Creative Space with Jennifer Logue
Corey Jones of TREBEL on Why Artists Are the Ultimate Entrepreneurs
On today’s episode of Creative Space, we have the pleasure of speaking with Corey Jones, co-founder and Global Head of Music at TREBEL, one of the fastest-growing music streaming platforms in the world. At the time of this recording (February 4, 2024), the company had grown to 13 million monthly users.
Prior to TREBEL, Corey was on the finance side of things, getting his degree in Economics from Duke, MBA from Stanford and working in investment banking and private equity.
But he’s also a musician, having played bass and guitar in many bands over the years and his passion for music is palpable. Balancing his love for music and business is something we’ll dig into on the podcast, as well as how he was able to make the pivot to blend both of his passions into one career.
We also talk about how artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs and Corey’s philosophy on going the distance with creative projects, work, and life.
For more on Corey and Trebel, visit: trebel.io.
To sign up for the weekly Creative Space newsletter, visit: eepurl.com/h8SJ9b.
To become a patron of the Creative Space Podcast, visit: bit.ly/3ECD2Kr.
SHOW NOTES:
0:00—Intro
3:49—Early Life
9:45—Studying for the SATs reading Propagandhi lyrics
11:43—The importance of PMA, what it is, and where it came from
19:24—The parallels between learning guitar and entrepreneurship
25:04—The power of the bass line in Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night Away”
26:52—Mr. Potter’s Big News
30:00—What made Corey decide to study finance
35:00—Getting his entrepreneurial spark at Stanford
36:04—”Artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs.”
40:15—Corey’s definition of creativity.
53:53—How Corey got involved with TREBEL
1:02:00—Hitting 13 million users
1:05:00—Corey’s values when it comes to career
On today’s episode of Creative Space, we have the pleasure of speaking with Corey Jones, co-founder and Global Head of Music at TREBEL, one of the fastest-growing music streaming platforms in the world. At the time of this recording (February 4, 2024), the company had grown to 13 million monthly users.
Prior to TREBEL, Corey was on the finance side of things, getting his degree in Economics from Duke, MBA from Stanford and working in investment banking and private equity.
But he’s also a musician, having played bass and guitar in many bands over the years and his passion for music is palpable. Balancing his love for music and business is something we’ll dig into on the podcast, as well as how he was able to make the pivot to blend both of his passions into one career.
We also talk about how artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs and Corey’s philosophy on going the distance with creative projects, work, and life.
For more on Corey and Trebel, visit: trebel.io.
To sign up for the weekly Creative Space newsletter, visit: eepurl.com/h8SJ9b.
To become a patron of the Creative Space Podcast, visit: bit.ly/3ECD2Kr.
SHOW NOTES:
0:00—Intro
3:49—Early Life
9:45—Studying for the SATs reading Propagandhi lyrics
11:43—The importance of PMA, what it is, and where it came from
19:24—The parallels between learning guitar and entrepreneurship
25:04—The power of the bass line in Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night Away”
26:52—Mr. Potter’s Big News
30:00—What made Corey decide to study finance
35:00—Getting his entrepreneurial spark at Stanford
36:04—”Artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs.”
40:15—Corey’s definition of creativity.
53:53—How Corey got involved with TREBEL
1:02:00—Hitting 13 million users
1:05:00—Corey’s values when it comes to career
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, jennifer Logue, and today we have the pleasure of chatting with Corey Jones, co-founder and global head of music at Treble. Treble, in case you didn't know, is one of the fastest growing licensed music platforms in the world, serving millions of listeners in the US, latin America and Southeast Asia. The company works with large multinational brands to provide a legal way for users to enjoy music without a monthly subscription cost.
Jennifer Logue:Prior to that, corey worked on the finance side of things, with a degree in economics from Duke and an MBA from Stanford. He started out as an investment banker before venturing out to California to work in private equity. Now, don't get it twisted he's anything but a suit. He's also a musician in his own right, having played bass and guitar in many bands over the years, and his passion for music is palpable. It's going to be really interesting to hear about the creative journey that he's been on because of this perfect balancing act of left and right brain thinking. I am beyond honored to have him on the show. Welcome to Creative Space, corey.
Corey Jones:Thank you. That was quite an intro. That was not necessary, but I appreciate it.
Jennifer Logue:Well, of course, I mean I have to give everyone the full scoop on who we're talking to, you know?
Corey Jones:Do what you know.
Jennifer Logue:Okay, do what you gotta do but we then we first connected like a while back we did.
Corey Jones:We've um. We've known each other close to 10 years now uh and it's uh, it's pretty cool.
Corey Jones:Uh, just reconnecting again. I know we've been talking a lot recently and, um, especially on all the creative pursuits and all things music, and I can honestly say, as much time as I spend just being around the music community, you, to this day, are one of my favorite people to talk music with, just because you sort of get it intuitively and I just I can feel it and I think it makes our conversations very just, fun and productive and it's good to be here.
Jennifer Logue:Oh, Corey, thank you. Oh my gosh, you warm my heart seriously.
Corey Jones:I mean it, I mean it.
Jennifer Logue:Well, yeah, like it's been such a long time and it's been so great to see how Treble has grown and all of your hard work over the years has just it's really coming to fruition now, Like the seeds that you guys planted and like it's been a journey for sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean from the beginning like just what 2021,? You were at 3 million monthly listeners.
Corey Jones:It was slightly more than that, but we have grown to about 13 million monthly active users now which for us is still we don't take it lightly, but we certainly have much larger ambitions. So we're continuing to do what we do every day and grow our user base and expand, and we have high hopes.
Jennifer Logue:So I'm not sure if you've gotten a chance to listen to Creative Space, but on the show I like to go way back, way back to the beginning of a person's early life. Where are you from originally, first of all, and did you come from a creative family? Like what was that growing up period like for you?
Corey Jones:Yeah, so I was born in San Diego. My dad was a career Navy guy. He flew helicopters for a living. So we spent the first essentially 10 years of my life there, with the exception of two years that um that I spent in argentina as a as a kid. So we got, we got shipped there um, and in 1994 we moved to northern virginia to be in the dc area where they had sent my dad to graduate school. The navy did um and so he ended up spending time in the pentagon for for a long time after that. So when people say or ask me where I'm from, you know I spent my wonder years in the dc area, so I'm much more inclined to say dc than anything else um although if you say that to somebody that grew up in dc proper, they will quickly correct you but but fairfax, virginia, is where I'm from.
Corey Jones:And then the second part of your question was what?
Jennifer Logue:Oh, did you come from a creative family?
Corey Jones:Oh, okay, I would not say that my family was particularly creative. I mentioned that my dad was a Navy guy. My mother is actually from Mexico. She has a legal background, and so it's funny because both my there are. I'm one of three siblings.
Corey Jones:I have a twin brother and really all of us actually we're all very musically inclined and I've always wondered, like, where did that come from? And as I sort of looked at my family history, I did have one uncle on my mom's side who I unfortunately never met, but I am told he was very, very into music, was, you know, a hardcore Beatles fan, would play guitar, own all the vinyls, all that sort of thing, and I would have to imagine that there's some connection to to that side of the family. But no, growing up I wouldn't say that we were particularly exposed to creative things. My parents did enjoy music, but it was. It was very much kind of in the background, passive experience type thing. So yeah, Okay, cool.
Jennifer Logue:I mean, my parents aren't musicians. My dad's a singer, like he'll sing, you know, but you know karaoke and stuff, but like no professional musicians I would imagine it comes from.
Corey Jones:You know, if you're creatively inclined and I think about this a lot, the whole nature versus nurture thing I think that there probably is more of a nature component to that than anything you know we talk. You know people talk about you're born with certain innate qualities, right. If you're an athlete and you're born and you know you grow to be six, six, and you know you're an nba star, it's, you can be five, six, and you're just never gonna probably most likely, uh, be an athlete, right. And so I think I I'm not I'm no scientist on this side of things, but I would be inclined to say that there's probably a nature type element to this, and so, whatever it is with music in particular, I think I sort of lean in that direction. So for sure, Cool.
Jennifer Logue:So what inspired you growing up, or who inspired you?
Corey Jones:We're talking all things creative here. Yeah yeah, because I'm on the music side of things. For me the real inspirations did not come until much later in my musical journey, so let me kind of take you back.
Jennifer Logue:Okay, let's go back.
Corey Jones:Yeah, I was. I was probably five, five or six years old when I when one of my earliest musical memories when I really realized I was attached to just like sounds and things, was when I was listening to a cassette tape of Frankie Valley and the four seasons like one of their greatest hits records and something about the melodies and the harmonies, and it was the kind of thing where I would I think the song was Sherry and I'm the kind of guy that I can listen to something like 20, 30 times and just always figure out something new. And it really started off with that. And so my dad was very much into pop music. Elton John, george Michael Whitney Houston, that started off with that.
Corey Jones:And so my dad was very much into pop music. Elton john, george michael whitney houston, that sort of thing. There was a little bit of a country element too. We would listen to dolly parton, um, and so I was exposed to it to a fair bit, uh, even bluegrass. My grandfather was very much into bluegrass. Uh, in 94, when I was sort of more coming of age this was in the middle of the whole rock grunge era and I remember very.
Corey Jones:I remember very specifically when we, when we moved to our home in Virginia and we finally got the cable TV running, I found a station and it wasn't MTV, it was something else. They were playing music videos and I saw for the first time. I didn't even know who the band was. I saw the music video, for I think it was Bulls on Parade by Rach, I guess the machine, and it just blew my mind. I was like what is this?
Jennifer Logue:What am I?
Corey Jones:watching and that sort of led me down this path of sort of dabbling in the rock side of things. And again, it was really easy to do at that time because of that whole movement Alice in Chains and Nirvana and all those bands. But I enjoyed the music, I enjoyed the aggression of it, but also I kind of started learning a little bit about just Rage and sort of the message that they were preaching right.
Corey Jones:Yes, they were on stage singing, playing all that sort of stuff. Very talented group, but there was something more to their music, right? And a few years later, long story short, I really got deep into the punk rock scene.
Jennifer Logue:Yes, I know this well about you.
Corey Jones:Yeah, we could talk about that forever, but I think there are a lot of misconceptions about that scene. Look, I think that the music in that genre runs in many different directions. The bands that I always gravitated to the most are bands like Bad Religion and Propagandhi and Descendants, and what I would say is, maybe a little bit more in some cases, the intellectual side of things. I like to joke around sometimes that I practically studied for the SATs listening to or reading Bad Religion lyrics or propaganda lyrics or the lyrics where they were literally use terms or make references in history. They would. They would make me ask like what are they referring to? And then you dig a little deeper and it's like oh my God, um and so internet.
Jennifer Logue:Oh wait, no, it wasn't pre-internet, we had internet.
Corey Jones:Well, those bands definitely got got big pre-internet, but they've had very successful careers post-internet as well, um, but I want to say that those were the bands that really started inspiring me as far as, like, okay, you can play music, but do so in a way that's a little bit. It's got a little bit more um, I don't want to say intelligence, uh to it, but it was very thoughtful. It wasn't just a girl broke my heart, you know. It was like they're referring to some event in nuremberg in the 40s or something you know, like you start to learn a little bit, right, like what is the message?
Corey Jones:behind a lot of this stuff and, um, I don't consider myself by any means to be some social justice warrior or anything like that, but it's that type of music to me really opened up my eyes to what exists out there, and so, yeah, I would say it's a little bit of a long winded answer, but as far as inspirations and influences go, it would be bands like that.
Jennifer Logue:Cool, so cool, and something that I always think of when I think of you is the whole pma thing. So I'm not sure if you want to talk about that here or if you want to talk about that later. No, we can talk about it here.
Corey Jones:it's funny, when we were speaking recently, you mentioned that you said something along the line I I still don't even remember the conversation, but you said something like every time, I think, every time I think about you, I think about that. One time you mentioned PMA and yeah, look, it's very simple. Pma stands for positive mental attitude. I think it's something that we all kind of strive to have.
Corey Jones:The reason it came up in our initial conversation, however long ago it was, is because there's a band that was very I would consider them to be on the Mount Rushmore of the punk hardcore scene. They came out of DC called the Bad Brains, and they have a song called Attitude. It's a very, it's an aggressive song, it's a hardcore band, but the song itself, the whole chorus of the song, is like we got that PMA, we got that positive mental attitude and and it's something that has really influenced the whole generation of bands since then um, very much so it has like. One example would be the band h2o. So there's a guy, uh, toby morse, who has a podcast. I don't know if you know, I just saw.
Jennifer Logue:I just saw him on ritual, I think yeah okay, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, I think they know each other.
Corey Jones:Yeah, so, um, you know, he comes from a sort of that scene as well and a huge bad brains guy and it's something that just over the years, over the decades, really, that that's a, it's a mess. It's a message of just positivity, right in a scene that I think people like you'll watch videos, or, um, yeah, like watch video, the concert footage of of the rock scene and mosh pits and just how you know, quote unquote dangerous it can get. I would argue that that those environments are arguably some of the the safest you can be fall, somebody's gonna pick you up and and and it's just generally a very positive scene and it's something that whole message is is something I try to live my life by.
Corey Jones:It's not always easy. I think if, if you were to ask me if I'm an optimist or a pessimist, I think I try to be an optimist more and more each day, and that, to me, is the reminder to be that way.
Jennifer Logue:Okay, you always strike me as an optimist, corey, so I don't know.
Corey Jones:I try, jen, I try, I really do you as well. I would say that you're probably more optimistic.
Jennifer Logue:That's funny, Because I would argue the opposite. Well, no, I try to be an optimist, but like I have to again, I have to remind myself, like you know.
Corey Jones:Well, you always struggle. What is it that makes you not be optimistic Like right now? Day-to-day life. Day-to-day life.
Jennifer Logue:I mean, I guess, like I get hard on myself, I'm my, I'm my worst critic, you know, so like, but it's something I'm working on, I'm more cognizant of it. Like, yeah, I think I can, just I can be impatient. So so, yeah, it's like that inner dialogue that you don't reveal to the world and I, yeah, actually you can hear it, I think, in like my old music.
Corey Jones:Okay.
Jennifer Logue:Like cause one thing that someone said to me once it stuck with me wow, you sing such sad songs for such a young girl. Like sing something happy, know um? So yeah, like I feel like it worked its way out through my music. But now I'm starting to like heal that side of myself and I'm starting to write happier things you should.
Corey Jones:You should make what if? I've heard your music in the past? You should use one of your songs as the intro music for this, uh, this show you do oh, I, you know, you're not the first right yeah, yeah, I mean I could what's stopping? You me.
Jennifer Logue:I mean, I just assume that, like I guess it's because I don't feel like it fits the brand of the show, but then again it's me yeah, I know it is me yeah, yeah, yeah um, man, you're a good interviewer, corey put me on the spot uh, so what got you into playing bass and guitar?
Corey Jones:oh, I'll preface that by saying, first of all, I'm not a Jimi Hendrix.
Jennifer Logue:I'm not.
Corey Jones:I play music well enough. It is an outlet for me. You can see two of my guitars up there. I got into playing music later I would consider to be later. I was 18 when I first started playing music. Later I would consider to be later. I was 18 when I first started playing the bass, and that was in college. So I went to school in North Carolina. My life looked a lot different back then. So my freshman year in college a lot of people don't know this I spent in a Navy ROTC program and so there was that. There was kind of that more structured, rigid side of my college experience.
Corey Jones:But the other thing, too, was I didn't really I didn't drink most of college. I wasn't a party guy, right, and so I wasn't going to all these events and that sort of thing. So I had much more time when people were out doing other things, and I was sort of an introvert at heart, and I happened to live in a dorm that was across the street from a music shop.
Corey Jones:And I just walked over one day, and so I bought my first bass. It was a used Fender, mexican-made jazz bass and I decided to take a few lessons. And I quickly realized that that was not going to be for me. I don't think I was patient enough to just learn by taking lessons. So what I ended up doing was I just took the bass home with me and I would just learn little by little by taking lessons. So what I ended up doing was I just took, took the bass home with me and I would just learn little by little by by playing songs. So one of the I remember at the time I think it was dire straights, sultans of swing, that that whole bass groove Like you know. The first time I got through that whole song I was like, oh my God, I'm making progress amazing that's what I think.
Corey Jones:And then the guitar came for me a few years after that. So that was after I graduated college, and so at this time I was working in in finance and I just got, you know, I started to get a paycheck, I had a little bit of disposable income and I decided to to buy a guitar. It was a Takamine Acoustic Still have it and I completely ended up teaching myself how to play guitar. And again, I'm not some shredder type, but I can play well enough. And it's funny because years ago I wrote an essay for my friend's website. It's a very big surf media publication. It's called theinertiacom and I wrote a little piece on that called Music and Me, and a lot of it was centered around my experience playing guitar. One of the things that I do is I have a lot of interest in life. Music is definitely a big one.
Corey Jones:I've obviously had this whole entrepreneurial journey as well and I look for parallels between, um, different areas of my life. You know, there's we were talking about this over the phone recently and there's this book I think it's the art of war, which I haven't read, but to my knowledge there's one line in there and something along the lines. If, if you know, if you've seen the way one way, like you see it in all ways right, and for me the guitar is very much like that, right. Because so, and what I mean by that is there are a lot of people that pick up the guitar and try to play and nine out of ten of them just give up. It's either too hard, they're impatient, they think their fingers are too fat, they won't make the movements, whatever. It is right, um, and so people give up very, very easily when, when confronted with challenges.
Corey Jones:And for me, I just remember at the time like it was I started off very simply. It's like oh my god, I can play like an e minor, which is like whatever, it's like the easiest chord to play, right, right. But for me it was progress, it's progress, yeah. And then, little by little I think it was five, six months in I got through being able to play. I forget what song it was, but I was able to play a very simple song pretty seamlessly and it just kind of happened one day.
Corey Jones:And for me, the whole parallel there you stick with something long enough, like there's a time where it clicks or you hit a milestone, or you hit a deal or make a deal, sign a deal, but it's sort of the spontaneous moment and I think that for me, the guitar, I still think about it to this day. It's kind of been. I've been able to sort of replicate the whole process in my head and other areas of my life. You know, it's been, it's been a very interesting journey for me. So I still play more recreationally than anything, but, as you pointed out, I have played in a few bands over the years, mostly for fun, which has been very enjoyable and it's definitely been one of my more exciting creative outlets, I should say.
Jennifer Logue:Cool, you're all about going the distance, you know.
Corey Jones:Yeah.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, cool, love that.
Corey Jones:When you say going the distance, what do you have in mind? Why do you say that?
Jennifer Logue:Well, partly because of the marathon running, but also the trouble. I mean it's been 2015, 10 years.
Jennifer Logue:Okay.
Corey Jones:It was almost 10 years ago. Yeah, we'll touch on that in a bit, but that, yeah, it's funny. I would say, yeah, I'm very much a go the distance type for sure.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, cause if you stick with it it's like that's when the magic happens. You know, I was just on the subject of the guitar. It was so hard for me to learn when I was a kid, like I was like 16 when I picked it up to write songs and my first guitar was this, like juggernaut, it was like this big guitar and I'm like this tiny person and you know the fretboard it was just the strings were too high and I'm like pressing extra hard to get the notes. Bar chords were so far off so far away.
Jennifer Logue:But you know I never stopped and I would just every day I would just keep playing. And it's funny I was playing the other day and I'm like wow, bar chords, like just came like at a certain point. You pick things up too from other people as you in your journey, like my friend Calvin styles, yeah, totally yeah, I remember I was like Calvin, like I still have trouble bar chords, what can I do?
Jennifer Logue:and he gave me, he got this uh, uh, it's like a finger exerciser. Okay, it's like a finger grip thing. It's like oh yeah, I just use this all the time.
Corey Jones:It's like get one exerciser. Okay, it's like a finger grip thing.
Jennifer Logue:It's like oh yeah, I just use this all the time. It's like get one on Amazon or whatever. I forgot how I got it. It was Amazon around then I don't know, but I still have it. But that's what really got me to really do bar chords. Well, but it was like a long process oh for sure.
Corey Jones:Yeah, I'm very inspired, musically speaking, by a lot of bass players that I just think are phenomenal Half the world doesn't even know about. If you take like Scott music, for example, half those bases are just incredible. There's I don't know if you know a band called streetlight manifesto, but they're the bass playing in that band is just incredible and maybe we'll talk about this. But just half the way I discover music now is watching. I'm very interested in watching other people try to play very difficult and complex like songs on different instruments.
Corey Jones:so I'll watch like covers, right like a bass cover by some random guy on the internet and he has a channel and it's like, okay, I watched this video and then I'll see that he covered like another song that I'd never heard of and and I'll listen to that song. And I didn't even know that that song existed. But because the bass playing was so good, I'm like, okay, now I've got to check out the original and that kind of takes me down this rabbit hole of discovering other artists and I get very lost in this world.
Jennifer Logue:That's cool. You know, I I need to start listening to more bass, because my ear naturally goes to like the vocal melody and just the overall chord structure. And the song. It's like the bones of the song itself.
Corey Jones:Yeah, I mean, look, the vocals are obviously undeniable, the rhythm section of a band. What I don't think most people understand is when they're bobbing their head to a song. Most of the time you're not bobbing their head to a song. Most of the time it's not. You're not bobbing your head to like the guitar, no, it's usually like take what's. That's the the, the Dua Lipa song, the one that was in the Barbie movie.
Corey Jones:It's kind of that disco one dance the night yeah there's a video I watched recently with uh, with Dua Lipa and Mark Ronson, where they talk about how that song was made. And you, there's a part where he, like, inserts sort of the the bass line throughout the song okay, and.
Corey Jones:I've always found that song just like super. It's a very catchy song and before I watch that video I'm like bobbing my head. Bobbing my head and it's very clear, like once you watch that, like how was produced? It's like I'm bobbing my head. The reason it's catchy to me is because of the bass line the bass.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, no, that's what hooks you. You're right, and that's what hooks you initially. Well, drums and bass. I feel like you can have a whole band, just you just need drums and bass. Yeah, you know, to get people dancing, what if you just have drums? Maybe, but like now we're talking like white stripes kind of stuff. But yeah, yeah, I was just thinking about them the other day too. What was the name of your first band or the best band name that you've had?
Corey Jones:maybe not the first, but the best, yeah I mean, there's been some, some pretty bad ones. The one I'll tell you, which was the first. We were a cover band. This was in college and I still love the guys we played several years ago. They're actually getting ready to play again, but unfortunately I won't be joining them. We were called Mr Potter's Big News and it's the dumbest name.
Jennifer Logue:I love that, that's fun.
Corey Jones:The reason we had that name was this was in college and we couldn't afford practice space. The only person that would give us a place to practice this was in some very abandoned part of the campus was a facilities manager who we referred to as Mr Potter. He was Mr Potter, he was Mr Potter, and so when we were struggling to find space to practice in like, we got a call one random day and he had the news Like hey, like, we'll give you this house, and it was like some dilapidated, like you know very. It was a house that was in very poor shape, but it was such big news to us and so that's how, that's where that name came from Mr Potter's big news. And again there have been some over the years that have just been comical.
Corey Jones:Uh, there was one. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. That was, that was. That was the first band name. Oh, what about you? Oh my god, you've always done more solo stuff isish.
Jennifer Logue:I've had a few band names. I've had a few bands. One that is very similar to your band in college. I had a band in college Well, Summer is home from college and we also could not afford rehearsal space and we were a cover band and Jason's dad owned a funeral home. Oh, wow. We practiced above the funeral home.
Corey Jones:So our band name was called Six Feet Up.
Jennifer Logue:That's hilarious. I did not know that. I love that. It was a fun name.
Corey Jones:Yeah, you were a cover band too. Don't like? Half of bands start off as cover band and kind of evolve. It's sort of a rite of passage, right, you play somebody else's songs first and then you evolve.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, I think it's important to study other people's songs, because me right now I'm like going back to the vault to like songs I haven't listened to or played in a while or ever played at all. Really Just like.
Corey Jones:Your own songs or other people's.
Jennifer Logue:No, just the study covers, because I feel like, well, for me I like it's like reading you become a great writer by reading right. So for me it's like I like to stay on top of keeping my chords that I use fresh, and so I'm playing a lot of. I'm getting into playing a lot of jazzier stuff right now and like changes that are totally not what you know we're used to hearing. But yeah, cover bands I think can help with that, because you're like playing other people's stuff, then you jam, you know, after rehearsal, or but yeah, you got to have a writer in the band, though Like at least one or two people.
Corey Jones:That's the hardest thing to come by, and I think that's probably why, yeah, I mean well, yeah, that's the hardest thing to come by, for sure, for sure. Everybody needs that Dave Grohl right.
Jennifer Logue:Yes, oh, my gosh we all need a Dave.
Corey Jones:We all need a Dave Grohl. So I got to ask Corey what initially made you decide to study finance.
Jennifer Logue:This is a creative podcast, right it is. I'm just.
Corey Jones:I'm? I'm just curious because you're such a creative guy and I'm like what you know? What was your vision back then? And like, did you have like a fork in the road? Or yeah, I mean, it's very simple, I didn't.
Corey Jones:When I got to duke we there was no finance major, and so I was an econ major and that was the closest thing we had to to finance it. But as part of that whole program, there were definitely finance classes, that that you had the option of taking, and so it honestly, it seemed practical to me. There were a couple majors at the time at the school that were outside of engineering, that were very popular. One of them was econ. One of them was the other big one was public policy, and so, public policy I did not see a role for myself working for the government, and so I sort of honestly, just kind of fell into it and this was.
Corey Jones:You have to realize, this was a much different time too. So I graduated in 2006, undergrad, and the world looked a lot different. These were boom times, essentially right, and so we had all the big at the time that I was graduating and was looking for a job and all that sort of thing. We had all the big banks coming to interview people on campus, and so it was just a very I don't want to say easy thing to do, but it was convenient to just prepare for interviews and that sort of thing and, to be honest, I did not. There were people that I lived with throughout undergrad that they knew that this is what they wanted to do.
Corey Jones:I was not that guy, but I always felt, OK, how hard can it be?
Corey Jones:And so I remember pulling out what were called these vault guides and just starting to learn about what this field of finance was all about. And just starting to learn about what this, this, uh, field of finance, was all about, specifically, um, at the time, investment banking and really what the what it all meant and um, and I quickly realized that there's, there were a lot of, you know, fancy terms that that that are used on on wall street, that they're not really that fancy when you understand, kind of what they mean in practice. So I was able to, you know, I interviewed at a couple places at the time. I did not want to. I did not see myself going to New York after graduation A lot of people don't know this.
Corey Jones:Charlotte is a very big finance town and it was two hours away from Duke, and so I'd interviewed for a couple of banking positions there and that's how I ended up working in in finance, um, right out of right out of college, yeah so did you have a moment where you were like this isn't quite it for me, like I don't know that I would phrase it like that.
Corey Jones:Okay for me. So it was a good like six, seven years that I spent in finance. And you know, even while I was exercising that part of my brain like my personal life, I was still. I still had creative outlets. You know, I would still go to shows. A couple of times, I'll be honest, I left. This was when I was able to, but I left. I left the office early to go hang out with some folks, but there was one specific show. It was a band called against me still a huge fan of them by the way, but they were playing, they were.
Corey Jones:they were a much smaller band at the time and I remember very specifically leaving to go watch that show and to this day I look back at the shows that I was going to back then where the bands had kind of gone after all these years and some of them had just exploded. There was a venue. I'm going a little off script here.
Jennifer Logue:No, no, no, it's all good.
Corey Jones:Yeah, there's a venue that still exists now in Charlotte. It's probably 400 cap, maybe 500 cap, and I remember seeing the Dropkick Murphys there. Okay, I forget what album they were touring on. But now fast forward, what? 15, 16 years later? And these guys they're playing like fenway and stuff. You know it's pretty wild, like now when they play um charlotte, they'll play the film or it's you know, 2500 gap or 3000 cap, and that's just one example.
Corey Jones:But I was always able to nurture that side of my, I guess, my personality. And so six, seven years in finance, I ended up like the way it works, at least in the field that I was in, was you spend kind of two or three years in your role and then you sort of go to the next thing and then you go to business school and then you go back and you sort of climbed a lot of that way. So I took it up to the point where I was in business school and decided at that point that like, look, I don't, I did not see that as a long term path for me. And so it was at that point I went to business school at Stanford, so like right in the thick of Silicon Valley and all that sort of thing you're very inspired right by by all this company building and that sort of thing. It sort of forces you to think beyond your comfort zone in some ways, and so, um, and so it was during that time that I actually met, uh, some, somebody, gary McKeegan. He's now a business partner, he's CEO of Treble, and that was really where the seeds for Treble got started.
Corey Jones:But that was when yeah, it was really during business school where I made that pivot mentally and said, look, I really like music. I think there's something here. I feel that my understanding of general business principles is there. Let's go for it.
Jennifer Logue:Love it. So that's where you got your entrepreneurial spark was at business school.
Corey Jones:I would say so, yeah, cool, you can't not be exposed to that stuff when you're living right in Palo Alto. You know, and it was. It was really the first time in my life that, like like literally everywhere, you go to a coffee shop and there's there's somebody talking about having just raised a seed round, or there's somebody that had, you know, some early adopter of some new technology that you're reading about, that you probably won't even purchase for like another two years and it's really hard to get away from. But it was also very inspiring. So that was where I took the leap.
Jennifer Logue:What's the biggest lesson you learned during the years you were in finance?
Corey Jones:The biggest thing that I think about now is and again, we talked about this a little bit this is gonna be probably a little bit of an odd answer, but when I think about entrepreneurship in general, right like, I think, artistic types musicians, aspiring musicians, aspiring comedians, whatever the art is they are the ultimate entrepreneurs and I have the utmost respect for people that are pursuing their craft right in in the arts. Um, having said that, I think in order to be really really good in your field like to be like a really good, um, vocalist or touring musician, that sort of thing you have to devote so much time to your craft songwriting, whatever. The case may be that you, a lot of these folks in my experience, lack that um sort of business education that they that many of them probably wish they had by the time they've made it.
Corey Jones:you know and that's why you see all like a lot of bands, which is the right thing in many cases, but they'll get agents and they have like 10 managers and that sort of thing to handle sides of the business that they're not necessarily intelligent in, um, which are areas that I think I quickly learned, just general business principles those first six, seven years, right. Um, yeah, and I I attend a lot of music industry events, I'm around a good bit of creatives and that sort of thing, but it's not like I'm sitting there. Like sometimes I am curious about certain things and I want to have certain conversations, but I'm not going to sit there and you know wax philosophic about how does your cash flow statement link to this? You know what I'm saying.
Jennifer Logue:That might be helpful, though Maybe you should teach a course or something you know.
Corey Jones:Having said that, it is interesting because in this YouTube world that we live in, I don't even watch TV anymore, but I will subscribe to certain YouTube channels that I find interesting and educational, and there are a couple of channels like that that are starting to dive into those types of topics. There's a guy, I think his name is Tank the Tech, I don't even know him. He started his channel in the middle of the pandemic, and the story is he was basically a tour manager, a career tour manager for all kinds of big bands, and so he knows many areas of the business, and so he is now touching on topics where it's especially now that, like the cost of touring for a lot of musicians has just, you know, skyrocketed, and that sort of thing. He'll do entire videos that like walks through like sides of the business that I don't think the average fan understands right.
Corey Jones:So when people complain about, about, oh, ticket prices are this, and you know, live nation is taking this well okay fine, like the, the headlines don't always meet the eye, um, for better or for worse, right, and so he'll touch on topics like that and sort of like, go into the levels of detail that I think are super interesting, um, and so I do think that that that education is starting to advance okay, but I would say that that, generally speaking, yeah, the the whole business side of doing businesses, um, there are certain things about business in general, no matter what the field is, that are going to to be the same and and I feel that, yeah, I have a little bit of an understanding there- if you want to succeed in business of any kind, you got to know the fundamentals.
Corey Jones:You don't want to put your business life in complete control by somebody else.
Jennifer Logue:So now we're going to segue a little bit, because this is creative space and I love asking this question of everyone but Corey, what is your definition of creativity? But Corey, what is your?
Corey Jones:definition of creativity. It is very tempting to for me to describe creativity as Original thought and just specifically as applies to artistic pursuits, but I would I would make it broader than that, for two reasons. Number one I don't think that you need to be pursuing something artistic to be creative. I think original thought can apply to problem solving in general. Having said that, I also maybe I'm thinking too deep here, but I I don't know how much, how many ideas out there are truly original right now. I I tend to be a believer that, like, most things out there are are derivatives of something else you know, like, like, since we're talking music, it's like you take rock and roll, right, if a 10 year old hears something just like completely out there right now, it's probably because that band listened to 20 other bands growing up that inspired that sound, and so what they're producing that seems original to somebody else is actually just a bunch of uh. It's a big one, big derivation of uh, of all these other bands that inspired them.
Corey Jones:Um more, I guess, more than anything I would say, there's this concept that I'm sure you've heard of, like first principle thinking, and I think that's really what the root of creativity probably is like, when presented with something, do you approach it? Uh, do you approach it? Would you put aside your biases to to approach, like, uh, the topic, or solving something, or you know what I'm like. Can you filter out, um, your ways of thinking that are just like embedded in who you are? You know, and to me, yeah it's. You probably haven't heard this answer very much, but I think, first, principles, thinking is more. It's kind of synonymous with creativity, if you really, if you really think about it.
Jennifer Logue:So yeah, no one's brought that up before.
Corey Jones:Are you familiar with that concept? It's a first. It's pretty ubiquitous.
Jennifer Logue:You know, I actually am not.
Corey Jones:Okay.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, look it's.
Corey Jones:I guess a better way to describe it is that if something has been done a certain way before, there's this tendency for a lot of people to say, okay, well, that's the starting point, like, so, if we're going to improve upon something, well, this is kind of the baseline, um, and we should start from that point as opposed to like ripping everything out completely, starting fresh in terms of how you're going to think about things and approach things and um to be really creative and to be really original, like you sort of have to start from nothing, right like set aside all the influences you have that's what I'm referring to.
Jennifer Logue:I'm pretty sure it was jack antonoff, I want to say I read somewhere where he said that when he's making music or he's recording an album, he doesn't listen to anything. Exactly. Nothing Like he just clears it out, and I love that too, because it doesn't. Otherwise you end up limiting yourself, even subconsciously. You know, that's why.
Jennifer Logue:I'm inspired by movies or other mediums like visual art, going to museums and like cause I hear. I think a lot of musicians are like this, but you hear songs when you see a movie that moves you. Or you hear songs like when you see a paint, even paintings have a music to them.
Corey Jones:Yeah, like a rhythm.
Jennifer Logue:But anyway, first principles thinking. I love that.
Corey Jones:Yeah, no, I think it has a lot to do with creativity.
Jennifer Logue:So, in your role as a co-founder, how's your experience as a musician been helpful with the work you've done with Trouble?
Corey Jones:I'll go back to what we were talking about when I first started playing guitar and how you.
Corey Jones:There are just itty bitty challenges, but you stick with it long enough and you overcome those things and you figure it out. And I mean that's just one example. Right, if you, if you sort of take take being a band, right, you're going to be dealing with different personalities, you're going to have to make concessions, um, you're not going to agree with with everybody on everything how a song is written, um, what the chorus should be inserting a certain lyric, I want that guitar tone, that sort of thing, um, and there's inevitable conflicts. It's the reason half the bands break up. Right, it's like creative differences and that sort of thing, um, and so I think that that's that's no different than what you deal with, um, in a business, um.
Corey Jones:But I also think it's interesting when you're, when you're building a company from scratch at least in my, my experience you hit these certain milestones. And when you hit them, like in your head, when the company's starting from nothing, you sort of have like a vision of where things will go. Sometimes you don't know when you're going to get there, but you hit these certain milestones. So, like an example would be, you know, maybe you get an article in some big publication like, oh my gosh, like rolling stone just covered our company. I never saw this coming and all of a sudden you're in front of a hundred thousand more eyeballs or something like that. Right, the parallels band would be okay.
Corey Jones:Well, we were just playing to 10 friends in a basement somewhere, and then you stick with it long enough, you build a little bit of a buzz and you, you know. Next thing, you know, you're playing your hometown music venue in front of a thousand people. You never thought that would happen. Fast forward, you continue to build upon those successes, and I heard Mark Hoppus at one point talk about something like this. It's like, you know, when we played our first whatever that venue is in San Diego, the Casbah or something like that like we thought we had made it right, you stick with it, it snowballs. And then now you're selling out arenas right, that's how business is too. You hit milestones and you build on top of those wins and you stick with it. And next thing you know, it's like wow we're here, we're doing it, that's a great analogy.
Corey Jones:Yeah, there are a lot of similarities, but I would definitely say that one's true.
Jennifer Logue:You mentioned the other day how music discovery in itself is a creative act, mentioned the other day how music discovery in itself is a creative act, and I think that's a great topic to talk about, because you know trouble we're all going to talk about trouble in the next segment of the show, so do you want to expand on that idea?
Corey Jones:Yeah, I mean, look, when I made that comment to you initially, um, I guess what I what I really meant was that music discovery to me.
Corey Jones:I have found that the way I discover music personally and the way I see others discover music is starting to happen in ways that I don't think I ever really anticipated, right, and so in that way it's just become like spontaneous, which is you could argue, that's, that's creative in its own right, but what I mean by that is like when I was growing up, the way I discovered music was either through live shows and getting there early and watching the openers and, oh my gosh, like I like this band or this artist, or liner notes, for example. Right, so a band would thank another band and say, well, if they thank that band, then that band must be really good, so I'm going to buy their record as well. If they thank that man, then that man must be really good, so I'm going to buy their record as well, Right. And now it's like, okay, you could argue that a lot of discovery, at least with the youth, happens through playlists and that's cool. But what I don't think is discussed is all the other just ways that it happens. For example.
Corey Jones:I touched on this a little bit earlier For me. I never thought I would discover so much music through cover songs.
Corey Jones:I used to ask myself all the time like how can some of these cover bands that I like bumped into from time to time be so big? There are cover bands Like there's one called First 211. They have a very big YouTube channel and tons of followers and I've always asked myself, like, how does a band that, just like, for a living, they, they, they play other people's songs. How do they get so big? And I'm not talking about like these hoarding acts or, um, that sort of thing. They're getting like all kinds of streams and for me, I I legitimately discover music that way. I will. I will find a cover song of a song I already know, but maybe it's played a little bit differently, it uses different tones and that sort of thing.
Corey Jones:And I just find it super interesting and I'm like, okay, let me see what else they have. And so I'll listen to another song, um, and it just I go down this rabbit hole like, uh, there's this, there's this kid, this japanese guy. He's a classical acoustic guitar player and I saw him do a cover somewhat recently of a Bee Gees song called how Deep Is your Love. It's a huge Bee Gees song, right. And it just sent me down like the Bee Gees rabbit hole for like a month and I was sitting there just like listening to their catalog. You know what I'm saying, and I don't think I would have normally been like, well, gotta check out the bgs, right, right. But that one song and that one cover sort of sent me down that path. Um, and and then in my mind like I'll compare the way he plays it in this like very interesting way on his on his guitar, with what the original song actually was, and I just I can noodle on that like all day, like I'll sit there and think about it and it's just, it's so interesting to me.
Corey Jones:That's one way I also never thought I would see the day where I would discover music as much as I do through live concert footage on YouTube. I know that YouTube is very well known as a discovery, as a source of discovery for music, but what I think you've seen in more recent years is this just proliferation of really well-produced footage, with certain filmmaker types that will film shows that just weren't at least in terms of a lot of music I listen to weren't very easily accessible in the past. You know and I'm talking about shows being filmed that, um, you know, with churches running out free space to these little itty bitty bands, but then you have these people that are really into that scene, that know what they're doing with the camera, and it's like there have been times where I'll watch the first 10 seconds of a show and I'm like, oh my goodness, like the way that band opened that set.
Jennifer Logue:I gotta, I gotta listen to the rest of this I gotta watch the rest of this video now and the next thing, you know, I'm like streaming their content.
Corey Jones:I now you extrapolate that and then you have a company like apple that just released the what like a three thousand dollar headset or something like that, like Like a $4,000 headset, whatever it was an expensive headset, yeah, and I'm sort of thinking, you know a few steps ahead, and it's like I don't think we're far from a world where those goggles that you're strapping on your eyeballs right now become goggles that who knows when, but eventually they become like contact lenses, right. And so that experience that I'm having now of watching these YouTube videos and just discovering all this talent, sooner or later we're going to feel like we're at the show. Yes, and you could argue that that is actually. Yes, it's a benefit to the fan experience, but it's also huge for the artists themselves, because all of a sudden, you go from playing a show in front of a couple hundred or a couple thousand people and then your audience just becomes global and you charge ahead.
Corey Jones:I think that's one thing that came out of the, out of the pandemic or at least was popular during the pandemic where these, these broadcasts that these bands would do, these artists would do. Now, having said that, I've heard and spoken to artists that were involved in that, and many of them I there's. It wasn't an ideal situation for them, right? They're playing in these empty venues and this weird camera setup and that sort of thing um because you're missing the vibe?
Jennifer Logue:yeah, because it's, you know it's. It's give and take with the artists in the audience, like yes, yes, but I think soon enough.
Corey Jones:But I mean, let me give you a better example.
Jennifer Logue:I guess the point I was making there was that to me was the first little seed of something that I saw during the pandemic I agree with you, though, like I think there is a huge opportunity there and I think artists will get used to it, like as a certainly in front of a crowd.
Corey Jones:So so like coachella, the big gorilla in the the festival room right um I, I watched a couple coachella live streams last year from my couch right, you have an audience there. So, yeah, I totally agree with you For some reason I keep going to.
Jennifer Logue:did you ever see Portlandia? No, there's an episode where they get these got like these goggles to, like they have drones to go to the festival for them and they're like experiencing it from the couch where they wear these crazy helmets and like it's just. It's a really funny scene. You know anyway yeah, I'll send it. I'll, maybe I'll link to it.
Corey Jones:Yeah, no, I mean, look like you asked about discovery. I think that there's a whole can of worms about to be opened up on that front, you know it's cool, though.
Jennifer Logue:It opens up opportunities for artists with audiences of all sizes to reach more people.
Corey Jones:Yeah.
Jennifer Logue:I think that's the goal of most artists is to get their music out there, to touch people, to make more of an impact.
Corey Jones:Yeah, 100%, 100%.
Jennifer Logue:Now talking about music discovery. That's a great segue into treble.
Corey Jones:Let's talk about treble.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, all right. So I would love to know you talked about this a little bit in the beginning, but I'd love to get to know like, do you remember where you were when you first got the opportunity to start? I mean, how did it even start trouble? How did you get involved?
Corey Jones:Yeah.
Corey Jones:You know I don't think a lot of people know the full story, at least, or at least how I tell it. Um, I so during business school, they make you go on some trip. Um, I think it's in your first year, right, and the idea is you go with a group of students, you visit a country or a couple countries for 10 days. You meet with business leaders and you kind of learn that way, right, my trip this was like 2013, 14.
Corey Jones:My trip was to Sweden and to Iceland, and so Spotify is based in Sweden and we met with them and their management team and, you know, got to hear from them and their story, and so they were certainly growing a ton at the time.
Corey Jones:They were definitely like the sort of the it company in music.
Corey Jones:They weren't nearly as big as they are today, uh, but in that process, like, one of the people on the trip with us, like one of the adult chaperones, so to speak, was a woman that worked in the case writing office at the business school and she knew that I was very into music and so she asked me if I wanted to be involved in writing a case for the business school about the music industry and referencing Spotify and that that sort of thing. Um, and I said sure, and so in that process I got paired to write the case with um, with a gentleman who a very successful entrepreneur now, now the ceo of treble, named gary mckeek and so, and he and he basically told me, like, listen, I, I have this little, I have this idea for this. It's a music concept and and, uh, it's like for a music download service and and that sort of thing. And my initial reaction honestly was, I mean, well, don't you know, spotify is like taking over the world, like that was kind of my line of yeah, yeah, and so fast forward.
Corey Jones:Um, my second year I'm, I was in morocco, of all places, and I just kind of randomly pinged him. I was like, hey, whatever happened to this little thing you were noodling on, this is this idea you had. But he's actually. He said, actually I'm talking to one of the major uh record labels here, like next week or something. Uh, why don't you join me after you graduate? And that was really how it started.
Corey Jones:So, so the first couple years was like me and him, and we had some, um, some engineers in armenia, which is where our engineering offices still are to this day. We have about 30 people there. Uh, that that was the. That's how the that was the genesis of the company. And so I, you know, we spent probably four years what I consider our rnd years after that, really kind of honing what we were going to do. And I know it sounds like a long time, but there are certain nuances and what in terms of our industry. That that sort of made it so that it kind of had to be that way. Like, people don't even realize this, but, um, a company like spotify, it took them four years just to get, I think it was four years, something like that, to get all the the the licensing deals done just to launch in the us. This was a long time ago, but it's just. It's not as straightforward of a process. It it's not like you can just say, oh, I'm going to go to launch tomorrow. You can, but there will be missing pieces. And so we were experimenting for quite a bit.
Corey Jones:Having said that, our initial investors, several of them, come from family offices in Latin America. Several of them come from family offices in Latin America, and through them we were introduced to the gentleman who now runs our Latin America operation. His name is Luis. He was working somewhere else at the time, but through that process we said, okay, like well, it was suggested to us, why don't you dabble in Mexico a little bit? And we did.
Corey Jones:And we there was a point in time where we had, like this oh my God moment, we started throwing a little bit of advertising there and starting to acquire users. We were looking at the numbers and we were starting to grow a little bit faster and we made the decision at that point why don't we kind of double down on this market? And then what we were trying to do I guess I haven't gone too much into detail yet on the actual business model, but, um, we always felt that that, um, emerging markets, so to speak I wouldn't consider mexico an emerging market, but you know what I'm trying to say um, that those would be kind of a a core geography for us. Um, but we also didn't know those markets super well, and so once we started learning more and more about them and saying, okay, this is where we're going to spend the bulk of our time and there's obviously more to the story, but that that was kind of where it started and kind of and how we ended up going into into Mexico and Latin America.
Jennifer Logue:Cool.
Corey Jones:And then you, you know, now you're expanding into, like, southeast asia and other places too, yeah, yeah, let me clarify, uh, exactly what we do, because I do often get questions sometimes about how are you different as a music service and this, that and the other. When we were starting the business, subscription streaming was taking off. It was a new model for the industry and I was personally a big fan of it. We all were.
Corey Jones:At the same time, we were sort of saying to ourselves, like, look like music is one of the few things in the world that is universally consumed, like everybody, and like since the dawn of mankind, like every single person listens to music. Right, and so we're like look it's, it's a giant market and we know that paid streaming is fantastic. But there's like at the time, maybe like four billion, five billion smartphones on the planet and there was like a fraction of that that were paying. And we were kind of doing loose math and it was like, well, okay, if this market continues to grow, that's awesome, but there's just no way that every single person in the world is going to pay because they can't.
Corey Jones:They can't Because they can't. They can't, they either don't have credit cards or it is an income issue, or streaming just doesn't work as well on low end devices and all these sort of things. And so what we decided to do, like we were saying, look, there's still a lot of questionable ways that people will get music you know piracy and so forth and we were saying, look like we think that there's a better way to monetize that audience, to drive revenue back into the industry, to give those people an experience that will benefit everybody right, like all the constituents in the music system. And so what we decided to do, which was very I still consider it a little bit contrarian, is our model is a download model.
Corey Jones:In an age of streaming, we are a conditional download service. So think of us as a very, very oversimplification of what we do. I would describe us as more or less like a brand-supported itunes. That's not an exact comparison, but it kind of gives you a sense. So what we're trying to do is mimic certain features while still having friction in the app, because we don't want to completely mirror like a paid experience, but but mimic certain um, I guess more, more premium style features, but work with the brands to subsidize that for users. Okay, and the reason we went with the download model is because in many of these markets wi-fi isn't great or data plans are expensive.
Corey Jones:as a percentage of income, of the average person's income, it's a big deal.
Jennifer Logue:Now, when we first crossed paths, it was the early days of trouble.
Corey Jones:And that was early 2015.
Jennifer Logue:Yeah, something like that Way back and like just in the last few years, your growth has exploded. I mean, and just in the last few years your growth has exploded. I mean earlier I mentioned it was like June 2021, you were at 3 million monthly subscribers and now 2023, 13 million monthly subscribers. I mean that's a big, big jump. And then you were voted the best app of the year by Google Play.
Corey Jones:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got a couple google play awards, yeah we did that's really cool.
Jennifer Logue:Um so to some people it might seem like an overnight success, but it's clear it definitely has not been. Um what has helped you stay the course?
Corey Jones:um, look, I think part of it is is just my personality. I'm not that like. I like to see things through. Yeah, again, going back to the when I was describing earlier about you have to find parallels with other areas of your life. Right, like if, if I'm running a marathon and I've trained 10 weeks or something right for that race, unless I break a bone in the middle of the race, it doesn't matter how cramped you know, if I get a leg cramp, or if there's some giant hill and it looks impossible, or I'm having a hydration issue, I'm going to finish that race. This to me feels like that. That race, this to me feels like that.
Corey Jones:Um, and I do think that, as you know, as you go through each stage of the journey, there's, there's, there's always that next milestone that you hit, where you're like, okay, we hit that. Maybe it took a little longer than you anticipated, but but we got there. So you sort of owe it to yourself to continue pursuing the journey and so, yeah, yeah. So for me it's really I don't think about it a lot. I think what I do is interesting, I think it's unique. It also this isn't directly related to your question, but I do think that the journey changes a little bit how you think about things in general, right? So like, when I look at the business landscape now and I look at big companies, you know you turn on cnbc, a coca-cola just hit like in my mind, um, and I really mean this, I don't like when I think about coca-cola and pick any company like walmart or something, I think to myself that company wasn't always this behemoth of a company, right?
Corey Jones:it started because somebody had a little nugget in their head and and ended up like kind of pursuing a journey that they probably felt impossible at times. And for every coca-cola there's probably like 99 other companies making drinks or whatever. That, for whatever reason, it just it just couldn't work out.
Corey Jones:Um, but that ecosystem sort of needs to exist and it's anyway I I guess, um, my brain sort of goes there, uh, in terms of sort of how I view the world. Um I would say that the entrepreneurial journey, it also changes how you, you look at opportunity like when I look at things now.
Corey Jones:I, I, I evaluate the base, like how I'm going to spend my time. Yeah, it's not necessarily, like I'm not always optimizing, like I understand why people change jobs and that sort of thing, and you know, I'm going to make an extra 5% here and what? Maybe the bonus is a little bigger, or whatever the case may be. There's that that's completely valid. But for me it's like what is what is the opportunity about? But for me it's like what is the opportunity about? Like, if this thing works, is it going?
Jennifer Logue:to be big. Can I be a part of that?
Corey Jones:Is this going to make a difference? You know what I'm saying. You start to consider other things, like as long as, like, your basic things are covered, I think, and whatever teach their own right, but I do. I don't know necessarily that that's where my, my thinking was before all this began, but it puts you in that place, you know, and you do end up thinking bigger, like you know, you just do in all areas of your life.
Jennifer Logue:Well, thank you so much, Corey. Seriously, it was an honor, such a privilege to have you on the show and to like really get a full picture of where trouble's been this last decade. And man, congrats on all the success. Seriously like so proud of you.
Corey Jones:We'll have to talk again, have a celebratory glass of champagne or something, when we hit that 100 million user mark.
Jennifer Logue:Yes, yes, count me in for that, for more on Corey Jones and Treble. Visit trebleio and thank you so much for tuning in and growing in creativity with us. I'd love to know what you thought of today's episode, what you found most interesting, what you found most helpful. You can reach out to me on social media, at Jennifer Logue, or leave a review for Creative Space on Apple Podcasts so more people can discover it. I appreciate you so much for being here. My name is Jennifer Logue and thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Space. Until next time.