Synopsis

Rootnote is a platform designed to enhance the experience of music enthusiasts who love to engage in discussions in real life, or across various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook , Reddit, TikTok and more.

Recognizing the lack of tools for these communities to analyze and understand their collective music streaming patterns, Rootnote steps in to fill this gap. It offers unique features that allow users to gain insights into their group’s streaming habits and even adds an element of fun by gamifying streaming data. Imagine having the ability to create a custom top 40 playlist based on the favorite tracks of your office colleagues, rather than relying on generic national charts. Not only would that playlist better reflect the tastes of everyone present, it would create something new to bond over. Rootnote’s objective is to deepen the musical and social bonds among its users, fostering a belief that these connections mutually reinforce each other and contribute to a more harmonious life.

To achieve this, I have been building out various features of the platform. Highlighting my Technology & Realization skill. Additionally, through user testing (U&S) and ideation (C&A), new features were ideated upon that more strictly adhere to a product design philosophy. Lastly, a business plan was written (DLE, B&E), that aims to transform Rootnote from a concept to a viable business.

Reflection

I am extremely proud of what Rootnote is becoming. As someone who barely knew any web engineering when starting this project, I could not be more happy with my progress here. Additionally, Rootnote finally feels like more than just a few features built on top of Spotify. It has a coherent design philosophy that strengthens the product as a whole.

The process was not without its flaws, however. I think the biggest problem was that I was doing too much. From multiple user tests, to writing the business plan, as well as scaling the platform, it seems to me that my efforts have been spread a bit too thin. Peter Thiel (co-founder PayPal) advises founders to let their employees only have one task. The reasoning being that with multiple tasks, people tend to do whatever is easiest at that moment. But sometimes you need to bash your head against the hard problems for a while. While Rootnote is in a better place product-wise, and business-wise and engineering-wise, something in me wonders what would have happened if I fully committed to improving one of the three. That being said, I do think that sequentially improving these three areas is the best approach for a startup like this, but it might not translate perfectly to the context of academia. This tension was very hard for me at times. All the business books are basically screaming that finding users is priority number one at this point. Yet, I also wanted to apply what I have been studying, by improving the product. I think I should have set some clear goals of things I wanted to achieve that are more in line with academia.

Rootnote is the ultimate culmination of the various things I have learned over the years at TU/e, and I am eager to keep applying my design knowledge to all new challenges that might arise.