Meet Carly Seifert | Creator of Busy Kids Do Piano

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carly Seifert and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carly, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I was teaching private and group piano lessons and had a load of about forty students that I saw between the hours of 3:30 and 7:30 each day. While I loved my job and my students, once my own children were old enough to be in school, I hated being away from them during those precious after-school hours. I created Busy Kids Do Piano late at night after my kids were in bed — sometimes filming lessons in the middle of the night when everyone else in my family was asleep. My hope was to replace my private lesson income so that I would no longer have to work during the hours when my kids were home from school. A year after launching Busy Kids Do Piano, I was able to close my home studio and focus solely on my online business.

As I created my online piano lesson program, my goal was to produce a comprehensive, quality program in a way that would be affordable for families who couldn’t otherwise afford music lessons. For this reason, scaling my piano-teaching business using a membership model ended up making the most sense. I’m proud to have created a business that serves that needs of my family as well as the needs of so many other families.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Reading this question makes me realize how expansive the program has become through the years. When I think about the first online lessons I created, I cringe! At first, I just filmed myself, more-or-less, teaching a piano lesson — the same way I would if a student was next to me on the piano bench. I had to step back and think about what I could do to make the online experience effective and unique. When I did that, it completely changed how I taught, and I realized I could actually offer my online students more than I was offering students who came into my home studio. I worked with a video editor to make lessons that were interactive and engaging. I created computer games and printables for my students that would make practicing theory concepts fun. A web designer helped me think through the ways I could use points, badges, practicing challenges and an online recital hall to motivate students. Podcast episodes encourage students to explore music in a variety of styles from composers of all different backgrounds. Learning from other creatives helped me to really bring the program to life and make something wholistic and special. I always try to stay curious and ask myself what I can learn from others.

The online teaching space has gotten a lot noisier since Covid! As with anything, there’s good and bad to that. I think that it’s proven to people who were skeptical about the idea of learning to play an instrument from an online course that it is possible to do so. At the same time, every piano teacher became an “online” piano teacher all of a sudden. Because I had been teaching piano using an online system BEFORE the need came about so suddenly, I feel that I had time to be able to figure out strategies and techniques that succeeded in an online space and figure out things that didn’t work well.
Whether students of my program go onto become advanced pianists, play in the school band, sing in the choir, or just become a regular concert attendee, my program is set up to help them develop a solid music foundation and appreciation that will be relevant for the rest of their lives. And the thing that makes me so excited about what I do is that the low price point makes these lessons accessible for so many people around the world. That is hugely fulfilling for me.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I didn’t know much about Atlanta before moving to the area, and now it is my favorite city. History is everywhere around you — in the street art, the museums, the restaurants. I always enjoy bringing people to our National Center for Civil and Human Rights because so much of Atlanta’s past and present is a part of their work. Biking along the Beltline (and checking out Pianos for Peace installations along the way, obviously) is one of my favorite ways to experience Atlanta art and culture. Favorite restaurants that I love taking people to are Paschal’s and Atlanta Breakfast Club — you have to try some soul food when you’re in the South.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My husband has been so supportive along this entreprenerial journey. When it came to investing our savings into so much of the up-front cost of starting a business, he always believed that it would be worthwhile, even when I was filled with doubts. When I first launched my online piano lesson program and three people signed up, it felt like a personal rejection, and I wanted to close up shop and forget that I ever had this idea. He encouraged me to keep going, which is when I began to explore online marketing. I realized that I knew how to teach people to play the piano, but needed to understand the entrepreneurial side of what I was getting myself into. Whenever I went to him to ask if he was okay with me spending time and money to enroll in a new course so that I could better learn how to translate my business into an online space, he was my biggest supporter; his confidence gave me confidence to keep going.

Website: busykidsdopiano.com/busymomsdopiano.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/busymomsdopiano/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-seifert-1692b233/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/busymomsdopiano

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@busykidsdopiano

Image Credits
Shoshawnna Photography