Streaming Platform

Client

A documentary media organization needed a direct digital channel for promoting its series, helping audiences discover episodes, registering users, and collecting audience analytics. At launch, distribution still involved a third-party distributor; the longer-term product direction included direct paid access and protected streaming.

The platform therefore had to launch quickly while leaving room for future monetization features that were planned beyond the initial release.

Key Highlights

Challenge

The project combined a short launch timeline with requirements that were still evolving. The first release had to support content marketing, episode discovery, registration, and analytics, while the architecture also needed to accommodate later work on direct streaming and payments. Production and non-production environments also had to remain clearly separated.

• Launch within the planned window. Deliver a production-ready marketing and content platform on schedule.
• Enable independent content editing. Let the media team update episodes and pages without developer involvement.
• Keep infrastructure reproducible. Production access needed to stay controlled and environments reproducible.
• Collect analytics from day one. Audience and video-event analytics needed to be part of the first release.
• Design for what's next. Build the application with future payment and protected-streaming requirements in mind.

Solution

We built the first release as a CMS-driven web product on isolated AWS infrastructure, with content, registered users, and analytics handled as distinct concerns.

• Next.js + Payload CMS. An editable marketing and episode-discovery experience rather than a hard-coded content site.
• PostgreSQL-backed application layer. Structured persistence for content and registered users.
• Infrastructure as Code on AWS. Reusable components for compute, database, networking, security, storage, and delivery.
• Environment isolation. Production and non-production infrastructure separated, with administrative access controlled through the infrastructure setup.
• GA4/GTM analytics. Audience tracking and video-event instrumentation included in the application.
• Future payment and protected-streaming requirements. Considered in the architecture as planned extensions beyond the initial release.

Process

The team prioritized the launch path first, then structured the foundation around the requirements expected to follow.

1. Map requirements and evaluate options. Mapped launch requirements and evaluated streaming and payment options before finalizing the application and infrastructure approach.
2. Design the audience experience. Designed and built the audience-facing marketing and episode-discovery experience.
3. Provision infrastructure. Provisioned isolated AWS environments through reusable Infrastructure as Code components.
4. Implement the platform. Implemented Payload CMS, application logic, registration, analytics, and the required integrations.
5. Review, launch, and iterate. Ran iterative client reviews and QA, launched the first production version within the planned window, and continued feature development afterward.

Result

• Launched on schedule. The first production version shipped within the planned ~2-month launch window.
• Client-managed content. The client can manage episodes and marketing content through its own CMS.
• Isolated environments. Production and non-production workloads run in separate AWS environments managed through code.
• Live analytics. Registration and audience/video analytics are part of the live platform.
• Architecture built for what's next. The architecture documents and accommodates future paid-access and protected-streaming work without treating those future features as already delivered.