teaching guitar, and pedal modding as a business

[JDC]

I remember how someone was talking about opening a guitar shop and it sounding like a hard business

I was just wondering how much money there is in the guitar teaching and pedal modding markets

as it would be something I'm tempted to do in the future, especially given the price of a keeley is £180!!!

[WezV]

Keeleys fetch nice prices but there are a lot of other 'boutique' pedal makers out there - get your name established and your product into the world and who knows!!

as for making a business, since so much depends on reputation i would keep something like pedal building as a hobby, sell a few, push them in the right places and hope it grows.. once the reputation is there you have more options what to do with it

the title of the thread made me think  you want to teach people how to mod guitars and pedals

[dave_mc]

^ that's what i thought... :lol:

[JDC]

wezv, how many guitars have you built and sold now and how did you go about getting your first order?

the pedal thing is just an idea right now, I haven't really done research into competitors, suppliers, marketing, margins, etc

[WezV]

wezv, how many guitars have you built and sold now and how did you go about getting your first order?

completely finished 34... never intended doing them to sell but once people know you do it they start asking... first friends and family who payed for parts, then a guitar shop took one and went to a LGS with it where it sold fairly quickly.  That was #18 and really the point i considered myself good enough to sell them, they really started getting special after the first 10 but i still had the odd dud happening.  I had a lot to learn as i had no woodwork experience or tools when i started.  Still not sure i am at the stage where it could be a full-time earner for me, and TBH i do enjoy the variety in my life at the moment so i am not sure i want it that way either.  Its good having a day job completely unrelated to the guitar stuff that still allows enough time to indulge it

[mikeluke]

Teaching - need to look at what the market rate per hour is where you live and then get yourself some regular pupils - word of mouth can be key to getting a solid customer base. Some of the guys that I know who teach have managed to get themselves weekly slots at schools in the area - so at least you get some guaranteed income from it. Some downsides of teaching would involve doing a lot of work in the evening and at weekends - because this will be when your customers can make it!

Good luck!

[WezV]

Some of the guys that I know who teach have managed to get themselves weekly slots at schools in the area - so at least you get some guaranteed income from it. Some downsides of teaching would involve doing a lot of work in the evening and at weekends - because this will be when your customers can make it!

Good luck!

actually thats a good point, some of my mates who were all in a band together now go round teaching in school.  they do seperate guitar, drum and bass sessions.  they all had to get to a certain grade before the school were really interested but now its pretty successful.  generally they go into the school and do a demo first then either get customers from that or have some sessions in schools.

http://www.uttoxeteradvertiser.co.uk/uttoxeteradvertiser-news/displayarticle.asp?id=365915

i have another friend who has done a similar thing with languages

http://www.little-linguists.co.uk/

seems like thats going pretty well too!!

[mikeluke]

If you want an example of one way to do this, take a look at Clive's Music Schools (you should find it via any search engine) - essentially it is a franchise model where you take on a local area, rent a village hall (or similar) and employ a few spotty teenagers to do the teaching for you - you charge the punters £20 an hour to give the kids 'rock' lessons and pay the teenagers about £6 an hour - 'Clive' provides all the material, syllabus etc - my lad went for a while but the lessons were cr@p - one 'tutor' was widdling so much during the 'lesson' I felt like stuffing his Strat up his ar$e! Does not mean that the concept is not good though - the one that I went to was averaging about 8-10 kids an hour with 4-5 tutors - the village hall was about £10 an hour to hire - 2 sessions on a Saturday morning - so the woman was making about £200 x 2 = £400 less about £80 costs - let's say £300 for a Saturday morning - not bad!!