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.
I was also a musician. Released albums in 2006, 2012, and 2019 that got... tens of listeners.
Tens.
The Problem Was Clear
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 music industry was broken. Not the music itself - there's more amazing music being created than ever before. The problem was the marketing infrastructure. It was:
- Opaque: Artists had no idea where their money was going
- Expensive: $50K playlist campaigns that delivered nothing
- Exploitative: Fake streams, pay-to-play schemes, vanity metrics
- Unscientific: Zero data, no testing, pure guesswork
The Turning Point
In 2020, I decided to apply my engineering training to marketing Proper Youth's debut album, "So Close to Paradise."
Instead of hiring a publicist or buying playlist placements, I treated it like a research project:
- Set up proper tracking and attribution
- Created controlled experiments with different audiences
- Measured actual fan engagement, not vanity metrics
- Optimized based on data, not hunches
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 Fast
Every artist who reached out had been burned by the same expensive failures:
- Playlist pitching services that took $5K and delivered 10 streams
- Publicists who charged $3K/month for a couple blog posts no one read
- Pay-for-play schemes disguised as "promotion"
- Even fake streams that got their music pulled from platforms
They'd spent thousands with nothing to show for it.
The Engineering Approach to Music Marketing
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.
Building Something Different
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.
What I've learned:
- Honest iPhone videos beat expensive productions (we've tested this hundreds of times)
- Direct-to-fan advertising beats playlist schemes (with actual attribution data to prove it)
- Transparency beats black boxes (artists succeed when they understand their growth)
- Small budgets can compete (when optimized properly)
The Philosophy
My job isn't to be the star of your story. I'm the engineer who builds the stage, tunes the sound system, and optimizes the lighting so you can focus on what you do best: creating art that matters.
I approach every campaign with the same rigor I brought to materials research:
- Form a hypothesis
- Design controlled experiments
- Measure results objectively
- Scale what works, kill what doesn't
- Document everything for reproducibility
What This Means for Artists
If you're tired of:
- Throwing money at mysterious "promotion" services
- Getting vague reports with no real data
- Feeling like the industry is designed to extract money from artists
- Wondering if there's a better way
There is. It's not magic. It's not a secret formula. It's just good engineering applied to a broken system.
I'm here to help you build sustainable growth based on real fans, real data, and real transparency. No black boxes. No BS. Just science.
Ready to approach your music marketing like an engineer? Let's talk.