, be their most expressive selves and transcend the limitations of the offline world.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Home Experience
We imagined Home with different themes(8) for people to hangout in a virtual world. It was a private place for you and your loved ones to hang out. Home is your living room with a TV(powered by Youtube & Disney+Hotstar), with Voice Calling + Video Streaming, you can finally Watch & Talk at the same time.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Big Screen Experience
Next up Big Screen, just like in life, we want to build opportunities for people to meet other people in a fun way. So, we’ve built ‘Big Screen’ to start with — a place that brings people together around the content they love. Big Screen was running 24x7 around Movies, Music, Comedy, Sports, and much more. Hop into a show anytime, hangout, watch videos with other like-minded people and even say hello to them!
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Profile & Chat Experience in Big Screen
Designed with a fresh perspective on how online interactions should feel. Instead of replicating traditional, cluttered social features, we focused on privacy-first interactions, giving users control over what they share and with whom. Every detail from profile visibility to chat permissions was crafted to make users feel safe, while still enabling meaningful connections within the community. This became our way of redefining online privacy, not as a barrier, but as a foundation for trust and authentic engagement.
Key Highlights of Hikeland
Where is Hikeland in all of this?
To bring it all together, we had to ask — Where is HikeLand? Is it on Earth? Is it in Space? Is it another Planet? We think it’s best described as another realm. A new environment altogether built solely from imagination. Our experiences are “Floating Islands” in HikeLand. They may remind you of Avatar’s Mountains of Pandora, or the Floating City in Star Wars (we’re big on sci-fi Hike) In the boundless expanse of HikeLand, soon, it won’t be just our creativity, it will be yours too.
The Launch
Learnings from the slick MVP Experience
The most important shift we wanted to make from the social experiences of today is to create a place that doesn’t force any parameter of success such as likes, comments, shares. HikeLand was a place for you to create wonderful friendships. This was an early preview experience or in other words, you can call it MVP as well. So as time passed our understanding of the product kept on increasing.
User Feedback
Listening to our Users
Once an MVP is out the next big thing we put our focus on was user feedbacks on we kept on doubling down our efforts on it. The most requested features among them were:
1. Playing Games with friends on Hikeland
2. Full body HikeMoji Avatars
3. An exceptional call/chat experience while playing with friends on Hikeland
We didn’t disappoint our users & made sure that not just these but also the overall product should stand out more in terms of what we have to offer & hence when we came out of early preview for full launch things we offered to our users were:
Hikeland Ludo
Social Play Without Distractions
Introduction of Ludo with up to four friends, where players could not only enjoy the game together but also chat and talk over audio calls simultaneously. What made it even more special was that the entire experience was completely ad-free, allowing HikeLanders to focus on playing, talking, and sharing moments without interruptions just like hanging out with friends in real life, but online.
Full Body Hikemoji
Giving HikeLanders More Ways to Express Themselves
In response to what our users wanted, we expanded Hikemojis from just faces to full-body avatars complete with wardrobes. This upgrade gave HikeLanders the freedom to dress up their digital selves, experiment with styles, and showcase their personalities in fun, playful ways. It wasn’t just about customization it was about enabling our community to be their funnest, most expressive selves, making interactions feel more personal and engaging.
Road Ahead
Learnings & Next Move (2021)!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
HikeLand will now be ‘Vibe by Hike’!
We started New Year 2021 with a brand new Hike & the whole shebang was:
Evolution of Hikeland
Two New Products
Sun setting of HikeSticker Chat
The Vibe Journey
What is Vibe?
With Vibe, we continue to build a magical & safe place online where people can be themselves & make new friends. We’ve quickly learned that the quality of the community is very important. So to begin with → Vibe is an approval-only community (One has to apply to join).
The Rush Journey
A brand new product → ‘Rush by hike’!
Rush is a new bite-sized gaming service that aims to channel the competitive spirit of India where players can use their skills to Play, Compete & Win! We have games like Carrom Freestyle, Call Break, Speed Leedo, Quizzy, Bumper Battle, Fruit Fight & many more coming soon.
The Hikemoji Journey
HikeMoji is the core identity across both Vibe & Rush.
The sky is the limit here & you won’t be disappointed with all advancements we’re bringing on the HikeMoji in 2021!
We now have 2 Virtual Worlds that focus on a single ‘Job to be Done’ each thus simplifying the UX. A much better approach for today’s world that is unconstrained by cheap, fast data & powerful smartphones.
The Sunset
Sunsetting Sticker Chat
Millions of users spending 35 mins/day. A very loyal user base that has been a fantastic launchpad for us to bring our innovations to the market → HikeMoji & HikeLand.
In Kavin Bharti Mittal’s words: We’re announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan’21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you
Closing Thoughts
Personally, It has been an amazing experience working on such a wide variety of products at Hike.
Loved every bit of how we went through in the past year & super excited for what’s to come. If these are the kind of products you want to work on reach out to us. We hope to meet more undiscovered talent and create amazing products for the world. Going beyond geographic boundaries is as exciting for us, as it is for you, and we can’t wait to see how this year will turn out.
More Works
(VK® — 02)
©2025