Reframing the Chaos: How My Worst Years Built My Best Idea

Over the last couple of weeks I have shared two of the most honest pieces of writing I have ever written in public.

The Year it All Fell Apart & The Slow Creator Manifesto.

A lot of what was covered in those two articles was the struggles I have had in my career and life and how I feel like I am finally getting over them. Thankfully.

But one thing struck me yesterday when I was mowing the lawn during the glorious sunshine we have had this last week.

The last couple of years weren’t the universe shitting on me, or Karma paying me back for something awful I’ve done.

It was my training. It was my Dagobah system. When Luke is in the swamp lifting rocks whilst doing handstands.

It ALL had to happen for me (and Luke) to do what I am doing now.

It felt like someone slapped me with a cold fish.

All those struggles I had led me down so many little paths (I won’t list them all here).

The whole time I was driven by a weird mixture of fear and belief. Fear that more would go wrong but belief that I would land on my feet somehow (the universe has got my back).

And honestly, my belief was starting to wane.

Until recently.

I fed my journal entries (using a mixture of Notion and Obsidian) into Claude Code and asked it to give me it’s insights into what I’ve been doing wrong.

It was quite eye opening to say the least.

It really saw all the fear and scrabbling that I have been doing and as a result not been focusing in the right way on the things that actually matter to me.

I know it’s a funny thing to be doing, asking an LLM to spot my ADHD tendancies and help me focus more but it genuinely helped.

The AI isn’t replacing my creativity here, it’s helping me to build the scaffolding around my ideas.

The thing it helped with most was to see that I needed to reframe everything.

I was not scrabbling, I was exploring.

I was not avoiding what “needed” to be done, I was pursing things that interested me and it just so happens that all of those disparate things have led to something that is exciting me more than making music has in quite some time.

I recently stumbled upon a YouTuber called Frey Chu. He builds directories. Sites that list lots of things in a given niche. These are one of the few types of sites that have not been massively hit by Google updates and AI. In fact, they are often referenced by AI.

So on a whim I decided to try and build a directory.

The first one I built (yep first one) was basically a copy of what Frey was building, a directory of Haunted Hotels in the UK.

What shocked me was that once I had launched it and added it to Google Search Console it got indexed and was getting traffic within a week!!!

Just to put this in context, it normally takes 3-12 months.

“Shit, this really works” - so I built another one.

This next one was to see if I could build a backend for users and vendors. Again, I copied Frey but in the UK market - a directory of Luxury Toilet Hire companies.

I hope you can see how it seemed like I was trying anything and everything to make it “work”.

But chatting with my buddy, Claude Code, helped my see a pattern. I was learning new skills and exploring what interested me, which is something I always tell my audience to do.

I then realised that all these new skills I had been accumulating; blogging, web design, vibe coding, directory building etc, were all things I could use to build something to help myself and my audience.

So I thought what directory could I build for my audience?

Well, I hate when I go to a plugin directory and they have these great lists of plugins but almost all of them are not Mac compatible.

So I started building the ‘AU Vault’ - just AU plugins.

When I built it I thought, well this is pretty boring. How can I make it more useful?

So I added a directory of sample libraries.

Now this was getting exciting. No longer would you have to trawl through loads of sites, groups and emails to find all the sample libraries you want. Winning.

Then I thought, surely I could do this for courses aimed at composers too.

And I kept on going and realised I was building a sort of Headquarters for composers; a place that had all the resources and info they needed.

So I added a way for users to start rating things and saving things for a wishlist, and before I knew it I realised I wasn’t building a website.

Something that stays open on the second monitor while the DAW is open on the first. The bridge between ‘I have an idea’ and ‘I just got paid’

All of those things that my students and mentees were struggling with; researching sync libraries, choosing the right sample library, keeping track of pitching, which software to use to send tracks with etc. I could actually help with.

At this point I was basically vibrating with excitement.

The potential here was MASSIVE.

I could build tools to help composers with every single pain point that I myself have suffered.

And this is where we are today, Composer HQ.

So what does this thing look like right now?

At the time of writing, it has these directories:

• Plugins (even at almost 4000 plugins I’m still no where near done on this)

• Sample Libraries (again, almost 2000 but so many more to go)

• Courses (only just started this and have only added one of my own but it’s just surpassed 100)

• Sync & Licensing companies (90+ companies to date)

• YouTube channels (this is the newest one and need more added to the site so very happy for you to come and recommend some that I am missing, as long as they are helpful for composers)

• Chord Progressions (I built this 130+ string chord progression library over a year ago and just did not know what to do with it)

• Jobs listings (This section is lean, but that’s the point. It shows the reality: traditional ‘jobs’ in this industry are rare. The real jobs are in the Briefs and the Sync listings - which is why I built the tools to help you win those instead.)

• Tools (these are all those tools we use to tag our tracks, share our music, organise our files etc. This is kind of the section I am looking to replace with this site)

• Live Briefs (all from taxi.com but all incredibly useful)

• Oh and a list of all the deals available right now - this is a massive list and quite hard to manage so still ironing out the kinks on this

And the tools I have built for the users of the site are:

• Shareable reels with analytics - to send your tracks to potential clients/briefs etc.

• Pitch tracker with follow-up reminders - to track who your have pitched to and when and with what tracks.

• Track library with auto-tagging - When you upload audio it automatically creates the meta-tagging for the audio including mood, instruments, bpm etc.

• Royalty aggregator where you can upload your PRO royalty statements (CSV format) and it assigns the income to your tracks in your track library to keep track of how much your tracks are actually earning, with what company, and where in the world.

• Studio gear calculator to show you how much your gear is worth (sample libraries etc). This is useful for insurance purposes but also quite shocking when you see it all added up.

• Career tracker as a sort of mini-gamification with certain milestones to mark off.

• Reward program for referrals currently set to 1 free month per 3 free successful signups referred by you (capped at 3 months worth)

• Badges for on-site activity (more gamification)

• A library that has all the saved plugins, libraries, companies etc from the site’s directories. This comes in the form of favourites, wishlist, and owned (for those listing you actaually already have). I’ve done it like this so that when searching you can exclude the stuff you already have.

• And lastly, members of my community, the Composers’ Academy, get access to the paid studio tier included as part of their membership.

What features are planned:

• AI mix feedback (included in paid plans)

• Matching live briefs with tracks from your library and also telling you what tools you own that you could use for the brief

• Starter kits - curated lists of gear for specific use cases (Horror Music start kit - plugins, sample libraries, courses, chord progressions perfect to get started in Horror for example)

• AI Brief scout - when a brief goes live you get an alert if one of your tracks fits the bill

• Semantic sitewide search - Instead of searching on the plugins page for compressors, you will land on the homepage and type “my mix is muddy how do I fix it?” and the results will be tools and courses best suited to help you with that.

The thing that is really exciting me is the entire ecosystem.

It’s like a beautiful spider’s web of connections.

It feels a bit like building a Notion template - tons of data all fitting together really nicely. Or you could even go so far as to say, it feels like writing a great piece of music. Or as my son would say, like a good Lego set.

It’s all coming together.

My favourite part is that all the tools are connected to the directories (and each other) so when you pitch a track you can select the company you are pitching to, connect the tracks to that pitch via the shareable reel, find out what tracks are actually earning you money, with who and where.

It’s not just a directory.

It’s a site where your royalty statement tells you which sample library actually paid for itself this year, and where a job brief tells you which track in your library is the perfect match to send.

It’s the first time the ‘Business’ and the ‘Art’ have lived in the same room for me.

I’m not here to sell this platform to you (well maybe a little) - I’m here to say that I don’t think that this platform would have come to be if I hadn’t had a couple of really tough years.

I’m building the home I wish I had ten years ago - All the things us composers need all in one place.

If you want to see what luxury toilets & haunted hotels (and Claude Code) helped me to build then come and poke around (in Composer HQ, not inside a luxury toilet, that would be gross).

There will be bugs and unfinished bits here and there (or maybe everywhere) as it is still early days - but as I always say, done is better than perfect.