I Built a Football Sentiment Platform in 18 Days. The World Cup Starts in 7 Days. Now I Need Distribution.

I'm a solo founder from Mauritius, and eighteen days ago I wasn't trying to build a startup. I just wanted to make something fun for football fans before the World Cup.

Now I think I may have stumbled onto a problem that football media isn't solving.

The problem is simple: football fans have opinions about everything. A transfer rumor drops, a manager gets sacked, a player signs, a controversial VAR call happens — and within minutes, millions of fans have already picked a side. Yet despite football being the world's biggest sport, there isn't a dedicated place that actually measures what fans think.

Media reports the story. Pundits react to it. Podcasts debate it. Fans argue in comment sections. But nobody captures fan sentiment in any structured way. Nobody can answer the most obvious question: what do football fans actually think right now?

The original idea was much simpler
The first version of Tribau wasn't about sentiment at all. It was about tribalism.
I wanted a place where football fans could defend their side — no profiles, no followers, no endless comment threads going nowhere. Just: pick a side, vote, see where the crowd stands. Every battle has exactly two options, and that's a hard rule.

Arsenal or PSG? Mbappé or Haaland? Keep the manager or sack him? Fans vote, the result appears, move on to the next one.

What Tribau actually is?
Every football story becomes a battle. Two sides, one decision, one verdict — and no signup required. No login, no onboarding. You land on the page and you vote.

A few examples currently on the platform:

PSG retained the Champions League. Dynasty or boring dominance?
Mbappé — World Cup 2026 is his last chance to save his legacy.
Africa has never won a World Cup. Is 2026 finally the year?
Gabriel shirt sales exploded after his penalty miss. Most loyal fanbase in football?

Each battle is built around an active football conversation. The goal is to make participating faster than commenting.

Then something unexpected happened
I started reaching out to football creators, assuming they'd be interested in the battles themselves. I was wrong.
What caught their attention wasn't the battle — it was the result. The percentage split. The audience reaction. The sentiment. One creator basically told me: "The vote split is the content."
That reframed everything. The battle isn't the product. The battle is just the interface. What comes out of it — the sentiment — that's the actual product. Every vote is a signal. Every signal reveals how fans feel about a story.

If enough fans participate...
Tribau stops being a voting platform and becomes a football sentiment layer — a place where creators, media, brands, podcasts, sponsors, and potentially clubs can see what fans actually think.

Imagine being able to say: "According to Tribau, 73% of fans believe Mbappé's legacy depends on this World Cup" — or "68% of fans think Arsenal should sign Gyökeres." That data doesn't really exist anywhere today, at least not in a dedicated football-first format.

What I've tried for distribution
This is where I'm stuck. The product exists. The World Cup starts in 7 days. I still don't know which channel gives me the highest probability of reaching the first 1,000 real football fans.

TikTok didn't work. The account is new, most videos stay under 100 views, average watch time sits around 5–7 seconds. I still think it can work long-term, but it won't solve the next 7 days.

Creator outreach showed some promise. I emailed small football creators — mostly 1K–10K followers with engaged audiences — sent 15 emails, got 2 replies, and 1 created a battle. Around 13% response rate, which isn't terrible. The problem is scale: finding and contacting 15 relevant creators took nearly two full days.

WhatsApp was surprisingly effective. People vote, people share. But it only scales inside personal networks, so there's a ceiling.
Facebook Groups gave plenty of impressions with very little conversion. Posts disappear fast and external links get buried.
Reddit is still largely untested. Planning to experiment there soon.

Current situation
Built in 18 days, solo, no funding, no team, no marketing budget, from Mauritius. The platform has infinite scrolling, one-tap voting, user-created battles, a mobile-first experience, device fingerprint protection against duplicate votes, battle sharing, sponsored battles, admin analytics, and a real-time feed refresh.
The World Cup starts in 7 days.

What would you do?
If you were sitting where I am right now — football product, zero budget, one week before the biggest sporting event on Earth — where would you focus? Creators? Reddit? X? Discord? Newsletters? Football communities? Something I haven't thought of?

I'd genuinely love to hear what you'd try, because distribution is the one problem I haven't cracked.

Tribau — tribau.zite.so
Football news happens. Fans decide what it means.