DeepCut
About 6 weeks ago, I parted ways with Doist. And, honestly, it took all of two days before I got antsy and started a new project. There are things to make, people! Anyway. This post is a quick introduction to DeepCut, a vinyl discovery app coming soon to iOS. If you want to be a part of early testing, sign up here.
Back in December I jotted down a rough concept: “Goodreads for vinyl”. The working title I came up with? Crate Digger. 🪏 With a focus on my day job, though, Crate Digger was quickly filed away in the “someday maybe" corner of my todo list.
Fast forward to the end of January. As I made my exit from Doist, I had an itch. I wanted to explore more ambitious LLM workflows. Get past “just” automating repetitive work and strategizing with my Claude co-pilot. I wanted to stretch outside my comfort zone to see what's possible.
I wanted to build.
So, for the past month or so I've been diving deep into the world of "AI-native" software development, and bringing that dusty idea to life under a new name: DeepCut.
Over the course of the next few blog posts I’ll talk more about the ups and downs of working with AI day-to-day and the system I’ve put in place to build DeepCut, my first iOS app.
Before we get to that though, let’s bring it back to the beginning, and what inspired me to capture the idea in the first place. My record club.
Sild City
For about two years, I've been meeting up with a group of friends for a monthly vinyl club here in Haugesund. The four of us each bring a record we're excited about, along with a beer that pairs with the record (of course). We take it in turns to present our pick, giving some background and sharing stories about what makes that particular record so special.
Then, we listen.
We don't adhere to any rules when it comes to selecting a record. All genres and eras are on the table. The picks that come each month can be wildly varied. But the jumping-off point is always the same - we’re there to appreciate the records people bring and to hear the stories behind them (and enjoy some tasty beverages at the same time 🍻 ).
What started out as a casual hangout has turned into a ritual. A monthly pilgrimage to each other’s living rooms. We even gave it a name: Sild City Vinylklubb
It’s not lost on me that Sild City is something special. So, winding down after the December edition, I got to thinking:
- What would it look like to bring this collective discovery experience to more people?
- How can an app help folks discover records they'd otherwise never hear about, or make new connections with the music already in their collection?
- What would it look like to share musical discoveries with friends in a way that goes deeper than firing off a link to a playlist or a 30s social media clip.
Now, if you've ever dipped even semi-seriously into the world of vinyl, you'll probably have heard of Discogs. It's the place to manage your collection and buy hard-to-find records. As great as Discogs is for cataloging and buying records, though, there’s a gap.
Discogs is for building your collection, not discovering records.
What makes Sild City so special is that we get to experience firsthand the records that friends are excited about. It could be something released this week, or 50 years ago; either way, these albums connect because they came through a shared experience, from friends who genuinely want you to hear it.
And that is the experience I want to capture with DeepCut.
DeepCut is under development as we speak, with a test version coming soon to iOS. Sign up here to be among the first to try it.