I Brought My PhD to Music Marketing

The Lab Years

I spent years in research labs optimizing materials at the molecular level. PhD in Materials Science & Engineering from University of Michigan (2015), double major in Physics and Mechanical Engineering from University of Arkansas (2010). Research Fellow at NIST, then VP of Engineering at an organic solar startup. I thought I'd spend my career perfecting atomic structures and building clean energy solutions.

But I had a problem.

The Artist Problem

I was also a musician. Released albums in 2006, 2012, and 2019 that got... tens of listeners.

Tens.

There are billions of people in the world. I knew that even a tiny fraction who'd connect with my music could be an enormous audience. But somehow, incredible art was getting buried under completely inefficient systems.

The Turning Point

In 2020, I decided to apply my engineering training to marketing Proper Youth's debut album, "So Close to Paradise." The hit single "Off My Mind" has since gained 1.8M streams - not because the music suddenly got better, but because I finally understood how to optimize the system around it.

Word spread. Every artist who reached out had been burned by the same expensive failures - playlist pitching services, publicists who delivered nothing, pay-for-play schemes, even fake streams. They'd spent thousands with nothing to show for it.

The Decision

By 2022, I realized I was more excited about helping musicians market the right way than working on materials. The problem was the same - amazing potential getting lost in inefficient systems. The difference? In music, no one was applying engineering principles to fix it.

So I left my VP role to science the hell out of music marketing.

I built barely.ai from scratch - not just another dashboard, but a completely open-source platform where artists can see exactly how everything works. Started testing every assumption about how artists grow, treating each campaign like a controlled experiment.

Building From Brooklyn

In 2023, I moved to Brooklyn to set up Barely NYC. It made sense - this is where music and technology collide, where the indie spirit drives innovation.

While our agency is based in Brooklyn, the artists we work with are everywhere. We've engineered growth for bands in LA, Nashville, Cleveland, South Wales, and Paris. Our data-driven approach translates across time zones and genres - because good science is universal.

The Mission

As music marketing engineers, we apply scientific methods to grow your fanbase. We run controlled experiments, analyze the data, and optimize based on results - not hunches or industry myths.

You focus on the creative. We handle the engineering - attribution modeling, conversion optimization, algorithmic distribution. It's a partnership where art meets science.

Why This Matters

The music industry is full of black-box services that charge thousands while hiding how they actually work. Meanwhile, indie artists get burned by expensive publicists and risky playlist schemes that violate platform terms.

There's a better way: transparent tools, data-driven strategies, and honest reporting about what's actually working.