EP08: Interview with Cherie Hu

About This Episode

Soundcharts’ Insiders is back with yet another fascinating guest. On today's episode, we get together with Cherie Hu, one of the most inspiring voices in the world of Music Tech journalism. If you’re following the industrial media, the chances are you’re familiar with the name. As a long-time Forbes, MBW, and Billboard contributor, Cherie had worked on some of the most thrilling stories in the music business.

Today, we go through Cherie’s way from studying classical music at Juilliard to writing for the top industry’s publications; the most exciting topics in the music industry right now and the philosophy behind her Water & Music project — an independent, Patreon-supported media ecosystem at the intersection of music and technology.

Topics & Highlights

09:13 — On the lack of Music Industry knowledge amongst the classical music students

I think about this a lot, because of the kind of the deal I focus on now. I've written a tiny bit about classical music, but it's definitely considered on the fringes of pop music, what music is topping the charts right now.

I took private lessons for 13-14 years. I spent a lot of time learning the craft of playing instruments, but that whole period of time I actually realized I knew little-to-nothing about how the actual music industry worked; because in the culture of classical music all you need to do is focus on technique — and you're good.

When obviously that's not true. And some people from Juilliard and from other conservatories have spoken out about the need to prepare students more effectively for that reality. It's like you could practice and win all these competitions, but that's just one piece of the puzzle of succeeding in an industry that involves a lot of politics and does involve recently a lot of marketing.

23:35 — On her internship at Interscope and her first steps in the Music Industry

Some of the things that we did at the time were things that I had expected the department would have already taken care of. The first couple days, the only thing that like, me and the others students did, was to go through this database where they had hundreds of independent music blogs, spreading tons of genres. Like electronica, hip-hop, etc. — and just make sure that all of them were still running. And it was just like an Excel spreadsheet: go visit every website, make sure it's updated, write some notes about the type of artists, and then go to the next one. It was very manual, but at the same time it was super informative for someone like me who just had no idea about what this was like, who was writing these blogs.

[...] Maybe it was a timing thing, but like there weren't that many artists who I saw walking into the department. I guess I expected it to actually be a lot more directly involved with the artist — even if it's just shadowing them — than it actually ended up being. I mean I learned a ton just about how, for instance, a big role of A&R is just connecting artists with each other. And helping artists finds the right songwriters, producers, engineers et cetera. So yeah it was a good intro. I learned that I didn't wanted to do A&R specifically full-time, but it was also going back to how I spent so long studying music:

This is like maybe like a familial thing, but my parents, I'm so grateful they supported music education for the rest of my life, but they also were kind of skeptical about the viability of having a full-time performing career. So, when I first suggested to them that I might go to conservatory, they're like "Oh you're sure? Do you want to explore other things?" And there's always this voice in the back of my head like "Oh music is not a good career path”. Like “You're not gonna end up enjoying it". But everyone I met at Interscope, and at the other music companies that I ended up seeing during my time there, they were people actually making careers in L.A., in the music industry and really enjoying it. And I guess just learning about the diversity of the opportunities available was super instructive for me. So after that experience, my mind totally flopped and I'm like "if anything, I'm going to dive more into music than ever before". I just realized what was possible. It wasn't just a limited set of opportunities.

31:56 On how Cherie became a Music Tech journalist

I should mention: I did have some writing experience writing for a couple of Harvard student publications about the creative side of music. I would interview students who are artists on campus about their creative process or if they're putting on a show — I would interview them like ahead of time as a promo. So, I had some experience in music writing on that side, but like very little on the business side. I didn't really know what went into business or financial reporting. And so yeah, all of that, I basically learned on the job or just like in writing this blog.

Finally, getting to the point where I get like my very first freelance writing gig. So, this is junior year, and this is when all the companies come to recruit students on campus for finance, consulting, tech, etc. I got very jaded with that process, so I was like "Oh I'm not gonna go to any career fairs", but then one of my friends was like “Cherie, there's this advertising and media career fair that you should probably go through. It's a lot more creative, a lot more chill, people seem a lot more open. It's not like super chaotic with everyone running around".

I was like "Okay sure I'll go check it out" and I just happened to walk by the Forbes table, and the only reason why I stop is that there's an issue with Katy Perry on the cover. I think it was there like Celebrity 100 cover. I know a little bit about Katy Perry, I'll see what happens. And the person there happened to be my current editor at Forbes. The editor who gave me my gig, his name is Zach Greenburg, he's the senior editor of Media & Entertainment at Forbes. He and I immediately started having a really interesting conversation about music. He basically owns Hip-Hop coverage at Forbes I'd say. He started all the magazines coverage like Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, etc... So, we talked a lot about that. And then I mentioned I was interested in music and tech, and I like this project with Harvard Business School, and he immediately was like: "We need more Music Tech writers, you should consider sending a sample or contributing if you're interested".

And I was like very surprised. And also, I didn't know what to say or do. I knew nothing about freelance writing. I mean nothing about the Forbes model. I was like a complete blank slate, but I was like" Sure I'll give you some samples". Yeah. My sample was my blog and this one column I'd written for a student paper that had nothing to do with business, but lots of music. But I guess that worked!

36:12 — On what could be her next challenge

Now, I know a lot more about freelance writing and what to look out for, and kind of what to avoid. I think this is actually a good place to get at, where you don't have to feel pressured to say yes to everything. So, I've definitely said "no" to a bunch of things — not because they're too risky but because they just didn't fit with what I was looking to do at the time, or didn't fit with what I specialize in. So, here's something I'm thinking a lot about, this is very fresh, I don't know if it'll go anywhere but something like going more into audio. So, I have my own podcast that I just run by myself. Very scrappy. I'm just recording the view on my laptop remotely. Edit most of it myself. So, it's like very low-fi but I feel like in order to grow it, I would like to get more experience producing for a much better established podcast that reaches a much wider audience, if they have like the actual infrastructure. I actually have known very little about what that infrastructure looks like. Like what's the day-to-day, the workflow, if you have multiple producers, make scripted podcasts. That's some of that I'd be interested in learning that I have very little direct experience with.

39:43 — On the most exciting topics in the Music Industry right now

Cherie Hu: Something that I care a lot about as a writer is: one, obviously music is like super important; but two, music is one ultimately tiny part of everyday life in one tiny part of culture in general. Even if you just look at the dollars and cents: the size of the music industry is a fraction of the size of the gaming industry or the film industry. In most places where you look and certainly globally. [...] A great thing about music is that it infiltrates other areas of culture really easily. So, looking at how music infiltrates the gaming industry, that's an especially hot topic this year. How the music and film worlds are collaborating in interesting ways. Music and health. That's also a growing topic this year.

David Weiszfeld: What do you mean by Music and Health: meditation, ambient sound, sleeping, laid-back listening?

Cherie Hu: Yeah. So tons of meditation, tons of active health, like fitness, as well. Apps that adapt music to your running cadence or something. There are a lot of people building for that.

So those are my definitely favorite types of stories: seeing how music bleeds into other areas of culture in our everyday life, in ways that maybe you didn't think about before. From the industry perspective, in terms of "how you monetize music or grow the market of music". Just like unconventional app and uses. As opposed to like only focusing on the 999-streaming model. So, I care a lot about that.

This is something that is gaining more traction I think in people's minds: I would argue that in 5-10 years’ time, people should no longer think of the Western music industry as a default, or even like now: the Western music industry should not be considered the default. Maybe it is dominating globally in terms of market share or revenue, but there are countries with literally billion of people around the world that are setting the new norms — business models like fandoms.

I think K-Pop is a really interesting case study of that. In terms of the crazy fandoms around like K-Pop groups, and the fact that these K-Pop fans are located internationally, truly internationally. It's infiltrating the way that artists who would not associate themselves with K-Pop think about marketing. That change is happening very concretely now. So that's one place I would look, or that's what I'm thinking with that quote. In terms of looking...

One is de-centering — what's happening in the US and Europe. Obviously, it's important, but it's not the only possibility by any means. And kind of leaving your assumptions about what models work best at the door, and seeing what's happening elsewhere in the world. So, I just finished a trip to India for around two weeks, and I'm really glad I went because it just it reinforced a lot of what I've just said. The way that things work in the Indian music industry, for better and for worse: it's a totally different model and the questions that they're asking are totally different from what people in the US are asking about streaming, for instance. And it isn't just a matter of copying and pasting. People have been saying like "Oh, is there even a market for a subscription here?" Maybe there isn't! And so, what do we do about that? Like what other models we can experiment with.

51:48 — On starting her Patreon Page and Water & Music

There's that element of having more control over how you connect with readers and what their relationship is like, to — and this varies widely from publication to publication, but some publications are really rigid in terms of IP clauses in contracts. The best-case scenario is "the publication gets an exclusive license maybe for like half a year to a year to distribute this article or whatever. But then, afterwards, you, the author can do whatever you want." But there are other publications that are very strictly and are like "No this is like a work-for-hire thing. We take all the rights and we can adapt it however we want."

And I think for my kind of writing the consequences aren't as dire, but there are a ton of individual articles that are being options for films now. So, if you do want to go down to that route — especially longer form work for selling works to other formats — those types of clauses could get tricky. So again, it varies, but the great thing about having your own channel is that you don't have to have those conversations. You just have a lot more control.

At this point it is a tradeoff between getting to write for a big brand name versus just having your own channel. But I would say those allow you to talk to priorities in terms of just having something like direct to reader, direct journalism, like having that channel. Intellectual property and also just like the frequency of payment. This is not unique, it's in music and also in media [...] I've definitely had to wait like three to four months for a payment on article that was published several month bad — and that is something you can't control. And so, as a freelancer trying to have some sense of recurring income, that can be very tricky too. Having something like a Patreon page, it is a definition of regular payment. Because in my case it pays out every month and that's much easier to plan.

1:03:50 — Cherie's advice to 19 year-olds

Luck is a mindset of just putting in the work around things that you're truly passionate about, and truly enthusiastic about, and truly follow your instinct in that sense. And not push back on it. Putting in that work and then just putting yourself out there — whether it's at a career fair or just networking, just any other kind of opportunity. Just putting yourself out there and getting yourself in the mindset of not being afraid to do that — that, plus putting in the work, and kind of staying true to what you're truly passionate about — this is what will produce the best work. That's made me "lucky". [...]

In the context of finding career opportunities: [writing is] so underrated. I think a lot of people are scared to get their thoughts out on the Internet. They're like "oh what if what if I look dumb" or like "what if I look back on this and I'm like oh wasn't good".

There are people who are probably like writing full time businesses with a writing that isn't as good as how well you could write it. There are people who are writing full time businesses just because they took the initiative to do it. And like that, they've showed up — and that's the prerequisite. Right? If you just keep holding yourself back, then you'll just never even get that chance in the first place. [...] Don't underestimate the power of getting your ideas out there, even if it's not completely polished. If anything, it's probably better if it's not totally polished as people get a sense of who you truly are, and what your ideas are without going through some type of filter.

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Transcript 

David Weiszfeld [00:00:00]: Hello everybody. We're today with Cherie Hu. I'm really thrilled to have you on the Insiders podcast. Thank you.

Cherie Hu [00:00:08]: Thanks for having me.

David Weiszfeld [00:00:10] So most people know you - I guess for the past few years - for being somebody who writes in Forbes, and Billboard, Music Business Worldwide... You also have now your Water & Music Initiative, which is a newsletter and a podcast. We'll get into this. You've been doing panels and conferences, you're starting to be for a few years now the leading voice in freelance journalism when it comes to the music industry. So, I'm really excited to have you on the show, to kind of tell your story to everybody.

Cherie Hu [00:00:48] Thank you again.

David Weiszfeld [00:00:49] I know you as a typical New Yorker...

Cherie Hu [00:00:54]: Really?

David Weiszfeld [00:00:59]: I know that was the best way to start! So can you just tell us a little bit about where you're from? What's your story? Who are you?

Cherie Hu [00:01:06]: Yeah. Great place to start. So, I have lived in New York most of my life, but the suburbs of New York. I grew up in a county called Westchester County, specifically a town called Scarsdale in New York, which is very suburban. There was like a kind of spread out town, but I lived just like an hour away from New York City. So I didn't go into the city quite often…

David Weiszfeld [00:01:32]: Were your parents involved at all in journalism, in the music industry, playing music...

Cherie Hu [00:01:38]: No. So, not in music but both of them, actually, at some point, studied journalism. But in a super different context: it was in Shanghai. So they both went to university in Shanghai and they've got journalism degrees there. And I think that as well as now: the state of media in China, this is a very interesting place right now in terms of government control, things like that. Basically, they studied within that context, but then my dad ended up being super into math as well, and the reason why he came to the US was because he got the opportunity to go to graduate school here. So he got his Master in statistics at Stanford and then, after that, he went to New York to start working on Wall Street and finance. Then my mom came along with him.

David Weiszfeld [00:02:34]: I had no idea your dad was in Stats as well. We'll get into it a little bit later, but you actually studied statistics which is very surprising from most people.

Cherie Hu [00:02:42]: Yeah, I got it from him. Absolutely. There's very little formal musical training. I would say it was only with me, and then I have two siblings as older sisters. It was only with us that music really started to become part of everyday experience.

David Weiszfeld [00:03:02]: I read somewhere that you actually went to Juilliard and studied piano. I mean going to Juilliard is already being in the 99th percentile. What is your relationship to music? As somebody who actually played, did you start very early, were you classically trained?

Cherie Hu [00:03:23] Exactly. So I started super early. I started when I was five. I guess the only reason I started was because my older sister was also taking piano lessons, and my mom was like "Hey Cherie might as well start to". But I just really loved it, actually kept going with it. I was the only kid in the family who just like stayed with piano lessons. That ended up becoming for sure my main activity just outside of school. And in high school only, so from 9th grade to 12th grade, I did the Juilliard pre-college program. Formally, it's just a weekend program: every Saturday the pre-college students go in and they take private lessons, they take music theory, you're training, chamber music, if they want like electives, like composition or conducting classes. I think most of the professors, the teachers, also teach in the undergraduate and the graduate level. So, it's a really great first experience for people who are interested to go to a conservatory full time. So yeah, I did that every Saturday. That was very much most of my life outside of school. Most of my social life like on the weekends, I would go into Manhattan and like hanging out with people who were also attending there. That definitely defined my social life. And for a while, especially around like 10th or 11th grade, this was like 2011-2012, I was like pretty sure I wanted to go that road full time, in terms of just going to conservatory.

David Weiszfeld [00:05:01]: Yeah. Most People at 15-16, if they have a passion, they kind of assume that's what they're gonna do for the rest of their life, whatever that means at 15.  Did you think you were going to play in a big auditorium and basically be a pianist as a living?

Cherie Hu [00:05:17]: Hella yes! So, the experience that convinced me that I was going to do this was: two summers in a row in 2011-2012 as well, I took part in the summer program for the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado. As a music festival and school, just super picturesque location, just in the middle of tons of mountains and woods. And the experience for string players is that you go and take lessons, but you're also part of an orchestra that performs for the public. It's like super high caliber pianists. They're not part of any ensemble, so you just go and just play up, and then you get to explore the city. I really liked that experience. And that experience actually, convinced me that I wanted to go to do piano full time. But actually, during senior year, I brought up this idea to my private teacher: "oh I loved my experience at Aspen! And I think I want to audition for conservatories and do music full time. And immediately she was like "Cherie, do not base your decision to do piano on this idyllic, sort of, practice: that is not going to be your reality as a pianist." I was so surprised at how immediately realistic she was because I guess my personality was expecting "Oh yeah it's awesome. Cherie go for it!" I think she also had a lot of students who were super academically driven but also were super into piano. And I think she was in the mindset of like " if you have something else going for you, aside from music, you don't have to give up music by any means, but this is probably the best time to pursue that academic degree and then you can always come back to music, you  can always keep performing". I very clearly remember the day she kind of sat me down and gave me this lecture like: " Cherie here's the reality of being a classical musician". I was like "Wow! Ok, that's good to know." I was so excited in the moment but I'm very glad that...yeah

David Weiszfeld [00:07:33]: I guess she said like if you have a plan B make that your plan A, kind of? But it's the same for...

Cherie Hu [00:07:45]: Especially for something like classical piano, where it's so competitive and it can feel very isolating, and it's just, you know, it's just you on your own instrument. Obviously, I mean the whole field of classical music is competitive. But at least with strings, you maybe have a chance of getting into some ensemble, or just there are more parts to like what you do after graduation. Whereas in piano the perception is that it's very limited and even more competitive.

David Weiszfeld [00:08:17]: We'll get back to this in a little while. But it's such a different thing to do classical music and be a technician, essentially, and to try to have a pop career. A classically trained piano is literally trying to play a piece to the best of her or his ability. I mean, now, some of them actually have like Instagram and social media and stuff. But essentially if you're going to an opera to listen to an opera, you're not looking at the stats of somebody or how that person dresses or portrayed himself. It's very elitist, based on technical capability, and it could be brutal: you work a lot just to get to the technical ability to be relevant. There is no luck factor. There is no buzz, there's no Release Radar, Discover Weekly. It's a completely different world, right.

Cherie Hu [00:09:11] Exactly. That is such a good point and actually, I think about this a lot, because of the kind of the deal I focus on now. I've written a tiny bit about classical music, but it's definitely considered on the fringes of pop music, what music is like topping the charts right now. So I took private lessons for 13-14 years. I've spent a lot of time learning the craft of playing instruments, but that whole period of time I actually realized I knew little to nothing about how the actual music industry worked; because in the culture of classical music: all you need to do is focus on technique, and you're good. When obviously that's not true. And some people from Juilliard and from other conservatories have spoken out about the need to prepare students more effectively for that reality. It's like you could practice and win all these competitions. But that's just one piece of the puzzle of succeeding in an industry that involves a lot of politics and does involve it recently a lot of marketing.

David Weiszfeld [00:10:23]: Marketing strategy for classical music could be like a one-hour thing in itself. People are trying things, the majors who have a huge market share in classical and jazz have actually had some classical success with artists who do things that were not just being the best technical. There's been some concept albums and people taking composers and trying to create a concept around it, to have a project a bit more visible than just like "come and listen to me playing the piano." But it's very on the fringe, 99 percent of the marketing techniques, you just can't apply them to classical and whatever works in classical, you just can't apply... I'm very interested to know, so I was like reading your story a bit, and I saw after that you went and did Statistics at Harvard. Tonight, I understand your dad was into Math and doing Statistics and so forth. At one point, did you go from a teacher in an one-on-one telling you "whatever is your Plan B, make that a plan A" and you're like "All right." And was the plan B at this point doing Math, and we're still not even to the journalism part. I don't know if you thought "let me try to go to a really good college like Stanford or Harvard and you pick Statistics? Or did you want to do Math and Statistics, and then you just ended up going over there? But it's very surprising from a music journalist to have done a classical piano and then did Statistics at Harvard...

Cherie Hu [00:11:42]: Yes, it is like completely non-linear. So, my plan B, the other thing that I really liked doing, aside of music was Math for a long time. So I was in a Math team in my middle and high schools. So that was, I mean, I guess academic extracurricular music like I said for piano. Going into freshman year, I thought I wanted to major in Math at Harvard, which was Theoretical Math. And I actually had little to no experience doing actual Theoretical Math proofs, but I was like "this this was an interesting class, I'll see what happens." And I mean as with any freshman year, that first year, like my social group I used to walking out with, just how I think about the world. And it was also so intense because when I took this one Theoretical Math class, it was like a weekly assignment, and each one took probably twenty-five hours a week for me. So, the average was like 15 or 20, but then I did a lot of extra time because it was my first time even trying out proofs of this caliber. And so, in that level of intensity, your social group ends up like revolving around that. Like people just hanging out at the library, trying to figure out how to do this problem. It was a really enjoyable experience but then, after the first year and a half, I realized that I wasn't as into that kind of Math to major in it. And I don't know this is unique to Harvard but the corporates math department, the people who major in that department, they think about math all the time. Like they're talking about math like upper meals. They're just always like thinking about different usage problems so they're really into it. It's very similar to a lot of people in music. Music kind of surrounds their life. So, I just happen to not feel as attached to that specific culture.

David Weiszfeld [00:13:53]: A bit less extreme than just a hundred and ten percent of the day-to-day.

Cherie Hu [00:14:01]: Exactly. So, I loved that experience but then, in declaring my major, I was like "OK. I'm pretty good at Math. Math is interesting. Theoretical Math is probably not what I want to go down with" and the two majors at Harvard happened to be Applied Math and Stats that are more applied and like more practical, I would say, than just Theoretical Math. And then the reason why I went with Stats is also because I'm the type of person who just likes taking those random electives. Like I was not the best at completing all the academic requirements in time in terms of general education stuff. Like I was thinking in the weirdest classes. So, and Stats was extremely flexible just like the field of Stats in general. As long as you just take these, the required classes you have to take in the degree, It's like really not that much. It allowed me to take a lot of music classes and a lot of other classes in other fields that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to explore. So yeah, that's how I settle on that.

David Weiszfeld [00:15:09]: Just to link a little bit of music with the stats: there's a lot of papers that are talking about how Math and music are linked. More theory of music, not the whole industry marketing part, but the theory, like first, and fourth, and fifth, and diminished, and so forth. There's two kind of case-study. One is the Bach kind of thing, people studied him a lot for math. And then there is obviously the Giant Steps from Coltrane where there are diagrams that you can find online. You know these things. Did you think about that at all when you were entering stats? Did you try to link the two? Did you study music and try to find math patterns on it or was that not at all?

Cherie Hu [00:15:47]: So this was initially my plan in Freshman year: I wanted to do a double major in music and Theoretical Math, do some kind of paper that combines the two. Yeah, because I was one of the few people, I just referred in the Juilliard pre-college years who, actually, really really like music theory. A lot of my friends were like "oh it's like a class I have to take". But I was like "No, this is awesome. It adds to my appreciation for the art as a takeaway from it for me". So, I was super tuned into music theory early on. And actually, a lot of the terminology, once you get into more modern music theory, from the 20th and 21st centuries, draw from Math terminology as well. They don't exactly refer to the same things but that's like they use the same terms as "set theory" or in Math the concept of inverting some kind of shape for instance. There is the exact same concept in music theory. So, just on a on a base level there was so many parallels that I wanted to explore. But then I think I realized, actually, that I enjoyed. I think by the second year I actually wanted to keep the two separates. I was like oh "I don't want to spend all my time studying this intersection on a theoretical level. I wanted to have music performance on this side and have academics on that side. I actually realized that I enjoyed compartmentalizing the two, at least on the creative side.

David Weiszfeld [00:17:35]: There's a lot of musicians and composers who at one-point kind of work in the music industry, even as managers or something, and a lot of them would say kind of "It doesn't kill the dream but it's a bit too much like". If you want to play art and you want to be in your peace and you want to be in the moment. Every time you're touching a note, or a key on the piano, or pulling the strings on the guitar. If you are thinking like "oh that's a fourth, that's a diminished, that's the Math thing, that's an inverted": you end up kind of losing that young spirit that is needed sometimes to create or to perform with emotion. Having too much academic knowledge can sometimes kill a bit the creativity. Is that something you were fearing or was it something else?

Cherie Hu [00:18:16]: Hum, I think that's definitely a part of it. And actually, the first two music classes that I took, in Freshman year, were both jazz related classes. So, what was jazz theory and then there was jazz impro. And there is such a steep learning curve. Actually, improvisation was part of the tradition of classical music if you go back to the 1700s-1800s. There was improvisation class finally offered in the second semester of my Senior year in high school. And classical music has a perception of being just a lot more rigid in that sense. Of course, you can have some level of self-expression but it's like following a predetermined set of rules. Respecting history. I was thinking, it's funny you mentioned Release Radar because it's like the opposite of what a lot of classical music is, which is playing the same piece over and over again that was written 200-300 years ago. The jazz world was totally different. And jazz is actually a good example of how you can study all the theory, and it actually is super helpful to study like patterns of how different artists improvise, but really the only way you learn is by doing. And there definitely is a danger of getting too academic without that act of just doing it.

David Weiszfeld [00:19:58]: That moment in Harvard is your Segway to you having your first experience in the music industry. And most people might think it started by writing but it actually started with an internship at Interscope at the A&R department, which is another thing I learned. I was like "what?  She went to do that?". I actually read about that. Could you just tell everybody how you go from Harvard statistics, which is very East Coast for the people who don't know it, to going to get an internship at Interscope. And for those people who want to have an internship at Interscope, the way you got it was actually based on merit at Harvard. Could you just tell about a little bit about that program within Harvard?

Cherie Hu [00:20:38]: Yes. So, it's just such a weird story to think back. Sophomore fall was when all students had to declare their majors as undergraduates. And so, I declared a major in statistics, I actually realized that I had taken a bunch of theoretical math classes leading up to that, but not that many Stats courses. So, I was like "Oh I'm kind of behind" and for some reason I resolve at that moment I was to drop everything music related. I had to focus on my quantitative classes, just focus on my major. But then I also read in the career offices, that there is this winter program or winter study opportunity for people interested in entertainment. So, Harvard has a really small but really tight net, really high-quality entertainment Alumni Association: and they organize this winter experience to camp for undergraduates. It's like only around 20 every year, and it's three weeks long. And the focus is actually on film, not really on music. But the first week they take the students to tour like every major film studio basically. We went to Paramount, DreamWorks, Millennium Films, a bunch of boutique, steers as well, and then we also visited all the major agencies: like CAA, WME, UTA, Paradigm. And there was one label Interscope. Interscope was the only label that the whole group visited. And I think it's still the only label included in the tour. The SVP of A&R at the time was Neil Jacobson, and he was super enthusiastic, and really liked the program, super welcoming to everyone. So, I found out about this program and after I'd resolved not to do anything music related, and I was like "Oh it's over winter break. I'll see what happens. I'll just explore, I've nothing better to do". And then I did this experience, and then as part of the three weeks, you get placed into like a shadowing such internship experience based on your interests. It was me and one other person the program, we were super into music and so we both ended up shadowing the A&R team at Interscope. And so, I learned two things: one that A&Ring was very different from what I had expected.

David Weiszfeld [00:23:12]: I was gonna say did you find what you expected, or did you expect anything explicit? How was it different than what you thought it was gonna be?

Cherie Hu [00:23:25]: Because it only lasted two weeks, like so much that I think we could do. Some of the things that we did at the time were things that I had expected the department would have already taken care of: the first couple days, the only thing that like me and the other students did, was to go through this database where they had hundreds of independent music blogs, spreading tons of genres like electronica hip hop etc, and just make sure that all of them were still running. And it was just an Excel spreadsheet, to visit every website, make sure it's updated. But also, to write some notes about the type of artists, and then go to the next one. It was very manual, but at the same time it was super informative for someone like me who just had no idea about what this was like, who was writing these blogs. (interruption) And maybe it's a timing thing but there weren't that many artists who I saw walk into the department. I guess I expected it to actually get more directly involved with the artists, at least as someone just shadowing, than that it actually ended up being. I mean I learned a ton just about like how for instance a big role of A&R is just connecting artists with each other. And how the artist finds the right songwriters, producers, engineers et cetera. So yeah it was a good intro. I learned that I didn't wanted to do A&R specifically full time, but it was also going back to how I spent so long studying music. This is maybe a familial thing but my parents - I'm so grateful they supported a music education for the rest of my life - were kind of skeptical about the viability of having a full-time performing career. So, when I first like suggested to them that I might go to conservatory, they were like "Oh you're sure? Don't you want to explore other things?" And there's always this voice in the back of my head like "Oh, music is not a good career path”. Like “You're not gonna end up enjoying it". But everyone I met at Interscope, and at the other music company that I ended up seeing during my time there, they were people actually making careers in L.A., and in the music industry, and really enjoying it. And just learning about the diversity of the opportunities available was super instructive for me. So, after that experience, my mind totally flopped and I was like "if anything, I'm going to dive more into music than ever before, and really meant this". That's because I just realized what was possible. It wasn't just a limited set of opportunities.

David Weiszfeld [00:27:08]: I would say most people would imagine a label to be: one person signing artists, and then maybe one person calling all the media. Like the two roles: promotion and signing. But there's hundreds of people working at labels, there is A&Rs making records, there is A&Rs finding records, people just signing what's hot, but there's people actually spending their life in the studio with artists. There are people who promote the different types of media. There are people who schedule, there are marketers, people who do finance. I mean a label can be a couple of hundreds different jobs. I'm guessing, IJA has more than 200 employees. When you get into first experience, you actually realize: it's a bunch of people with strong expertise in their field who are passionate and it's true they're all making a living. It's not performing music but they're all enjoying music, working with music...

Cherie Hu [00:27:58]: It's not glamorous but it's not like they're starving either. It's full time employees.

David Weiszfeld [00:28:07]: Was the second experience Ticketmaster? Were you already writing a little bit before Ticketmaster or did you kind of do one after the other?

Cherie Hu [00:28:12]: I was up and running before. After that Interscope shadowing experience, I applied for and got into a more academic program at Harvard Business School. So, they have a Summer Research Program for undergraduates. It's like one of the few times they open up to undergrads, and the way the program is structured, there are like 15 to 20 projects each year. You have to indicate your preferred projects. And that same year there happened to be one about Music Innovation. And I was like "oh it sounds right up my alley". It's all about timing, every part of the story. So yeah, I was like "oh this thing's, it’ll be right up my alley, I'm like just starting to get my footing and understand the industry". So I got in, and that summer was basically when I formulated my interest in music, in Tech specifically, because it was a really good mix: on a macro level, understanding what was going on in terms of the impact of piracy and streaming on the recorded music industry at large, but then also a ton of just interviewing one-on-one with tech founders and artists who are trying to grapple with this new economy. So I think that was the first summer that I met Benji Rogers. That was the first summer I really learned about Patreon. That was the first summer I met people like Kiran Gandhi (?). Do you Know Madame Gandhi? No? ok, she's a really good electronic artist and drummer who also got her MBA from Harvard and graduated a couple of years ago. So meeting a lot of really cool minded people who were dedicating their lives essentially to building in this space. I was like "Wow" and I came out of that program in that summer just with a ton of ideas in my head about where the industry could potentially go. And another thing, so that summer, like a lot of the research that I did ended up being included in a case study on Bandpage which is not active anymore...

David Weiszfeld [00:30:31]: The company was acquired by YouTube. They were powering concert listings. There were things like a like a frame you could put on your Facebook page, on your Website, and so forth. 

Cherie Hu [00:30:45]: Yeah, exactly. So just after that summer. With tons of ideas in my head, I just started a WordPress blog for free. It was like totally informal. Now, it's like writing full of points.

David Weiszfeld [00:30:57]: Is it still online today?

Cherie Hu [00:31:00]: It's password protected but it's technically still online. If you want to try. It's still there but yeah. you will need a password. There isn't anything like sensitive. It's just like very unstructured. So, it's like that. After the summer, I try to go more to Berklee College of Music in Boston because they had a lot of interesting events on music and Tech, and innovation. I would just go to one of those events, sit down, open my computer, take notes and just like lay out the notes and bullet points. That would be a blog post. It was like very rudimentary but then occasionally I would also add my own analysis on what I thought about the latest.

David Weiszfeld [00:31:48]: So that's already the seeds of Music Tech journalism and research.

Cherie Hu [00:31:53]: I think so. Yeah. And I should mention I did have some writing experience, writing for actually a couple of Harvard student publications about the creative side of music. I would interview students who are artists on campus about their creative process or like if they're putting on a show: I would interview them like ahead of time as a promo. So, I had some experience in music writing on that side, but like very little on the business side. I didn't really know what went into business or financial reporting. And so yeah, all of that, I basically learned on the job or just like in writing this blog. Finally getting to the point where I get like my very first freelance writing gig. So, this is junior year, and this is when all the companies come to recruit students on campus for finance, consulting, tech, etc. I got very jaded with that process specifically so I was like "Oh I'm not gonna go to any career fairs" but then one of my friends was like “Cherie, there's this advertising and media career fair that you should probably go through. It's a lot more creative, a lot more chill, people seem a lot more open. It's not like super chaotic everyone running around". I was like "Okay sure, I'll go check it out" and I just happened to walk by the Forbes table and the only reason why I stop is that there was an issue with Katy Perry on the cover. I think it was like "Celebrity 100" cover. "I know a little bit about Katy Perry, I'll see what happens". And the person there happened to be my current editor at Forbes. The editor who gave me my gig was Zach Greenburg, he's the senior editor of Media & Entertainment at Forbes. He and I immediately started having a really interesting conversation about music. He basically owns hip-hop coverage at Forbes I'd say, he started all the magazines coverage with Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, etc... So, we talked a lot about that. And then I mentioned I was interested in music and Tech, and I like this project with Harvard Business School, and he immediately was like "we need more Music Tech writers, you should consider sending a sample of contributing if you're interested". And I was like very surprised. And also, I didn't know what to say or do. I knew nothing about freelance writing. I mean nothing like the Forbes model. I was like a complete blank slate, but I was like" Sure I'll give you some samples". Yeah. My sample was my blog and this one column I'd written for like a student paper that had nothing to do with business, but lots of music. But I guess that worked!

David Weiszfeld [00:34:48]: I guess if you have an opportunity, that's a lesson for everybody. First is: push your luck, because you didn't want to go to the fair and so you end up going. And the second thing is: if you have an opportunity that comes and you know you can't really do it, but it's not like you're asking me to turn off a fire and I've never done this, somebody was at you maybe just like write words for Forbes, you've never done that, but you know maybe you could do it: say yes and figure it out after. And you said yes, and you send something, and it ended up working out. Did you publish that? Or was that just a way for him to filter out if you were interested or not, interesting or not as a journalist?

Cherie Hu [00:35:30]: What do you mean?

David Weiszfeld [00:35:32]: Like the things that you sent him as a test, stuff on your blog or...

Cherie Hu [00:35:36]: Oh no, so yes, it was things that I had already published. It was a couple posts from my blog and some arts column that I've written for The Harvard Crimson where I just like interviewed a bunch of artists. They were already published.

David Weiszfeld [00:35:54]: Do you think today, if something comes, like this on your lap, something that you've never done, now that you have a bit more experience. Sometimes we say "the younger you are, the more crazy you are and you can say yeah". Would you say yes to the same type of challenge today or would be harder for you?

Cherie Hu [00:36:11]: It's really a good question. Now I know a lot more about freelance writing and what to look out for and kind of what to avoid. I think this is actually like a good place to get at, where you don't have to feel pressured to say yes to everything. So, I definitely said no to a bunch of things, not because they're too risky but because they just didn't fit what I was looking to do at the time, or didn't fit but kind of what I specialize in. I don't know. So, it's something that I'm thinking a lot about, this is very fresh, I don't know if it'll go anywhere but something like going more into audio. So, I have my own podcast that I just run by myself. Very scrappy. I just like recording the view on my laptop remotely. Edit most of it myself. So, it's like very low-fi but I feel like in order to grow it, I would like to get more experience producing for like a much better established podcast that maybe reaches a much wider audience, if they have like the actual infrastructure. I actually have known very little about what that infrastructure looks like. Like what's the day to day, the workflow, if you have multiple producers, make scripted podcasts. That's some of that I'd be interested in learning that I have very little direct experience with. That's one example. Maybe if something totally random comes that way and I have the opportunity, then yes, I said I would do it. But I would say, been in the freelance writing world long enough, where the thinking is very different, I guess now I have a lot more data for lack of a better word. I've done this, this worked, this didn't work OK. Now, I know, instead of just being totally blind.

David Weiszfeld [00:38:05]: It's a great way to learn to leverage. You go in a huge company and I started as Intern at UMG, and you're just thrown into this place where you can make some mistakes. If I screw up a label copy or screwed up something on marketing, I wasn't going to kill the business. Universal was gonna be fine. You know if every intern at UMG just screws up their day, everything is gonna be fine. If you go into a big media conglomerate, and they have this podcast studios, with these five studios, 20 producers, and it's fine if you have to rerecord the thing a couple of times or if you lose their time a little bit, leveraging a big organization in order to learn is really a key. I wish I had more but yeah, I'm literally recording you on Skype as well. So I guess you and I have the same podcast. I was reading your "about thing" on your LinkedIn and actually you wrote something there, and it said "I'm on a mission to propel innovation in entertainment by informing its decision makers on what really matters and by discovering and wielding insights where no one thinks to look" . So quick question: Where do you think we should look today? I mean you've been writing about that for a few months, where you think this thing is going, but if you wanted to summarize: what are the interesting, exciting topics, and especially the ones that nobody's really looking at?

Cherie Hu [00:39:43]: So something that I care a lot about, as a writer or just like someone being in music, is: one obviously music is like super important, but two, music is one ultimately tiny part of everyday life in one tiny part of culture in general. Right. Even if you just look at the dollars and cents: the size of the music industry is a fraction of the size of the gaming industry for instance, or like the film industry. In most places where you look and certainly globally. So, some of my favorite articles that I've read and have looked at how music...and also a great thing about music is that it infiltrates other areas of culture really easily. So, looking at how music infiltrates the gaming industry, that's an especially hot topic this year. How the music and film worlds are collaborating in interesting ways. Music and Health. That's also a growing topic this year.

David Weiszfeld [00:40:49]: What do you mean by Music and Health: meditation, ambient sound, sleeping, laid-back listening?

Cherie Hu [00:40:53]: Yeah. So tons of meditation, tons of active health, fitness as well. Apps that adapt music to your running cadence or something. There are a lot of people building for that. So those are my definitely favorite types of stories: seeing how music bleeds into other areas of culture in the everyday life in ways that maybe you didn't think about before. From the industry perspective, in terms of how you monetize music or grow the market of music. Just like unconventional app and uses. As opposed to like only focusing on the 999-streaming model. So, I care a lot about that. This is something that is gaining more traction I think in people's minds. I would argue that in 5-10 years’ time, people should no longer think of the Western music industry as a default, or even like now: The Western music industry should not be considered the default. Maybe it is dominating globally in terms of market share, or revenue, but there are countries with literally billions where people around the world that are, I think, setting the new norms for business models, for Fandoms, how Fandom works. I think K-Pop is a really interesting case study of that. In terms of how just the crazy fandom around K-Pop groups is. And the fact that these K-Pop bands are located internationally, it's infiltrating the way that artists who would not associate themselves with K-Pop think about marketing. That change is happening very concretely now. So that's one place I would look, or that's what I'm thinking. But that quote, in terms of looking one decentering, what's happening to us in Europe. Obviously, it's important but it's not the only possibility by any means. And kind of leaving your assumptions about what models work best at the door and seeing what's happening elsewhere in the world. So, I just finished a trip to India for around two weeks, and I'm really glad I went because it just reinforced a lot what I just said. I mean: one just the way that things work in the Indian music industry, for better and for worse, it's a totally different model and the questions that they're asking are totally different from what people in the US are asking about streaming for instance. And it isn't just a matter of like copying and pasting. People have been saying like "oh is there even a market for a subscription here" maybe there isn't. And so, what do we do about that? Like what other models to experiment with. So yeah those are the terms of what excites me the most and what I like most enjoy looking into. Those I would say be the two main ones. So, I'm kind of breaking down borders between different industries. So, you see, how music bleeds into other industries and then also treating all international markets or treating slept international markets as equal rather than just saying "look what happens to the US is the standard for for everywhere else the world. I think that isn't true and probably, there will be a point at least half of that Billboard chart will be from outside of US and the Europe. I think that's just going to happen.

David Weiszfeld [00:44:46]: The Billboard one will come after the global Spotify charts because the building is really like U.S. centric consumption, but already the top 200 Spotify charts sometimes has 10-15-20 tracks. If you're in America, you probably wouldn't know those, except if you were listening to the charts on Spotify. And you're completely right. The record industry used to have this, and I used to be part of that in France, it would be "non-U.S. - non-UK". So if you were UK - U.S. you would be global priorities, and then we would be the non U.S. non UK. But it would literally be some Indian artists, or French artists, and the guy from Colombia, and we would all be non-U.S. - non-UK, there's just completely different ways. And today that has changed especially with the U.S. becoming more Spanish. There’re so many songs that are blowing up into the US that are not in English. And the framework, the thinking process has changed a lot. I actually thought, coming back to the first thing that you said, which is the music industry is a lot smaller than other entertainment industries, but music flows. I actually thought that Water & Music, your podcast, and we're gonna Segway to it in a second, I thought the name was that music is like water and it's going everywhere. But actually, I did my research, and I know that it's from the Quincy Jones interview. But I really thought what you said, music is actually, and it is, a smaller industry than gaming or movies but in gaming there is music everywhere. And if you take off the music from the gaming, even if it's not original composition, it could be a laid-back moods NBN sound, but there is music everywhere. And in movies it is the same. If you take off songs and music from movies, all the spill the movie starts with, this crazy theme and stuff: like Star Wars, like there's so many themes and songs that are related. And so, I thought your thesis on the podcasts was that music, while smaller, was in every bit of the culture. And that it was infiltrating that like a water thing. Music was in all of the entertainment sector.

Cherie Hu [00:46:59]: That's part of the attitude I think. Yeah. So, I took the name from this Quincy Jones Interview but then, when thinking more about the name, I was like there's so much overlap. Like music flows like water. You have sound waves in music, like waves and water. So even like the wave. Yeah. Just like there are lots of words that happen to exist about the world.

David Weiszfeld [00:47:26]: So the Quincy Jones interview, for people who haven't read it: It's Quincy and Kendrick Lamar. And so, what are they saying about music?

Cherie Hu [00:47:37]: So Quincy, actually I saw him live in New York and he said the same thing. This was like earlier this year, so I was like "Oh this is actually a thing that he says". So, towards the end, I think Kendrick was saying something about how "the importance of always doing it for the culture" or like "always paying homage to history" or things like that. And then Quincy Jones says "Yes. And the last two things to leave this world will be water and music." And I really had a very informal newsletter at the time, but I was trying to come up with a name for it and I was like "yes, that’s it".

David Weiszfeld [00:48:20]: For people who don't know, Water & Music, it's an initiative more than a newsletter and a podcast. It's almost I would say a philosophy. And the first time I saw it, you had a profile on Patreon. And people can contribute to Water & Music. But Water & Music being you, they're essentially helping you being an independent journalist. And that philosophy struck me, and I thought it is very unique. Most media in the world are getting paid by advertisers, and some of them have to try to remove publicity and get direct contribution. But I hadn't never heard, but again, I'm not reading every journalist in the world, but I had never heard of a journalist saying actually "I write for five six seven publications. I have this podcast. I have this newsletter. I want to do exclusive content and go in-depth and stuff." And the only reason not to be bias is basically to get money for your words, and not get money by people who want to put an ad space in your newsletter. Can you just talk about the thinking process? There’re so many artists who are trying to have a Patreon page... Because in journalism it's pretty rare. So what was the thinking process and at what point you actually said "All right Cherie, I’m going for it. I'm sending that newsletter to I don't know how many thousands of people" to like "You can contribute here." It must have been quite a long thinking process.

Cherie Hu [00:49:46]: It was really long. Yeah. I would say even a little over a year ago I was not thinking about this. Because last summer, I was very fortunately making a full time living of just writing for third party publications like Billboard, Forbes, etc. which is great. And so I could have just continued doing, and I do continue to write freelance for a bunch of places, but I also realized that actually there are a lot of parallels between freelance writing and freelance media and music in terms of the issues. so: one, under the dominant freelance writing model, unless you deliberately go out of your way to set up something like a Patreon, or some other competing site, there is no such thing as direct to reader support. The term in music is direct-to-fans. The direct-to-journalists, no concept of that because, basically, the model is just a flat fee per article. It's like a commission model. The publication is commissioning you to write this piece, which is great, but if you're a freelancer who tries to build an audience and figure out how much of that audience you really own, versus what you're just leaning on a publication to get access to. That gets very tricky quickly. If you don't have that kind of platform, even if it's not paid. So, a newsletter already helps a ton with that. In terms of seeing who will subscribe to you and not to just a publication that takes precedence on the individual name.

David Weiszfeld [00:51:37]: Sure. And also, connecting dots between: "I might read you in Forbes, I might read you in MBW, but I actually don't know that it's you."

Cherie Hu [00:51:44]: Right. Exactly. Yes, exactly. It's like everything is centralized and it's a good way to keep up to date with that. Exactly. So, there's that element of having more control over how you connect with readers and what their relationship is like, to, and this varies widely from publication to publication but some publications are really rigid in terms on IP clauses in contracts. A lot of publications will say...the best-case scenario is the publication gets an exclusive license maybe for like half a year to a year to distribute this article or whatever, but then, afterwards, you the author can do whatever you want. But there are other publications that are very strictly and are like "No this is like a work for hire thing. We take all the rights and we can adapt to whoever we want." And I think for my kind of writing, the consequences aren't as dire, but there are a ton of individual articles that are being options for films now. So, if you do want to go down to that route, adapting your especially longer form work for selling works to other formats, those types of clauses could get tricky. So again, it varies, but the great thing about having your own channel is that you don't have to have those conversations. That you own all the work they put it; you just have a lot more control. Yeah at this point it is a tradeoff between getting to write for a big brand name maybe, versus just like having your own channel. But I would say those allow you to talk to priorities in terms of just having something like direct to reader, direct-journalism, having that channel. Oh yeah. Intellectual property and also the frequency of payment. This is not unique, it's in music and also in media, a lot of places often take a really long time to get retributed, I've definitely had to wait three to four months for a payment on an article that was published and that, you can't control. And so, as a freelancer trying to have some sense of recurring income, that can be very tricky to. So, having something like a Patreon page, it is a definition of regular income. Because in my case it pays out every month and that's much easier to plan. So yeah.

David Weiszfeld [00:54:26]: Before you clicked, and you send that newsletter to everybody - Like I'm there. Join me. - What was the last thing that you thought about? Were you scared about the perception? Did you ever think “this is how much I think I'm going to generate a month?" Did you have a ballpark or were you just saying like "This is the DNA of how I want to project my work. I have no idea what's going to be the result but I'm doing it for the for the philosophy." Or was it like "I actually think this financially makes sense also for me." How calculated was it and how instinctive?

Cherie Hu [00:55:13]: This is a positive thing. A super underestimated calculation. On Patreon, you can set up specific goals to say like "Oh once I've reached the end of the month..." So for me, in this case, I was "Once I reached a hundred dollars a month, I can monitor a podcast, and I have the funds to buy equipment and pay for hosting also" and "After six hundred, I launch this new thing,  a thousand this new thing, etc." So that's a feature on every Patreon page. And so, I set up 300 as a first goal thinking that I wasn't going to reach that until two months after launching. So I was very conservative. There was no logic doing that. Because also I struggled to find other journalists who were using Patreon effectively. Now I've met a couple others, not in music but who are essentially running full time online publications. But when I first started, I had very little precedent. So, I was like "Oh! Is this even going to work? I've no idea." So, my very conservative projection was 300 dollars a month within two months. So, I wasn't planning for it to like even be close to a third of like a full time income, or anything like that. But that goes super quickly. It definitely reached 300 dollars a month within a month or even with a couple of weeks. So, I was "Oh my God! Does that mean: episode of podcast? Wow this is so cool! But I have to reset my entire schedule." Which is great. And it also made me realize like "oh if I continued going at this pace, probably by next year, you can get to a point where it makes up the majority of my income." Which is crazy: I did not expect that at all when I first launched. So yeah, I would say it was more guided by my philosophy than by any expectation of it.

David Weiszfeld [00:57:21]: You did not do a statistical model on the potential revenue...Haha

Cherie Hu [00:57:25]: Haha...No, unfortunately not.

David Weiszfeld [00:57:28]: What do you think is next for Water & Music? I was putting in my notes, somehow, I don't see Cherie being a typical journalist in 5-6 years? Where do you think this is going for you? Are you going to keep writing? Are you going to try to put the Water and Music further? Are you already planning something else that you want to share? What's next for you?

Cherie Hu [00:57:53]: For Water & Music specifically, something that has now come up, this is an issue but it's definitely like a kind of like a fork in the road: if you think about like the newsletter which is free, there are close to 5000 people subscribing now which it's great. Seems like a lot of people and people from all kinds of background: from emerging artists that like have no idea of what's going on in the music industry, to people who have been in the industry for a couple of years, to like Execs at record labels,  people who are true veterans and are the key decision-makers. So, so far, it worked to serve the same articles and the same product to all those people. But I think after a certain point, it's more effective to segment that audience. The questions that the upcoming artist is asking about how to run their career is so different from what a digital strategy person at a major label is thinking about.

David Weiszfeld [00:59:02]: Sending the same newsletter to 5000 people you might think " 'Im gonna segment...that's a great milestone, I guess, if you have to start segmenting your people.

Cherie Hu [00:59:11]: It's a great milestone, Yeah, but I'm not sure how to approach it.

David Weiszfeld [00:59:15] And also you're gonna build probably one the best CRM is for music industry professionals: who, where, who works where, how much experience, level of knowledge, and like should they get the dumbed down tutorials "how to understand basics" or are they getting the crazy things that you have to know it all to understand. That's going to be a tricky one for you, because even Billboard, MBW, if you subscribe to your news, you're essentially getting all of the news. Have you thought about this?

Cherie Hu [00:59:53]: I've thought a lot about it. So just to go with that example: the thing about the major label exact versus the emerging artist. One piece of feedback that I've heard from a lot of people is that the writing that I'm doing is basically this similar to what a lot of consultants really do. That they just don't happen to publish anything, in terms of like laying out what's happening in the market and just like what's happening in the world of music and health right now. There's actually an upcoming article that I want to write in terms of like: what are all the startups? How would you categorize them? That is very much like market research rather than a straight reported news piece. And the pricing structure around that could be different. I know that companies actually pay more to get access to content from specifically like analytics firms that are not news publications, right. So just like that, the pricing model is totally different there. I suppose an emerging artist who probably does not have that amount of money to invest in that same material, isn't asking the same question anyway. So, it's almost it's almost like B2B versus B2C. Maybe it's a way to frame it. Yes. To use that terminology. I haven't answered the question yet, but that's something I'm thinking a lot about in terms of: one, how would I be able to set aside time to satisfy both. Or like is that even how I should go about doing it or whether should I just focus on one. Because right now I've very fortunately managed to reach people in both areas. And maybe that is actually the selling point.

David Weiszfeld [01:01:48]: Maybe the young artist is really enjoying reading more advanced stuff and that's why he decided to sign up to, yeah.

Cherie Hu [01:01:53]: Yeah yeah exactly.

David Weiszfeld [01:01:55]: So yeah, you're starting to have the scaling problem. That's a good one. That's what Biggie said right. More money, more problems.

Cherie Hu [01:02:07]: Yeah! So, I have one research-assistant named Yash who's helping me do research for newsletters, which is super helpful. But yeah, I mean that's something I'm thinking about too: how do you how do I even go about hiring employees like what people I need to hire, what's the right number of people that... yeah. It is a classic startup problem that I've covered somewhat as a writer, so it's interesting to think through that firsthand now. Hopefully, it'll help me write about it better.

David Weiszfeld [01:02:41]: You know a bunch of people who have had scaling problems, so it's easy. You can also pick up your phone and call a bunch of people pretty easily. And you've seen the e-carriers, you've seen these slow risers that actually end up working. You can learn from that. Couple of like last questions to wrap up: while you're not a 60 year, old 40 years of experience you're actually wise beyond your age, and you've done quite a few things. We talked about timing. We've talked about doing things that are not in your comfort zone like going in the fair, pushing your luck a little bit. You did Math. You did music. Writing. If you met yourself back when you were just a high school. Is there any advice you wish you had got? Is there anything that you did; that you'd like: this is the one advice I would give a 19-year-old? If you had one sentence with somebody who had a lot of potential, a lot of talent and trying to find themselves, what's the common thread there?

Cherie Hu [01:03:48]: Hum. So yeah, I  mean a lot of the experiences that I just like laid out, in this interview definitely ...Yeah well one piece of advice that I would have that: In hindsight I was really doing but didn't know I was doing, and now, much practically do now is like. Think about luck: lot of people think that luck is something that they just have no control over. It's like "oh I was lucky, so I got this." It wasn't because of Harvard or anything, but I think about it so differently now. Like luck is a mindset of just putting in the work around things that you're truly passionate about, and truly enthusiastic about, and truly follow your instinct in that sense and not pushing back on it. Putting in that work and then just putting yourself out there, whether it's at a career fair or just like networking better, just any other kind of opportunity. Just putting yourself out there and getting yourself in the mindset of not being afraid to do that. That plus putting in the work, and kind of staying true to what you're truly passionate about: this is what will produce the best work. I think, in my opinion, that is what made me quote/unquote lucky and like meeting this editor for instance, right.  I just see it as a combination of, again, a lot of timing but just like realizing that I was like enthusiast about this area, doing a ton of research about it, doing a ton of writing about it, and then just deciding to put myself out there, and go see, go explore what opportunities of work in this fair. Speaking of which, I think writing is severely underrated as a tool to just get your thoughts out there, to meet other people. In the context of finding career opportunities: so underrated. I think a lot of people are scared to get their thoughts out on the Internet. They're like "oh what if what if I look dumb" or like "what if I look back on this and I'm like oh it wasn't good". There are people who are probably like writing full time businesses with a writing that isn't as good as how well you could write it. There are people who are writing full time businesses just because they took the initiative to do it. And like that, they've showed up. And that's the prerequisite. Right. If you just keep holding yourself back, then you'll just never even get that chance in the first place. So, whether it's writing, or I know a lot of artists who are super active on Instagram and they're posting just like doodles that don't have any commercial value, like that, they aren't making any money that they might be commissioned to do it. But just like getting their ideas out there and people who are searching for those ideas will find you, and that's the perfect match in hopes of finding minded people online. And that’s been super helpful for me. I think just for anyone. Don't underestimate the power of getting your ideas out there even if it's not completely polished. If anything, it's probably better if it's not totally polished once people get a sense of who you truly are, and what your ideas are without going through some type of filter.

David Weiszfeld [01:07:45]: It's kind of like if you want to win the lottery, you have to play, if you want to end up being one of the top writers in your field, you've got to start writing and just put yourself out there also.

Cherie Hu [01:07:55]: Yes. Most writers will say the best way to write is to do it. And I kind of learned that on the job. The only way to get better at writing, you can take all the classes you want. It's kind of like going back to Jazz. Right. Like you can take all the jazz theory classes you want, analyze all the improvisation but that literally will do nothing for you. And actually, getting better improvising. Writing is I think pretty much the same to me.

David Weiszfeld [01:08:23]: The best way to learn how to improvise Jazz is to go and then improvise for eight hours. That's the best way to do it. Yeah that's a great way to wrap it up. We're back where we started at the impro in Jazz, I'll put the crazy Giant Steps diagram so people can know what we're talking about. Well thanks for doing this. I'll see you in L.A. at the Music Tectonics conference. And I'll put a link to the Water & Music. I encourage highly everybody to read your words. They always make me think and I know they will for the rest of the people out there. Thanks for taking the time.

Cherie Hu [01:09:02]: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you as well. Yeah.

David Weiszfeld [01:09:04]: Speak soon.

Cherie Hu [01:09:05]: Yep, That's good.