Part 2: Building Tunology: From Napkin Sketch to MVP

A three-part blog series sharing my learnings based on concept created as part of TYE Entrepreurship program in Boston along with my team members.


The Day I Realized I'd Signed Up for More Than One Job

Let me be honest: When I joined the TYE (Turn Your Idea into Reality) Entrepreneur program, I thought I'd have a clearly defined role. Maybe I'd help with research. Maybe I'd contribute to design discussions. Nice, neat, contained.

Instead, I became:

  • The CFO (Chief Financial Officer)
  • The CPO (Chief Product Officer)
  • The market researcher
  • The customer interviewer
  • The person who asked uncomfortable questions
  • The spreadsheet queen
  • The "reality check" person nobody wanted to hear from
  • And occasionally, the therapist for a stressed-out founding team

How did this happen?

Simple: Startups don't care about job descriptions. They care about who's willing to get stuff done.

Welcome to my crash course in entrepreneurial hustling.


Meet the Dream Team (and the Hats We All Wore)

Before I dive into my journey of wearing seventeen different hats (sometimes simultaneously), let me introduce you to the incredible people who made Tunology possible:

Shreya - Our visionary and heart. She saw David struggling to help his son. She saw Ginny using music to cope with stress. She refused to accept that mental wellness had to be expensive and inaccessible. When the rest of us got lost in details, she reminded us why we were building this.

Deeya Khamesra (COO, Co-CEO) - The operator who turned chaos into systems. When we had seventeen competing priorities and no idea which to tackle first, Deeya created frameworks. She translated "we should do this!" into "here's how we'll actually do this, by when, and who's responsible."

Riya Kanury (CIO, Co-CEO) - Our technical anchor. She made AI personalization, Spotify API integration, and database architecture sound almost simple (they're definitely not). She was the bridge between "wouldn't it be cool if..." and "here's the technical feasibility and what it'll actually take to build."

Bhavna Kumari (CMO) - Our voice to the world. She understood how to talk to Gen Z without sounding like a corporate wellness app trying to be "hip." She made sure Tunology's message was authentic, compelling, and actually resonated with the people we were trying to help.

And then there's me, Hansika Tera (CFO, CPO) - The person who kept asking "but how will we pay for this?" and "what problem does this feature actually solve?" until everyone simultaneously loved and hated me.

Together, we weren't just building an app. We were learning what it actually takes to build a company from scratch.

Spoiler: It takes a lot more than we thought.


Hat #1: The Accidental CFO

My journey into finance started with a simple observation during our first big team meeting.

Everyone was buzzing with excitement about features and possibilities. Shreya was passionate about the mission. Riya was mapping out technical architecture. Deeya was creating workflows. Bhavna was sketching branding ideas.

The energy was incredible. The ideas were flowing.

And I was sitting there thinking: "This all sounds amazing, but... how much is this going to cost?"

Silence.

Then someone said, "Hansika, do you want to figure out the budget?"

I laughed nervously. "I don't know how to make a startup budget."

"Neither do we. But someone has to learn. You're good at math, right?"

And just like that, I became the CFO.

Welcome to Finance 101: The Crash Course

Before Tunology, my financial expertise extended to:

  • Managing my allowance
  • Splitting restaurant bills with friends
  • Knowing that saving money was probably a good idea

Suddenly, I was responsible for:

  • Creating a 5-year financial projection
  • Understanding burn rates, runway, and CAC
  • Modeling different revenue scenarios
  • Determining how much funding we needed
  • Figuring out how to actually GET that funding

The learning curve wasn't steep—it was vertical.

The First Reality Check: The $230,000 Question

I'll never forget the moment I finished our initial financial model and saw the total capital requirement: $230,000.

I stared at that number for a solid five minutes.

For context, the most money I'd ever had at once was maybe $500 from birthday gifts. And now I was supposed to help raise $230,000?

Here's what that number meant:

Initial MVP Investment Breakdown

Expense Category Amount What This Actually Covers
App Development $25,000 iOS and Android MVP development, core features, backend infrastructure
Brand & Website Development $10,000 Logo design, brand identity, landing page, marketing website, professional photography
Marketing $15,000 Initial launch campaign, social media presence, content creation, influencer outreach
TOTAL MVP INVESTMENT $50,000 One-time cost just to launch version 1.0

But wait—that's just to BUILD it. What about running it?

Post-Launch Monthly Expenses (First 12 Months)

Expense Category Monthly Cost Annual Cost Reality Check
App Maintenance & Development $5,000 $60,000 Bug fixes, new features, server costs, technical debt
Digital Marketing $2,000 $24,000 Social ads, influencer partnerships, content creation, SEO
Go-to-Market Activities $2,000 $24,000 Events, partnerships, PR, community building, beta testing
Sales Expenses $1,000 $12,000 Sales tools, CRM, premium user acquisition campaigns
Other Office/Misc Expenses $5,000 $60,000 Legal fees, accounting, admin, insurance, contingency fund
TOTAL MONTHLY BURN $15,000 $180,000 Cash we need every single month to keep operating

Total capital needed: $50,000 (MVP) + $180,000 (Year 1 operations) = $230,000

I remember showing this to the team. The room got very quiet.

"Where exactly," Shreya asked slowly, "are we going to get $230,000?"

"Great question," I said. "I was hoping you'd know."

We all laughed. Nervously. Very nervously.


Hat #2: The Product Detective

While I was drowning in spreadsheets, I noticed something: we were building features without really understanding if people wanted them.

"Wait," I said during one planning meeting. "How do we know people actually want AI-personalized schedules?"

"Because it's cool," someone said.

"But do our users think it's cool? Or do we think it's cool?"

Another silence.

That's when I accidentally became the product person.

Learning to Ask the Right Questions

Being a product manager, I learned, is about asking uncomfortable questions:

  • Not: "What features should we build?"
  • But: "What problems do our users have, and what's the simplest solution?"
  • Not: "Wouldn't it be cool if we had [feature]?"
  • But: "If we only had time to build ONE thing, what would move the needle most?"
  • Not: "Our competitors have this feature, so we should too."
  • But: "Why do our competitors have this feature, and is it actually solving the problem we're trying to solve?"

These questions made me unpopular. But they also made our product better.

The Feature Matrix I Wish We'd Had from Day One

About three months in, after we'd debated features for the hundredth time, I created this framework:

Feature User Problem It Solves Build Complexity User Value Priority
AI Personalized Schedule Users don't know when/how to incorporate wellness into busy days High Very High MUST HAVE
Spotify Integration Users don't want to manage another music library Medium Very High MUST HAVE
Affinity Groups Users feel alone in their struggles; need community Medium High MUST HAVE
Mood Tracking Users want to see if wellness practices actually work Low High SHOULD HAVE
Gamification/Points Users need motivation to stick with wellness habits Medium Medium SHOULD HAVE
Journaling Prompts Users want structured reflection paired with music Low Medium SHOULD HAVE
Live Therapy Sessions Users want professional support Very High High NICE TO HAVE
Biometric Integration Users want automatic mood detection Very High Low FUTURE

This matrix became our north star. Every time someone suggested a new feature, I'd ask:

  1. What user problem does this solve?
  2. How hard is it to build?
  3. How much value does it create?
  4. Where does it fit in our priorities?

If we couldn't answer those questions clearly, the feature got parked.

The Painful Art of Saying No

Here's what nobody tells you about product management: Most of your job is saying no.

No, we can't build that feature right now. No, that's not in scope for MVP. No, just because a competitor has it doesn't mean we need it. No, that's a "nice to have," not a "must have."

Every "no" felt like crushing someone's dreams. Especially because we were all passionate about this mission.

But here's what I learned: Saying yes to everything means saying no to shipping anything.

We had limited time, limited money, and limited technical capacity. Every feature we added meant:

  • More development time (and cost)
  • More complexity
  • More things that could break
  • More time before users could actually benefit

The kindest thing I could do was protect our timeline by being ruthless about scope.


Hat #3: The Market Researcher

About two months into the journey, I realized we were making assumptions about what users wanted without actually... asking them.

"We need to do customer research," I announced.

"Isn't that the marketing team's job?" someone asked.

"Whose job is it?" I countered.

Silence.

"Okay, I'll do it," I sighed. "Add it to the list of hats."

Survey Says: We Had No Idea What We Were Doing

I created our first customer survey. It was... not good.

Questions like:

  • "Do you like music?" (Wow, very insightful, Hansika)
  • "Would you use a wellness app?" (Vague much?)
  • "What features do you want?" (Let me just design the entire product for you)

Thankfully, one of our advisors, Laura Conklin, looked at it and gently suggested I start over.

"You're not asking what they want," she said. "You're asking them to design your product. Instead, understand their problems first."

So I rewrote it:

Better Questions:

  • "When was the last time you felt overwhelmed by stress? What did you do?"
  • "Have you ever used music to help manage your emotions? What happened?"
  • "What stops you from prioritizing your mental wellness?"
  • "If you could wave a magic wand and solve one problem related to your mental health, what would it be?"

The responses were eye-opening.

What We Learned From 77 Real Humans

We surveyed 77 people in our target demographic (ages 12-25). Here's what shocked us:

Finding What It Meant for Tunology
66.7% expressed interest in FREE version Strong top-of-funnel interest—people wanted to try it
Only 33.3% interested in PREMIUM Our conversion assumptions might be optimistic
#1 most exciting feature: "Affinity Groups" Community mattered more than we thought
#1 biggest concern: "Will I actually use it?" Retention and habit formation were critical
73% preferred Spotify over other platforms Spotify integration wasn't optional—it was essential
Price sensitivity: $29.90/year felt "reasonable" but $70/year was "too expensive" Our pricing strategy was validated

But the most valuable feedback wasn't in the multiple choice answers—it was in the write-in responses:

"I don't need another app telling me to meditate. I need something that actually fits into my chaotic life."

"I already use music when I'm stressed. But I'm just randomly picking songs. I don't know if I'm doing it 'right.'"

"I'd pay for this if I knew it would actually work, but how do I know it's not just another wellness app I'll download and forget about?"

These responses changed how we thought about Tunology. We weren't just building features—we were solving real, specific problems that real people articulated.


Hat #4: The Financial Fortune Teller

Back to the CFO hat—the one I wore most often (and most anxiously).

Creating a 5-year financial projection when you haven't even launched is equal parts science, art, and educated guessing.

Here's what I had to project, despite having zero historical data:

The Five-Year Crystal Ball

Metric Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
Total Addressable Market (TAM) 50M 50M 50M 50M 50M
Serviceable Available Market (SAM) 27M 27M 27M 27M 27M
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) 4M 4M 4M 4M 4M
Market Share Achieved 1% 1% 1% 3% 3%
New Users Acquired 20,000 40,000 40,000 120,000 120,000
Free Users (Beta Period) 1,700
Beta Test Period (months) 3
New Monthly Premium Users 2,990 2,990 2,990 2,990 2,990
New Yearly Premium Users 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500
% Converting to Monthly 20% 20% 20% 20% 20%
% Converting to Yearly 10% 10% 10% 10% 10%
% Remaining Free 5% 10% 10% 10% 10%
Cumulative Monthly Premium Users 4,000 10,800 16,920 36,828 54,745
Cumulative Yearly Premium Users 2,000 5,400 8,460 18,414 27,373
Total Cumulative Premium Users 6,000 16,200 25,380 55,242 82,118
SALES REVENUE $101,200 $549,504 $860,890 $1,873,809 $2,785,436
TOTAL EXPENSES $110,000 $645,100 $842,095 $1,100,283 $1,439,124
PROFIT/LOSS ($8,800) ($95,596) $18,795 $773,525 $1,346,311

Let me be honest about what creating this taught me: Every single number is an assumption that could be wrong.

The Assumptions That Kept Me Up at Night

Assumption #1: We'd capture 1% market share in Year 1

  • Reality check: We're four high schoolers with no marketing budget
  • What if it's 0.1%? Our entire model breaks

Assumption #2: 20-30% of free users would convert to paid

  • Industry benchmark: 15-25% for freemium health apps
  • But we're unproven. What if it's 10%?

Assumption #3: Low churn rate

  • I assumed users would stick around
  • But wellness apps have notoriously high abandonment rates
  • What if people download us, use us twice, then forget?

Assumption #4: Customer acquisition cost (CAC) of $50-$75

  • Based on industry averages
  • But we're competing with established apps with much bigger budgets
  • What if it costs us $150 to acquire each user?

Assumption #5: The market would stay favorable

  • No major competitor drops prices
  • No Spotify policy changes that affect us
  • No recession that makes people cut "non-essential" subscriptions

Any one of these assumptions being wrong could derail everything.

The Scenario Planning That Saved My Sanity

To deal with the anxiety of so many unknowns, I created scenario models:

Best Case Scenario:

  • 40% conversion rate
  • CAC of $40
  • Low churn (3% monthly)
  • Result: Profitable by Year 2, $3M+ revenue by Year 5

Base Case Scenario (what I presented):

  • 20-30% conversion
  • CAC of $50-75
  • Moderate churn (5% monthly)
  • Result: Profitable by Year 3, $2.7M revenue by Year 5

Worst Case Scenario:

  • 10% conversion
  • CAC of $100
  • High churn (10% monthly)
  • Result: Never profitable, shut down by Year 3

This exercise taught me: We had a narrow window of viability, but it was possible.


Hat #5: The Competitive Analyst

While I was modeling our finances, I realized: We needed to understand who we were competing against and why someone would choose us.

The Competitive Landscape

Feature Tunology Finch Spiritune Calm
Annual Price $29.90 $69.99 $179.99 $69.99
Affinity-Based Groups
Personalized Music Therapy ✅ (self-managed)
AI-Driven Recommendations ✅ (for meditation)
Personalized Journaling
Gamification Limited
Music Integration Spotify API None Self-managed Limited library
Target Audience Teens/Young Adults Gen Z General wellness General wellness

Our Competitive Advantages (We Hoped):

  1. Price: 57-83% cheaper than competitors
  2. Music-First: Unlike Calm/Finch, music therapy was our core
  3. AI Personalization: Unlike Spiritune, we didn't make users do all the work
  4. Community: Affinity groups created belonging, not just solo wellness
  5. Built by teens, for teens: We understood the problem from the inside

But here's what our advisor Nikhil challenged us on:

"Being cheaper isn't a sustainable advantage. What happens when Calm offers a student discount? When Spotify launches wellness features? Why would users choose you?"

That question haunted me.

Our answer had to be: Because we're solving a different problem.

We weren't just another meditation app. We weren't just another music app. We were the intersection of music therapy + community + personalization + affordability—built specifically for a generation that's drowning in mental health challenges and can't afford $70/year solutions.


Hat #6: The Project Manager

Somewhere around month three, I realized nobody was tracking what we'd actually accomplished versus what we said we'd do.

So I made a roadmap.

Tunology Development Timeline

Quarter Milestone Status My Role
2023 Q4 Ideation, Market Research & Analysis ✅ Complete Competitive analysis, market sizing
2024 Q1 Design & Plan Prototype 🎯 Current Feature prioritization, budget allocation
2024 Q2 MVP Development & Customer Feedback ⏳ Upcoming Budget management, user testing coordination
2024 Q3 Beta Launch - Gather KPIs ⏳ Upcoming Conversion tracking, financial monitoring
2024 Q4 Develop Improved MVP v2 ⏳ Upcoming ROI analysis, feature trade-offs
2025 Q1 Launch Final App ⏳ Future Revenue tracking, burn rate management
2025 Q2 Forge Partnerships ⏳ Future Partnership deal structure, revenue sharing

Every milestone had deliverables, owners, and deadlines. Every delay meant adjusting the financial model.

This wasn't sexy work. But it was necessary work.


The Hustler's Handbook: What Wearing All the Hats Taught Me

Looking back, here are the lessons I learned from being forced to do jobs I had no business doing:

Lesson #1: Entrepreneurship Doesn't Care About Your Job Description

In the corporate world, job descriptions matter. You're hired for a specific role with specific responsibilities.

In startups—especially early-stage ones—the only job description is "make it happen."

Was I qualified to be a CFO? No. Did I have product management experience? No. Had I ever done market research? No.

But did those things need to get done? Yes. Was anyone else going to do them? No. Could I figure it out? Eventually.

That's the hustle. You do what needs doing, whether or not it's "your job."

Lesson #2: Saying "That's Not My Job" is Startup Suicide

There were moments I wanted to say:

  • "I'm the finance person, not the product person"
  • "Someone else should do the customer interviews"
  • "Can't we hire someone to do this?"

But here's the reality: In early-stage startups, there is no "someone else."

There's just the team you have, doing everything that needs doing, with whatever skills and scrappiness you can muster.

The moment you start drawing lines around "your job," the company stops moving forward.

Lesson #3: Jack of All Trades > Master of None (At First)

Yes, a specialized CFO with 20 years of experience would've been better than me.

Yes, a product manager who'd shipped successful apps would've been more qualified.

But you know what we had? Me. A high schooler willing to learn.

And sometimes, willing to learn beats already knows everything.

Because I was learning, I asked questions that experts might not ask. Because I was new to finance, I explained things in ways the team could understand (because I'd just learned them myself). Because I had no ego about "my domain," I collaborated across functions easily.

In the early days, being a generalist who hustles beats being a specialist who stays in their lane.

Lesson #4: Every Hat You Wear Makes You More Valuable

Here's something unexpected: By the end of this journey, I wasn't just a CFO anymore.

I could:

  • Model financial scenarios and understand unit economics
  • Prioritize features based on user value vs. build complexity
  • Conduct customer research and extract actionable insights
  • Analyze competitors and identify differentiation
  • Manage project timelines and keep teams accountable

These weren't separate skills—they were interconnected ways of thinking about building a business.

The person who understands finance + product + customers is exponentially more valuable than someone who only knows one.

Lesson #5: Wearing Multiple Hats Isn't Sustainable (But It's Necessary)

Let me be real: Doing all these jobs simultaneously was exhausting.

There were weeks I was:

  • Monday: Updating financial models for an advisor meeting
  • Tuesday: Facilitating customer interviews
  • Wednesday: Debating product priorities with the team
  • Thursday: Researching competitor pricing strategies
  • Friday: Calculating our runway and realizing we needed more funding
  • Weekend: Catching up on homework I'd neglected all week

This pace isn't sustainable forever. Eventually, as companies grow, you need specialists. You need a real CFO, a real CPM, a real research team.

But in the beginning? You wear all the hats because that's what it takes to survive.

Lesson #6: "Get It Done" Beats "Do It Perfectly"

My financial model wasn't perfect. My product prioritization framework wasn't sophisticated. My customer survey wasn't comprehensive.

But they were DONE. And done meant we could move forward.

I learned: In startups, shipped beats perfect.

A decent financial model today is infinitely more valuable than a perfect one you're still working on next month.

A good-enough MVP you can test with users beats a flawless product that takes three years to build.

Done is better than perfect. Always.

Lesson #7: Asking for Help Isn't Weakness—It's Strategy

I couldn't do everything alone. When I hit walls, I asked for help:

  • Marcela Torres (music therapy student) taught me about clinical applications
  • Tadeo Acosta-Rubio (Stuvi founder) showed me how to think about distribution and scale
  • Laura Conklin (True Life Design coach) helped me not burn out while wearing seventeen hats
  • Nikhil Jain (mentor) challenged my assumptions and made me think harder

None of them did the work for me. But they gave me frameworks, asked better questions, and caught my blind spots.

The hustler who asks for help is smarter than the hustler who goes it alone.

Lesson #8: Some Hats Fit Better Than Others (And That's Okay)

Here's what I discovered: I actually liked finance more than I expected.

The puzzle of making the numbers work, the strategic thinking about resource allocation, the satisfaction of building models that predicted reality—it clicked for me.

Product management? I was decent at it, but it wasn't my passion.

Customer research? Important, but I was ready to hand it off to someone else.

Project management? Necessary evil.

Wearing all the hats helped me figure out which hat I actually wanted to keep wearing.

When we eventually grow and hire specialists, I know exactly what I want to own: the finance and strategy. Everything else? I'll gladly delegate.

Lesson #9: The Hustle Teaches You More Than Any Classroom

I learned more about business in six months with Tunology than I did in four years of high school classes.

Not because classes are bad—but because there's no teacher like real stakes.

When your financial model determines whether you get funding or not? You learn financial modeling.

When your product decisions determine whether users stick around or churn? You learn product thinking.

When your customer research determines whether you're building the right thing? You learn to ask better questions.

The classroom teaches you theory. The hustle teaches you reality.

Lesson #10: Wearing Multiple Hats is a Privilege, Not a Burden

There were definitely moments I felt overwhelmed. Moments I wanted to quit. Moments I wondered why I was doing CFO work at 11 PM when I had an AP exam the next day.

But here's what I realized: Most people don't get this opportunity.

Most high schoolers don't get to learn finance by building real financial models for a real company.

Most people don't learn product management by making real decisions that affect real users.

Most students don't learn market research by interviewing real customers about real problems.

I was incredibly lucky to be forced to wear all these hats.

Yes, it was hard. Yes, I sacrificed sleep, social life, and GPA points. But I gained skills and perspectives that most people don't get until they're 30.

The hustle wasn't just building Tunology. The hustle was building myself.


The Metrics That Mattered Most

As the CFO/product person/everything person, here are the numbers I obsessed over:

Metric Target Why It Mattered
Burn Rate Under $15K/month How fast we're spending money
Runway 12+ months How long until we run out of money
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) Under $75/user Cost to acquire one paying user
Conversion Rate 20-30% % of free users becoming paid
Churn Rate Under 5%/month % of users canceling
LTV:CAC Ratio At least 3:1 Is each customer worth more than acquisition cost?
Monthly Active Users (MAU) Growing month-over-month Are people actually using the app?
Feature Adoption 60%+ using core features Are we building the right things?

These weren't abstract numbers. They were the difference between success and failure.


The Moment It All Clicked

There was one conversation with Nikhil (our mentor) that changed how I thought about wearing multiple hats.

I was complaining about having too much on my plate. "I'm trying to be the CFO and the product person and the researcher and—"

He interrupted me. "Stop thinking of those as separate jobs."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not a CFO who also does product. You're not a product person who also does finance. You're a founder. And founders do whatever needs doing."

That reframed everything.

I wasn't wearing multiple hats. I was being a founder.

And founders hustle.


Where We Stood

By the end of our building phase, here's what the hustle had produced:

Financial model complete: 5-year projections with realistic (if uncertain) assumptions ✅ Product roadmap defined: Clear prioritization of features based on user value ✅ Market research conducted: 77 users surveyed, insights integrated ✅ Competitive positioning clarified: We knew exactly how we differentiated ✅ Funding needs identified: $230K total, with strategy for raising it ✅ Development timeline mapped: Clear milestones from MVP to launch ✅ Team roles clarified: Even as we wore multiple hats, we knew who owned what

We weren't launched. We weren't funded. We hadn't proven our model yet.

But we'd built something more valuable than an app: We'd built ourselves into founders who could hustle through anything.


The Real Product: Us

By the end of this phase, I realized: The MVP wasn't just Tunology. It was us.

Four high school girls who'd never built a company became:

  • Strategists who could model scenarios and make data-driven decisions
  • Product thinkers who understood user problems and prioritized ruthlessly
  • Researchers who could extract insights from customer conversations
  • Operators who could manage timelines and ship things
  • Leaders who could wear whatever hat the situation demanded

We became the kind of people who could build a company.

And that? That was worth more than any app we could ever ship.


In Part 3, I'll share the unfiltered truth about what happened next, the biggest lessons from this journey, what "success" actually means when your company might not make it, and brutally honest advice for any high schooler thinking about starting something.


The question isn't whether you're qualified to wear all the hats. The question is: are you willing to put them on anyway?


Coming next: Part 3 - "The Road Ahead: Lessons from Building Tunology" - What matters more than making money, why failure might be the best outcome, and the surprising ways this journey changed everything.


Are you wearing too many hats in your startup? Share your struggles in the comments—I promise you're not alone.

What hat are you most afraid to put on? Let me know. I'll tell you why you should put it on anyway.


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