OVERVIEW
Sonnit.io - AI Meeting Companion
A self-built AI productivity tool that gained 37K+ views, validated a real freelancer pain point, and taught me to think like a product owner.
CLIENT/COMPANY
Personal Startup
ROLE
Product Designer & Developer
TIMELINE
03/2025 - 06/2025
TOOLS
Cursor, Figma, Supabase, Next.js
PROBLEM
Freelancers Were Missing Action Items, Not Just Transcripts
THE CHALLENGE
Freelancers, like me, were losing focus in meetings, caught between active listening and frantic note-taking. Existing tools either felt intrusive or gave generic recaps.
That’s when I realized: the transcript isn’t the product. The outcome is. Sonnit was built to help users stay present and walk away with next steps they could trust.
Meeting
Conversation
Transcript
Summary
Tasks
THE IDEA
The transcript isn’t the product — the outcome is.
Sonnit was designed to bridge that gap. Not just summarize, but highlight decisions, extract to-dos, and give users momentum after every call or meeting.
CONSTRAINTS
Solo developer/founder
I had to scope every feature to what I could realistically build yourself. (Beginner)
LLM hallucinations
Summaries sometimes included irrelevant or made-up information. I had to rigorously test prompts, but even then it's not 100% free of hallucinations.
Bootstrapped with no funding
No user research budget, no backend engineer, no designer besides me.
Limited user testing
Without a live user base, I validated mostly through Reddit threads, forums, and async feedback loops via TikTok.
DESIGN PROCESS
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test & Iterate
Validate
AUDIENCE
Designed for freelancers and small teams juggling calls
WHO THEY ARE
Freelancers, solopreneurs, and remote teams juggling client calls, deliverables, and deadlines.
Personas
Jordan, 28, Freelance UX Designer
Bio: Works on multiple projects. Always multitasking. Hates admin work.
Pain Point: "I don't want to rewatch a recording to remember every detail."
Goal: Passive transcription and follow-up summaries
Chris, 34, Startup Operator
Bio: Coordinates between design, dev, and client stakeholders.
Pain Point: “I lose half the to-dos unless someone types them in Notion.”
Goal: Automatic task capture that integrates into existing workflows.
RESEARCH
Reddit Became My Research Lab
APPROACH
I didn’t have a research budget, so I approached Reddit like a living focus group. I tracked phrases like “missed action items,” “note-taking fatigue,” and “tool overload.” Patterns emerged quickly: people didn’t want a transcript; they wanted trust in their own memory.
METHODS
Reddit analysis
Thematic synthesis
Competitive analysis
First-person testing
Reddit Quotes
Process
I tracked and analyzed recurring language patterns:
“I can’t catch everything clients say”
“Tools like Otter give me too much fluff”
“I hate bots joining my meetings”
"I forget exactly when something was discussed"
"I’m tired of manually rewriting meeting notes"
COMPETITOR AUDIT
Tool
Strengths
Gaps Sonnit Addressed
Otter.ai
Great transcription accuracy
Lacks action item system |
Fireflies.ai
Rich integrations
Feels bloated for solo use
Notta.ai
User-friendly and fast
No task layer
Notion
Flexible, customizable
Manual; no AI help
Takeaway
Users want to listen; not multitask or re-watch recordings.
Having a bot “join” the meeting makes users feel unprofessional.
Users want ownership of their memory, not passive summaries.
Users don’t want to rewatch, they want to ask and get answers.
IDEATION
I Explored Bold Features, Then Ruthlessly Cut Anything Unnecessary
APPROACH
Once I understood the root problem: freelancers and solo workers struggling to capture and act on meeting info without losing focus, I headed into ideation.
My goal wasn’t just to design a UI, but to rethink how meetings could feel lighter, more actionable, and less intrusive.
HOW MIGHT WE
How might we help solo professionals stay fully present in meetings while still capturing everything they need to act on later?
IDEAS EXPLORED
Client Portal
Cut
A shared dashboard for clients to view their meeting notes, deliverables, and status
Added friction, raised privacy concerns, and introduced more UX challenges than it solved for an MVP
Real-Time AI Overlay
Cut
Summaries and tasks generated live during meetings on an overlay
Disrupted the flow of conversation; tested poorly with real transcripts and felt distracting
Global Smart Search Bar
Future
Natural language assistant to search past meetings, phrases, or follow-ups
Solves for long-term recall and gives the product “memory” over time
Summary > Task Bridge
Kept
Core feature: extract action items from summaries and transcripts with auto-add to lightweight PM board
Clean, fast, and core to the product’s value
AI Meeting Assistant
Kept
Natural language AI to assist, recall, or answer any questions about the meeting
Simple, effective, and valuable for solving user pain-points
MAIN USER FLOW
TESTING
I Dogfooded, Tested With Peers, and Iterated via TikTok Feedback
APPROACH
With no formal users and no QA team, my testing process had to be lean, scrappy, and honest. Every decision came down to: Does this make the product clearer, faster, or more useful?
I ran lightweight tests through:
My own freelance workflows (dogfooding)
Feedback from developer peers and TikTok followers
Manual testing of meeting uploads, prompt outputs, and task accuracy
Continuous review of AI summaries to tune for relevance
what was tested
1. Upload Flows
2. Transcript Readability
3. Summary and Chatbot Prompts
4. Task Accuracy & Relevance
5. Meeting Organization
ITERATION FROM
FEEDBACK
Feedback
Iteration
"This task doesn't make sense… where did it even come from?"
Filtered small talk; improved prompt logic
"This summary is too generic. I still have to read the whole transcript."
Added bullet takeaways and exec summary
"It’s already hard to find what I’m looking for after just a few meetings."
Introduced folder-based organization by client/project
“I thought it broke—nothing was happening."
Added visual upload and recording status feedback
before & after
Meeting Notes Output
Adjusted the prompt that handles notes output to have a more concise summary with clear bullets and formatted notes to help users act faster.
Task Extraction
Filtered out small talk to surface only relevant, meeting-based tasks. Assigned ownership and tags to the transcript when possible.
Upload/Record Feedback UX
Introduced feedback UI for file processing and recording to reduce user anxiety.
Meeting Organization
Meetings are now organized into folders by project, client, or custom tags, mirroring the mental model users already know from file systems.
SOLUTION
How the Final Product Solved Each Core User Pain
THE SOLUTION
Sonnit wasn’t just built to take notes; it was built to help people move forward. Every decision from transcript formatting to how action items were extracted was focused on one goal:
Turn meetings into momentum.
Whether users recorded live, uploaded a file, or integrated with a platform, Sonnit quietly handled the chaos and gave them back clarity.
core features
Capture the Conversation
Problem: Users forget critical details in live calls
Solution: Record, upload, or link calls via browser, Zoom, or Meet; all processed seamlessly in the background.
Turn Raw Input Into Insight
Problem: Users waste time combing through transcripts or vague AI notes.
Solution: Sonnit returns a short executive summary and bullet-point takeaways to help users understand what happened, fast.
Extract Tasks That Matter
Problem: Most tools leave users to create their own checklists post-call.
Solution: Sonnit filters out small talk and pulls relevant tasks with ownership tags, ready for action.
Manage Tasks Seamlessly
Problem: Users juggle follow-ups across separate tools like Notion.
Solution: Sonnit includes a lightweight project board with statuses, due dates, and task organization, all in one place.
Stay Organized for the Long Run
Problem: Over time, transcripts pile up and users lose track of what’s where.
Solution: Sonnit mirrors familiar systems like Google Drive so meetings can be grouped by client, project, or custom tags.
RESULTS
It Never Shipped — But It Changed the Way I Build Forever
overview
Sonnit never shipped… but it was the most transformative project I’ve ever built. It validated a real user pain point, taught me to think like a systems designer, and helped me go from zero code to full-stack MVP.
What it achieved
37K+ TikTok views and enthusiastic early interest
Validated pain point through social testing and peer feedback
Inspired developer collaboration and future project ideas
COMMUNITY &
PEER FEEDBACK
I shared the MVP with a friend who works at Amazon, and his response was encouraging and insightful:
“This is a super cool concept. You’re solving a real problem, especially for freelancers. I just think corporates might hesitate due to privacy concerns.”
This affirmed two key points: the product had strong use-case alignment with solo workers and small teams, and it raised important design questions regarding data trust, which I now factor into every product I design.
My TikTok documenting the build received over 37.4K views and strong engagement. While followers couldn’t test the product directly, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive; people were excited by the UI, inspired by the idea, and consistently told me to keep going.
STRATEGIC OUTCOMES
Sonnit was my first full-stack product from concept and design to AI integration and front-end build.
What it unlocked:
I learned tools like Supabase, Cursor, and gained a foundational understanding of development
I developed a design-to-dev mindset and began to think like a product owner, not just a designer
I collaborated with a friend (a developer at Amazon), and we’ve since started exploring new ideas together
More than anything, Sonnit gave me the confidence to build. It showed me that I could own the end-to-end process and create something useful, even with no prior coding experience.
PRODUCT POTENTIAL
If launched, I believe freelancers and students would have been early adopters. The core use case, stay focused during meetings, and let AI handle the memory, still holds strong value.
While I’ve decided not to continue the product, Sonnit served its purpose: it opened the door to building, shipping, and growing.
REFLECTION
This Project Made Me a Builder
big picture
Sonnit started with a simple frustration, trying to take notes while staying present in client meetings. But what began as a UX challenge turned into something way bigger: my first real step into full-stack product thinking.
what surprised me
UX for AI is as much about language as layout
Prompt design = feature design
Every output format was a chance to improve user understanding
what i'd do differently
If I were to build again, I’d:
Collaborate with a backend developer from day one
Worry less about early UI polish and more about clean architecture
Build with security, performance, and scale in mind, even for an MVP
Document everything
That said, working scrappy gave me momentum. It forced me to make calls fast and build a real feedback loop between design and development.
new approach
Sonnit reshaped how I think about UX. Now I ask:
What’s the job the user is really hiring this for?
How do I reduce friction without adding noise?
Where does trust break, and how do I build it back?
It also taught me a lesson that stuck:
No matter how much you test, the first version will never be perfect, and that’s not failure. That’s iteration.
closing thought
Sonnit didn’t ship. But I did.
And that moment of turning an idea into something real is what made me a builder.
