The Performing Arts School Entrepreneur

Dave Simon has seen the music school industry from almost every side. Over 17 years he grew his side gig teaching bass lessons into a 350-student rock school. He created the Kids Rock and Junior Rockers group programs, which schools around the world now license. He hosted the Music Lessons and Marketing podcast, and today he works with Ensemble Performing Arts on the acquisition side.

In this episode, host David Martin and Dave talk about what it takes to build a school that can run, and sell, without you. Dave explains why owners should raise their school the way a parent raises a child to become an adult. He covers why so many schools undercharge for lessons while overpaying staff, and how putting group programs first changed his margins. He also shares the first thing he'd do if he opened a school tomorrow: build it around the parent, not the owner.

• Raise your school to leave home: Your job is to prepare the school to run without you. Owners who build with an exit in mind run their schools differently from day one.
• Get your name out of the boxes: Draw your org chart and count how many roles have your name in them. Then rank which ones to hand off first, so you can lead like a coach instead of playing quarterback.
• Price for the experience you deliver: Dave recommends keeping 50–60% of lesson revenue with the school. He often sees schools sending 60–70% or more to teacher pay.
• Retain teachers with culture, not just pay: Belonging, a raise ladder tied to student retention, and public recognition of great teaching all keep good teachers around.
• Flip the model with groups first: Every new student aged 4–11 at Dave's school started in a band program. About 70% of students ended up in bands, and private lessons became the destination for the most driven students.
• Speak to parents' real worries: Talk to parents directly, then reflect their concerns in your messaging, including their child's emotional well-being. Make every touch point feel premium so your price confirms the impression.
• Don't sit out AI: Dave compares holding off on AI to the schools that waited too long to get a website or email. Falling behind limits your ability to impact kids.

Whether you're stuck doing everything yourself or planning an exit, this episode gives you a clear framework for building a school that's more valuable, more profitable, and less dependent on you.`

Thibaut Bannelier grew up inside a music school. When he was 10, his dad opened one of the only private music schools in France, a small-group-focused alternative to the country's conservatory system that has since grown to 1,200 students. Two decades later, Thibaut opened his own school in Chicago, expecting his father's proven playbook to translate. It didn't, at least not all of it.

In this episode, Thibaut joins host David Martin to unpack what happens when a strong vision meets a different market. He shares why the small-group model that thrives in France was painful to sell to American families, how a simple makeup lesson experiment lifted both retention and conversion, and what he's learned about lead quality, delegation, and the critical first 90 days of a new student's journey. It's a look at the difference between sticking to your vision and getting stuck in it.

In this episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast, host David Martin sits down with Marla Morrison, founder of Forte Academy of the Arts in San Diego and Missouri Music Academy. Marla's shares her candid story: when she and her husband Keith moved their family from Missouri to San Diego to launch Forte Academy, they moved into the studio with their three boys and stayed for nearly a year to make it work.

What followed is a masterclass in resilience, resourcefulness, and relentless vision. Marla grew Forte from that handful of students to 427 before COVID hit, eventually scaling into a 10,800-square-foot location with a performing arts auditorium and 20 teachers. Then, she decided to open a new studio in a new state, applying every hard-won lesson from the first school to build something even bigger. In this conversation, she and David cover the scrappy marketing strategies, hiring philosophy, leadership frameworks, and daily mindset that made it all possible.

Tong Liu's path into music school ownership was anything but conventional. Raised in China, Tong spent years homeschooled and practicing piano 8 hours a day before moving to the U.S. at 17. She started teaching lessons out of her townhouse to fund graduate school, got reported to the city by a neighbor, and eventually rented her first commercial space. What followed was a series of deliberate decisions to build, grow, and sell music schools in a way few owners ever attempt: buying undervalued schools, systematizing operations quickly, and scaling enrollment before moving on.

In this episode, host David Martin sits down with Tong to unpack her unique model of buying, growing, and selling performing arts schools. From negotiating a $180,000 asking price down to $32,000 to running a school 12 hours away, Tong shares hard-won lessons on marketing, teacher hiring, SOPs, and the financial metrics that actually matter. Her perspective is refreshingly direct, and her story is one of the most distinctive entrepreneurial journeys the podcast has featured.

Jeff Homer didn't grow up in music education. He came from 10 years in finance, investing in small and mid-size businesses, before a job in Denver led him to a music school owner looking for a business partner. That chance encounter sparked something he couldn't let go. Today, Jeff is the founder of Ensemble Performing Arts, a national roll-up of music and dance schools with an audacious goal: 250 locations by 2030.

In this conversation, host David Martin sits down with Jeff to unpack the business model behind Ensemble's growth, what Jeff looks for when acquiring schools, and why an outsider's perspective turned out to be one of his biggest assets. From valuation methodology and acquisition process to teacher retention, marketing strategy, and the power of follow-up, Jeff brings a clear-eyed, data-driven lens to an industry he has come to deeply admire.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• An outsider's advantage. Jeff came from finance, not music, and turned that into a strength. While music school owners excel at teaching and student experience, many struggle with HR, marketing, and financial operations. Jeff built Ensemble around centralizing exactly those back-office functions so schools can focus on what they do best.
• What Ensemble looks for in an acquisition. Jeff uses three primary screening criteria: geographic fit (major metro markets where they can eventually own multiple schools), size (typically $750K or more in revenue as evidence of product-market fit), and culture (schools built around joy and individualized learning, not rigid conservatory models).
• The onboarding moment is the most vulnerable. Jeff describes the post-acquisition onboarding as the highest-risk period. His approach: keep messaging simple, emphasize continuity, validate what the team has built, and hint at career growth opportunities rather than leading with change. Increasingly, he sends regional managers who joined via acquisition to deliver that message firsthand.
• Growth beats cost-cutting every time. Ensemble's primary lever for improving school margins is enrollment growth, not expense reduction. Because fixed costs are already covered, adding a single student can carry a 50% incremental margin. Going from 200 to 250 students can, in some cases, double profitability.
• How music schools are valued. Jeff walks through the concept of seller's discretionary earnings (SDE): stripping out personal expenses, estimating the cost to replace the owner's time, and then applying a market-rate multiplier. For most schools, that multiplier lands in the 3 to 3.5x range, with larger schools trending toward the higher end.
• Teacher retention drives student retention. Jeff is clear that retaining great teachers is the real engine of long-term student retention. Ensemble monitors teacher pay as a percentage of revenue, invests in career progression, and treats compensation growth as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought.
• Follow-up is the biggest unlock most schools are leaving on the table. Jeff describes the gap between the average school's approach to a new lead (a single thoughtful email, then forgotten) and a system-driven approach with speed, sequence, and multi-channel outreach. In his experience, systematizing follow-up is the most accessible and impactful improvement any school can make.

John Kozicki has one of the more unconventional paths in the music school world: corporate marketing background, punk rock touring years, two music schools built and sold, and now co-host of the Rock School Proprietor podcast. In this episode, John joins David Martin for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really means to build a music school around community and purpose. John shares his philosophy on what he calls "the rock school secret" (why students in band programs stay longer and engage more deeply than those in private lessons alone) and makes the case that the instrument is really just the conduit for something much bigger. He also gets candid about brand identity, the importance of knowing who your school is actually for, and why copying another studio's marketing is a fast track to churn.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How a bad experience with piano lessons as a kid shaped John's entire approach to running Michigan Rock School today.
• The origin story of John's first music school: quitting a corporate PR job without another one lined up, stumbling into guitar teaching to pay for a wedding, and gradually realizing this might actually be the thing.
• The "rock school secret": students participating in band programs have significantly higher retention than those in private lessons alone. John explains why community and performance create a deeper connection to music, and why that keeps students enrolled longer.
• Why John believes the instrument is just the conduit. His firm belief: everyone comes to music for a reason that runs deeper than wanting to learn guitar or piano, and great instructors and studio owners tap into that.
• How Michigan Rock School's marketing leads with community, socialization, and belonging. John explains why the benefits that keep kids in team sports are exactly what a well-run music program can offer.
• John's hiring philosophy: he looks for instructors he'd want to be in a band with. The reasoning goes deeper than culture fit, it's about whether that person can build the kind of trust with students that feels different from every other adult in their lives.
• His candid advice on brand identity for music school owners who don't have a marketing background: identify the two or three current families you always have the best conversations with, figure out what you talk about, and build your marketing from there.
• Why copying what a competitor is doing will attract the wrong students and drive up churn. Your marketing has to match who you actually are.
• The evolution (not transition) from teacher to manager, and how COVID was the unexpected moment that forced John to fully embrace his role as the person steering the ship.
• What's next: John's plans to make Michigan Rock School's rock band curriculum available to other schools, an ongoing songwriting book project, and continued work on the Rock School Proprietor podcast with co-host Mandy York.

Learn more about how Opus1 helps performing arts schools build community and retention: opus1.io Explore all episodes of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast for more stories, strategies, and insights from leaders across the industry.

In this episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast, host David Martin sits down with Kaena Miller. Kaena is the founder of Red Blind Media, a digital marketing agency that has developed a specialty working with music schools across North America. What started as a COVID-era project quickly grew into a full-time agency, and Kaena brings a rare, data-backed perspective on what's actually driving enrollment growth today: which ad channels are working, what creative performs, how to measure results, and what most school owners are getting wrong when it comes to their websites.

Show Notes:

This episode features a practical conversation with Kaena Miller, founder of Red Blind Media, about the digital marketing strategies that are driving real enrollment results for music schools right now. Host David Martin and Kaena dig into the platforms, creative formats, and budgeting frameworks that Redline has tested across more than a dozen school clients, offering school owners a clear-eyed look at where to invest their marketing dollars and how to evaluate whether those dollars are working.

• Why Google and Meta remain the core channels, and why chasing newer platforms like TikTok rarely pays off for local music schools
• Where to start if your budget is under $1,000 a month, including why Google is the lower-lift entry point and when Meta becomes worth the added investment in creative
• What's working on Meta right now, from studio tour videos and elevator pitches to always-on offers, and why letting the creative do the targeting outperforms manual audience-building
• The role of offers in driving conversions, and why you should always be running some kind of promo, even if it's not tied to a holiday or seasonal event
• How to think about cost per lead and customer acquisition cost, including real benchmarks Redline sees across their client base and how to evaluate ROI against student lifetime value
• Why tracking is everything, and why most school owners shouldn't try to set it up themselves
• The attribution challenge, and how to triangulate between ad platform data, Google Analytics, and simple survey questions to get a clearer picture of what's actually driving leads
• What makes a high-converting music school website, including the value of real photos, recital videos, and making your offer immediately obvious to a first-time visitor
• The biggest website mistakes Kaena sees, from keyword-heavy walls of text to outdated designs that undermine first impressions before a family ever picks up the phone

👉 Learn how Opus1.io helps performing arts schools simplify operations and grow with confidence: opus1.io ✨ Catch every episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast for real-world insights from school owners shaping the future of arts education.

In this episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast, host David Martin sits down with Nicole Kovar, founder and executive director of Piano & More, a Northern Virginia–based in-home music school, and creator of the nonprofit initiative Play It Forward.

What started as a side hustle after grad school quickly turned into something much bigger. Nicole didn't set out to build a school. She simply filled her own schedule with in-home lessons, and, when her waitlist grew, it was parents who encouraged her to hire and train other teachers in her approach. Today, Piano & More serves families across Northern Virginia with a premium, highly structured in-home model and strong student retention to match.

In this conversation, Nicole pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build a scalable in-home studio: 🎹 From "accidental entrepreneur" to structured operator — the mindset shift required to move from solo teacher to school owner. 💰 Raising rates from $25 to $100 per lesson — why underpricing causes more pain than most owners realize, and how premium pricing filters for better families and better outcomes. 📊 Tracking what matters — how implementing stronger systems and weekly metrics changed how she views retention, margins, and long-term growth. 📅 No makeups, clear policies — why structure protects both profitability and professionalism. 🤝 Building teacher culture without a physical location — monthly meetings, social events, and why teacher retention (not student retention) is her biggest focus.

Nicole also shares how adopting modern studio management software exposed weak policies, forced operational clarity, and ultimately strengthened her business foundation: a reminder that growth requires structure.

And beyond the business, she talks about Play It Forward, her nonprofit program partnering with Title I schools to provide free keyboards and weekly lessons to students who otherwise wouldn't have access to piano education.

If you've ever considered an in-home model, struggled with pricing, or felt stretched too thin by loose policies and inconsistent systems, this episode is packed with practical insight and honest lessons from a school owner who built it step by step.

👉 Learn how Opus1.io helps performing arts schools simplify operations and grow with confidence: opus1.io ✨ Catch every episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast for real-world insights from school owners shaping the future of arts education.

In this episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast, host David Martin sits down with Lawrence & Jasmine Yu, co-founders of Symphony 9 School and a powerhouse duo blending elite musical training with modern school leadership. Jasmine is an internationally trained violist (UC San Diego, San Francisco Conservatory of Music) with a performance career spanning orchestras in the U.S. and abroad. Lawrence is a composer, pianist, and music technologist with deep experience in curriculum-driven instruction, film/game composition, and the operational side of running a music education business.

Together, they share the unlikely origin story of Symphony 9: a six-month negotiation during COVID that took a school's asking price from $250,000 down to $15,000 — and a "no transition" handoff that dropped them straight into ownership on January 1, 2021. What followed was a crash course in policies, systems, teacher leadership, and the reality of building a culture families and staff can trust.

In this conversation, Jasmine and Lawrence break down the lessons every school owner should hear: 🎼 From accidental acquisition to intentional growth — what it's really like to inherit "the good and the bad," clean up inconsistent pricing, and set policies that some families won't like (but your business needs). 🧾 Rebuilding the back office — why "Google-calendar patchwork" and manual invoicing break down fast, and how better systems protect your time, your team, and your sanity. 🤝 Running a school as a married couple — the visionary vs. integrator dynamic, the pressure points that cause conflict, and how that friction can actually make the business stronger. 👩‍🏫 Hiring teachers who aren't "you" — why you can't expect staff to match owner-level passion, what great teaching looks like in practice, and how retention becomes the ultimate scorecard. 📣 Marketing that actually moves the needle — what's worked (local community events, visibility, referrals) and what's been tougher (ads, flyers), plus how they're thinking about the next stage of growth.

If you've ever thought about buying a studio, rebuilding systems, raising rates, or scaling without losing your culture, this episode is packed with real-world insight – the kind you only get from owners who lived it.

👉 Learn how Opus1 helps performing arts schools simplify growth: opus1.io ✨ Catch every episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast for more insights from leaders shaping the future of arts education.

In this episode of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast, host David Martin talks with Katie Crist — founder of The Music Box in Lafayette, Louisiana — a school she grew from a one-room vocal studio into a full-scale academy known for its elevated design, polished systems, and extraordinary student experience. Years later, she sold the Music Box at its peak, in a rare "top-of-the-mountain" entrepreneurial exit — and today she coaches studio owners across the country.

Katie's approach to building a school was anything but typical. Influenced by her decade-long career in commercial music — including singing jingles for Barbie and performing on major national stages — she brought the glamour and intentionality of the LA music industry into a children's studio in the Southeast.

In this conversation, Katie takes us behind the scenes of how she built a school that felt more like a boutique brand than a teaching studio:

✨ How design became a growth engine — from investing in flooring before she had 40 students, to color-themed lesson rooms, fresh flowers on tuition week, and a lobby designed for moms to exhale. 🎤 Bringing "real music industry" to kids — annual recording studio albums, red-carpet concerts, and bold venue choices supported by parent sponsorships. ⚙️ Systems that created freedom — how switching to Opus1, building a detailed operations manual, and delegating front-desk control transformed her schedule and her sanity. 🧩 Training that actually works — ensuring new staff could perform tasks identically to her by documenting every step, clarifying expectations, and removing ambiguity. 📈 Preparing to sell — reverse-engineering financials, understanding adbacks, hiring a valuation analyst, and achieving a rare top-value exit at the height of her school's success.

Katie's story is a masterclass in elevating the everyday — transforming a small-town lesson studio into a premium brand, then building the systems and leadership required to let it thrive without her. This episode is packed with wisdom for any owner ready to refine their space, streamline their operations, or start thinking about long-term value.

👉 Learn more about how Opus1 helps performing arts schools simplify growth: opus1.io ✨ Explore all episodes of the Performing Arts School Entrepreneur Podcast for more stories, strategies, and inspiration from leaders across the industry.