Why I'm building "the Spotify of beats"

BeatStars works for producers. It's broken for artists. We can fix the discovery layer without disrupting the marketplace — and that's exactly the wedge StudioMode is built around.

The artist's problem nobody talks about

A rising artist sits down to write. They open BeatStars. The front page is a wall of paid placement. Beats picked because the producer paid the most that week, not because they're the best beats for that artist.

So the artist scrolls. Five tabs deep. Twenty beats in. They've heard the same kick drum nine times. They give up, open YouTube, type "Type beat 140 BPM trap", and start the same hunt over again on a different platform. Half an hour later they have one beat they kind of like and zero verses written.

This is the universal artist experience in 2026. And nobody is solving it because the people with the money — producers, marketplaces — don't have this problem. They sit on the supply side and the supply side is paid to be findable. The artist is the buyer, and there's no Spotify-shaped product for buyers. Just a search box, ten paid slots, and a wall of new uploads sorted by recency.

What "the Spotify of beats" actually means

When I tell people I'm building the Spotify of beats, they hear two different things:

1. A streaming platform that licenses beats and pays producers per stream
2. A discovery layer that surfaces the right beats to the right artists

I'm building the second one. The first one is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Producers don't want their beats streamed for free, and the artists wouldn't pay enough to make it work. The whole point of the type-beat economy is that the licensing model already works — it's the discovery that's broken.

So StudioMode doesn't replace BeatStars or Airbit or Track Train. It sits in front of them. Every "Get this beat" button on StudioMode sends the artist back to the producer's original drop, where the producer gets 100% of the licensing money. We're a free, additional channel that drives sales to the existing infrastructure.

Why this works

For producers: we're a no-cost extra distribution channel. Every save on StudioMode is a save the producer wouldn't have gotten otherwise. We don't take a cut, we don't host audio, we don't compete on the licensing side. If a producer wants their tracks removed, we de-list within 24 hours. Most producers, when they realize we're driving traffic to their BeatStars, opt in.

For artists: we're the only product where the algorithm is loyal to the buyer. No paid placement. No "promoted" slots. Just: tell us how you sound and let the algorithm work. Save streaks. Smart folders. Lyric notepads pinned to each saved beat. The whole experience is what artists wish BeatStars was.

For us: the unit economics work. Pro subscription is $9.99/mo or $79.99/yr. We don't take a cut of beat sales. We don't have catalog licensing fees. Every Pro user is pure margin minus hosting. At 1,000 paying users we're profitable. At 10,000 we're a lifestyle business. At 100,000 we're a real company. The path is clean.

The wedge: BPM and key

Producers don't tag their YouTube uploads with metadata. They write "Free Drake type beat 'Heaven' [PROD. RIO]" and that's it. The BPM and key are buried in the description, sometimes inconsistently, often not at all. So when an artist wants a 140 BPM beat in F# minor for a song they're writing, they have no way to filter for it.

StudioMode solved this. We scrape the descriptions, cross-reference with marketplace pages, and end up with structured metadata on tens of thousands of type beats. Then we pivot the data: "All free Lil Tjay-type beats, 138-143 BPM, in a minor key, last 30 days, sorted by saves." That query is impossible on YouTube. It's the entire product on StudioMode.

What's next

The 30-day plan: Founders Lifetime ($149 once, capped at 250 seats) to fund the marketing budget. Then ProductHunt. Then a press push to music tech publications. Then I shut up and ship for a year and the feature flywheel takes over.

The 12-month plan: 10,000 monthly active artists, 50,000 saves a day, partnerships with three major beat marketplaces, an iOS app that's genuinely the best place to discover beats. The default destination when an artist opens their phone to write a song.

The 24-month plan: this gets boring to read because by year two we're not telling the story, the story is telling itself.

If you want to be early

Founders Lifetime is open until 250 seats are claimed. $149 once, Pro forever. The page tells the rest of the story.

Or — if you're a producer reading this, a journalist looking for a story, or just curious how the algorithm works — my email is in the about page. I read everything.