Member wins

Nick29 Jun 2026

It continues to work!

Here is a nice win and a cool scaling type of win. I recently got my second client/booking from StudioBook. The second client/booking, I closed a $28,000 album deal using DL techniques. As many of you know, I started the company called StudioBook last year. A company like AirBnB but for studios (we also offer listing types for producers/mixers/mastering now too!). I had well over 100 clients with the previous competitor to StudioBook but I did not have the skillset to regularly turn those client... See more

Tom8 Jun 2026

2 EP deals closed and regular work with a celebrity PT!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to share a few wins I've had in the past few weeks or so which I'm proud to have achieved with the help of Dan and DLM! I've bagged 2x 5 track EP's with two new artists, which I'm in the process of working on now. And I now also have regular work with a celebrity personal trainer in LA creating mixes for her live workout classes! This came from the Instagram algorithm pushing one of my videos into the right place- which just goes to show the power of content! I came i... See more

Alex5 May 2026

1st Momentum Client: $700/month for the next 6 months plus

Just tried for the first time to pitch the momentum model to an old client, and it worked great! We locked 1 song/2 month for $700/month for at least until the end of 2026. New strategy unlocked 🔥

Nate3 Nov 2026

First sale from outreach!!! Whatttt!!!

I've been on and off with outreach for months, I was definitely experiencing a lot of doubt it would work for me, until I came on dark label one day and read somebody else's success story on how they got up to $20k in two months or something like that.. it hit me that this doesn't need to take forever, so I doubled my outreach and within a few weeks landed a project with a client, and they plan to extend to doing 5-10 song in the next year! HUGE!! I have all this motivation for outreach now😆

Anyway! Thanks for sharing your success stories in here guys! Really helped me!

I just landed my first client!

Did a proof session with a client yesterday and it went super well, we talked a little bit afterwards and she asked about my rates. I gave her double of what I used to charge and not only did she agree she asked me if I would want to take her as a client! I barely managed to keep a straight face :\)

Today she paid the advance and we’re doing a pre production session later this evening.

I know this is the start and I haven’t even implemented everything most of you guys here do yet. But seeing things I believe in actually happen in real life is something else! I feel like being here has gave me so much confidence to ask what I’m worth so that I can give artists what they deserve. So yeah thank you everyone and of course Daniel, Aaron and the team!

Assaf21 Oct 2026

first deal closed with an american client!!

working as a full time producer locally for years, made it really hard to “start over” in the international market sticking to the process we learn here, and the very uplifting vibes here at dark label - I closed my first international deal, in my genre and my rates! hope to be able to write many more of these posts here soon \(:

Destry20 Oct 2026

First Year as a Paid Producer!

This month marks my first year as a paid, working producer. When I started Dark Label, I had to build portfolio from the ground up and then jump into outreach. So nothing I mention here could have been done without the mentorship and leadership of @Daniel @Aaron @James @Pete and the support and advice from all of you in this fantastic community.

I know these stats are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but it's massive growth on my end because it was all 0's before 😁

- Made 12 new clients, multiple of whom are booking repeat work, and one that does consistent production/coaching sessions with me - Produced 20 tracks, which was way more than I was expecting \(learned a lot of valuable lessons about scheduling and time management haha\) [ul][li]- Dropped my working hours from 40hrs/song during the portfolio building stage to 20hrs/song on average \(and even one project where we cranked out 2 singles in 21 hours!\)[li]- Started booking projects last year at 30% of my ideal rate just to get the ball rolling, and now I've exceeded 100% of my goal and am looking to keep bumping it up slightly as time goes on and I build more into my offer[li]- What used to take hours and a lot of mental load in the outreach department takes only a few hours a week, and doesn't occupy my mind constantly or interrupt my day[li]- Consistently making and posting content, and while I haven't closed any deals from it yet, I have noticed a big increase in the number of artists who check my stuff out when I DM them and it helps the convos[li]- Went from working hybrid on and off calls with the artists to now doing almost all my work on the calls with them - this has saved so much time because it's forced me to work faster while someone's watching me, and allows the artist to give feedback right then and there[li]- And probably most importantly, I feel confident in what I'm offering and what I'm charging for it. I can more easily make the connection between what an artist needs and offer them something that can make their artistry/process/life better, full stop. No caveats or endless doubting myself \(just a little bit now and again lol\)

Ken20 Oct 2026

First long term deal

Secured my first retainer contract! about 80% thru the the first track and the artist expressed a pretty large number of tracks. I suggested a retainer, she thought it to be an amazing idea!

John13 Oct 2026

First Casual Call!

It was around 30 mins, and she instantly wanted to talk process and even a little business. Not what I had expected, but I'd say it deserves the Wins category! She got super curious about the 60m+ streams mentioned in my IG bio, so I told her about my old artist project and, despite how bad its quality was, she was very impressed with the numbers and my ability to reach the untapped market that those streams had come from.

She was very happy to connect more and I think I made a great impression! The last thing I really noted was that she, like I've heard so many people here say about artists, had a terrible experience with her previous team that led to her essentially stopping music for a couple years. Sounds like she's not entirely opposed to making new stuff, though! She wants to have another call to talk more, and I'm wondering if that can be a bridge/ramp to a proof session, especially since she likes my style.

Thank you to everyone here, this genuinely feels like a real, tangible possibility for the first time!

Julian13 Oct 2026

Making the $$$ - it happens

Hey guys,

Just wanted to chime in here, for people getting started in this world, and to underline one of the truisms that gets pushed about in this communitty. I make money from this stuff. It happens. I've been working with one indie artist out of NYC recently, doing 24 tracks for the guy. I charge anywhere between 1600-2400 a track. Wish I charged more. Ha. But yeah, people go for it. I just wanted to drop this here, so you knew regular, unknown \(relatively\) people like myself, do make money. I've also been doing this for years. The frameworks in this group help to organize how you go about it, but yeah. If I can do it, so can you.

Hope it keeps some of you going to know this. Hope this helps. Somehow.

Ben8 Oct 2026

First call first win

Small win and there are two parts to it - \(emphasis on the second part\)

First - just had my first call with a potential client with ‘training’ from dark label resources and - she likes the sound, price is good \(full rate\) and she’s super excited about the project.

Second part - when it came to price - I never thought I would be able to ask the rate I’m asking without feeling guilty, undeserving , slimey you name it. Basically having an existential crisis when I have to ask someone for money.

But I told here the rate and felt perfectly comfortable because I understand what I am offering, I understand what working together will do for her, and I am totally confident in the value. And I didn’t actually think I could get there.

Anyways keep on keepin on everybody. Music is awesome.

Doris8 Oct 2026

Almost 20k locked in projects since joining in April

Feels a bit crazy to write this out.

When I joined, my only goal was to make enough money to not go back to my old day job, which I hated so much. It was super hard to stay focused juggling work and music 16 hours a day.

In the past 2 months, I've made double than my salary at that job. I had some momentum before joining, but it was super inconsistent. I remember telling Dan that I had 0 projects in June and my alarms were ringing about what to do next..

Some takeaways: - Outreach wasn't that hard for me, but at times it was draining. Now I'm getting a lot of inbound, so I've slowed down on that a bit. -I still suck at sales calls, but I'm doing them anyway, trying to get my reps in, because the more I do them, the more confident I feel on the next one. Detaching from the sale is a must, but I did crash out in the beginning, haha -It feels weird to say this, but now that I somehow know how to get new clients in, I have 0 excuses. That might be putting some extra pressure on myself, but I'm working on it -I realized the bar is really low, based on what artists told me about how they worked with previous producers. Most of my clients are younger women, and they often tell me how safe and heard they feel, which means so much to me! What really mattered was staying consistent and joining James's outreach sessions when I had a specific problem and watching replays of all the streams as much as I can

Journaling, visualizing, and being delusional as well :\)

Thank you Dark Label!

John2 Oct 2026

First day of outreach + first DM convo

I finally started outreach yesterday and I'll be honest, it was terrifying. I've never done anything like this before, following and commenting on posts as a random passerby, knowing very well that I'd love to work with them at some point.

Anyways, one was a private Instagram account, I shot my shot anyway, and she accepted it! Not only that, but she messaged ME first, almost right away. It was a short but sweet conversation about her music, I made sure to keep it about her with the intro/respect/reason/statement or question framework. I'm thinking of reaching back out in a few days and either dming more or pitching a casual call!

Nate27 Sep 2026

First album. Advice?

So I landed my first "deal" on producing an album. I say "deal" because how the artist will pay is up in the air. I believe it will end up being me taking a portion of the masters. i dont mind it. im still in the portfolio building stage. its christian alternative R&B/ Indie artist. the artist sent me some songs asking for feedback on his productions and after giving him advice, he sent me many more. He said, "its always been a dream for me to release an album." I said "its always been my dream to produce one." So we did a virtual handshake and will be moving forward.

This is nuts to me. I feel like an imposter. its crazy...when I started this program i didnt expect to have work fall in my lap until at least a year in. im not even marketing my portfolio yet. this genre isnt really the genre I'd produce but i found myself leaning in this direction more and more with the instrumentals I have been making. im so excited to get started on this project but need advice. I have produced my own albums but never anyone else's. what are some things i absolutely need to make sure happens? Advice on how to get a cohesive album "sound"? Im sure some my questions are covered in the material on skool, im just not there yet in the program. thanks all.

Angelo24 Sep 2026

Artists are loving what I do!!

More than economic wins, what I’m most proud of at the moment is how people are reacting to what I’m doing. People I work with seem to be super happy about what we’re doing, and some of the people that follow me on social media seem to be excited abt working with me. Some of these people are incredible musicians and it blows my mind they love my stuff!!

Here are some messages I got recently. All of them are from different people!! 🥹🥹

Small win after a long time

After 2 years of only doing big projects in another studio \(and neglecting my own business as a result\), a friend of mine who’s an artist asked me and a good friend \(an awesome producer\) if we’d like to produce her next EP. We’ve worked together before, but under different circumstances. Now she’s completely independent and starting fresh. We had a follow-up call yesterday \(after an in-person meeting on Thursday and were able to secure two songs so far :\)

Simon29 Aug 2026

11M views in the last month - yikes!

Alright - this one really surprised me. After months of dabbling in content and having a real hard time even crossing the 1000 view threshold, I stumbled into two formats for short form that REALLY work for me. My most viewed clip on IG is sitting at a cool 5.5M - and it did pretty well on TikTok, too. So you can call me an influencer now! hah 😎 The interesting thing is - while this has obviously brought in a massive amount of attention and a couple thousand new followers - it did not generate a ... See more

Clément28 Aug 2026

Closed my very first client ever!

Today, I received my very first deposit and locked in my very first client. As some of you may know, becoming a professional producer is a new project for me. I’ve joined Dark Label as a fresh, amateur producer looking to build something new. I still can’t believe this is happening and that I am now in a position where I feel confident my ability to help artists. It may sound cliché but I would have never been able to do that without the help of this community. Every call, interaction, message, fe... See more

Emrah21 Aug 2026

8 Months assessment and Win(s)

Started Dark Label in Jan - started seriously tracking my projects for data in February and as of today, I've done 63 paid projects (16 productions and the rest are smaller scopes like mixes - song finishers etc). From my financials I've netted 72% of my corporate day job earnings so far this year (8 months salary vs production work income). This will probably end up around 60% at the end of the year due to bonuses etc that are paid out in Q4, unless I get a few EP or album projects. The projects ... See more

Ken18 Aug 2026

Win and self awareness

Wins: I have a sales call in less than 24 hours and a third sales call in the 30th. I know it is not break neck speed but I am good with it! That's the win....... now to the awareness part...... things that are plain to some don't sink in quickly to everyone, my example ...... I added a column to my out reach metrics "Asked for the CC". As in "actually do ask for a call" ........ eye opening just how low the % was on the very GOAL! SMH.... UGH!