Thinking of Opening My Own Music Lessons Store - Thoughts to consider?

I know someone that does this in Northern Virginia and the business struggles. I'd do a ton of research and talk to owners of similar businesses wherever you can find them.

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I know someone that does this in Northern Virginia and the business struggles. I

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Any inclination why?

I know quite a few people that have done this as well. The only one I know that is really successful acts more like a businessman than a musician.

The ones I know that have closed shop or are rather pathetic are those guys that never wanted to grow up from jamming to rock music in their bedroom.

I like to think with my work experience, maturity, and research abilities, I could know ahead of time if I could make it work or not.

Your number of 160 kids per month seems unreasonable.
I have a client who tried this in Gulf Shores as a side gig. Couldn't get enough students to justify his time.
Closing up the studio next month.

As some have mentioned, build a base first.

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Any inclination why?

I know quite a few people that have done this as well. The only one I know that is really successful acts more like a businessman than a musician.

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You probably answered your question right there. I do know that they're in the middle of a county with a million people in it so there should be a market.

There is some seasonality to the business. They take a hard hit once school is out every year.

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I like to think with my work experience, maturity, and research abilities, I could know ahead of time if I could make it work or not.

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Good luck with that. If people knew ahead that their business would be successful there would be a lot more people running small businesses and fewer businesses that fail.

I hope it works out for you. I've been self-employed since 2001 and will (fingers crossed) never work for someone else again.

The only person making steady money in this scenario is the guy renting the space to you. Brick n mortar music store? Not unless you're in a crazily music heavy town (NOLA, Nashville). I can think of three kids I know who take music lessons from a remote teacher via Skype....one does his guitar lessons w a guy in London. Just because you think it's too easy to blow off the skype lessons doesn't mean your potential customers aren't perfectly comfortable with that format.

Can you find a church or private school or community organization with evening/weekend unused space? Renting from those will be more cost effective than commercial space. I seem to remember that you have suggested over the years that music lessons could be a bigger income stream for you, but if you don't have a solid base of students to the point of having a waiting list, you definitely don't have the volume to make this happen. Why would a teacher want to sublet practice rooms from you and not just work from home? Teaching music requires no special equipment other than a little space.....so I'd say it's gonna be difficult to attract other teachers to this venture.

So you're gonna be paying each teacher 38 grand a year?

I enjoy following your life on the internet
Good luck, let us know how it goes.

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So you're gonna be paying each teacher 38 grand a year?

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Approximately.

Teachers with these jobs are usually doing it part time while finishing school or they have a working spouse that can be the primary breadwinner.

Another reason why I've thought about doing this is because I know too many teachers getting screwed with $10 to $20/hour payments while the struggling owner rakes in the overwhelming majority of the tuition fee. The good ones get burned out quickly and quit, and the crappy ones seem to stick with it. If I could provide a decent monthly pay, I would hope to attract better teachers thus providing a better product.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud with this and hoping to learn something about running a business. There's so much I'm sure I wouldn't think of because I've never owned a small business before.

So income is 115k
Rent -11k
Teachers -114k
-10k

What am I missing?
There are so many unforeseen expenses
Check out school of rock in Houston, just replicate that.

You've obviously put some thought into this and it is probably disheartening to have people shoot holes in your idea. The concerns raised by commenters are valid though, but remember probably most people that opened up successfully businesses were cautioned by others before proceeding with their ideas too. With that said, I'll share my little bit of knowledge and opinion on the subject. I've only seen two stand alone businesses that taught music lessons. One is in the suburb of 15,000 people I live in. It is on the main drive and has been in business for years. The guy has about 3 other people he hires to help teach. All three of my kids took guitar lessons there. He has been successful partially because he also lives in the same building. He modified his house to incorporate a separate entrance for his business.

The second stand alone place was in a strip center, with the local mall on one side and a Walmart on the other in the larger nearby city of 120,000 people. The clientele there were a lot of the private school families. That business only survived about two years before it closed its doors. Right before it closed, I received a phone call from the owner of the business. I own some commercial real estate and at the time had an office building advertised for rent. I have had difficulties renting it because it is in a low income section of town. The music business owner called me to ask about relocating his business to my building. Apparently he was losing students because his landlord refused to repair anything and the AC didn't work half the time. I'm not sure why he would have wanted to move from the best area of town to where my building was. I basically talked him out of considering it. I told him there was no way his clientele would travel to that section of town. He didn't see it as a concern, but I kept stressing that Mom's would rather drop their kids off at a place where they can shop nearby. The only thing they could shop for where my building is located were illegal drugs. I wanted to rent my building, but would rather not have someone in it that would certainly fail and start missing rent payments.

If you don't want to teach in your home, find a good location. Your problem with location, location, location, will be the rent, rent, rent. While the second business I mentioned had a great clientele and location, ultimately the rent and bad building maintenance drove him out of business. If I were going to open a music business I would look for opportunities to both expand my business and lower my costs. Do you know of any businesses that have more space than they need that you could sublease from? Think out of the box a little. What types of businesses would be a natural fit to combine with music lessons? I'd look for places like coffee shops, bakery shops, or second hand record stores. If they had extra space, you could build some lesson rooms within the same location. The existing business would benefit from the parents or older siblings of your students hanging out in their store and you would pick up new students from their customers as well. With a little bit of negotiating skills, you may be able to pay very little if anything other than your own remodeling costs. If extra space is available, what business wouldn't want the extra customers?