By Taryn Skees for Amplify — May 19, 2022
Noah Rough is the co-founder and CEO of Groupie: Discover, Share, Listen, a downloadable social media mobile application that allows users to share, and review, their favorite albums, songs, EPs, and playlists with friends.
With the mission of building a positive community one song at a time, some of Groupie’s 30+ features include the ability to:
- discover new music shared via the World and Following Timelines
- add music to any of your playlists, view your top songs, and artists, from the past month, 6 months, year, and of all time via Your Statistics
- keep track of your favorite artist(s) and their release announcements
- write reviews/post music
- create Custom Lists of your favorite music
- curate a personall collection of music for a later listening session via Listen Later
As a regular music festival and concert attender since 2015, Rough began sharing music recommendations on social media as a hobby. He soon realized that while only a handful of friends and followers actually engaged with those posts, the ones who did loved discovering new music.
“The primary focus of my Instagram is marketing my freelance photo and video work, so I decided to create a second Instagram specifically for sharing music…I’d share daily music finds and curate weekly themed playlists,” said Rough. “After only 2 months of growing this community, I saw potential for this idea to be much bigger than just an Instagram account. Thus began the designing of Groupie’s UI in November 2019.”
Deciding to create an app comes with a unique set of challenges. For Groupie, time management, understanding, and lack of knowledge during the initial development process proved difficult.
“Neither John, (Groupie’s co-founder and CTO), nor I had ever created an app before this, however, I wholeheartedly believed John’s javascript and software engineering skills could get us there. In turn, I learned to take a step back, reassess the essentials for a solid launch, and understand that patience is key in planning,” Rough reflects.
After 1.5 years of development time, the beta version of “Groupie: Discover, Share, Listen” launched for both IOS and Android in November of 2021– over 2
years since the initial designs for Groupie’s UI began.
Rough said, “Since our launch, we’ve encountered bugs and crashes, as to be expected, but we’ve also released key updates including brand new features to increase user connectivity amongst our community. It’s been a process, and we’re still learning. But if I’m being honest, when experiencing new challenges, it excites me knowing we have the capability, and the eagerness, to tackle it.”
Q: How has music personally impacted your life?
Some time ago, one of my closest friends told me that one of the best ways to invest your money is in music and concerts. Ever since I’ve heard that, I’ve been a firm believer. Music brings us together. For instance, numerous times I’ve been at a show and met new people after bonding over the band about to play or sharing music recommendations.
Furthermore, each of us have a unique experience at said music festivals, concerts, or basement shows, and this shared experience are key memories for many people– myself included. In a sense, music has been a gateway to the past and has allowed me to re-experience these key moments.
Q: Top 3 songs that would be included on your soundtrack of life and why?
This is an extremely tough question for me. Like many, each of us go through countless seasons throughout our lives. For me, each of these seasons comes with its own soundtrack.
Since 2015, one song has remained in my Top 3 and I believe it will continue to be my favorite song of all time– “Stay Alive” by Jose Gonzalez. This song breaks me in the best way possible. As I said earlier, music is a gateway into the past for me. When I first heard this song, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I can still remember 18 year old me tearing up hearing these lyrics for the first time. I heard hope, and I desperately needed that at the time. Since then, whenever I’m down, I play this song. It now brings me great joy knowing I’m still here trekking along like everything else, and that I’ve been blessed to see many seasons since then.
Now, if I had to choose 2 other songs for this current season of life, I’d say “Heaven Takes You Home” by Swedish House Mafia and “Ending Credits” by Vacation Manor. The reason for these two is I’m currently entering a new season. A new home. A new job. A new focus. “Ending Credits” is me saying goodbye to this past year or so, and “Heaven Takes You Home” is me welcoming the inevitable, unknown future.
Q: If you weren’t an entrepreneur what other work would you be interested in doing?
If I wasn’t an entrepreneur, my primary line of work would continue being in the storytelling business, or at least that’s what I call it, for a marketing firm. I know where my talents lie and I believe my line of work would remain within this area of content creation. As a photographer and filmmaker, my goal is to not only provide a new and interesting perspective, but to also capture key moments that create everlasting memories for clients. As long as I’d be able to continue this focus, I’d be happy knowing I’d get to help tell someone else’s story.
Noah Rough is the CEO of Groupie: Discover, Share, Listen and Groupie Studios, LLC. As CEO, Rough’s mission is to connect with, support, and promote local musicians while also producing all social media marketing content, envisioning future features, and growing Groupie’s positive community. Whether behind the camera photographing a couple’s big day, storyboarding, editing, or filming a movie, designing an app, or writing a screenplay, creating will always be Rough’s passion. For more about Noah Rough and what he creates, visit: noahrough.com.
Learn more about Groupie, download the app, and follow Groupie on social media by visiting this link.