Mobile Music Academy - The Journey

Hello! I am Sebastian Guile (aka Prof. Oats), the founder and CEO of Mobile Music Academy. Here is the story of how we got to where we are today... and the lessons I learnt along the way. Enjoy... #CEODiary #BackStory #SMME #Entrepreneurship #MusicSchool #MusicNinjas A BIT OF BACKSTORY I am a lifelong musician with an entrepreneurial streak, as a child I always liked the idea of owning a music school or a shop. I'd buy wholesale candy and sell it for a small profit to the other kids on my street. On my journey to adulthood, I'd have many business ideas & failures until it occurred to me that the best type of business to start is one that draws from your skill set in a synergistic way. So what are my skills? Music is my most fundamental skill; I have been playing drums since the age of 6, came first in music at my high school and studied a Bachelor of Music Education at the University of Cape Town. Secondly, I am good with computers. This came in handy with everything from web design to content creation, as well as building the administrative systems needed to keep a business running smoothly. Lastly, I am a good problem solver; this allows me to connect several ideas together and see how they can improve the customer & employee experience. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS From 2014 to 2018 I founded & ran a non-profit organization called Harmony Music Foundation. This taught me a lot about planning, resource allocation, finding talented people & teamwork. We taught music in orphanages all over Cape Town and managed to acquire funding from the National Lottery, unfortunately, they changed their funding policy and the NPO became unsustainable. As Harmony Music Foundation's operations were winding down, I decided that this was no time to rest. I had to use what I had learnt to realize one of my childhood dreams of owning a music school. At around this time, I found a letter that I had written to SAMRO for a bursary application when I began my tertiary studies, which clearly stated my life goal was to own a music school. I believe that we are the truest to ourselves when we are younger, but then the pressures of life/society pulls us towards what it expects of us. Sometimes to go forward, you need to first look back. But now the question was - what type of music school? Would I have to try find a premises and spend a huge amount of money on rent and equipment? There had to be a better way... The answer came to me when I was in an Uber... "Why can't other services be as easy as ordering an Uber?", I thought. So without further ado I registered Mobile Music Academy and began advertising to find some students. OPEN FOR BUSINESS In the very first advert that I posted on Facebook, I tried to capture the essence of what it means to bring the music to somebody and combined with the offer of a free trial lesson, I had my first student sign up within a week. My plan was to offer termly packages to get the influx of cashflow happening rapidly so that I could afford to boost adverts on Facebook to gain more reach. Additionally, I would post short clips from lessons as social proof of our service. Essentially, I wanted to create a feedback loop where customers would be effectively helping to find other customers. As the business grew, I realized that I would need more teachers as I could not teach every instrument, only have so much available time, and it's only logistically sensible to drive out a certain amount of kilometers to see a student. HIRING TEACHERS My philosophy on the employee/employer relationship is built on trust and transparency, so when I set out to hire people I wanted to show potential employees that the brand is exciting, that we have sound financial practices and a growth mindset. For the hiring advert, I made a video talking about the expectations of working for Mobile Music Academy, some of our achievements thus far, and the effort that we put into making sure the processes from student acquisition to teacher payments are smooth. The advert had a link to Mailchimp where the teacher details (such as qualifications, experience, etc) could be entered in, thus creating a database of candidates that we could contact as the demand for any particular type of lessons increased. The results were staggering! We had about 75 teachers sign up within a month. We picked a few and started assigning them to students and added more to their rosters as they proved their ability and consistency. BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS In order for a business to thrive, you have to maintain strong partnerships both internally and externally. In my opinion it is better to work from the inside out, so I set out to find people that complimented my skill set, that I can trust, and that I can get along with. Two of the teachers I had hired had demonstrated exceptional ability in areas that would be useful to the growth of the business. Namely, graphic design and curriculum development. They also happened to be motivated people of good moral character, so we proceeded to divvy up the shares of the business in a way that was reflective of the effort, capital & networking contributed in its development. At around this time, our ever expanding footprint meant that schools started to take notice of us. Many schools either do not offer music, are under equipped, or have a very high teacher turnover rate. We sought to remedy all the above by providing the teachers and equipment needed to either create a music department or keep one staffed and well-equipped and as of 2025 we have successfully partnered with 16 schools all over Cape Town.

Our constellation of partner schools!

SPEEDBUMPS At the end of 2019 we had just onboarded 3 more schools and things were looking promising. Then... COVID! We had to move our classes online, which not every student was able to do/or was happy to do. Our revenue dropped by about 50%, so we had to look for other ways to generate income AND create systems to speed up our rebound after COVID. A fun thing that we did to keep the cash flowing was to create video content for partner schools that they could use as part of their curriculum. We would take musical concepts and create a story around them, along with downloadable resources that the students could complete at home. In our downtime, we would develop ideas for books, which leads me to the next point... TIME TO INNOVATE The music industry is an ever evolving domain. Thus, it is important for the music that you teach to be relevant to your target demographic, and is presented in a way that is consistent or an improvement on the current educational trends. We surveyed our student body for songs they'd like to learn and using those suggestions, and our own music knowledge, we compiled a curriculum that is fun, scalable to a particular level and covered a diverse range of genres. Additionally, we colour-coded and gamified it to make it more accessible to beginners. Our curriculum has made a such a significant impact on the music education landscape that even schools that are not partnered with us have purchased it. In 2024 we started developing a Mobile App called NinjaTrax to replace USB drives as our mode of backing-track delivery for our syllabus. We also partnered up with a developer to create software that greatly expedites our book creation process!

NinjaTrax

EXTRA SERVICES But there was still one problem we had not addressed - What about students who could not afford to purchase expensive instruments or were unsure about their long term future with a specific instrument. Were they supposed to just miss out on valuable practice time? No! We bought a wide range of instruments to rent out cheaply so that students could stay motivated and well-prepared for their lessons. Additionally, we also sell instruments that are affordable and used in group lesson setting, such as ukuleles. Another service that we started to provide was drum and ukulele circles for corporate team building, meditation retreats and parties. Just like how a large structure needs many pillars of support to stand, as a business grows it is necessary to create multiple streams of income so that if one falls away your business does not collapse. With lessons, a colour-coded curriculum, equipment hire and events facilitation, we were now truly the complete music education solution! In 2025 we started offering Rubik's Cube classes, we feel that there is a connection between music and problem-solving. This twisty puzzle provides a brilliant brain boost!

Some of the fun twisty puzzles we teach!

THE FUTURE With so many possibilities, it helps to try to pick one goal at a time, but here are some of the things I'd like to see happen. Further develop our app - add an lesson booking function so that we can truly become the Uber of music lessons. Expand to a different locale - right now we are confined to Cape Town and surrounds, we'd need to find people to manage logistics in different areas. Get premises - although we are a mobile music school, it would be nice to also be able to give people the option to come to a facility to learn

Distribute books internationally - to sell books overseas that contain other people's songs, we'd need to purchase the rights

Music production lessons - DJing/beat making is becoming very popular, we'd like to connect with teachers that offer this Publish our board game - We are making a game called Rubik's Revenge which helps people to solve the Cube! CONCLUSION Thanks for taking the time to read about my journey with Mobile Music Academy, I hope that it inspires you to try that business idea that has been waiting to spring forth from your mind! Lastly, here are some of the key lessons I learnt along the way: Prioritize customers over competition

Treat every day as if it were the beginning

Stay current with marketing trends

Reputation is your most valuable asset

Offering value > offering time