project: That Sauce

Project Information

Overview

That Sauce is a creative talent discovery platform that connects hirers with creative professionals through AI-powered portfolio search. I designed and developed the entire application from concept to deployment, handling everything from user experience design to backend architecture and AI integration.

Role: Full-Stack Designer & Developer
Stack: Next.js, Convex, Clerk, Gemini AI, shadcn/ui

The Challenge

Traditional creative talent discovery relies on keyword searches and manual portfolio browsing, making it difficult for hirers to find creators whose work truly matches their vision. Creators struggle to showcase the depth and nuance of their work beyond surface-level tags and categories.

Design & Development

I designed a flexible content management system that captures the full spectrum of creative work while enabling intelligent discovery. The field configuration system allows creators to structure their projects with rich, searchable metadata—from project titles and descriptions to multiple image slots, video embeds, external links, and flexible tech tags.

The platform features an AI-powered analysis system that understands creative work at multiple levels: individual media analysis, project synthesis, and portfolio-level intelligence. The system adapts to 22+ creator roles (Directors, Photographers, Designers, 3D Artists, etc.), generating insights tailored to each discipline.

For hirers, I built a conversational search interface that enables natural language queries like "find me a director who does cinematic brand films" and returns intelligent matches based on visual style and creative approach, not just keywords.

Key Features

Comprehensive project field system with 20+ configurable fields
Multi-media support (images, videos, external links)
AI-powered semantic search with role-adaptive analysis
Creator profiles with portfolio showcases
Team organization for hirers with custom groups
Real-time collaboration features
Behance import automation

Results

The platform enables hirers to discover creators based on visual style and creative approach, while giving creators the tools to showcase comprehensive project information that reflects their full creative process. The flexible CMS structure allows for platform evolution without code changes, and the AI-powered search handles thousands of creators and projects with real-time updates.