Net Positive: The Rebrand, Your People, and Upholding Agreements

In this solo episode, Eric shares three things that have been on his mind.

First, the story of Fons becoming MakeMusic Studio, from a 2016 studio management platform built for his own guitar students, through the years of growth, becoming part of the Peaksware brand family, and what the rebrand means for the community who uses it.

Second, an encouragement for joining a professional organization, even if you've been on the fence. Eric shares the immense value of being together with your people.

Third, something more personal: a practice Eric's been working on around keeping agreements with himself, not just with everyone else.

If you've ever felt pulled in a lot of directions as a teacher, this is a reminder that showing up for yourself is critical to becoming the best version of yourself to help others.

🌊 Connect with us:

• Join a supportive community for teachers & creatives at the Fons Family Facebook Group
  a supportive community for teachers & creatives
• Follow on Instagram: @makemusicstudio
• Learn more about Fons (Now MakeMusic Studio!)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the 440 Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Brenner. This week it's just me with three things on my mind. I want to share the story of Fonds becoming Make Music Studio. Why I think joining a professional organization is absolutely worth it, even if you've been on the fence, and something personal I've been working on around keeping agreements with myself. Let's get into it. So I recently joined a rock band and I've been having so much fun. I was in the airport a couple months ago and I ran into a couple friend of ours who play in this band. And then a couple weeks later they called. Our guitar player just left and we have an opening. So I went over and I was like, wow, I really don't have time to do this right now. We have a rebrand of the company. I'm teaching more, the books out, all this stuff, and I'm traveling a lot. But the stars lined up, and I went over to their rehearsal space. It's the kind of scene where playing is so comfortable and they're so musical and they're so friendly and the vibes are so good. I gelled with the other guitar player right away. It was a really wonderful experience. And I was like, I'm gonna make space for this. And I'm kind of at this point in my life where I'm so grateful that the work that we get to do, whether it's being a startup founder or being a guitar teacher or an author, any of these things that I'm getting to do right now, that I'm so grateful for that they have this net positive in the world. And playing in a band with some really good people, it's just wonderful. When I think about the work of creating music, of teaching people, of sharing ideas to grow that world. I'm so grateful that this work is a net positive. And I wanted to talk about that today just through catching you up with the story of the Fonds to Make Music Studio Rebrand. I know a lot of people had questions about that. And I wanted to share my story, but also all these conferences and all these different events that I've been able to go to in the most recent months, such as the Guitar Foundation of America Conference, and then going straight to MTAC Music Teachers Association of California, doing some work with Suzuki Association, just getting to be a part of these groups of people that it's all the work that they're doing is so positive that it's trying to promote music, it's trying to elevate music, it's trying to create more cultured communities, it's trying to bring access to people that might not have the ability to otherwise experience music. These are beautiful things. And I really, really hope that as you're listening to this, this resonates with you and that you do take time out of your day to just think, wow, I'm really grateful that the work that I do is a positive, impactful statement for the world. I was wanting to share with you the journey and a quick overview of what recently happened with Fonds and how Fonds has rebranded to make music studio. But I also have an honest take on it because so much of the process of building a company, growing a company, having that company being acquired by another company, that's a public process. And so much of it became about supporting our customers and having them feel confident and their clients feel confident, this is going to be a good thing, which I believe in my heart that it has been all along the journey, with a great mission and great people involved. And I just wanted to share with you just a quick journey of it. And that is that we started Fonds in around 2016. And I started it with someone who was an incredible technical co-founder and investor and had done multiple companies, has done multiple companies since, but really believed in this idea at that time. I was a 50 student a week private guitar teacher running the studio here in Seattle. I'd written a book, it was all going great. I was having a wonderful time, had a brilliant community, and started to realize that the business side of this in 2016 was very unsophisticated at the point, right? It was really kind of blossoming into what we're now seeing as these really great studio management systems and processes and people marketing their studios in different ways. We built Fonds, which meant fountain in Latin or Wellspring, to be the CRM, the studio management platform for to begin with, my studio. I was our very first customer. And it was so awesome to be out in the world and begin building this community of other music teachers who were in similar situations, doing great work. The business side was rough. There wasn't a lot of codification for how the business of teaching lessons should be, especially in a more digital or automated world. I started using the platform. And suddenly we eliminated 80, 85% of the administrative tasks of what it took to run my studio. Well, this was a great sign. And we started growing, and people started coming to the platform. I started meeting with other people, getting to know great personalities from our community. Many of you know the great Steve Tressler, who's been on the show. He's a friend of many, and he's a friend of everyone. He's just the coolest guy, great jazz saxophonist and educator. And I remember meeting him at a coffee shop in the university district. And he at that time, he was someone who was early on the trip of doing the subscription-based flat rate billing. And he really made the argument that this is something I could really use, and this is why I like this. And so we built it essentially for him at that point, even though we had heard about it. David Cutler's book had been out talking about flat rate tuition, the savvy music teacher. And we built it and we continually made this platform better and better. But there was also a flip side to it, which was back then to build a really good app and platform. It took a team, there was like eight or 10 full-time engineers. There was a UX UI designer. We had a marketing team. We had all these things that were a lot of infrastructure to build this. And so that was stressful. And I never talk about this because I'm always like, oh, it was just this beautiful experience, but it was a lot to manage. We were raising money, we were improving the platform, we were growing our customer base and our community. And as it was getting better, it also meant more people working, more people's payroll. And I started really worrying about it because that's what leaders do. So this continued. And along this route, it's important to note that the people who really first started adopting the platform were music teachers, but they were also academic tutors. They were also swim schools. We had all these different types of what we call verticals. Personal trainers did amazingly well on the Fonz platform. And we became vertical agnostic, meaning the platform, instead of saying lessons, would be called appointments and things like that. We tried to have everything just be the business side of running a relationship-based business that's ongoing, any kind of teacher-student thing, coaching, stuff like that. This was amazing because we got feedback and business ideas, especially from folks like personal trainers who are so goal-oriented, who are so good at the money side of things. And we started baking these into the platform. That gave us a ton of insight. Well, when we started being approached by different companies to become acquired, which is normal in the lifespan of a company like this, we were fortunate enough to be approached by a company called Peaksware. And many of you probably that even have used Vaughn's Now Make Music Studio might not know this. Peaksware is a company based out of Boulder, Colorado. And they're awesome in the fact that they own a multiple number of brands, but they're all aligned under a certain, a certain ethos, a certain theme, which is an idea called deliberate practice. And all the big brands under the Peaksware umbrella, which on the sports side are train heroic training peaks. You may have heard of those before. They're household names in the in the coaching, athletic, training world. Peaksware has sports brands, which are training peaks, train heroics, and they have music brands. The music brand side has Alfred Publishing. They have Make Music, the classroom technology that's used in most schools. They were the owners of Finale, rest in peace, and then a Fons. And under that umbrella, we were all connected with this overarching theme of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is basically the concept that the fastest way to learn and to improve is this cycle of working with an expert, receiving feedback, and constantly work creating this flywheel of improvement. So when we became part of that brand family, it was a perfect fit because it aligned with everything that we were doing. We're building this community of music teachers and other people as well that do from different verticals, all under the same theme of, hey, we really believe in this work. Our job is to elevate it, our job is to lift the business piece. And that's been 80% of what I've been doing for the last seven years is going out, finding the people who are doing this work well, finding inspiration to share with people who might need or could use to improve the business piece of what they're doing. And it was such fulfilling work to create this community of people at all levels, at all moments in their cycle of their careers. You know, super well-known concert musicians who just never really got the business piece together and to give them these tools and alternatively, super fantastically talented young educators to be able to build a career that made them a great living, impacting their community in a beautiful, positive way, allowing their community continually to support their work and help their work grow to where they become more healthy, contributing artists and creatives in their space doing their thing. And that has been such a gift. So, yes, so Fonds became part of the Peaksware brand family in 2022. And we went in there and we're part of the Alfred family and we're part of the Make Music family, and we kept doing what we're doing. I kept doing what I was doing, building the community. We kept working to make the platform better. We wanted to take all these amazing services and products we have, this incredible technology that allows people to practice music and hear music, the immense amount of published material that we have through Alfred Publishing, from over a hundred years of them doing that in the space. And now this really great platform, Fongs, that manages the business side of music schools and music studios and private music teachers, et cetera. But also has all this real estate to be able to more effectively communicate with their clients and their students and their customers and their families to be able to move that forward. So it took a couple years to really create the plan of what was going to happen, which was that fonts was going to become part of make music. And make music would have two pieces. Make music would have the make music classroom side. Fons is going to become Make Music Studio. And that's what happened this month is that Fonz falls under that umbrella to where the platform is Make Music, and Fons is now Make Music Studio. Makes a ton of sense. I think any founder who starts a brand, it's good to acknowledge that this thing came from nothing with a vision and became something. 98% of startups end up failing over time. That is the reality. So I'm so grateful that fonts did take off. Is it hard to know that that brand that you've fallen in love with and built over the years is shifting? Sure, that was a hard moment, but I also knew in my heart it was the right thing to do long term. Because the vision at Peakswear and Make Music and now make music studio still aligns with the same concept we were feeling so strongly about when we started the platform, which is believing in the important nature of the work, believing that the community of people who are doing this work, doing positive things in the world, deserved a real solution that was built around their day-to-day, that was built for the fact that the people we serve, we have incredible long-term relationships with. We have an unbelievable amount of trust and connection with. These are long-term relationships, often lasting from elementary school till the student goes to college. So like a decade. And it's really important to me that in this transition, that's why I felt okay with it. Because I knew that by Fonds becoming Make Music Studio, that would allow us to reach more people. It would allow us to better serve the people that we do serve. And it aligns fully with that mission of us believing music teachers are important, that music education is important, that we're going to help that flourish. So it's a really interesting moment right now because Fonds has shifted to make music studio this month. But people had questions, people had concerns. They're like, what's this going to be like? What's this going to be? And so we really respect that because it's always difficult when anything changes, when your cheese is moved, as they say, and things are different. And people, of course, have a concerned eye or heart for a moment. And it seems like it's starting to settle down a little bit. And I wanted to do this episode today because I wanted to share the story of where we were, came from, what happened, where we're going, because I can tell you in the next 18 months that this platform is going to do absolutely incredible things. And if you use your imagination and just imagine what will be the coolest thing that could be added into this, you know, the studio software that teachers use every day to really address this kind of new digital world and also the analog world of the way we impact students one-on-one or in classroom. If you let your imagination go wild, that's probably pretty on track for what we have coming down the roadmap in the next year or so. So hang in there. Thanks for supporting the change. So speaking of the transition from Fonz to make music studio, the last couple months, I have been on the road pretty much nonstop, going to different conferences, going to different events to talk. We've been promoting this new book that I just had come out called Lessons. And I really wanted to encourage anybody listening about the value of being a part of one of these associations or groups or organizations where your people get together. I am so grateful that I'm able to go to MTNAs and MTAC, NCKP, GFA, all these organizations that cater to our creative world, whether it being music educator, music performer, whatever it is that we're doing. If you're standing on the sidelines of watching these orgs or you're thinking, oh, do I do what's the value of me joining this org? I don't, I don't see the value. I hear that a lot in especially piano teacher groups. I want to tell you that the value is in getting together, seeing your people, and just being able to know that there's other people out there doing work similar, because often I feel like our work as music teachers, we become insulated. And to have a community of people that you see, especially at a national level, I feel like that's where it's at. I had a great podcast interview with Joe Bergamini, one of the great percussion educators there are author, educator. He runs the Sabian Educators Network too. And he just had this great point that really kind of stuck in my curl about PASIC, which is that's the Percussive Arts Society conference, is that he at the beginning of his career, he's like, I went every year. I went to PASIC and I went to NAM because you that's where you got to show up. That's where you're gonna make those contacts. And I often, I think early in my career, I shied away from those orgs. And I think honestly, I did it because I was afraid to be compared. I was a big fish in a small pond. I liked that feeling. It was hard enough for me moving to Seattle and try to cut my teeth here. I just didn't feel like I needed, or I think it was really I was just nervous about being compared to my contemporaries. And it wasn't until later that I realized how much value you get by investing in NAM, investing if you're a percussionist, going to PASIC, seeing your people. If you're a pianist going to MTNA, NCKP, or MTAC, if you're in California, all these regional things, being a part of it. I'm fortunate that the last number of years that I get to go to all these conferences to talk about Make Music Studio or there to speak about business things, is that I'm often able to go as a fly on the wallpaper and just see people there running into each other, meeting each other, supporting each other through their careers, sharing new ideas for what's happening in pedagogy. And I really appreciate that energy a ton. And I recently joined the Board of Trustees for the Guitar Foundation of America. And this is an org that when I was young, I dreamt of winning the GFA. It's the biggest classical guitar competition in the world. And I didn't start playing classical music until I was 18. So I was pretty late to that, but I really had lofty aspirations to become a really great classical guitarist. And now I was recently added to their board, which I'm so delighted about. Half of this board, these are all guitar players that have all their CDs from when I was growing up listening to them. These are just awesome people. And to go be a part of it. And I was somewhat also, I was, I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't been to all the GFAs for the last 15 years that I could have. And I think again, I was maybe shy. I didn't know if I belonged. I took one step into it. And there's my old guitar teacher, Michael Partington, there. He's on the board as well. And seeing these people in this environment of just a couple hundred ultra guitar nerds getting together to celebrate classical guitar, the thing that I love so much. How have I possibly chosen to miss this in recent years? I've been raising a family, I've been doing my own thing. But this is such an awesome experience. I was so excited to be there and to experience it. And I won't miss another one. And the people that I met, the people I reconnected with, being able to see these incredible guitar players. I've been spending the last 10 years at MTNAs and going to all the piano conferences and pedagogy conferences, and I love that stuff. And and and business conferences too. But my people are guitar players, and there's an org of guitar players and they celebrate it. And wow, I left with my soul feelings so full, so many great new connections, so many new friends, because we're into the same thing. Our people are out there and they're getting together. So ask yourself, you know, if you're listening to this, what is the thing you love? Are you a piano teacher? Are you a pianist? Are you a voice teacher? And Nats is happening right now, National Association of Teachers of Singing. All these things are really worth your time. So if you've been avoiding the membership, you've been avoiding the dues, I really encourage you to check it out. Because one of the interesting things that I see is, and I know because I talk to all the different organizations, is that they really, many of them are struggling to attract younger people because younger people, A, they might not have the money. B, it might be a generational thing where they're not as inclined to join an org. But I think just knowing a ton of people who are in music school on their way out of music school, if you were, say, a piano pedagogy major, piano performance major, these orgs have reduced rates to let you come in. Often your local chapter, I know here in Seattle we do this, we will help younger people get to the national conferences, will help pay for their travel even. So there are ways to get there. But the real energy, and I think the opportunity right now, if I were starting a career as a teacher and an artist and a performer, starting over, I was 21, just about to get out of school, getting raided between my masters, whatever that's gonna be, I would deeply invest in these events. This is where you're gonna meet the great players. You're gonna make connections with people doing really interesting things. You're gonna see a poster session. I saw this poster session at GFA that just kind of rocked me. It was. A doctoral student from Arizona was part of a program where he was embedded as a full-time musician within a really nice retirement community, meaning they were given room and board and meals and their own apartment. And it was basically a residency where you could be in music school or starting your career, live rent-free in a really nice place, and do really awesome work with your music by performing a couple times a week or offering some lessons to the community. I love that idea because I've always loved performing for and being with elderly communities, but this idea of taking it a step further to where it can also really benefit the music community. And so to answer the question that I've seen like 11 times this week on different Instagram or Facebook groups or TikTok is is it really worth it for me to renew to this org? Or is it really worth it to sign up to do this? Yes. It's worth it to sign up, go to the event, right? If you haven't, go find your people, hang with your people, share your ideas with your people, get feedback from your people. I really encourage it because it's one of those things, like this whole episode is about. There's so much good on our day-to-day. If we can get together with the people who are doing these positive things and seeing the value in it and being grateful for our positive impact on the communities that we serve and share our ideas because none of us are competing. We're all trying to elevate the same stratosphere of education and music. It's a great thing. So please, if you have questions, feel free to email me or get in touch with me. Would love to chat with you about it. The last thing I wanted to share today is that recently I've been really feeling grateful for how my career is unfolding and opening up, and new opportunities are occurring and the new people that we're meeting and the positive impact that we're having with this work. But also, I've beencome painfully aware of something that I'm working on within myself, which is that in the outside world, and I think this is something that happens with artists a lot and with creatives, is that many of us we have pretty serious work ethics, right? We have our church gigs, our studios, our performances, and we really develop this attitude through our training of letting our yes be our yes and our no be our no. Well, this is my wife, Allison's her overarching statement of purpose, which is let your yes be your yes, let your no be or no. Is we have these agreements and we we make them. We say we're gonna do this gig, we do it. We're gonna take the student, we teach them. And it can be exhausting. I'm really willing to make these agreements, agreements in business as a clinician, as a speaker, as an author, as a parent, as a friend. I'm really comfortable making these agreements and sticking with them. However, on a daily basis, I'm looking back through a year or two worth of my daily notes of what matters most, of what's important. I realize how easily I break agreements with myself. And I look back at the number of times a simple agreement, if I would have made it with anybody else, if I would have made it with another person, I would have kept it. And so something that I'm working on personally that has been really helpful is the practice of making and keeping agreements with myself. They don't need to be big. I am focused actively on developing a trusting relationship with myself. If I say I'm gonna practice this thing, I'm gonna do it. If I'm gonna say I'm gonna play in this band, I'm gonna do it. If I say that I'm going to be prepared to play a show with this band, I'm going to do it. I'm going to make the time for it. And what I found is I've been working on this maybe the last month or so, I see it as a priority for myself because it's one of my weaknesses. I will make agreements with the outside world and keep them. I will often, at the expense of often not being able to keep those agreements with myself. Doing this thing of saying today I'm going to meditate for an hour and doing it, or doing this thing saying today, whatever. I'm not going to eat sugar. I don't know. I'm just making things up. And following it, what this is doing, it's also allowing better decision making. And because that's the goal. I want to be more decisive. I want to be decisive along the set of ethics and codes and beliefs and values, the same ones that I'm talking about earlier, about this great positive energy of the music that we make, the people that we teach, the belief in the work that we do. I want to prioritize my time around those things. How can I teach more people? How can I be more present with people? How can I deliver the message of developing your business in a positive way to more people that's more impactful, that will actually make a difference, that will have them change their day-to-day. And so by doing that, it's like the simple Kanban board thing, right? Where we have our tasks, we have our given amount of work and time each day and prioritizing them, right? The most important thing for me right now is keeping my head together. Meaning I spend a lot of time meditating. I do. I contemplate a lot. And I kind of need to. And that's become the thing that's helped me with whether it's anxiety or worry or concern or just managing and juggling a ton of things. I've made that agreement with myself. I've calmed my mind down, and I'm making better decisions. I think this is an awesome area to explore to talk about how we build these agreements and relationships within ourselves. And so it's something I've been working on personally. I just wanted to share. And I wanted to take this time today to just say, hey, here's a story of what happened with Fonds and make music. And this is why it's so vibey and so good. And go out and join an organization. Join Nats, join MTAC if you're in California. Check out MTNA if you're a piano teacher. Go to NCKP for sure. If you're a Suzuki teacher, definitely go to your Suzuki teacher training. Get together with these people. Go to a summer institute. The value is immense. Go to NAM if you're in the music industry. Everybody's there. And that's where the music industry happens. So I hope this has inspired someone to do that, to go out, to find their people, to be a part of that. I hope that this has reminded you of the unbelievable fortune we have to be doing such positive work that's got zero negative impact. It's all good. So that's something we can really carry with us and be really grateful for. So next week I'll be back with a straight up interview like we usually do here. Thanks again for being here. Have a great day. You've been listening to the 440 podcast. If you found this helpful, subscribe at Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a quick rating. It makes a big difference. To learn how to run your studio with less stress and more joy, visit make music.studio.com. I'm your host, Eric Brenner.