Pranav
Building in public — side projects, weekend by weekend

Product manager who ships
the small tools, not just the roadmap.

I spend my weekends building the tools I wish existed — for my own job search, my own workday, my own sleep. Three in progress below, with the actual build notes as I go.

3 projects in flight 1 deployed end to end Day job — Product Management

Selected projects

Three self-directed builds, each solving a specific personal problem.

Building01

CV Link & QR Tracker

A tracked link and QR system embedded on my CV — printable and clickable — so I can see when recruiters actually open my LinkedIn or Instagram, and from where.

  • One tracked link, works as both a QR scan and a PDF hyperlink
  • Real-time Telegram alert the moment a link is opened
  • Logs time, location, device, and source to a live Google Sheet
  • QR codes generated with the platform logo embedded at the centre
Concept02

Focus Pipeline

A focus mode built for how PMs actually get interrupted — not by silencing Teams and email, but by triaging what breaks through and queuing the rest.

  • Surfaces urgent Teams messages instantly, holds the rest
  • Queues the next piece of work so nothing gets forgotten mid-interruption
  • One-time setup at the start of the day, runs quietly after that
  • Built around Microsoft 365 / Teams as the primary signal source
Concept03

R.E.M.

A sleep calculator and alarm that optimizes for REM sleep quality, not just total hours — factoring in age and body weight to recommend the best time to wake.

  • Calculates optimal wake time based on age and body weight
  • Visual graph of expected REM sleep across the night
  • Designed to sit alongside native phone alarms, not replace the workflow
  • Wearable and heart-rate integration planned for a later version

From the devlog

Notes from actually building these, not just the finished pitch.

CV TrackerAug 20264 min read

Shipping a CV link tracker in a weekend

Started with a simple problem: I put my LinkedIn on my CV and had no idea if anyone ever opened it. Ended up building a small Node/Express service that sits behind one tracked link — the same URL works as a scannable QR on a printed CV and a plain hyperlink in the PDF version, with a via flag telling the two apart in the data.

The interesting calls were mostly about restraint. Postgres felt like overkill for a handful of opens a day, so the data goes into a Google Sheet through a small Apps Script endpoint instead — it doubles as a dashboard and a one-click CSV export, for free. Same logic on notifications: Telegram's Bot API needs no business approval and costs nothing, versus WhatsApp's Business API which would've meant real per-message cost for a personal tool. And the QR codes now carry the platform's own logo embedded in the centre, generated at "H" error-correction so covering part of the code doesn't break the scan.

It's live on Render now, tracking real opens on my actual CV.

Next up: build notes on Focus Pipeline and R.E.M. as those move from concept to code.