01
The challenge
A short-drama brand with a full content library, a launch date already set — and no production-grade platform to stream it securely or monetize it.
Gravitorix × FliksMedia & EntertainmentOTT Streaming
How Fliks launched a DRM-protected short-drama platform on iOS, Android and web — in five months
- Duration
- 5 months
- Location
- Tamil Nadu, India
Want Design
Snapshot
The whole project, in three beats
02
What we built
A MultiDRM-protected OTT platform with a fully automated video pipeline and three monetization models running side by side, across iOS, Android, and web.
03
The result
Shipped in five months, kickoff to live launch.
About the Client
Short drama,
built for the phone
Fliks is a short-drama streaming brand by YourBackers, built around quick, vertical episodes designed for mobile-first viewing.
built for binge
A YourBackers brand
The Challenge
Not a demo —
a product that had to survive
The goal wasn't a demo — it was a product that had to survive real users, piracy, and growth from day one.
01
Keeping content safe from piracy
Short-drama content only makes money if people can't simply rip it and re-upload it elsewhere. Every video, on every device — phone, tablet, browser — had to be locked down with industry-standard protection (the same Widevine and FairPlay DRM used by the major streaming platforms) from day one — and it couldn't come at the cost of playback startup.
02
Turning raw footage into a live episode, automatically
Getting a video ready to stream normally means someone manually converting it into different qualities, adding protection, and uploading it — a slow, hands-on process. The content team needed to publish new episodes on their schedule, not whenever engineers were free.
03
Building it so any one part can scale on its own
Not every part of the app gets busy at the same time. A viral episode spikes video traffic — not logins, payments, or search. One giant system that scales all together costs more than it needs to; the platform had to scale only where the pressure actually is.
What We Delivered
Everything shipped, end to end
Mobile app
iOS + Android · vertical player · coins and rewards
Website
watch in the browser · built to be found (SEO)
Admin dashboard
uploads · plans and pricing · no app update needed
- 01
MultiDRM piracy protection
On every device · Per-play entitlement checks
- 02
Automated upload-to-live pipeline
Fully automated video pipeline · Run by the content team, without engineers
- 03
Three monetization models, side by side
Subscriptions · Pay-to-unlock episodes with coins · A free ad-supported tier · Pricing and rules adjustable from the admin panel — no app update needed
- 04
A recommendation layer
Learns viewer preferences · Surfaces the right episode and the right offer
- 05
Three front doors, one shared backend
React Native (Expo) mobile app · Next.js website · Admin dashboard — content, uploads, plans, banners, settings · All speaking the same well-defined API, so nothing gets out of sync
- 06
An SEO-ready website
Built to be found organically · Alongside paid acquisition campaigns at launch
Implementation Process
Seven phases,
one accountable team
1
Phase 01
Discovery
Workshops with the content, product, and ops teams to map catalog structure, monetization goals, piracy exposure, and every manual step in upload-to-publish.
2
Phase 02
Planning
A roadmap sequencing the services behind the gateway: auth and content first — the foundation that payments, transcoding, and rewards build on.
3
Phase 03
Design
Gateway routing rules, service boundaries, and the DRM entitlement flow mapped into MongoDB collections and Redis key design, plus UX prototypes — before a line of production code.
4
Phase 04
Development
Parallel tracks across all seven services, each in TypeScript/Fastify in Docker, built against a shared JWT contract in two-week sprints.
5
Phase 05
Testing
The DRM pipeline validated end-to-end (MediaConvert → PallyCon SPEKE → Widevine/FairPlay), load tests simulating a viral-episode traffic spike, and reward-integrity checks on the coin economy under concurrent load.
6
Phase 06
Deployment
A staged, zero-downtime rollout of independently deployable, stateless services through the Bitbucket preprod-to-production pipeline, with the gateway as the single trust boundary.
7
Phase 07
Support & Optimization
Ongoing DRM and pipeline hardening, monetization-lever tuning across the subscription, coin, and ad mix, and continued tuning of the recommendation layer as viewing data compounds.
Client Voice
In their own words
“Working with Gravitorix transformed how we sell. They didn't just build us a platform — they built us a business we finally own.”
Tech Stack
Built on proven,
scalable tooling
PallyConMultiDRM (Widevine/FairPlay)
Platform Architecture
One backend, three products
Backend & API
Node.js · Media Pipeline
Fliks Mobile
flicks-mobile
The app people use on their phone to watch, built with React Native.
Native video protection, smooth animations and referral links that open straight into the app.
Fliks User
flicks-user
The website where people watch in any browser.
Built on Next.js with a reliable, adaptive web video player.
Fliks Admin
flicks-admin
The internal tool the team uses to run the platform.
Manages content, uploads, subscription plans, banners and settings.
Project Gallery
A look at what we shipped
fliks.app
Want Design
Want Design
Want Design
Want Design
Want Design
Live UI mocks rendered from the Fliks design system — web, mobile and monetization surfaces.
Why Gravitorix
Why it came out this way
Let's build yours
Building a streaming
or content product?
Piracy, cost, and monetization are the three things every OTT founder loses sleep over. Tell us which one is keeping you up — schedule a free consultation and we'll show you what a focused, end-to-end build can do. We respond within 24 hours.