A Letter from the Founder — Why I Built Dartsva

The Frustration: Practice That Went Nowhere

For years my practice routine looked the same. I'd set up at the oche, throw at the 20, pull my darts, and throw again. If I hit a 180 I felt great. If I threw 26s I felt worse than if I hadn't practiced at all. And at the end of the month, my average was exactly where it had been at the start.

I assumed that was on me. That I wasn't talented enough, or wasn't putting in enough hours. Then I started paying attention to what I was actually doing. I was never targeting my weaknesses. I was playing the game I was already good at — scoring — and avoiding the game I was bad at, finishing. Nobody was tracking my doubles percentage, my checkout conversion, or where my darts scattered. I was flying blind and calling it dedication.

That's the frustration Dartsva was born from: not a lack of practice, but a lack of structure. I knew I needed to be coached, but I couldn't afford a coach and I didn't have a league team to learn from. I needed something that would look at my actual numbers and tell me what to throw next.

What Was Missing From Existing Darts Apps

When I looked for a darts app, I found two kinds of products. First, the scoring apps — brilliant at arithmetic, terrible at feedback. They'd tell me I threw a 45 average but never why, or what to do about it. Second, the multiplayer lobbies — great for playing a friend in another city, but they assumed you were already good. Neither one cared whether I was improving.

The closest thing to what I wanted was a training app from the running world. I kept coming back to Runna — a running coach that builds you a plan based on your level, adapts it, and measures your progress. I wanted that for darts. I wanted a tool that would assess where I was, hand me a plan, and tell me exactly which game to play today to fix my specific weakness.

Nobody had built it. So in late December of 2025, I decided I would.

The Vision: Structured Training, Measurable Improvement

The core idea was simple: you cannot improve what you cannot measure. Dartsva would track every dart you throw, then turn that data into a plan. Not a generic "throw at the 20 more" plan — a plan built around your actual weaknesses, like the ones the science of structured plans shows actually produce improvement.

I wrote the product plan before I wrote any code. It was almost a love letter to Runna: a skill assessment to grade you, structured training plans that take you from a 30 average to a 40, then 50, then 60, and practice games that each train a different muscle — scoring, finishing, grouping, or consistency. The kind of thing that stops you throwing aimless darts and gives every session a purpose.

One early decision shaped everything: the input. I sketched a numpad-style scoring pad — single, double, triple multipliers and a row of numbers — because speed at the oche matters more than anything. If entering a dart takes longer than throwing it, you won't use the app. That one design choice is still at the heart of Dartsva today.

Early Building and Feedback Moments

The first version was ugly. Actually, "ugly" is generous. My commit history from those first weeks is a string of messages that just say "feat: things" — because that's what it was, a pile of things held together by hope and a very small database.

But the bones were right. The very first games I shipped were 501, Bob's 27, and the 121 checkout game — the three games every struggling player actually needs. The Numpad was there from day one. Session summaries showed up early, because I wanted every practice to end with a number you could look at and say "that's better than last week."

The feedback moments came from a handful of people I trusted. One friend told me the training plans were too rigid — if he missed a day, the plan failed and he quit. That conversation led to grace days, which let a plan bend instead of breaking. Another person, a mid-level player, said he wanted to know his true level before committing to a plan — so I built the Gauntlet, a skill assessment that grades you and recommends where to start.

Every feature Dartsva has today came from someone describing a real moment of frustration and me building the thing that would have helped them. That's still how I work.

Where Do You Start?

If you're not sure where to begin, start with your biggest weakness. This quick quiz points you at the game that will actually help — every recommendation is free to play right now.

If you're stuck around a 30 or 35 average, the Road to 40 Average plan is the closest thing to a shortcut I know — six weeks of structured work that targets exactly the habits keeping you down.

Where Dartsva Is Going Next

The feedback loop that built the first version isn't done. There are three things I'm working toward next, and they're all in service of the same promise: measurable improvement.

Deeper insights. Right now Dartsva shows you your averages, your checkouts, and your trends. The next step is telling you why a number moved — which segment is leaking points, which doubles fail under pressure, and where a single habit change would move your average the most.

More adaptive training plans. Plans should respond to how you actually play, not just to how the calendar moves. If your grouping is improving faster than your finishing, the plan should notice and shift its weight toward the doubles — without you having to think about it.

A community that learns together. The app was built for solo practice, but improvement is social. I want players to be able to share progress, compare against the games they're both playing, and hold each other accountable — without turning into another competitive lobby.

I can't promise Dartsva will make you a great player. Nobody can. What I can promise is that it will never waste your practice time the way I wasted two years of mine — aimlessly, blind, and a little bit proud of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Thanks for Reading

If you've ever stood at the oche wondering whether the hours were worth it, this letter is for you. They are — you just needed a better way to spend them.

Thank you for being here at the start of this. The best feedback I get is from players using Dartsva, so if something frustrates you about the app, that's exactly the thing I want to hear about. It's how the whole thing began.

— Kevin, founder of Dartsva