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-level compromises made inside this module, to reach market quickly:

Feature In (launch MVP) Full product (later releases)
Detector library
  • 12 curated detectors
  • Customer picks which to enable
  • Groups: musical result, technique, posture, performance anxiety
  • 17 more detectors, quarterly releases
  • Personal detectors surfaced from the customer's own markers
  • Teacher-published bundles
  • Community detector store
  • Federated improvement across opt-in customers
Review experience
  • Multi-angle synced playback
  • One review path (from three prototyped)
  • System-flagged moments first
  • Customer-authored markers
  • Cross-take marker-and-jump
  • The other two review paths
  • Patterns across customer's markers surface as candidate detectors
  • Annotations that persist
  • Teacher access with shared moments
Analysis
  • Post-take AI analysis
  • Audio
  • Hand and body pose
  • Facial landmarks
  • Runs on the customer's phone or tablet
  • Score-aware analysis (right notes, articulation vs marked score)
  • Wearable-sensor overlays for body state
Hardware finish
  • Two variants: dark-wood (blends with black grand); lighter-wood (sets apart)
  • Machined-metal camera bezels
  • Leather cradle
  • Harmonic-series tab pattern
  • Custom finishes matched to the customer's instrument or home
  • Expanded material and colour palette

Sprint plan on a calendar

Sprints across the 12-month arc from August 2026 to August 2027. Each bar shows the calendar span of a sprint.

Aug '26
Sep '26
Oct '26
Nov '26
Dec '26
Jan '27
Feb '27
Mar '27
Apr '27
May '27
Jun '27
Jul '27
1. Proof of concept
Aug – Oct 2026
2. Functional prototype
Oct – Dec 2026
3. Demo-ready prototype
Dec 2026
4. Manufacturing and launch
Jan – Jun 2027
5. Early market and retention
Jun – Aug 2027

Sprint spine

Five sprints across a 12-month arc, running 1 August 2026 to 1 August 2027. Each sprint has de-risking and build objectives across three dimensions (software, hardware, customer) plus two enabling tracks (fundraising, legal). De-risking is front-loaded so the biggest questions are answered before the biggest capital commits. The litmus test for each sprint is a non-obvious signal that the sprint has actually accomplished what it needs to, distinct from a checklist of build activities. Proof of concept runs two months rather than one because August is a slow month across Europe and the US for external advisor and partner coordination. August handles solo work (self-teach, tool-building, drafting) and customer discovery that doesn't need external counterparties yet (questionnaire launch, smoke test, blog + waitlist setup); September brings the coordination-heavy activities (advisor conversations, supplier scans, legal filings, pianist Wizard-of-Oz sessions). Early market and retention runs two months rather than three to preserve the 12-month total — the third month was mostly extended arm's-length acquisition; retention observation from first-backer renewals falls outside the arc anyway (earliest renewals in Mar 2028).

1. Proof of concept 2. Functional prototype 3. Demo-ready prototype 4. Manufacturing and launch 5. Early market and retention
Duration 2 months 2 months 1 month 5 months 2 months
Ends 1 Oct 2026 1 Dec 2026 1 Jan 2027 1 Jun 2027 1 Aug 2027
Cost ~€65K ~€250K ~€90K ~€780K ~€260K
Funding Self-fund + waitlist deposits First investor round (pre-seed-analog) Same investor round Crowdfunding (€300–500K gross) + investor supplement (~€650K) Y1 subscription revenue + optional follow-on
Litmus test The pose-tracking feasibility call comes back as engineering, not research. Friendly-user beta pianists use the review interface unprompted over the course of a week — not scripted testing, actual voluntary use. Pianists say they want the object on their piano for its own sake — independent of the software, for the aesthetic alone. First units in the delivered cohort's hands, and used with meaningful frequency — behavioural use, not just physical delivery. First arm's-length customers — past founder network and past crowdfunding backers — paying and using the complete product. Unit economics math closes on real data.
Software
  • Founder-fluency self-teach (Python, MIR, MediaPipe)
  • Pose-tracking feasibility test with single phone camera at target angle
  • Wizard-of-Oz review UI with hand-labelled flags for pianist testing
  • One-detector end-to-end proof of concept ("no dynamics")
  • Full 12-detector library on shared audio + pose feature store
  • Multi-view path prototypes (raw side-by-side, interpolated, 3D pose) — internal design choice
  • Composed mobile review interface on iOS + Android (biggest software line)
  • Cross-take marker-and-jump (audio fingerprinting + dynamic time warping)
  • Polish + bug-fixing based on friendly-user beta feedback
  • Review interface refinements for pitch demos + crowdfunding video
  • Demo content curation
  • On-device inference port to target premium phone + tablet
  • Capture, sync, and upload integrated with production hardware
  • Backend services: tiered storage (hot 6-week + cold), marker + detector library sync
  • Onboarding flow + first-time detector selection
  • First quarterly detector-library expansion during Month 6
  • Analytics infrastructure for cohort observation — unprompted-open rate, marker-authoring frequency, detector engagement, session cadence as retention proxies
  • Detector-library expansion priority queue driven by which patterns customers most frequently mark manually
  • Onboarding refinement for arm's-length customers (who arrive without the community warm-up backers had)
  • Marker-and-jump refinement based on observed cross-take navigation patterns
Hardware
  • Study model built-to-measure for alpha tester (static)
  • Adjustable study model with concierge setup for beta testers
  • Standalone motor + hinge test rigs on the bench
  • Sensor + motor supplier landscape scan; initial hinge partner conversations
  • Motorised study model (production motors, switch control, no auto-alignment yet)
  • Robotic study model — functional prototype with auto-alignment
  • Bench-rig reliability data continues on hinge + motor
  • Power + thermal envelope empirical test on functional prototype
  • Sensor supply, motor supply, and bill of materials committed via contractor
  • Industrial design consultancy engaged for finishing pass
  • Two to three demo-quality units fabricated in close-to-final materials
  • Machined-metal bezels, leather cradle, harmonic-series tab pattern
  • Two material variants: black-grand-blend and lighter-wood setting-apart
  • First production run tooling (moulds, jigs, calibration fixtures)
  • Contract manufacturing kicks off; units off the line by Month 2
  • Concierge-tier bespoke finishes at Italian craft workshop (if tiered structure)
  • Second production run planning if demand pulls
  • Small-batch redesign iteration on real customer feedback — early failure modes, cosmetic wear patterns, usability issues surfacing in the delivered cohort. Cheap to iterate at hundreds-to-low-thousands scale; expensive once volumes get to 10K+/year.
  • Cost and bill-of-materials optimisation with contractors now that the design is stable and suppliers know it — potentially re-sourcing components at better terms
  • Yield improvements from first-production-run learnings
  • Second production run kicks off if demand pulls beyond first-batch supply, integrating accumulated fixes
  • Accessory development begins — foot-pedal page turner, floor stand, custom-finish options that the strategy docs call out but that don't need to ship at launch
  • Year 2 instrument-family engineering groundwork — guitar being the first (frame concept extends via firmware presets plus a lighter form-factor variant for free-standing music stands)
Customer
  • Questionnaire on Tally Pro at survey.alfinelabs.com
  • Follow-up interviews with opt-ins
  • Wizard-of-Oz detector-approach test with 5–8 pianists
  • Menu review with music-teaching advisor
  • Form-factor test on study model with alpha testers
  • Facebook + Google smoke test
  • Blog + social handles set up; introductory post published
  • Refundable-deposit waitlist opens
  • Continued pricing conversations with earlier interview cohort
  • Friendly-user beta with 5–8 pianists on functional prototype
  • Continued smoke-test refinement on strongest personas
  • Blog + social continue as ongoing thread
  • Aesthetic-desirability testing with earlier alpha + beta cohorts
  • Blog + social shift toward crowdfunding warm-up
  • Survey findings published for public visibility
  • Crowdfunding campaign launches (mass or concierge-tiered — fundraising decision)
  • Blog + social are the campaign's owned-media backbone
  • Fulfilment operations: shipping, customs, taxes for three geographies
  • Customer support infrastructure stands up (email, forum, KB)
  • First units delivered to backer cohort
  • Paid channel testing at scale — measured CPL for Facebook, Google, Reddit, potentially TikTok for the target segment
  • PR-driven organic — press placements, podcast interviews, expert reviews of the object and the software
  • Content marketing scales cadence — customer case studies, survey-findings publication, detector-development notes, technical posts on the multimodal AI approach
  • Referral program initial trial with the crowdfunding cohort
  • First renewal cycle around October 2027 for earliest deliveries — retention outreach and churn-interview program
  • Support scaling — dedicated hours, forum moderation, knowledge base expansion
  • Real signal on unit economics: real CAC from paid channels, real retention from crowdfunding cohort, real cost-to-serve
Enabling (fundraising, legal)
  • Advisor outreach (multimodal AI + music teaching first)
  • Investor list building; pre-seed narrative drafted
  • S.r.l. + innovative-startup filing; commercialista engaged
  • Patent provisional on swinging-arm architecture
  • Trademarks (Alfine Labs, Six Days, Outer Ear — EU + US)
  • Pre-seed pitch process → round close within this sprint
  • Advisor pipeline expands (industrial design + consumer hardware)
  • Advisor cash retainers begin as investor money lands
  • Contractor agreements executed at production scale
  • Investor demos begin using demo-quality units
  • Crowdfunding campaign production ramps (video, page, PR)
  • Manufacturing partner selection completes
  • Subscription service terms + privacy policy drafting
  • Investor supplement negotiated + deployed (sized to crowdfunding pull)
  • Advisor honoraria continue
  • CE marking + IEC 62133 + UN 38.3 lithium-ion battery certifications
  • GDPR + EU AI Act legal review
  • Subscription contracts + product liability insurance
  • Optional follow-on round (~€100–200K) if retention or acquisition signal shows the model needs adjustment
  • Y2 seed narrative gathers real substance — actual CAC, actual retention, actual unit economics, not model assumptions
  • Ongoing compliance; second-production compliance if applicable

How the MVP evolves across the sprints

Product state at the end of each sprint, across the features that build out most visibly. Reading across a row shows what a feature becomes over time; reading down a column shows what the sprint has to produce in that window.

Feature End of Proof of concept
1 Oct 2026		 End of Functional prototype
1 Dec 2026		 End of Demo-ready prototype
1 Jan 2027		 End of Manufacturing and launch
1 Jun 2027		 End of Early market and retention
1 Aug 2027
Frame form factor Static built-to-measure and adjustable concierge study models on the bench; off-the-shelf cameras Fully functional folding frame with motorised swinging arms and production-spec electronics Same functional frame, industrial-design pass, close-to-final materials on 2–3 demo units Manufactured production units off the line at the Italian contract manufacturer Delivered production units in customer hands; second production run underway if demand pulls
AI-assisted arm/camera configuration Absent — study-model arms and cameras hand-positioned per tester Remote-controlled adjustment via switches first (Stage 3), then full AI auto-alignment via camera-image analysis (Stage 4) — arms deploy to per-instrument preset and auto-correct Auto-alignment robust for demo use Auto-alignment running on production hardware Stable; iteration only on edge cases surfaced by real customer setups
Detector library Wizard-of-Oz laptop UI with hand-labelled flags; one detector ("no dynamics") end-to-end from real take audio 12 curated detectors on shared audio + pose feature store, tuned against friendly-user beta Same 12, stable 12 in production; first quarterly expansion (1–2 more detectors) ships in month 6 Continued quarterly expansion from the deferred 17-detector queue; iteration from real customer usage
Review interface Wizard-of-Oz laptop mockup used for pianist testing Composed mobile review interface on iOS + Android at production quality — synced multi-angle playback, system-flagged moments, customer markers, cross-take marker-and-jump Polished for demo scenarios (pitch demo, crowdfunding video) Onboarding flow + first-time detector selection; on-device inference on target premium phone/tablet Iteration from real customer usage; usage analytics maturing
Multi-view rendering Absent Three paths prototyped on captured multi-angle footage (raw side-by-side, view-interpolated, 3D-pose rendered); one committed for launch Committed path polished for demo Committed path in production Stable; other two paths documented as future upgrade candidates
Hardware finish Study-model substrate — foam-core or 3D-printed panels, off-the-shelf action cameras Same substrate; no aesthetic pass yet Two variants — blend-with-black-grand (dark wood, dark leather); set-apart (lighter wood, brass detailing); machined-metal bezels; leather cradle Production finish across delivered units; concierge-tier bespoke finishes from Italian craft workshop if chosen Same as launch
Manufacturing scale 1 alpha unit + a few concierge beta study models, bench-built 5–8 functional prototype units for friendly-user beta 2–3 demo-quality units 600–1,000-unit production run at Italian contract manufacturer Second production run underway if arm's-length demand pulls beyond the first batch

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 ~€8K ~€45K ~€3K ~€3K ~€2K ~€10K ~€3K ~€18K ~€90K
Manufacturing and launch ~€60K ~€380K ~€95K ~€8K ~€30K ~€40K ~€24K ~€155K ~€780K
Early market and retention ~€30K ~€25K ~€120K ~€3K ~€3K ~€10K ~€16K ~€52K ~€260K
Total ~€1.45M
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 shape

Source Amount Share of total What it covers
Self-funded (founder personal outlay) ~€65K ~4% Proof of concept sprint entirely (2 months, of which August is solo-work only)
Refundable-deposit waitlist supplement ~€5–25K ~1% Supplements Proof of concept; more valuable as demand signal than as financing
First external investor round (pre-seed-analog) ~€340K ~23% Functional prototype + Demo-ready prototype
Crowdfunding gross raise €300–500K ~20–33% Gross; net contribution to burn ~€130K after platform fees and unit fulfilment BOM
Investor supplement during Manufacturing and launch ~€650K ~43% Balance of Manufacturing and launch after crowdfunding net contribution
Y1 subscription revenue from crowdfunding cohort €120–200K ~11% Funds most or all of Early market and retention (2 months in-arc; first backer renewals fall outside the arc)
Optional follow-on investor round €0–200K 0–13% Supplements Early market and retention if renewal or acquisition signal underperforms
Total external investor requirement (central case) ~€990K Approximately €1M, roughly 35% lower than the €1.5M the deployed strategy documents assume
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.