Music · Technology · The space between
The thing that needs fixing isn’t always the thing that’s broken.
I build in music and technology. I go deep, connect what doesn’t seem connected, and carry what I learn from one world into the other. Different rooms, same instinct: find what’s really in the way and change that instead.
Same instinct, different rooms.
I’ve learned things in one world that make me better in the other.
Music
Don’t perfect the wrong part.
Product
Don’t optimize the wrong feature.
Music
Know when the arrangement is fighting the song.
Leadership
Know when the process is fighting the outcome.
Music
The right player can change everything.
Leadership
The right person can change everything.
Where I’ve gone deep.
Breadth without depth is trivia.
01
Songcraft
Knowing what a song needs (and what it doesn’t.)
Hundreds of songs across genres taught me why a piece of work connects with an audience (and when adding one more thing makes it worse). Sometimes the breakthrough is subtraction.
02
Product
Turning feedback into understanding.
From R&D to watching real customers, I close the loop. Feedback isn’t an instruction manual; the work is understanding why someone asks, and sometimes finding the thing they haven’t thought to ask for.
03
People + Strategy
The right people around the right idea.
Producing a record and building a business are the same challenge: understand what each person uniquely brings, then align them around a vision everyone can get behind.
Three disciplines. One underlying skill: seeing how the pieces fit together.
The evidence.
Music and technology aren’t competing for attention here. They’re proof.
Music
Hundreds of songs
written across genres
Millions of streams
and counting
Three continents
toured with Worth Taking - North America, Europe, Asia
Network television
song placements, including Cougar Town
Technology
Multiple startups
from early R&D to real customers
Acquisitions & a unicorn IPO
been in the room for both
Hundreds of millions
in influenced revenue
I’m Jerod McBrayer, a Nashville-based songwriter, producer, and technology product leader. I founded and front the band Worth Taking, and I’ve worked with startups from early R&D through acquisition and IPO.
I’ve spent my career moving between worlds that aren’t supposed to overlap. Neither one feels more natural than the other; that’s probably the point.