Get a Black Belt In - Rock Dojo

Team Subkit -

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Brian Parham, Founder of Rock Dojo, located in Portland, OR, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Rock Dojo is an award-winning guitar program for kids. We don't just teach kids about the guitar. We teach kids between six and twelve how to rock out on the guitar! Since 2015, more than a thousand elementary school students have learned to play guitar in Rock Dojo's after-school programs and online classes.

Every student can access live Zoom lessons, pre-recorded video courses, student handbooks, and live concerts. For those students who cannot attend our after-school programs, any child with an internet connection can become a rock ninja with Rock Dojo!

Tell us about yourself

As a kid, I had two dreams: rockin' out on the guitar and kickin' butt in the martial arts. Unfortunately, I didn't have access to music lessons or martial arts instruction as a kid. Fate, however, intervened, placing a guitar in my hands at the tender age of twenty-six, and I have never looked back!

In short, I approached the guitar like a mad scientist immersing myself in every guitar bit of guitar instruction I could get my hands on and studying with some of the world's finest teachers. The Rock Dojo is the culmination of my studies in music education combined with my passion for guitar and martial arts.

Over the years, I won numerous awards for my work with Rock Dojo, including:

  • The 2021 Steve Vai Scholarship from Berklee College of Music.
  • 2018 Rising Star of Oregon Award from the Small Business Administration.
  • The 2018 Teacher of the Year Award from Lessons.com. Without a doubt, my life would not be the same without the guitar. Playing the guitar taught me the power of discipline, goal-setting, and grit. Those are the life skills I needed to succeed in music, business, and every other area of his life. I stay motivated by my mission to provide every Portland Public School student with the same life-changing opportunity to learn to play the guitar by 2025.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Over the past eight years, I accumulated a lot of success and won many awards. However, the resiliency in the face of COVID-19 makes me most proud. COVID-19 nearly ended the Rock Dojo dream, but I didn't waste a moment feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I enlarged my vision and worked harder than ever before.

Since COVID shut down the after-school programs in 2020, I returned to school, graduating from Berklee College of Music in April 2022. During that time, I won the 2021 Steve Vai Award as Berklee's top guitar student and released my first album, Let Me Hear Your Fingers Sing (At the Rock Dojo).

Simultaneously, I pivoted the Rock Dojo online. I wrote and published five student handbooks and launched a five-level online course with more than 75 professionally produced videos, interactive quizzes, and backing tracks to achieve that aim.

I could have given up when COVID-19 closed down the Rock Dojo's after-school program reducing my family's income by 90%, but I rolled up my sleeves and put in the work. Today, the Rock Dojo after-schools are back in action, our students are thrilled with the new tools, and we're projecting 10X growth in the 2022 - 2023 school year.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

I am passionate about two things: music-making and business-building. These two passions cause a lot of struggle because I tend to get hyper-focused on one or the other. When I built the Rock Dojo, I spent five to seven years intensely one on goal: building a sustainable business.

Then, COVID hit, and I spent two years focused on one goal: graduating from Berklee College of Music. Inevitably, this causes me many challenges and a lot of frustration because one activity improves by leaps and bounds during periods of intense focus while the other languishes. Or maybe that's just the Gemini in me?

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Do your research.
  2. Don't build it until you've done your research.
  3. Learn when to push ideas forward and when to let them die on the vine.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://rockdojo.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kidsrockdojo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockdojo/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RockDojo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rock-dojo/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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