Side Hustle Feature: Ballet School Jeté Studios
By: En Hui Ong
Tags: Side Hustle, Ballet

Why we featured Jeté Studios:

I have always heard how being in the business of services for children is a lucrative one, especially in Singapore where parents are really enthusiastic about sending their kids for all sorts of classes.

Jeté Studios has the most unusual founder, he’s male, and his day job is that of managing money (an absolute return fund). So how did he end up running a ballet school for children as a side hustle?

Hello! What’s your background, and what are you working on?

Raphael: Hello, my background is in ballet (been dancing for a couple of decades) and technology (BSc Information Systems Management and MComp Infocomm Security), and I run an absolute return FX Algorithm Trading Fund.

How did you get the idea for the ballet school and how did you get started?

Raphael: My parents are both dancers and starting a dance school was something I know they always wanted to do — this was something more of a “when I made it big I’ll start something for them” kind of bucket list item. Coincidentally, my client’s wife wanted to start a private dance school, and I was invited to be part of it — I roped in some dance friends and we got it going; in a way I’d like to think of it as fulfilling their wish to a small extent.

People usually say it’s lucrative to be in the business of providing services to children because Singaporean parents are so enthusiastic about sending their kids for classes. Do you agree with that?

Raphael: A dance school won’t be a 100x startup, though a steady growth is possible. But yes the common understanding of the enthusiasm in sending kids for classes is true.

Would you say dance class ranks high up there in terms of parents’ priorities?

Raphael: Tuition for academic subjects will always rank highest. Dance, along with everything else, piano, martial arts, speech and drama etc, will all rank equally in second place (there’s only that many “extra curricular hours” a child can squeeze in).

What are common motivations for sending children to dance class?

Raphael: A mixture of reasons:

Dance instills discipline, trains musicality, coordination, sets better posture, enhances confidence and poise

Chance of entering “better” schools via Discretionary School Admissions (DSA) — fun fact, I entered JC and University via discretionary admission because of dance.

How have you attracted users and grown?

Raphael: We channeled our marketing resources to focus on one key message — we offer a unique holistic dance curriculum for children and teens with ballet as the core foundation, which resonated with young parents well. Separately, we have also reached out to some organizations to form some partnerships, as well as tried to get ourselves mentioned in various sites and articles. Fortunately for us, despite COVID, there was a strong surge in demand with Phase 2 reopening last year, and this allowed us to reach profitability ahead of schedule.

What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue?

Raphael: Primarily from dance services rendered; it is rather similar to a subscription based service, with recurring revenue. Other sources include ad hoc non-core dance/fitness classes and school holiday dance camps.

What are the primary ways in which you promote your dance school?

Raphael: Facebook ads mainly. We haven’t done much otherwise.

How have you found balancing work and your side hustle? What’s your schedule like?

Raphael: Schedule wise it just takes an hour or so over the weekend if any help is needed, on top of a once-a-month meeting. I am very fortunate to have a self sustaining team as my work schedule can be rather demanding — very thankful that they understand that my focus is running my fund, though when help is needed from me I try to help whenever I can.

What’s your tech stack/software that you use?

Raphael: Not the typical tech stack for startups per se, but some SME tools such as: Osome, Xero, G-Suite, Canva, Adobe Suite, Hootsuite, Mailchimp, Wordpress, Instagram, Facebook etc.

What are your goals for the future?

Raphael: To start a dance foundation / trust to help financially challenged dancers develop and grow. To develop more dance teachers to aid us in nurturing young dancers and contribute to the growth of the arts scene.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced and obstacles you’ve overcome?

Raphael: Definitely COVID and Circuit Breaker. Fortunately there was quite a bit of government support and the repositioning that coincided with the subsequent surge in demand was fortuitous. Having to navigate the labyrinth of authority approvals to request for clarity on safe distancing measures was another tough obstacle as well.

At what point in your journey so far have you needed the most courage?

Raphael: During the lull periods of little to no growth and needing to motivate the team.

Have you found any type of resources or mentors particularly helpful or advantageous?

Raphael: Keeping track of the available grants for SMEs is always helpful (Business Grants Portal), and just reach out to different people who are already running their businesses for advice.

What’s your advice for folks who are just starting out?

Raphael: Regret is more painful than failing. As long as it is a side hustle, you can always pivot or stop if you really want to, just give it a try. Fun fact: we failed twice prior to starting the studio proper.

You mentioned you failed twice before launching the studio proper. What were the reasons for the 2 failures?

Raphael: 1) We tried to rent a small space within a large tuition center (to save on rental); the lack of signage and numerous restrictions to marketing, as well as an unnecessarily large amount of stakeholders, made it hard to take off.

2) We were invited to tag along to expand with the tuition center to Yangon, Myanmar, and did relatively well. However, they had to close that entity and we were forced to take over their space there — an extravagantly large space that we could not afford to take.

Young parents looking to send their children for ballet classes can consider learning from Jeté’s passionate dance teachers (located near Tampines MRT and Tampines Hub).

They are also looking for companies interested in partnering with us (bonus if the company is in the children/education space).

Learn more about Jeté at https://jetestudios.com/, or email enquiries@jetestudios.com

Jeté has also been featured in:

https://magazine.tropika.club/qa-with-wah-chun-leaping-through-time/ http://snapshots.smu.edu.sg/index.php/2016/09/26/dancing-through-life/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/rvhsalumni/permalink/10157249596675840/ https://www.facebook.com/sgSMU.alumni/photos/a.412764588146/10158468176638147/?type=3&theater