I started a music academy to enable digital teaching while preserving traditional values

In one line, what do you do and what is your most significant achievement?

From the duration of starting the business, we have received a couple awards since. The most significant award being the Entrepreneur 100 award. It's surreal for us when we think of how far we've come since starting this journey as entrepreneurs.

Who are you and what business did you start?

I am the co-founder and CEO of Sempre Music Academy. Sempre Music Academy is a music academy located in Tanjong Pagar, Singapore. It was founded with the goal of achieving quality contemporary lessons by integrating digital tools whilst preserving traditional teaching values.

What's your backstory?

Being blessed, I was exposed to various instruments, such as the piano, viola and violin from a young age of 5.

As a passionate musician and lover of music, I've accumulated over a decade's worth of teaching experience prior to starting the business.

What should be the first steps to take to enter your industry?

Personally, I believe that there is no specific key to success. Instead, it is important to have the right mindset at all times. To do so, one must be able to adapt to changes, be confident with making decisions and be ready to overcome challenges.

Passion is a big factor as well. Everyone may have the knowledge and experience of starting a business, but with no passion, the arduous journey of starting a business may be short lived.

How did you spend your First 100 Days of launching your business?

A majority of the time was dedicated to planning. Consulting mentors, coming up with business models and brainstorming strategies.

As a result we raised over $65,000 in a span of less than 10 months. This allowed us to fund and kickstart the business. Remember if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain partnerships/customers?

Music education is known to be mundane and monotonous for the most part. At our school, we actively create engaging experiences by hosting performances and workshops. We work towards leaving lasting impressions on students by organising open house activities.

The strive to be all rounded allowed us to provide solutions to our students whether it be for their learning, instrumental repair, or retail needs (books/materials/accessories).

What has taken you from 0 to 100?

I wouldn't say that we've had a 0 to 100 moment. Starting and building a business has its ups and downs. We've definitely come far from where we were 2 years ago and the thing that constantly pushes us to give our best would definitely be the satisfaction we receive from serving our customers and meeting their needs.

What is one underrated thing in your industry that business owners should start doing/using?

In line with the goal of the business which I shared earlier, it would be to enhance our students' learning experience by integrating smart digital tools.

Being in the Digital Age, it is crucial that we leverage and adapt to the current technological resources that we have access to.

What was one failure you had to go through that others in your industry should look out for?

One of the most challenging obstacles by far since the opening of our physical school was the channeling of our school's vision, standards and values to each and everyone of our staff.

How I overcame it was to actually wrote a book called Music Education fundamentals, which contained a wide range of resources to impart values, share knowledge, experience and expertise, as well as methods on upholding professionalism.

Since then, our school has used this as a guide on training and educating the teachers that join our team.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

We use many tools and platforms in our business ranging from music teaching aids such as Soundbrenner (Digital metronome) and simply tuner (music tuner). Aside from tools, we also tap on various fintech platforms such as stripe, ENets and atome for payments and e-commerce.

Having marketing being a crucial aspect for our business is the reason as to why we are exceptionally active on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Our physical academy has been active for over a year, and is home to approximately 20 employees ranging from Teachers to administrative and marketing staff.

Recently, we also managed to raise a six figure investment through an angel investor.

Moving forward, we plan to continue to grow our team and expand our school.