The Artist Breakout Method
Dear artist, you are
a small business.
Let’s teach you how to grow like one.
No labels. No big budgets. No connections.
Join artists who when from chasing record deals to turning them down
Instant access · 14-day money-back guarantee
Meet Your Mentors
Ian Kimmel is an entrepreneur in the world of music. As a producer, he has 15 platinum and gold records and has worked with the likes of BTS, Mary J. Blige, Anderson .Paak and Rick Ross. He runs Biscuit Head, a production studio and artist incubator focused on independent artists.
Award-winning mix engineer, Berklee faculty member, and CEO of New Music Engineering, with records for artists including P!nk, Katy Perry, Stephen Marley, Helado Negro, and Gabriel Garzon-Montano- over a billion streams of work. Trained under Shelly Yakus, Greg Wells, & Henry Hirsch.
Indie artist (Overtown) who's lived the whole climb from zero to traction, using his background as an entrepreneur to craft creative, lean and cost-effective growth strategies. Now producing millions of streams; selling out small clubs; and committed to helping artist peers grow using similar techniques.
Spent his career building and backing tech startups. Co-founded Object Video, a VC-backed startup that sold 50+ video-tech patents for $80M, then co-founded a self-financed advanced sensing company later acquired by a Fortune 500 leader. Now brings that startup growth model to music artists.
Talent buyer for Blue Note Entertainment and head of A&R at Biscuit Head. Griffin has worked across almost every side of the industry, including artist management, booking and publishing, so he knows what it takes to help small artists grow.
What You’ll Learn
Built like a roadmap. Five learning modules, where every module hands you the next move.
New Music Industry
1. Foundation
Where we learn the rules of the game and tackle false beliefs that get in the way of artist growth.
Your Early Artist Career
2. Control
Business school for artist entrepreneurs. We teach you the fundamentals of how to get your artist business off the ground.
You Are as an Artist
3. Identity
You may know who you are as an artist, but how does that project out to the world? Do you have a coherent artist universe? Let's build one together.
on Social Media
4. Content Strategy
Most artists dread social media, but it's a unique opportunity to grow and nurture your audience. We'll teach you how to make it work for you without feeling disingenuous or burning out.
Growing Your Audience
5. Release & Promote
This part is where we get our hands dirty, teaching you concrete release and promotion strategies to 10x your streams and find fans using growth strategies from the startup world.
Watch it. Understand it. Apply it. Prove it.
Not just videos to watch. Real scenarios to think through, deep dives when you need context, and checkpoints that make sure it's actually sinking in.
Videos
Special Topics
Practical Applications
Quizzes
Watch it once. Reference it forever.
This isn't a course you finish once. The handbooks and toolkits are built to be marked up, argued with, and reopened. Six months from now, they'll hit differently than they do today.
Here's something no one says out loud.
Right now, excellent music is sitting on hard drives and streaming platforms. Unheard. Because the person who made it uploaded, posted, and didn’t know what to do next.
Something like a hundred thousand songs go up every single day. You release the best thing you've ever made into that ocean... and it gets 200 plays. OUCH.
Then you do the math. And the math is brutal. Not because you're afraid of working hard. You've never been afraid of that. But something’s clearly wrong.
We built the Artist Breakout Method because we've been there. We hit the same walls. This is what works.
One of us is an independent artist
who’s written the song, recorded it, mixed it, put it out, and realized everything he believed about making a career in music was outdated, and he had no idea what to do next. So he put his entrepreneur hat on and set about building his own strategy.
One of us is an award-winning mix engineer
who's worked on records you know, and spent years watching it happen from the other side of the glass: artist after artist making genuinely great music, pouring everything into how it sounds — and still watching it disappear the second it's released.
One of us is a successful tech entrepreneur
in a world where if you have a vision and the guts to chase it, there's a whole system waiting to back you — mentors, a playbook, people who've done it and want to help. And when he looked at music, that system just wasn't there.
And that's the unfair thing we can't stop seeing. Builders in tech get backed. Artists get doubted. Underneath everything the industry says to you is one quiet conviction: that artists are talent to be managed, squeezed, and second-guessed - that you need them more than they need you. The industry only shows up after you've already proven them wrong, once you have traction: an audience, a brand, momentum. Which means the hardest stretch of your whole career - going from zero to traction - is the exact stretch where you're completely on your own.
Everyone says the same useless thing: "Don't chase a deal. Get big on your own first." And yeah, thanks. But how?
That's the question this exists to answer.
Here's what we figured out. The artists who break through aren't the most talented. Talent is the price of entry, not the path to discovery. They're the ones who stopped gambling and started building. Who treat every release, every post, every idea like a small, inexpensive experiment instead of one big all-or-nothing bet. They test before they invest their time, their heart, and their money. They put out the rough version, read the room, and let real feedback tell them where to double down.
It's not luck. It's a system. The same kind of system that built the things you use every day - used quietly by people who make products the whole world ends up loving. We're not going to change your music or ask you to sell out. We're going to give your instincts clear names, hand you the method, and put a team of people who actually get music in your corner.
Because a good song deserves to be heard. And it's wrong that great artists disappear just because no one handed them the map.
You already did the hard part.
Let's go get you heard.
200 streams isn’t a rejection. It’s bad execution.
Follow our artist breakout method, learn how to build a successful, sustainable artist career.
What Artists Say About STRTST
STRTST approaches artist development from such a fresh angle. Not only are they great educators, but everything feels so well researched and objective. The course is never self-serving for the sake of hyping up the platform, which I hate about a lot of music industry courses.
I love working with STRTST! They’ve been amazing at helping me get off the ground. They truly understand how to find cost effective ways to build an audience. Being independent can feel scary and overwhelming. STRTST has given me the knowledge I needed.
Working with your team has been one of the best investments I've made for my music. You're incredibly thorough when it comes to testing creatives, analyzing the data, and explaining exactly what you're seeing and why certain ads are performing, which has made the whole process feel transparent and strategic. On top of that, you're professional, kind, and genuinely trustworthy. I always feel like my campaign is in good hands.
Working with STRTST came at such an essential point in my career. I was reintroduced to the beauty of music and my own artistry, while also learning completely new ways to think about my brand, my audience, and the business behind my music. This team made me feel deeply seen and valued. STRTST embodies authentic kindness and brilliant strategic wisdom that have opened doors for my career and changed the way I approach my artistry.
Get Lifetime Access to The Artist Breakout Method.
One-time payment & lifetime access
- 5 Modules with 30 videos
- Guided lessons
- Practical application scenarios
- Quizzes
- Handbooks, toolkits & templates
- A dynamic community
- No subscription. Lifetime access.
Try The Artist Breakout Method 100% Risk-Free. Get instant access to all 5 Modules and course materials. If within the first 14 days you feel it’s not the right fit, tell us and we’ll issue a full refund. No fine print, no hidden fees, no hard feelings.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Independent artists who are serious about making/releasing music but don’t have a team or a plan for how to sustainably grow. Maybe you’ve released a few songs but don’t know how to promote yourself, or you haven’t released anything yet. You don’t need a following, connections or industry experience. You do need to be willing to try new things and learn entrepreneurship strategies.
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More than 30 video lessons and 60 interactive lessons across five modules: how the new music industry works, entrepreneurship strategies for artists, building your artist identity, content strategy, and a full release and promotion playbook. Each module comes with a downloadable handbook and exercises you apply straight to your own music. You’ll also interact with our team and your peers in our community.
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The course is self-paced, and the lessons are short enough to finish one between sessions. Most artists can get through it in a few weeks, but the real value comes from applying it to your next release.
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Straight answer: real traction takes time - often months or years. What you'll get fast is the thing you may have never had: real signals. Instead of releasing into silence and waiting months to learn nothing, you can use our testing and promoting strategies this week and reading real feedback in days. You stop flying blind almost immediately. The traction is built on top of that.
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It's $97 because you're a founding member - getting in while this course is brand new, when betting on us is still a risk. The real price is $297, and that's where it's going after launch. No catcharly adopters get rewarded.
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You’re covered by a 14-day money-back guarantee. Go through the lessons, and if it isn’t helping, email us at team@strtst.com for a full refund.
