The title of this post may not be factually accurate. But the only thing that prevented Mozart from using TakeLessons to find his music teacher is the 240 years between their respective births.

82% of Americans wish they had learned to play a musical instrument, and 67% expressed an interest in learning to play, according to a recent Gallup poll.

TakeLessons, a San Diego startup launched in 2004, aims to convert many of these latent musicians into practicing students with its national lesson-booking service. I was able to spend some time speaking with the founder, Steven Cox, recently and learned a lot about the company’s formation, product, and beliefs.

How It Works

takelessons TakeLessons extends beyond a simple referral service. It is definitely not just a “Craiglist for music lessons.” Certified instructors are hired as independent consultants, are paid by TakeLessons, and are held to high standards of teaching performance.

The company leverages two of the internet’s inherent strengths in its mission to change the way people find and consume music lessons.

The service incorporates increased efficiency and transparency to improve the music lesson experience and increase the odds of successful lessons for both parties, the students and the instructors.

In addition to increasing efficiency and transparency, TakeLessons adds beneficial discipline to a process that has classically occurred unpredictably and haphazardly.

TakeLessons keeps the best parts of freelance music instruction and fixes most of its problems.

Check out a short list of the benefits for students offered by TakeLessons:

FirstClass Guarantee: Promise of excellence including refund after first lesson, if student is not satisfied, and the ability to switch instructors at any time.

Certification Process: Quality-control process to ensure only the best instructors will teach TakeLessons students. Prospective instructors are interviewed, reference and background-checked, trained, and continually developed with anonymous feedback from their students on their teaching ability and character. Less than 15% of applicants are hired.

S.T.A.R. Program: Goal-tracking program customized for each student’s unique goals. Includes an individual Lesson Success Journal, completed after each lesson by the instructor with feedback and practice instructions.

Show What You Know Concerts: Putting an American Idol-like spin on stuffy recitals (minus Simon making people cry).

For instructors, TakeLessons provides marketing, billing, scheduling, logistics, and more. Essentially, its goal is to handle as much of the backroom business processes as possible and free up the music instructors to do what they love. Thereby, the instructors can spend more time on student work and less time on paper work.

In addition to its consumer services business, TakeLessons offers turnkey music programs for schools and community centers. For example, it currently runs music lessons for the Poway Unified School District, funded by a grant from the state after the district’s music program budgets were cut.

Making Money

Where does TakeLessons revenue come from? As you might imagine, a portion of each lesson fee is directed to TakeLessons before the balance is paid to the instructor. TakeLessons sets the lesson price based on its market research and individual instructor education. My search for piano instructors in San Diego returned 12 teachers with lessons starting at $35.

The Genesis of TakeLessons

TakeLessons was founded by Steven Cox in 2004 to help scratch his own itch and to help out a friend. Cox had experienced firsthand the difficulty in finding the right vocal instructor, ending several trials in frustration. Cox was playing in a band at the time, and the band’s drummer, with his master’s degree in music performance, was looking to drum up business as an instructor on the side. The challenge of running a business, acquiring students, and managing internet marketing tasks was excessive overhead for a person who, at the end of the day, just wanted to play music. Cox fused these two experiences and the idea TakeLessons was born.

The company now has 12 full-time employees in San Diego handling technology development, instructor recruiting, and sales and support.

Lessons for Success?

The market for private music lessons is a quiet giant with no national player prior to TakeLessons’s emergence. TakeLessons has the opportunity to build a nationally-recognized brand, providing students with a predictable, high-quality lesson experience and providing instructors with a steady stream of students and a premium reputation.

I believe the key to achieving that potential lies in attracting high numbers of ambitious students. Without large student demand, TakeLessons will lack a strong force to attract instructors. While the service offers many valuable benefits to instructors, the most compelling argument will always be colored green and baring a dead President. From an instructor’s point of view, the request, “Show me the money,” is directly accompanied with, “Show me the students.”

A quick Google search highlights a TakeLessons competitor in PrivateLessons.com. In contrast to the TakeLessons approach of providing certified instructors and offloading of administrative tasks, PrivateLessons offers a very simple service: essentially, it sells an internet instructor listing for $99/year. (Note: That fee does not apparently include a usable search feature. I see no way to separate the search for instructor location from instrument.) Although the two businesses are markedly different in scope of services, they both rely on a supply of students to drive success.

As a young business, TakeLessons looks like a music student with a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see what lessons it learns in the startup school of hard knocks and the resulting successes it can achieve.