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Meet Corey

VP of Web Services, Publisher, Speaker, Community Builder, Bassist, and Instigator.

(Mostly instigator)

The Short Story

The road to here has been an exciting and winding one.

I started playing bass at 10, then added saxophone at 11. Then piano, guitar, and any other instrument I could find after that.

I bought a home computer when I was 12. I was obsessed with the possibilities.

I majored in Music Composition in college.

After college, I became the third-generation graphic designer in my family, leaning on my dad and grandfather for another round of education.

Later, I was hired as an Art Director. In that role, I was tasked with building a website (in 1995). I was instantly hooked.

My web career has focused entirely on content and growth, through publishing, contextual commerce, user-generated content, social media, and designing and building content management engines for others.

I have long been an advocate of remote work and connecting people (online and off).

Eventually, I combined all of these passions – music, technology, community – into new and exciting projects.

I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Timeline

I built my first website in 1995. It has been a long and exciting journey since. Here are some highlights…

The Longer (Official) Story

Corey Brown’s expertise in designing, inventing, building, leading, founding, and tweaking successful websites spans more than two decades and a host of site types, from publishing and e-commerce to social platforms and user-generated content.

As founder and CEO of No Treble, Corey built the most-read magazine for bassists, online or off. No Treble reaches 240,000 people a month and boasts more than 200,000 Facebook fans. Interviewers have tapped his knowledge in radio features like “Great Bass Lines And The Science That Makes Us Love Them” He also oversees the website of the late, Grammy-winning bassist Jaco Pastorius, who is often referred to as the “Jimi Hendrix of bass.” Corey worked to completely revamp the Pastorius site and introduced new revenue streams, product design and development, e-commerce, and social elements. Today, the Jaco Pastorius Facebook page has over 630,000 fans, routinely reaching 500,000+ with Facebook posts. His relationship with the site led to a connection with Metallica bassist, Robert Trujillo, who produced the “JACO” documentary, which, with the help of the Jaco Pastorius website/social efforts, became the #1 best-selling documentary on Amazon on Black Friday 2015, and throughout Thanksgiving weekend.

Corey also co-founded and served as COO of the popular user-generated content platform Squidoo.com, established in 2005 with best-selling author/speaker Seth Godin. Squidoo consistently ranked in the top 200 sites for traffic in the U.S, peaking at #35. HubPages acquired Squidoo in August 2014.

Chico’s FAS recruited Corey to provide web strategy, technology, social media guidance, workflow improvements, consumer app strategy, and more for three of the company’s sub-brands in 2014. He proceeded to design a complete atomic library of front-end code used by multiple sub-brands and built a team of contractors. He and his contractors created blogs for two of the sub-brands, designed to attract new customers and retain existing ones through content that resonated with the interests of customers and visitors. He also improved workflow, revamped vendor relationships for cost savings and efficiency, and provided guidance in a variety of areas, from social and search engine optimization to consumer app design and development and A/B testing.

Corey led Washington, D.C.-area web strategy, custom content, design, and development firm Solutions Factory from 1998 until 2003. During his tenure as CEO, Solutions Factory worked with companies such as Raytheon, Time Warner Cable, and Columbia Energy Group on a wide range of web-based initiatives. In the process, he created an entirely new sales and marketing channel and opened new revenue streams for Raytheon Marine.

Even during the go-nuts-now, make-money-later 1990’s, Corey remained on an even keel, running the highly profitable web division of Another Universe, and spearheading development and design on a contextual commerce platform. He also led business development on e-commerce partnerships with The Sci-Fi Channel, Marvel, and Sony. Corey was one of the first to use Paul Graham’s Viaweb, and soon generated the highest sales of all Viaweb stores.

Additionally, being a community builder by nature, Corey consolidated a fragmented tech community in his former hometown of Winchester, Virginia, establishing both Bright Cowork and Refresh Winchester in 2009. He regularly speaks on topics including Design Systems, building web traffic, publishing, technology, and more.

As a guy who has stared at a computer screen for hours on end since the 1980s (first, a VIC-20), Corey keeps his eyes from crossing by goofing off with his daughters, playing bass and piano, writing music, and tinkering with an idea list that gets longer every day.