Quitting Your Teaching Job to Open Your Own Studio

Opening a dance studio may seem like a straightforward endeavor if you’re passionate about teaching, but entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Here’s what you need to consider before you exit your current teaching responsibilities.

Get enough teaching experience first so you set yourself apart.

Work at multiple studios, so you can observe different perspectives on how to run a dance business—including typical administrative or customer-service issues, potential resolutions, and how and when cash flow changes throughout the year. It will also allow you to pinpoint your strengths as an educator.

“Pick the thing you are best at and run with it,” says Kim Black, owner of Miss Kim’s Children’s Dance and Arts in Burlington, North Carolina. She spent 34 years establishing herself as a teaching expert of preschool- and elementary-aged children before she opened her studio in fall 2020 with 200 students. This year, the studio has just over 1,000 students and Black opened a second studio concept in town—Miss Kim’s NEXT STEP—for students ages 12 to 19.

You may not want to wait decades to develop a following, so focus on what sets you apart. “You really have to brand yourself in a specific way and be confident in what your branding is,” adds Adam Holms, owner of Norwalk Metropolitan Youth Ballet in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Be up front with your current employers.

Talk to your boss(es) about your studio-ownership aspirations: “Ask the people that you’re working with now and you might find they have a five-year plan and a great transition strategy,” says Jen Turey, a former Rockette and Broadway touring-show performer who supplemented her income with teaching gigs. In the late 1990s she was invited to choreograph for a recreational studio in Newtown, Connecticut, and learned the owner was looking for a buyer who could “move the studio in a new direction.” Turey bought the business and took over the lease in 2000. Just last year she sold Dance Etc. School for Performing Arts to a former student and is now pursuing her EdD in dance education at Columbia University. 

Holms was a member of Turey’s studio faculty when he informed her about a decade ago that he would be leaving to open a classical ballet studio about 40 minutes away. “Some of my students followed him because they wanted a ballet-centered school,” she says. “Yes, I lost money from tuition, but at the same time, that business went to my friend, and Adam has been able to further their training in a way only he can.”

At another studio, Holms made the mistake of telling some families about his concept before he told leadership. “I found out via an email to the student population that I had been let go mid-year, but that was also the fire I needed to open my studio,” he says.

Determine how many students you need, and get creative with studio space.

Don’t try to be a direct competitor to another local studio. “You have one shot to have a good reputation,” Holms says. “If what you specialize in doesn’t exist in a community, then there should be no hard feelings.”

Your business plan needs to include how many students you want/need to have and space requirements, plus costs like mirrors, barres, sprung floors, stereo systems, insurance, marketing costs, and lawyer fees. Owning property might seem ideal, but it’s often an unrealistic start-up cost for most dance teacher salaries, and ownership means you will be your own landlord, responsible for HVAC units, plumbing and roof repairs, and parking-lot upkeep. “I was so close to owning so many pieces of property, but they never went through, and I’m kind of grateful for that,” Turey says. “I was able to walk away from my studio, but when you own the property, it’s just not that easy.”

Your first studio space may be humbling: Holms started Norwalk Metropolitan Youth Ballet in a room with a crooked floor at the back of a batter’s-cage business. He had 13 students, two of whom were his nephews. From there, he moved to a one-room studio and now, in NMYB’s 11th season, he’s in another leased space with two studios and 125 students. 

Recruit students through organic outreach and discover the art of bartering.

Think about ways to get involved in the community and consider offering complimentary or low-fee, drop-in classes at a community center, daycare, after-school program, or library, or try a creative collaboration with a coffee shop, dance retailer, recital photographer, or a yoga/Pilates studio. Turey, for example, worked as a community-theater choreographer before enrollment season, so adults/parents got to know her first.

Until you can afford to cut paychecks—one of the first positions to hire is an office manager, Turey recommends—consider the cost savings of bartering for goods or services. That might look like delegating bookkeeping duties or cleaning work to a parent in exchange for free or reduced tuition, or partnering with a high school or college to have marketing interns.

“I’m really proud of the community we’ve built because it honors both the journey of childhood and it honors the art form,” Holms says. “But, the studio is your child, and it will never grow up. You will always be engaged with it.”

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