The 15-Minute Club
You probably didn't come to this page by accident. You make music — or you used to, more than you do now — and somewhere on a hard drive there's a folder you don't like opening. Loops. Half-tracks. Eight bars of something that was genuinely good, from two years ago, that you were definitely going to finish.
This page is long on purpose. If you're thinking about joining something, you should know exactly what it is, who it's for, and why it exists. So here's all of it.
Why you're here
Most people who land here found me the same way: a short video of a guy in a home studio, writing something in 15 minutes, day after day. And the thought that usually follows is some version of: "I could do that. Why don't I do that?"
The honest answer is that you could — the music part isn't what's stopping you. You already know how to start. Starting is the part you're best at. What's missing isn't talent, gear, or even time, exactly. It's that nobody knows if you did it today or not. So on the busy days, the tired days, the days the idea doesn't show up in the first five minutes — it slides. And a thing that slides for a week usually slides for a year.
If that sounds familiar, keep reading. This club was built for exactly that problem, by somebody who had it worse than most.
The part nobody posts about
The folder. You know the one. Dozens of started songs, some of them really good, none of them finished. Opening it doesn't feel inspiring. It feels like evidence.
The gear loop. Watching reviews, reading about a new pedal or synth, telling yourself the next piece of gear is the thing that will get you going again. Buying it feels like progress. It isn't, and some part of you knows that while you're watching the review.
The comparison problem. Everyone you see online is posting finished work. You only ever see your own unfinished work. So you conclude you're behind people who are mostly just… showing you the done part.
Making music alone. Your friends like that you make music. They don't make music. There's nobody in your actual life you can send a rough 40-second idea to at 11pm who will get why the second chord matters.
The motivation cycle. A burst of inspiration, three good days, then real life, then nothing for two months, then guilt, then another burst. Years of that adds up to a lot of almost-music and a quiet feeling that you're wasting something you love.
None of that is a discipline problem, and it's definitely not a talent problem. It's a structure problem. Music made alone, in private, with no deadline and no audience, has nothing holding it up except motivation — and motivation is the least reliable part of the whole process. It was never going to carry a four-year album. It nearly didn't.
My version of the same story
I'm Todd. My album, Mad Valley, took four years to finish. Not because the songs were complicated. Because I'd write something I liked, and then I wouldn't touch it for weeks, and coming back to a half-finished song felt worse than starting a new one — so I'd start a new one. I had a lot of first verses.
What finally changed it wasn't a bigger block of time or a better room or new gear. It was making the promise smaller and public: write something in 15 minutes, every day, and post it where people can see it. Fifteen minutes is too small to argue with. You can't say you don't have it. And posting it meant the day counted whether the result was good or not — which turned out to be the whole trick, because "good" was the standard that had been quietly killing everything.
I've now done it more than 170 days in a row. Some of it I'm proud of. Some of it is just proof I showed up. But here's the thing I didn't expect: the streak became something I protect. Not because breaking it would be a disaster — because other people can see it, and I don't want to be the guy who stopped. That's not willpower. That's accountability, and it's the only reason it works.
I started this club because I know I'm not the only one it would work for. And frankly, because keeping the streak is easier — and a lot more fun — when you're not the only one keeping it.
What the club actually is
A small community of people who make music at home, built around one daily habit:
Every morning, one prompt. Small and specific. Not "write a song" — something you can actually start: a two-chord loop, a melody over a drone, a rhythm from a household sound. It removes the blank page, which is where most sessions die.
You set a timer for 15 minutes and make something. Synth, guitar, piano, a DAW, voice memos — the instrument doesn't matter.
You post what you got. Finished, rough, embarrassing — posted counts. The group hears the process, not just the polish.
I do it too, every day. Same prompt, same timer, same rules. I'm not teaching from above this; I'm in it, and you'll see my bad days too.
Around that daily core:
- Friday share thread — post the one from your week you like most. We listen to each other's work properly, the way you'd want someone to listen.
- One live session a week — hang out, play things live, talk about what's working and what isn't.
- Monthly music + movies night — we watch a film and talk about the score. Half of us got into music through movies anyway.
- A gear corner — because yes, the gear is fun. It just isn't the main event anymore.
Why a community, and not just an app or a course
Because you've already tried the solo version. A timer app doesn't know if you used it. A course adds more things to feel behind on. A streak on your phone breaks quietly and nobody notices, including, eventually, you.
What actually changes behavior — it changed mine — is three things a community gives you and an app can't:
- Witnesses. People who will notice if you disappear for a week, and say so. Gently, but they'll say so.
- Proof it's normal. You see everyone else's rough days, bad takes and 40-second fragments. The comparison problem dies fast when you can see that the people finishing things are posting unfinished things every single day.
- People who get it. Somebody to send the 11pm idea to. People who understand why you're excited about a chord change, why a finished rough song beats a perfect unfinished one, why this matters to you at all. Most of us don't have that in our offline lives. It's a bigger deal than it sounds.
That's the real product here, if we're being honest about it. The prompts are the mechanism. The community is the reason it sticks.
Who it's for
- You make music at home — synths, guitar, keys, samples, a laptop — any level where you can make a sound and record it somehow
- You start more than you finish, and you'd like that ratio to change this year, not someday
- You have a job and a life. You will never have three free hours a day. You have 15 minutes, and you suspect that's enough if you'd actually use it
- You work better with a prompt and people expecting you than with a blank project and good intentions
- You miss having people around your music — collaborators, bandmates, anyone who listened like it mattered
Who it's not for: if you're looking for lessons, theory, or mixing and production tutorials, this isn't that, and I'd rather tell you now than take your money. If you want to post only finished, polished work, the daily-rough-posting rule will fight you the whole way. And if you're not willing to post imperfect things in front of other people — which is a fair thing not to want — this won't work, because that's the engine.
What the first month looks like
Week one is the easy high. The prompts are new, the group is new, you'll post five or six days without trying. Enjoy it.
Somewhere in week two or three, you'll have the day. No time, no idea, the timer feels stupid, the prompt feels worse. This is the day the whole club exists for. You'll post something short and not very good, somebody will like one specific thing about it, and the streak will survive. Every long streak is just a pile of those days, survived.
By day 30 you'll notice two things. You have around thirty pieces of music that did not exist a month ago — and out of thirty, there are usually two or three you actually want to finish. That's how finished songs happen in this system: not by forcing one song for a month, but by making enough starts that the good ones identify themselves. And you'll know people's names, and they'll know yours, and the folder-of-shame feeling gets replaced by something closer to momentum.
Founding members
The club opens with 50 founding spots at $29 a month — locked at that price for as long as you're a member. When the founding spots are gone, membership is $49 a month. I'm keeping the first group at 50 on purpose: I want to know who's in it, hear their work, and build the thing with them rather than at them. Founding members shape what this becomes.
Joining the waitlist costs nothing and commits you to nothing. It just means when the 50 spots open, you hear about it first, before I post about it anywhere else.
Fair questions
What if I miss a day?
Then you miss a day. You post the next day. The streak that matters is the long one, not the perfect one — mine has survived sick days and travel days because the rule is "post something," not "post something great." Nobody gets shamed in this group; that's a fast way to make people quit, and quitting is the thing we're all here to stop doing.
What if I'm not good enough?
The club isn't arranged by skill, and nobody's ranking anyone. If you can make a sound and record it — phone recording counts — you can do the prompts. Some members have released albums. Some are in their first year. The mix is the point; beginners remind the experienced people why they started, and experienced people prove to beginners that rough days never go away, you just stop letting them stop you.
What gear or software do I need?
Whatever you already have. People will be on hardware synths, guitars, piano, GarageBand, Ableton, a four-track app. If it records, it works.
How much time does it really take?
Fifteen minutes to make the thing. A few more to post it and hear a couple of other people's. Call it twenty minutes a day. If a day runs long because you're onto something — good, that's allowed, the timer is a floor, not a ceiling.
What if 15 minutes isn't enough to write a "real" song?
It usually isn't, and that's not the job. The job of the 15 minutes is the start and the habit. Finishing happens on top of it — in Friday shares, in live sessions, in taking the starts you like and giving them real time on a weekend. My album was four years of starts that went nowhere until the habit existed. The habit came first; the finishing followed.
Can I leave whenever?
Yes. It's month to month. If it's not working for you, leave, no hard feelings and no exit interview. Founding price only stays locked while you're a member — that's the one catch, and it's stated here so it's not a surprise later.
When does it open?
When the waitlist is big enough to open with a real group — the target is 200 people on the list, then founding spots open to the list first. Joining the list is how you make it open sooner, if you want the selfish reason.
Join the waitlist
The 15-Minute Club opens with 50 founding spots at $29/mo, locked for life.
One list for the whole site — join here or on the homepage, same waitlist.
One last thing, since you read this far — reading this far is itself the sign, honestly. People who don't care about finishing their music don't read a page this long about finishing their music. The folder on your hard drive isn't evidence you're not a musician. It's evidence you are one, who's been trying to do it alone, with no structure and no witnesses. That's fixable, and it doesn't take more time than you already have. It takes 15 minutes, and some people.