How I Built 10 Apps in 5 Months — And Launched SoundVent
The technical journey behind building SoundVent — a unified music platform that pushed me harder than anything I've done in my career.
Today is a milestone I'll never forget:
SoundVent Beta is officially LIVE.
It's the most ambitious software project I've ever built — and the most meaningful.
A music platform built by artists, for artists, where music, video, social networking, messaging, merch, events, and community finally live together in one place.
But behind the polished UI and clean interface is a technical journey that pushed me harder than anything I've done in my career.
This is that story.
A Vision 10 Years in the Making
Ten years ago, SoundVent started as an idea Anthony Garay brought to me — a vision for a unified music platform that didn't exist yet. I believed in the idea instantly, but the tools just weren't there.
Fast-forward a decade.
The tech had evolved.
And so had I.
I had spent years building large-scale Shopify ecosystems, solving performance problems, architecting backend systems, and designing UX for high-volume stores. But ironically, when it came time to build SoundVent again, I realized the stack I knew best — Shopify + apps + theme development — couldn't come close to supporting the scope of what we wanted.
SoundVent wasn't a store — It wasn't a blog — It wasn't a media player — It wasn't a social feed.
It was all of those things at once.
So the only way forward… was starting over.
The Honest Truth: When I Started, I Barely Knew React
This might surprise people.
Five months ago, I knew just enough React to get by.
Component basics. State. Props. Some hooks. Nothing too complex.
But I didn't know:
Next.js deeply
Server components
Suspense
Complex client-side state patterns
Auth hydration
Supabase RLS
Media pipelines
Streaming
Real-time messaging
Advanced routing
Stripe Connect multi-vendor payouts
Large-scale database design
Product schema architecture
Messaging systems
Publishing workflows
Realtime feeds
File storage performance tuning
SoundVent was going to require… all of that.
And so began the grind.
5 Months. Thousands of Hours. Countless All-Nighters.
Every day was a marathon.
Most nights didn't end until 3am.
Console logs became my second monitor.
Supabase Studio basically lived in my bloodstream.
Next.js documentation became bedtime reading.
I wasn't just learning a framework.
I was building a full ecosystem.
Not one app — ten apps in one:
A music player
A video streaming platform
A social network
A real-time messaging system
A product creator (rivaling Shopify's)
A blog platform
A discovery engine
A profile system
An events/ticketing foundation
A commerce engine
Each one is normally its own startup.
I had to build all of them — alone — in five months.
The Tech Stack That Made It Possible
In the end, the modern web carried me:
React + Next.js (14)
This framework changed everything for me.
I went from "What even is a server component?" to "I never want to build without this again."
I genuinely fell in love with Next.js.
It feels like the framework I was always waiting for.
Supabase
Auth, Postgres, file storage, real-time, and RLS security — all in one place.
I pushed Supabase hard:
multi-tenant profiles
secure media uploads
real-time feeds
messaging
notifications
relational tagging
product variants
categories
subgenres
analytics
ticketing groundwork
Supabase handled it like a champ.
Mux
Video and audio streaming done right.
Reliable. Fast. Clean.
Exactly what SoundVent needed.
Stripe Connect
For multi-vendor commerce — the correct way to do payouts.
Tailwind + shadcn/ui
Designing an entire platform solo requires incredible efficiency.
Tailwind + shadcn let me move at lightning speed.
There Were Walls. Lots of Walls.
I hit:
SSR hydration issues
Auth race conditions
Middleware breaking at 2am
RLS policies that locked me out of my own tables
State management loops
Real-time listeners multiplying
Storage URLs breaking
"Why is this 500ing only in production?" moments
Stripe onboarding logic nightmares
React component hell
Media gallery staleness
Phantom re-renders
TypeScript gaslighting
Edge-case errors from libraries that never documented them
But every wall came with a breakthrough.
Every bug made the architecture clearer.
Every failure made the product stronger.
I didn't want to just build SoundVent.
I wanted to build it right.
Built By Artists, For Artists
What made this grind worth it is simple:
We're musicians first.
Anthony — an incredible drummer with visionary ideas.
Me — lead guitarist & songwriter for Kavalkade.
Danny — a bassist with extensive touring experience.
We built SoundVent because we lived the problem.
Because we wanted a platform that respected the craft.
Because we wanted something better, more integrated, and more fair.
Music is at our core — and SoundVent reflects that.
What SoundVent Is Today
SoundVent Beta includes:
🎵 Music & Video Uploads
🔥 Real-time social feed
💬 Messaging & notifications
👥 Follow system
🎸 Artist Profiles
🛒 A full product creator (variants, digital, subscriptions, shipping, SEO, etc.)
🎫 Events system foundation
🌐 Discover page
📱 Mobile-first UI
⚡ Supabase real-time backend
It's Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Shopify, TikTok, and Ticketmaster — integrated thoughtfully into one coherent experience.
This isn't a tool.
It's an ecosystem.
The Roadmap
Coming next:
Live streaming
Print-on-demand integration
Groups & communities
Ticketing
Native mobile app
Advanced analytics
AI-assisted tools for artists
DSP ingestion pipeline (later phase)
And much more.
SoundVent is live.
If you're an engineer, musician, or someone passionate about creator platforms, I'd love for you to check it out.
This project pushed me harder than anything I've ever built — and I couldn't be more proud of where it's going.
Thanks to everyone who supported this journey.
The next chapter of music starts now.