A platform for artists & creative entrepreneurs,
where your creative practice and your financial future grow in the same direction
Rooted in community, built for sustainability.
Start Here is a home base built for creative artists who are ready to learn, grow, and build — alongside a community that actually gets it. Business development, resources, courses, events and real human connection, all designed around the way you work, create, and sustain.
Your people are already in here!
Launching July 15th!
Ready to build? Save your spot and be the first to know when the doors open.
Get on the waitlist to join our digital community
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Why Start Here? Why Now?
Let's be honest about something — building a creative practice is one of the most courageous things a person can do. And for too long, artists have been handed a single pathway to sustainability: apply for a grant, wait, hope, repeat. And when it doesn't work out? Start over. Alone.
Maybe you've been sitting with one or more of these:
Feeling left behind and like everyone else has it figured out except you.
Feeling like you have to choose— between your art and financial stability.
You want to grow, but not sure who to grow with or where to begin.
Considering going back to a full-time gig just to get by.
Quietly wondering if your creative practice is even realistic anymore.
If you've been feeling it, you're not imagining it.
🗣️We hear you. And we want to say something clearly:
Talent isn't the problem — infrastructure is.
You were taught to make the work, never to price it, sell it, or build systems around it. So you stay stuck chasing grants and gigs. Start Here hands you the business scaffolding to turn a practice into a living — your way.
If any of the above sounds familiar — you're not behind. You're not failing. You're just in the wrong room.
That's why we built this, and why we built it now.
Start Here exists to remind you of something the systems around you forgot to say: you are not just a maker waiting to be funded. You are not just a performer waiting to be discovered.
You are a builder.
A connector.
A voice and vision needed in your community!
This platform was built to help you claim that. Through courses, coaching, community, and resources designed specifically for the creative artist, Start Here gives you the tools and the people to build a practice that sustains you — on your own terms, at your own pace, with a community genuinely rooting for your success.
The creative artists who start building now are the ones who will shape what this economy looks like for all of us.
Your seat at the table is here. And we've been waiting for you.
What's Inside Start Here
Building a sustainable creative practice takes more than a business plan. It takes community, knowledge, real relationships, and spaces that hold you while you grow. Everything inside Start Here was designed with that in mind.
Community
Bridging Creative Arts and Cross-Sector communities to build infrastructure that sustains artists — not just opportunities, but relationships, partnerships, and collaborators that last.
Cohort Programming
Quarterly cohorts built around real business challenges. Learn alongside peers who understand the creative ecosystem — and leave with tools that actually apply to your work.
Self-Paced & Live Courses
A library of business courses curated for creative artists. Available at your own pace. When you're ready to go deeper, join live course modules and learn in real time alongside fellow artists on the same journey.
Mentorship & Consulting
One-on-one support rooted in your actual goals — not a generic roadmap. Access advisors who move at the intersection of creativity and economic strategy.
Events & Gatherings
In-person mixers, hikes, park hang-outs, online workshops, and webinars — because the bridge back to one another is built in joy just as much as strategy. Come as you are. Leave connected.
Office Hours & Coworking
Real work, done together. Drop in for focused sessions, ask the questions you've been sitting on, and find your people in the process.
Resources & Tools
Workbooks, templates, pitch decks, frameworks, case studies, and curated guides — plus a living directory of the best organizations, people, and businesses to meet you exactly where you are on your journey.
Be Seen: Leverage Our Community
Your voice, amplified. Guest spots on our blog, newsletter, and podcast, that put your story and expertise in front of communities who need to hear it — and help you build the thought leadership you've earned.
MEET YOUR BIGGEST FAN!
Nic Roc
Often referred to as Business Auntie and wearing that title with pride, Nic Roc is a creative economy strategist, arts advocate, and ecosystem designer with 18 years as a practicing creativepreneur. She knows the exhaustion of not getting where you want to be, and she knows the joy of finally figuring it out. That lived experience is rooted in the foundation of everything she builds.
Nic opened You Belong Here (2018-2024), San Diego's first ever Creative Arts Incubator, and spent six years building one of the most vibrant creative ecosystems in the city. Her capacity-building work has always been tailored to the arts, trauma-informed, and centered on the whole artist, not just the business plan. She has guided hundreds of creative artists through the process of building sustainable practices, economic foundations, and the confidence to claim their seat at the table.
Start Here is the next chapter of that work and the most accessible version of it yet. Nic built this platform because every artist deserves the tools, the language, the resources, and the community to grow on their own terms. You don't have to figure it out alone. She's already done a lot of that figuring and this space is the platform to share it.
Need help? Not sure what this is all about?
Slight anxiety about signing up for a waitlist and what it means?
Don't worry, we got you. Here are some answers for your questions.
This is for any creative artist who has ever felt the exhaustion of grant cycles — the highs, the dry spells, the burnout, and the dead ends. If you've been searching for real pathways to sustainability that don't leave you starting from scratch every year, this space was built with you in mind. Whether you're emerging, established, or a legacy artist with ten or more years in your practice, Start Here meets you where you are and gives you the foundations to grow from there.
Start Here is a digital platform hosted on Heartbeat — a home base that brings together a community database of creatives and artists, online courses, workshops, events, resources, and discussion forums. It's designed to help you grow your creative practice into something sustainable, on your own terms. Think of it less like a course site and more like a living, breathing ecosystem — built specifically for artists who are ready to build something real.
Membership will be offered at three levels, with more details coming soon. Our starting price is $10/month, with both monthly and yearly options available at launch. We built it this way intentionally, because access shouldn't be a barrier to building economic power.
Start Here is people over profit, full stop. We're not just another business development platform — we explore the full landscape of what sustainability can look like for a creative artist, including solidarity economics, gift economies, and exchange as legitimate pathways to building wealth that stays in community. You decide your level of involvement; this is a self-paced space that also holds real, engaging community. And when you're ready to go deeper, our quarterly paid cohort programs — think Business Models for Creatives or Marketing as Storytelling — offer structured, guided support for building real business infrastructure over three months.
Cohorts are quarterly, paid programs offered outside of membership/discounted with membership. They run for three months and meet at least once a month virtually, giving you guided instruction and hands-on support to build out foundational business infrastructure. These aren't passive learning experiences — you'll leave with something you built. More details on upcoming cohorts are coming soon.
Absolutely. Start Here is for creative artists at every stage of the journey. Whether you're emerging and still finding your footing, established and ready to scale, or a legacy artist with ten or more years in your practice looking for fresh infrastructure and community, there is a place for you here. Even if you'd call yourself a hobbyist who is simply curious about what's possible, you belong in this space.
You don't need a business plan. You don't need an LLC. You don't need to have it figured out. What you do need is a desire to grow your practice, your knowledge, your community, and your sense of what's possible for your creative life. Start Here is built for the learning, the connecting, and the becoming just as much as the building. Come as you are, and grow alongside fellow creative artists who are on the same journey.
Yes — and we can't wait. Our home base is San Diego, California, so all in-person gatherings, mixers, hikes, and community events will be rooted here. As Start Here grows its platform and partnerships around the globe, we'll be popping up in different cities and countries. Watch this space.
Absolutely. All of the educational programming, online courses, workshops, community forums, and resources live inside the digital platform and are fully accessible wherever you are. The community is global, even when the gatherings are local.
You'll receive periodic emails with updates and happenings around Start Here. Plus, insights on grant and capital opportunities, upcoming events, and resources to support you along the way. Joining the waitlist is not a commitment to any membership. When we launch, you'll choose the membership level and billing option that works for you. No pressure. Just a seat at the table, held for you.
Yes! All forms, mediums, and types of creative arts are welcome here. Visual artists, musicians, performers, makers, writers, designers, and beyond. If your work lives in the creative space, you belong here.
Start Here is built by You Belong Here LLC, a creative consultant practice rooted in bridging the gap between creativity and sustainability. We exist because artists deserve more than applause. They deserve economic power, self-determination, and a seat at every table that shapes the communities they pour themselves into. We believe in solidarity economics, in resource sharing, in equity and trust as the foundation of everything we build. We are unapologetically an arts advocate for you, full stop. The systems we've inherited don't have to be the systems we keep. We're building something better, and we hope you'll build it with us.
Start Here!
The vision is clear. The community is forming. All that's missing is you!
Have a question?
Let's get in touch.
© 2026- -2027 You Belong Here LLC. All rights reserved.
Start Here is a program of You Belong Here LLC.
