Product
Sep 11, 2025
Passion project: A neat & 100% free guitar tuner
My first end to end project, taking care of everything from design to development. Quick prototypes made in Framer, then built a mini web-app using Next.js, Tailwind, and Shadcn. MVP built in 2 days.
Role
Product
👀 Overview
What it is: A minimalist, free online guitar tuner, with a metronome & backing tracks.
Why it matters: Because I was frustrated by "free" tuners on the web being full of ads, horrible to look at and use. I also didn't want to pay for another subscription, so I looked into building my own.
🎯 Objectives
Primary: Create a free tuner I can enjoy using myself on a daily basis
Secondary: Solidify my dev skills, I built while working on my own venture (Tolly)
Additional: create a coherent experience & brand, add useful features over time, make it publicly available
📊 Success metrics
Usage: Reach 1 DAU (daily active user)
Time: MVP ready in <3 days
👯 Audience & messaging
Persona: Myself (hobby guitarist): (1) wants quick & reliable tuning; (2) Values UI & UX; (3) has a strong aversion to ads
Key message: "Clean. Free. Functional. Built by a frustrated musician for himself & others."
🧐 Design inspiration & style
Like: paid experience from apps such as GuitarTuna, minimalist design from websites such as CTRL
Avoid: ads, clutter, paywalls
📆 MVP scope & timeline
MVP - 2/3 days: (1) Explore design paths & technical feasibility of the tuner; (2) Build quick Framer prototype; (3) Translate into code (core pages & components, including tuner placeholder); (4) Build & iterate core tuner functionality
V1 - 1/2 days: (1) Deploy on Vercel & add tracking; (2) Add metronome & backing tracks; (3) Add about me section & "buy me a coffee"
🧑🎓 Outcome & learnings
I ended up using my simple tuner MVP daily, and then building a few small things on top, such as a metronome for exercises and a library with backing tracks to practice scales. Made it available for free, thanks to Vercel. Loved every bit of the process.
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