transparency

This is a page where I transparently share a bunch of information about how I work on my projects, the values that guide them, and how things are going financially with them.

Last updated: 2026-01-27

Jump to: metrics | finances | principles

metrics 📈

This part is under construction. I need to figure out what metrics matter to share transparently, and clever ways of gathering and showing them here.

traffic

I use GoatCounter for simple, privacy-friendly analytics for this site and my other sites. All my site analytics are fully transparent and available here.

followers & listeners

Apparently it’s quite expensive (and in many cases impossible) to simply pull my listener metrics via API, so I’m just going to post my rough stats here (last updated 2025-12-23):

• Spotify: 211 followers, ~130 monthly listeners
• Bandcamp: 310 followers, 5 paid subscribers, ~6600 lifetime plays

finances 💰

I aim to my hobbies and creative endeavors to be self-funding. That is, my goal is for every dollar spent on the tools & services here to be paid for by the stuff I make with the tools & services.

income

Outside of my Buffer salary, I make money mostly by releasing & selling music but also in a few other (small) ways. I’d like to gradually build up a small amount of freelance work, both via music services and product strategy consulting.

Here are those sources of income and how much I made in 2025:

expenses

Here is a table of everything I’ve spent money on since establishing this goal in mid-2023 (excluding taxes):

| product/service | category | cost |
| :--------------------- | :----------- | :--------------------- | |
| Carrd Pro | website | $19/year |
| Cloudflare | domains | $30/year |
| Backblaze | storage | $99/year^[1] |
| iCloud Drive | storage | ~$30/year ^[2] |
| Bandcamp | music distribution | $0/year + 15% of sales |
| Goatcounter | analytics | $0/year |
| Buttondown | marketing | $90/year |
| Buffer | marketing | $0/year^[3] |
| Apple Developer Program | marketing | $99/year |
| Cal.com | admin | $0/year |
| IA Writer | writing | $49.99 |
| JBL reference monitors | hardware | $149.99 |
| AirPods Pro 2 | hardware | $249^[4] |
| Lauten Audio LA-220 mic | hardware | $359.99^[5] |

guiding principles 🧠

My primary goals as a creative person are creative freedom and sustainability above all else. I am not motivated by rapid growth, but rather a small invested audience of fans & collaborators.

I try to stick to the following principles with all my creative work in service of the above:

1. Minimize money given to services/platforms misaligned with my values
2. Minimize service lock-in
3. Keep costs & maintenance time as low as possible
4. Wide upper funnel (distribution) to maximize reach, narrow lower funnel (purchase) to maximize profit & fan connection
5. Strength in numbers: support & collaborate with similarly-minded artists & service providers
6. Hold myself accountable by building & sharing in public

When I can, assuming my projects are self-sustaining, I try to support causes that I care about. Here are some examples:

• THREADS ON MY ART volumes 1 & 2, which raised money to support the Trevor Project, World Central Kitchen and the ACLU
• hive mind(s) and REMIXED CASTLE, each of which raised money for a struggling trans creator in the Music Threads community

stance on music streaming

I generally consider the streaming business model hostile to the ability for the average music artist to sustain a living, given the marketplace dynamics it enables. I aim to minimize the presence of my music on streaming to only:

• single releases, aimed to promote Kid Lightbulbs and tease my other releases as offered on my website, Bandcamp and other more artist-friendly platforms
• a singular album, ideally never my most recent one, to tease the fact that I make albums without commoditizing them entirely

As of July 2025, two of my albums (RUINED CASTLE and REMIXED CASTLE) are available on streaming services, and roughly 3-4 singles each promoting my other albums. I will not release full albums on streaming platforms moving forward.

I take significant issue with Spotify’s dominance over the habits of casual listeners, exploitation of artists, and use of its profits. I neither pay for any of Spotify’s services nor promote it as a destination for my music. However, at this time I have not withdrawn my catalog from it, mainly to not restrict access for potential listeners (see principle 4 above). However, if over time Spotify’s market share decreases, I will likely remove my music from Spotify’s platform fully.

stance on generative AI

Like many artists today, I grapple with what to do about “generative AI”. This is where I’ve landed:

• There is absolutely no use of generative AI in any of my creative output. This includes: all music I write & release, any writing you read on this site, and any content you see on my social & marketing channels.
• Given the above statement, I do not tend to collaborate with artists who rely on generative AI to “create” music or visual art.
• I use Anthropic’s Claude exclusively in a software development & product management context, which is covered by my employer’s AI tools stipend benefit. I use Claude in the following ways:
  • To rapidly prototype and/or build refinements & features to improve the Buffer product, with the goal of saving time, minimizing distraction for my teammates and building clarity
  • I occasionally use it as a research and sparring partner – that is, I use it to capture & summarize information about the social products landscape and bounce ideas related to product strategy.
• I do sometimes use predictive & machine learning-based tools in the production of music. I specifically use the following tools, all available in the stock Logic Pro offering:
  • Session Drummer (to stage drum patterns, which I usually then manipulate by hand in MIDI format)
  • Flex Pitch (to correct odd inflections in my voice)