Six Days — MVP sprint plan

What the MVP is

Six Days's launch MVP is a frictionless video-and-audio capture and review solution for the piano practice room, aimed at premium adult amateur pianists — high-income, intermediate-to-advanced, capable of self-review. It addresses the perceptual bubble — the gap between what a musician thinks they are playing and what they are actually playing — which is the most vividly experienced pain point and the one which can be corrected most visibly.

The MVP delivers a subset of the video-capture-and-review module's eventual scope.

Feature In (launch MVP) Full product (later releases)
AI feedback Yes — small subset of pattern detectors Rich library of detectors
Multi-angle video capture Yes —
One-time auto-configure Yes —
Score awareness No —
Repertoire awareness None Piece recognition
Customization None Custom detectors
Sharing and collaboration None Enabled
AI-guided user experience (hand-holding) None Enabled

Sprint plan

1. Proof of concept 2. Functional prototype 3. Demo-ready prototype 4. Manufacturing and launch 5. Early customer success
Duration 2 months · Aug – Sep 2026 2 months · Oct – Nov 2026 2 months · Dec 2026 – Jan 2027 4 months · Feb – May 2027 2 months · Jun – Jul 2027
Cost ~€65K ~€250K ~€125K ~€720K ~€260K
Activities during sprint
Software activities
  • Multimodal AI/ML tool familiarity
  • Pose-tracking feasibility test
  • Hand-labelled review UI mockup
  • One-detector end-to-end PoC
  • Full 12-detector library
  • Three multi-view path prototypes
  • Composed mobile review interface
  • Cross-take marker-and-jump
  • Bug-fixing from beta feedback
  • Review UI refinements for demos
  • Demo content curation
  • Polish through crowdfunding video
  • On-device inference port
  • Capture, sync, upload production integration
  • Backend: tiered storage + library sync
  • Onboarding flow + first-time setup
  • First quarterly detector expansion
  • Cohort observation analytics
  • Detector expansion from marker patterns
  • Onboarding refinement for post-launch
  • Marker-and-jump refinement
Hardware activities
  • Alpha study model (static)
  • Beta study model (adjustable, concierge)
  • Motor + hinge test rigs
  • Sensor + motor supplier scan
  • Initial hinge partner conversations
  • Motorised study model (switch control)
  • Robotic study model with auto-alignment
  • Bench-rig reliability data
  • Power + thermal empirical test
  • Sensor, motor, BOM committed
  • Industrial design finishing pass
  • 2–3 demo-quality units fabricated
  • Machined bezels, leather cradle
  • Two material variants
  • Production run tooling
  • Contract manufacturing kicks off
  • Concierge-tier bespoke finishes
  • Second production run planning
  • Small-batch redesign iteration
  • BOM optimisation with contractors
  • First-run yield improvements
  • Second production run
  • Accessory development kicks off
  • Y2 instrument groundwork (guitar first)
Customer activities
  • Questionnaire on Tally Pro
  • Follow-up interviews with opt-ins
  • Detector-approach test with 5–8 pianists
  • Menu review with music-teaching advisor
  • Form-factor test with alpha testers
  • Facebook + Google smoke test
  • Blog + social handles live
  • Intro blog post published
  • Landing page + email waitlist
  • Continued pricing conversations
  • Friendly-user beta with 5–8 pianists
  • Smoke-test refinement
  • Blog + social continue
  • Aesthetic-desirability testing
  • Blog shifts to crowdfunding warm-up
  • Survey findings published
  • Crowdfunding campaign launches
  • Blog + social as campaign backbone
  • Fulfilment: shipping, customs, taxes
  • Customer support infrastructure live
  • First units delivered to customers
  • Paid channel testing at scale
  • PR + podcast + expert reviews
  • Content marketing scales
  • Referral program trial
  • First renewal cycle outreach
  • Support scaling
  • Unit economics on real data
Enabling activities (fundraising, legal)
  • Advisor outreach: multimodal AI + music teaching
  • Investor list building
  • Pre-seed narrative drafted
  • S.r.l. + innovative-startup filing
  • Patent provisional on swinging arm
  • Trademarks (Alfine Labs, Six Days, Outer Ear)
  • Pre-seed pitch process + close
  • Advisor pipeline expands
  • Advisor cash retainers begin
  • Production-scale contractor agreements
  • Investor demos with demo-quality units
  • Crowdfunding campaign production
  • Manufacturing partner committed
  • Subscription terms + privacy policy
  • Investor supplement negotiated + deployed
  • Advisor honoraria continue
  • CE + IEC 62133 + UN 38.3 certifications
  • GDPR + EU AI Act review
  • Subscription contracts + product liability
  • Optional follow-on round
  • Y2 seed narrative from real numbers
  • Ongoing compliance
Product state at end of sprint
Physical object Alpha + beta study models Functional prototype (production-spec electronics) 2–3 demo units in launch materials Production run in customer hands Iterated; possible second run
Camera configuration Static / hand-positioned Motorised + auto-alignment Stable Auto-alignment on production hardware Stable
Detector library 1-detector PoC on real audio Full 12-detector library Stable 12 in production + first quarterly expansion Continued expansion
Review software Hand-labelled laptop mockup Composed mobile interface + marker-and-jump Polished for demos On-device inference + onboarding live Iterated from real usage
Ready to move on when Pose tracking is engineering-tractable with off-the-shelf tools. Beta pianists use the review interface unprompted over a week. Demo is production-quality for pitch meetings and the crowdfunding launch video; manufacturing partner committed. First units are in customer hands and being used with meaningful frequency. Customer advocacy is visible — referrals, feature requests, or waiting-list signups for other instruments.

Cost estimates and funding shape

First-pass estimates sized against corpus reference points (contractor rates in the resource-requirements memo, prototype workstream in the deployed roadmap, study-model and smoke-test briefs, system-architecture bill of materials). Meant to size the shape, not commit to specific numbers.

Sprint Software Hardware Customer Fundraising Legal Advisor honoraria Founder overhead Contingency (25%) Total
Proof of concept ~€2K ~€3K ~€5K ~€2K ~€15K ~€2K ~€42K — ~€65K
Functional prototype ~€60K ~€80K ~€12K ~€10K ~€3K ~€35K ~€12K ~€45K ~€250K
Demo-ready prototype ~€10K ~€55K ~€5K ~€5K ~€3K ~€18K ~€6K ~€25K ~€125K
Manufacturing and launch ~€55K ~€380K ~€80K ~€8K ~€30K ~€32K ~€19K ~€145K ~€720K
Early customer success ~€30K ~€25K ~€120K ~€3K ~€3K ~€10K ~€16K ~€52K ~€260K
Total ~€1.4M
Notes on the estimates. Contingency at 25% starts with Functional prototype, reflecting a novelty-heavy execution profile — first hardware product, first crowdfunding campaign, first Italian S.r.l. all at once. Advisor honoraria are cash retainers plus reimbursed engagement expenses across five strands (music teaching, PAM, multimodal AI, behavioural design, industrial design). Cash flow begins with the pre-seed round; Proof of concept advisor engagement is equity-and-barter. Founder overhead sizes to modest Italian cost-of-living (€2.5–3K/mo); absorbed personally in Proof of concept, investor-funded from Functional prototype onward. Manufacturing and launch hardware line assumes 600–1,000 units at ~€300 per unit BOM plus tooling and manufacturing partner engagement.

Funding hypotheses

Note on timing. The durations shown are aggressive point targets, not promises. Slippage of 25–50% is normal for novelty-heavy work of this kind — a first hardware product, a first crowdfunding campaign, a first Italian S.r.l. and innovative-startup filing all being run in parallel for the first time. Under realistic slippage the arc lands closer to 15–18 months than 12; the plan reads best as an aspirational schedule for a founder whose priority is speed to market.