I'm a developer with 10+ years at a dev company, a singer-songwriter with 15 years of gigging, and a dad of two. At the end of 2025, I started building Fretlist — a web app to organize songs, chords and setlists for musicians. Two weeks ago I launched it. Here's the honest breakdown.
The numbers
- 60 signups in 14 days
- 18 users have added at least one song
- 42 users signed up and did nothing
- 0 paying customers (not charging yet)
- 0 ad spend
- All growth from one Threads post, one WhatsApp message, and personal outreach
What worked
One Threads post changed everything. My first post — "I built a thing for musicians" — got 2.7k views and 35 signups overnight. I had no audience on Threads before this. The post was personal, not polished. I told my story as a musician, not as a founder selling a product.
Local outreach outperformed social media. I messaged a local WhatsApp group with 61 musicians. 8 signed up within hours, and they were more engaged than any Threads signup. People who know your face trust your product faster.
The "hello from the founder" email works. I send every new user a short email 24 hours after signup: who I am, what kind of music do you play, how do you organize your songs. People actually reply. One user told me about his two bands and how he wants to share songs with bandmates. That's product direction I couldn't get from any dashboard.
What didn't work
Threads is unpredictable. First post: 2.7k views. Second post: 6 views. Third: 250. Same account, same kind of content. The algorithm picks winners randomly. Don't build your strategy on it.
Signups ≠ activation. 50 people signed up. 42 have zero songs. That's 70% who looked around and left. This was the biggest wake-up call. Getting people in the door and getting them to use the product are two completely different problems.
Features don't activate users. I shipped an import feature (PDF, Word, TXT, copy-paste) thinking it would unlock activation. It helped — but most inactive users stayed inactive. The feature wasn't the blocker. Motivation was.
What I'm learning
Activation is the real game. I defined an "Activated Core User" metric: 15+ songs, 3+ setlists, used play mode. I have zero ACUs so far. That's fine — it gives me a clear target and tells me exactly where the funnel breaks.
Talk to your users before building more features. I emailed all 41 inactive users asking "what held you back?" The replies are more valuable than any feature I could build. Some forgot. Some didn't know where to start. Some are waiting for a gig to try it. Each answer tells me what to fix.
Ask questions, don't post tips. My most useful content wasn't tips or advice about gigging. It was asking musicians direct questions — how do you organize your songs? How do you handle key notation? Do you build setlists or wing it? Those conversations shaped the product more than any analytics tool. And they built an audience of musicians who feel heard, not marketed to.
The tech (for the devs)
Fretlist is built with Next.js on Vercel, Supabase for auth and data, and Resend for emails. I built an admin dashboard to track every user's activity — songs added, setlists created, play mode usage, last login. It also has a built-in mailing system with user segmentation so I can email specific groups directly from the dashboard.
The whole thing was built in about two months of nights and weekends. Claude Code did a lot of the heavy lifting — I used to be a frontend developer, but with AI tooling I'm shipping full-stack features faster than I ever could alone.
What's next
I'm not building new features right now. I'm talking to users, learning why people don't activate, and posting value content to grow my audience organically. The product is good enough. Distribution and activation are the bottleneck.
My target: 100 Activated Core Users. That's 100 musicians who have 15+ songs, 3+ setlists, and actually use Fretlist on stage. I'm at zero right now. That number will tell me if this thing has legs — not signups, not page views, not Threads likes.
If you're building a side project and think "if I just add one more feature, people will come" — they won't. I learned that the hard way. Ship it, talk to people, and let the data tell you what to build next.
If you're a musician and this sounds useful: fretlist.com
If you're a dev building a side project: I'm happy to share more. Ask me anything.
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