Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in training and education but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Martin Marks, Music Director of The Niwot Gig, located in Niwot, CO, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Our business, The Niwot Gig, is a rock, pop, and blues music school, teaching guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and vocals. Our customers are seeking an alternative to classical and marching band instruments. A growing area for our customers, who are not local, is our three online curriculums: Martin's Acoustic Guitar School, Martin's Electric Guitar School, and Martin's Song Writing School, which are presented in bite-size five-minute lessons for a total of 25 lessons. Currently, these curriculums are only available by word of mouth, but we are about to launch them on a more easily accessible platform. As I do with my in-person students, I am able to teach the fundamentals of playing through popular songs. An additional offering is that once a student completes the online curriculum, they may have a consultation with me to go over any areas that were challenging.
Tell us about yourself
After a seventeen-year career as a professional recording and performing musician, which included five albums, 600 shows, and two top five on the MTV countdown, I decided it was time to pass down my skills and knowledge of rock music. I became a music school director in Los Angeles with success and now has opened his own music school with his custom rock guitar curriculum in his hometown of Niwot, Colorado, called The Niwot Gig.
What motivates me is the joy of seeing a complete beginner musician struggle to take his/her first chord and six months later play songs on a stage with their peers, entertaining an audience, having fun, being inspired, and feeling confident. Equally satisfying as teaching a beginner to rock is helping an adult student get back to playing guitar, something they love and that heals them. It's almost like I'm a doctor or a therapist - "a rock therapist."
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Our biggest accomplishment was seeing the entire vision coming to fruition and enjoying the process from negotiating the lease to creating our sign, soundproofing the jam room ourselves, ordering our furniture for our lobby room, and launching our grand opening. And, of course, that others were able to see our vision and that we gathered enough interest to fill the roster in less than a month.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
The challenge of being a business owner in a brick-and-mortar music school is that however inspiring the one-on-one development is with the student and teacher, there is a limitation to how many students a teacher can see. So we are working on finding a balance between the face-to-face experience and the ability to reach a wider audience. Of course, it has only been possible to develop the online curriculum by first bringing the material to over 50 students on a one-on-one basis and seeing what works to take a student from a beginner to a competent ensemble musician.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
The three tips I'd give someone looking to start a business today are to:
- Open a business that you are an expert in and have something to offer.
- Stay true to your vision while being flexible.
- Incorporate modern tools and technology with old-school in-person human experiences.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://theniwotgig.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheNiwotGig/
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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