Hi,

At some point last year, a colleague put me on to an independent artist named Nic D.

Nic was achieving massive success, estimating to be generating over $50,000 per month in streaming revenue, all while building a career on his own terms.

I immediately became impressed with Nic’s story and went down the rabbit hole of his interviews and music.

While working out at the gym a few weeks ago, one of Nic’s interviews popped up on my YouTube algorithm - it was one I hadn’t seen before so I decided to check it out.

After watching the interview, there were lots of takeaways and gems that would be worth sharing and could be helpful for any artist and their team.

Let’s dive in ⬇️

Before diving into this newsletter, it’s important to note that every artist has their own story, way of doing things, and journey.

What worked for Nic D may not work for someone else.

That said, I am fascinated by frameworks and patterns and thought there were some helpful ideas that could apply to any artist and their team.

So…let’s dive in. This is Nic D.

A few years ago, Nic was actually working as a wedding photographer.

In 2020, Nic began taking his music journey more seriously by starting to record songs in his van - it was in the middle of the COVID pandemic and he didn't want to record in his house so as not to wake up his wife and children.

In that van he would set up equipment and would go on to record almost 50 songs over the course of a few months.

He found a friend to mix + master them and started developing a system to release music at scale.

He released a song every single week (he had 50 songs and no shortage of material) for almost a year before reaching the first big benchmark of his career - earning $4500 in 1 month from streaming using Distrokid.

With proof of concept success making music, and approval from his wife to take a 3 month leave from photography bookings, Nic focused on making music and in May of 2021 caught his first viral song - a track named " Fine Apple".

The explosiveness of the song led to streaming surges and that one month alone saw streaming income of $30,000.

Nick never looked back and fast forward to present day 2025, Nic still releases a song every week or two, many times collaborating with other artists to tap into their audiences and algorithms.

I found this story fascinating as a music strategy nerd and couldn't help but extract a few takeaways I think can be valuable to any artist.

_{1) It doesn’t need to be perfect}

Though Nic is in a much better financial situation than when he originally started recording, he still uses the same recording equipment he started with to this day.

According to Nic, the total cost of that equipment came out to approximately just over $1,000.

To get started, he bought:

• A used MacBook

• Shure SM7B microphone

• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface

• Pro Tools

• Approximate total cost = just over $1,000

I love this element of the story because it's just about getting started, not waiting until it’s perfect.

Nic could've waited and said "I don't have the perfect equipment, this won’t sound good enough" but he utilized the resources he had to get started. Not only did he buy equipment that was just good enough to get started, he didn’t even record in a proper studio - he recorded inside of his van!

"Use what you have until what you have pays for what you want."

_{2) Use your transferrable skills}

In the interview below, Nic talks about how he was able to use his photography skillset to help his music career.