ARTISTS: DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THE INCUBATOR PROGRAM: IT DOES NOT DELIVER WHAT IT ADVERTISES. SO FAR SHE REFUSES TO REFUND MY MONEY. DISHONEST, DECEPTIVE, UNPROFESSIONAL.
1. The “money back guarantee” was for 7 days and this is a multi-week/month course and certain sections of the course are suggested for each week – over an 8 week period (minimum!).
2. I did not sign any contract or agreement.
3. When I asked the merchant for a refund, the proprietor, Miriam Schulman, did not respond. She had a team member give a standard response. This is awful customer service.
4. The “Incubator” course is sold as giving you “secrets” for selling your art. It is advertised for an artist at any level in their career. This is not true. The course is for beginners. Most of the material she “teaches” can be accessed for free on YouTube.
5. Most of the video in the course is regurgitated prerecorded videos with 10-20 minutes on the subject then a Q/A. Many of these are months/years old.
6. The initial marketing video touted “learn about art licensing,” “free templates for launching,” “marketing companies to submit to” and a “website review” if you paid the full $1970 up front. These were the main areas I wanted to do a deep dive in, and assumed the course had the goods. I thought it would be worth the money if indeed these were as she advertised. However:
a. There are no “templates” for launching. She provided what she created for her own launches and graphic with those launches. I understood the templates would be “fill in” with your own copy. There are none of those. You have to create the entire launch series from scratch, since artists are not going to use the same graphic style and fonts that she used.
b. There was an example in the selling video of one of the Incubator artists that got into a major art magazine and sold about $10k worth of work, yet nothing in the modules about which magazine that was or how to get into/which magazines to look into. The “marketing” companies is just a spreadsheet list of about 15 podcasters, some of the contact links outdated. There is nothing about marking your work in publications, etc. which was touted as a selling point. “Don’t necessarily use social media, use publications and other forms of marketing!” However, there is nothing in any of the modules about marketing in publications. There are publicity “tips” but no company/magazine suggestions.
c. I still have not received a website review and I signed up at the end of February!
d. There is very little on art licensing and nothing in depth! The couple of interviews with art licensers did not have ANY in depth “how to’s” – they were both just general discussions for 15-20 minutes with Q/As. I was so shocked that there was really nothing on licensing that I spent another $500 with another company who had an entire course on licensing.
7. Her basic instruction, which is most of the course talks about things like:
a. How to file
b. General life coaching questions
c. What to post on social media
d. Basic tech instruction about Zoom, Instagram, Facebook, etc
e. A “Who Am I” “mastermind”
f. “Possibility” “workshop”
g. “how to create mixed media art” – nothing to do with selling our art
8. She includes Art Fairs and a packing checklist! I didn’t sign up for that! I already know what I’m doing in that area. It’s like she threw a bunch of old documents that she’s created over the years in her program to make it look deep but it is shallow!
9. What’s really telling is that she has written a book called “ArtPreneur” which I have a copy of and have read the entire book (after I signed up for the course), and 99%, including lists, suggestions, “templates” etc of what she teaches in her $1970 course are in that book!
Not worthy of $1970 and I would not even have paid $100 for the content in the course, if I had known ahead of time!
