Droplet—an audio social media app for creators who put audio first
【 overview】
Role: Product Intern
Duration: 1.5 years
Scope of Project: Worked with the three founding members
Company: Droplet (pivoted to Anthem, which pivoted to Juicebox)
【 Project Summary】
I worked on designing a user friendly interface, which is especially important for social media apps, such as Droplet. I collected feedback mainly through social media and Test Flight analytics, along with conducting user interviews. After our first beta launch lost its momentum, we pivoted to “Anthem,” a music discovery app to help you build your new favorite playlist. It features a TikTok-style feed with personalized music recommendations — synced with your Spotify account. To create a more user friendly experience, we rebranded to “Juicebox” last year. I managed an ambassador program, partnering with social media influencers who would promote our product This program was a great outlet to get feedback as well.
✢✢✢✢✢✢【 the design process】✢✢✢✢✢✢
Conducting market research
2)building the brand (water themed)
3)prioritizing the user experience
1)deciding on a target market
brainstorming
Other potential business ideas
Droplet for B2B: Portfolio managers who love staring at the Bloomberg Terminal don’t have to strain their eyes anymore -- they can just hear snippets of news feeds throughout the day. Maybe Droplet could be a system for communicating live bits of audio to the entire firm about a PM’s updated securities purchase.
Integrated in-chat sound GIFs: Many of our international friends have preferred using voice messaging features on WhatsApp and iMessage. To enhance these conversations, we want to suggest sound GIFs as a new way to communicate – similar to how we all use emojis.
Audio mural board (Pinterest, but for sounds) – great for brainstorming music vibes. This could bring teamwork to songwriting. Imagine if people collaborated on a shared mood board and wrote a whole song together. Or create a new “We are the world” album with hundreds of musicians around the world.
【beta launch】
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✢ identifying the problem
Audio creators don’t have a platform to share. While there are ample platforms for short visual content, there were none for short audio content. We realized that there isn’t a collaborative space that drives spontaneous, creative short-form audio.
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✢ setting a goal
Droplet, an audio social media app, where people can post and listen to 15, to 30-second sound bites.
Think Twitter or TikTok—but sound only, with a water-themed UI. We wanted to make sound creation more accessible to all audiences, so we built sound effects and duets in-app.
collecting & integrating user feedback
What did you find confusing?
content “clouds” concept —> We added tap-on descriptors
What type of content were you posting?
Music —> we added a “duet feature”
Did you feel a sense of community?
Communities are very vague and lacking in direction. Specific topics would be useful.
-> we added more content “clouds” & private “clouds” for personal creation
2 months after our beta launch, when we were inspired by Tiktok’s algorithm and the rise in short-form media, we decided to pivot to
【Anthem】
- a music discovery app for users who
want personalized recommendations
brainstorming a go-t0-market strategy
Utilizing our takeaways from “Droplet”
1) on the ground
2) social media presence
4) Tiktok virality
3) website & waitlist
5) referrals
Purely for branding and aesthetics reasons,
rebranding to【juicebox】
- a music discovery app for users who
want personalized recommendations
ambassador program initiative
To zero in on our marketing efforts, we decided to launch an ambassador program, targeting Tiktok influencers who would use the app, provide us with honest feedback, and promote it on their page.
This was an incredible useful new outlet to receive user feedback.
With the help of funding from YC, we were able to invest heavily into our marketing budget and had 18k downloads within 6 weeks of our beta launch.
new promotional efforts
takeaways
User feedback is incredibly important
Instead of waiting for a year to beta launch Droplet, we launched Anthem after just 2 months of development.
retaining users is harder than getting new users
Although initial hype and social media buzz is important, incentivizing users to consistently use the app is crucial. Creating a sense of community is one way to do so. Thus, social media apps must have an extremely user friendly interface.