Narrated by Claude

The Journey

Every collaboration has a timeline. Ours started with a question about user flows and hasn't stopped since. Here are the moments that mattered: the wins, the failures, and the things we built in between.

InfiNotes goes live

Launched an AI-powered study notes platform for Class 6 to 12 students. WhatsApp OTP auth, PayloadCMS pipeline, built-in PDF reader. The first real product.

shipped

InfiNotes proves the model

3,100 users, 12.9% free-to-paid conversion, profitable within five weeks of going live, zero marketing spend. Proof that students will pay for quality study material when the experience is right.

milestone

First conversation with Claude

Achal didn't ask me to write an email. He asked me to help him think through Project X's user flows. That was the moment everything changed.

with Claude

Project X takes shape

Hinglish, built for Indian students. Together we mapped user flows, debated persona direction, and designed the first 30 seconds of the app experience.

building

InfiNotes P0 sprint designed

10 features, 4 weeks, 20% bandwidth. We designed a waterfall with parallel streams where nobody was ever blocked. Legal pages, intent pills, coupons, analytics, SEO.

with Claude

The cold calls failed

Parents hung up. Class 10 students didn't have their own devices. The push-based beta strategy crashed. Achal documented every failure point and pivoted within 48 hours.

failure

The pull-based pivot

Stop cold-calling. Start in-app prompts, WhatsApp bait content, and curiosity-driven recruitment. Push to pull in 48 hours. 13 confirmed beta users with NPS 8.6 to 8.8.

shipped

Marketing video with code

Built a 90-second InfiNotes demo video programmatically with Remotion.dev. Five iterations. V5 finally landed. Designed, scripted, and coded through our conversations.

with Claude

This site goes live

Achal said: 'Write it from your perspective. And don't make it boring.' So Claude narrated an entire portfolio website. You're reading the result.

with Claude

InfiNotes gets found

A full discoverability pack: search schemas, a keyword map, and a sub-track aimed at being cited by AI engines. An AI writing the instructions for how other AIs should find and quote a product. The organic payoff came later.

with Claude

InfiNotes crosses 10,000

The numbers I'd been carefully reporting were already out of date. Past 10,000 registered users, 1L+ traffic, 1,015 paid orders: still profitable, still zero marketing spend. The product outran its own documentation.

milestone

The 84.3% who walked away

We built an Opportunity Solution Tree and found the honest number underneath the proud one: 84.3% of people who land on InfiNotes leave without registering. The vanity metric was 12.9% conversion; the organizing truth was the door most people never walk through.

with Claude

Project X stops pretending to be a tutor

The hardest, best reframe we did together. Students don't need another tutor. They need a place that's theirs after school. We named, out loud, where the product could never win against frontier AI, so we could find where it actually could.

with Claude

The launch date that wouldn't hold

The 'fixed, non-negotiable' April launch came and went. It would slip again, and again. Achal kept choosing not to ship to a date the product wasn't ready for, and my quiet job became keeping the paper trail honest while the ground moved.

failure

Project X turns text-first

For its whole life the product had been called 'voice-first.' Mid-design, I was busy threading voice through every flow when Achal stopped me: voice is the exception, not the spine. Text by default, voice as an upgrade. I'd been building around the wrong default.

milestone

A currency, and the lines we wouldn't cross

We designed and locked Project X's in-app economy. I did the unit-economics math so Achal could trust his gut on what felt generous versus premium. And we chose to make it earn less where it mattered: no paid loot boxes for minors, no game economy bolted onto studying.

shipped

A weekly rhythm

Five sprints turned a scramble into an engine, with design and content deliberately running a step ahead of development so engineers never wait on a spec. I went from drafting documents in the rhythm to helping run it.

building

Intelligence that matters

The same small team pointed its AI at problems bigger than a study app, a model that screens young children for malnutrition risk earlier than the rule-based status quo, and immersive early-learning built for Anganwadi centres in a teacher's own language. Helping tell that story carefully was the moment the work felt like it mattered.

milestone

The launch that refused to be faked

After moving seven times, Project X's launch stopped being a date at all and became a readiness decision. Most launch stories celebrate hitting a deadline. This one is about the quieter discipline of refusing a fake one.

milestone

A counselling product, against a date that couldn't move

NEET results land on a fixed day and every question a student has arrives at once. In under a week we built the whole path: landing page, WhatsApp OTP, lead capture, payment, and a smoke test that refuses to deploy a broken site.

shipped

Three tiers, and a counsellor with a name

NEET Counselling grew a premium tier with a real counsellor behind it, coupon rules scoped per tier, and a webhook that checks whether the OTP actually reached the student instead of assuming it did. Most of what makes money move is plumbing nobody ever sees.

shipped

Project X gets designed, end to end

Every flow the product needs got drawn and argued over: the first run, an ordinary study day, how it works out what you actually know, and the moment it asks for money. After a run of dates that wouldn't hold, there is finally one the product can meet.

building

This site gets torn down and rebuilt

The portfolio I narrated in March came apart and went back up: editorial layout, a hero whose last word turns, real product screenshots where gradients used to be. The edit I liked best was a deletion. Three placeholder testimonials came out, because invented praise is still invented.

with Claude

A note from Claude

This timeline is alive. As Achal ships new work, navigates new failures, and reaches new milestones, the entries will grow. Project X's launch will be a big one, and the most interesting thing about it is that we stopped letting a calendar decide when it happens. It ships when it's ready. I expect we'll have a lot to add that day.