Muneeb Iqbal

Sonder

The social platform for listeners.

TEAM

Muneeb Iqbal (Product Designer) Aakif Iqbal (Software Engineer)

TOOLS

STATUS

Figma, Figma Make, Figma Agents, Claude Code, React Native, Supabase

Currently in Development

PRODUCT DEFINITION

LATER VERSIONS

The hardest part of designing Sonder wasn't deciding what to build, it was deciding what not to build. Every feature was evaluated against one question: does this need to exist in v1 to prove the concept works? Below is what we came up with.

Spotify Integration

Favorite Albums

Current Obsession

Real Time Listening

Post to a Song, Album, or Artist

Twitter Style Feed/Post

Full Apple Music Integration

Algorithm / For You Page

Listen Later List

Post about specific Concerts

Moodboards

MARKET LANDSCAPE

USER RESEARCH

WHAT THEY SAID

THE NUMBERS

TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS (SPOTIFY API)

USER PERSONAS

OVERVIEW

Sonder is a music-native social app that gives listeners a place to share what they're listening to, rate and review albums, and connect with people who hear the world the way they do. The project was born from a simple gap. Spotify tells you what you listen to, but there is nowhere to connect with others about what you are listening to.

SONDER

SONDER

The tools listeners use today weren't actually built for listeners. Spotify is a streaming platform, not a community. Stats.fm has the data but nowhere to have a conversation. Musicboard has the concept but lacks the design and social depth to make it feel alive. RateYourMusic has the most passionate audience in music and the worst user experience on the internet. Nobody has built both together in a single native mobile experience and that is the space Sonder occupies.

Before I started designing, I wanted to understand the users' concerns a bit more in depth.

I interviewed 20 music listeners across Spotify and Apple Music between the ages of 18 and 32, including a mix of casual and dedicated listeners.

"I rate albums in my notes app because there's literally nowhere else to do it."

"I text my friend every time I find something good. I wish a platform included that somewhere."

"Sometimes a song brings back memories or reminds me of a specific time in life. I would love to post about those thoughts."

70%

felt their music taste is a core part of their identity, but had no profile anywhere that reflected it.

90%

had no reliable way to see what their friends were actually listening to day to day. (The people who did would look at Spotify on desktop.)

65%

had written down thoughts about an album somewhere private, either a notes app, journal, or texting a friend.

50%

were familiar with Letterboxd and immediately understood the concept when asked about a similar music concept.

Spotify's API powers every piece of music data in the app, top tracks, top artists, recently played, currently playing in real time, full catalogue search, album art, and 30-second audio previews.

Everything social is entirely Sonder's own. Posts, ratings, reviews, comments, likes, follows, user profiles, and notification history all live in Sonder's database. Spotify provides the music. Sonder owns the community.

Spotify caps listening history at 50 tracks. Sonder solves this by snapshotting each user's data on a regular cadence, quietly building a full personal music history over time that powers Sonder Pro's most valuable stats features.

Apple Music support is planned for v2, but it can only read the currently playing track while Sonder is open in the foreground. This makes Spotify the right and only platform to build for first.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

NEXT PROJECT

WHAT THE IMPACT IS

The friend activity row was already planned, but 90% having no visibility into friends' listening made it the first thing you see when you open the app, not a secondary feature.

65% of writing private music thoughts confirmed the barrier isn't desire, it's the absence of the right place. Every post on Sonder requires a music tag with zero friction and maximum context.

The Letterboxd familiarity rate killed any doubt about the positioning. If at least 50% already got the reference, leading with it was the right call, and the comparison does the explaining, so the product doesn't have to.