Case study
FreeBirdHead of Product2019 — 2020
Digital Jukebox
A digital jukebox letting guests queue music in pubs, bars and cafés — I led product at this early-stage startup.
- Client
- FreeBird
- Role
- Head of Product
- Timeline
- 2019 — 20205 months
- Skills
- Mobile App Design, Brand Design, Product Design
About the project
FreeBird was an early-stage startup founded by John Weiss (Chicago) and Robbie Swaddle (Barcelona) to rethink the digital jukebox. I joined them as Head of Product.
The idea: an easy, low-cost way to bring music on demand to pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés, with something for everyone involved:
- Venue owners: low cost, easy to run, and a new revenue stream
- Musicians: extra earnings from plays
- Guests: their favourite song, in their favourite bar
Resources were limited: we worked across time zones alongside our day jobs, which slowed progress.
Designs
Onboarding
A simple onboarding for new users.
Onboarding
Onboarding
Onboarding
Browsing
Find nearby bars that match your music taste.
Browsing
Browsing
Browsing
Music catalogue
Once at a venue, browse the music available to play there.
Music catalogue
Music catalogue
Music catalogue
Bidding
Bid on a track to move it up the queue and hear it next.
Bidding
Bidding
Bidding
Conclusions
FreeBird didn't launch, for two reasons. We underestimated the limits of the Spotify API, which the product depended on — a lesson in validating technical constraints before designing around them. Then Covid closed the venues we needed for real-world testing.
The idea itself still lands: people I've shared it with consistently respond to it.
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Kite
White-label print-on-demand apps and SDKs for web, iOS and Android, used by brands like Canon and Polaroid. Kite.ly was later acquired by Prodigi.
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