I’m Christian Burstein
I've spent almost 2 decades making people sound good together. First as a DJ and behind the scenes at festivals. Now inside creative companies.
A DJ/producer learns one thing fast: you don't fight the energy of a room; you read it and tune it. Teams work the same way. Miscommunication, egos, and unclear roles.
The energy is there; it's just out of tune. That's where I step in.
My work is fast and real. No long reports. No generic training. Just clarity and action.
📍 Berlin-based, operating internationally
Why I run Friction Academy
I've spent over 2 decades building businesses, leading productions, and performing internationally as Los Cabra. 285+ events across 15 countries, working where creativity, operations, and pressure collide.
I've been the founder, the manager, the producer, and the artist. I know friction from every angle. And I learned the most important thing about it backstage: friction is not the enemy. A show with zero tension is flat. A show with unmanaged tension collapses.
The job is never to remove the friction. The job is to tune it.
That principle became The Friction Dept. I remove the friction that wastes your team's energy: unclear ownership, decisions nobody makes, work that expands because nobody can say no. And I build the friction that protects your quality: the pause before yes, the hard conversation today, and the structure that makes reliability visible.
No slides for the first hour. No theory until you've felt the problem. Every session starts with your team playing the exact friction we came to fix, and then we hand you the structure to solve it.
Tools your team uses the next day, not inspiration that disappears in a week.
You’re not paying me for what I do. You’re paying me for what I know.
Ready to tune your team?
Tell us what's going on with your team. We'll map it and recommend where to start. no pressure, no pitch.