On this episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast host John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) has a fascinating conversation with Eric Bourassa (UnlimitedGuitar.com), the former owner of the Fort Worth Music Academy. Eric shares why he chose to sell his thriving music business and the personal insights he gained afterward. This episode unveils the intricacies of selling a business, the emotional journey involved, and the surprising regrets that came with it.
In this episode:
- Eric emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision for one’s career.
- The intense emotions involved in selling a business, and how they can influence decisions.
- The negotiation process in selling a business requires careful consideration and legal advice.
- Building a successful music school involves more than just financial success; community matters.
- Transitioning from a brick-and-mortar school to online teaching, and future plans to possibly return to a brick-and-mortar school.
Eric candidly shares his motivations, the challenges he faced in the negotiation process, and how his passion for being a full-time musician influenced his decision. If you’re contemplating selling your own music school or simply curious about the journey of a business owner, this episode is packed with valuable lessons and honest reflections.
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.416)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. My guest on the show today is the founder of unlimited guitar dot com, former founder of Fort Worth Music Academy, Eric Barassa. Hey, Eric, how you been?
Eric (00:21.48)
Hey, John, and by the way, it still blows my mind that like, I have a website called unlimitedguitar.com. The fact that I got that domain, I have no idea.
John Kozicki (00:32.398)
Yeah. So, Eric, I mentioned former owner of Fort Worth Music Academy and you recently sold. We’re going to get into that. But before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about Unlimited Guitar and kind of your shift. Like you and I go back quite a few years. At one point we were in like a small
Eric (00:41.438)
Yes.
John Kozicki (01:02.444)
music school owner mastermind group. yep, with Dave. And since then, I’ve always thought like, man, Eric has such this fun personality. And I see that coming through on what you’re doing with unlimited guitar. Not only that, what I think makes you really appealing to someone who wants to go through your courses.
Eric (01:04.766)
Yeah, with Dave Simon. That was fun.
John Kozicki (01:31.455)
And I think you do like a weekly group call with with the members, right? What I thought always I’ve always thought this about you, you your style of guitar playing is sort of representative of your personality and the mix of musical influences that I see that come out of you, which is weird, because it’s one you’ve got like some shredder aspects.
Eric (01:35.496)
I Yep.
John Kozicki (01:59.479)
I think Joe Satriani sort of comes to mind.
Eric (02:01.886)
Yep, yep, he’s my favorite guitar player.
John Kozicki (02:04.738)
But then you also have, like you’re a big fan of pop music.
Eric (02:09.842)
I love pop music. Love it.
John Kozicki (02:12.946)
And that sweet spot right in between those pop punk music, which all of that stuff, I think is just, it sort of shows this broad range of how you personally are able to connect with any individual learner’s sensibility and what they want to do. Because oftentimes when it comes to shredding guitar players, there’s a bit of this elitism.
Eric (02:18.293)
huh. Yep.
Eric (02:42.822)
Right.
John Kozicki (02:42.947)
and the idea of wanting to play some pop songs, be like, right. But you just like, you lean into it.
Eric (02:50.568)
Yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate you saying that. That’s a nice way of putting it. I think it’s a double-edged sword because, yeah, on the positive, I can relate to people who just like nice, simple, catchy pop music because I’m right there with them. But then I also can appreciate when people want to hear just crazy, over-the-top, dream theater-esque shenanigans because I also like that.
John Kozicki (03:16.253)
Yeah.
Eric (03:17.35)
And kind of everything in between and pop punk is kind of a sweet spot for me because you frequently get like really cool guitar riffs but then also simple catchy things but with the energy of like shred guitar to me has a lot of energy to it and pop punk brings that same energy but just in a different way but the double-edged sword of that is that it makes it hard to find my niche.
online like when it comes to teaching and when it comes to building an audience because on the one hand I’m like I really like this Joe Satriani song or idea I’d love to do a cover of that or I want to teach a lesson on that and then the next day I might do a blink 182 guitar lesson and so it it doesn’t work with the YouTube algorithm and then people who watch my Satriani stuff are like I don’t care about blink 182 and then vice versa you know what I mean so I’m
John Kozicki (03:47.512)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (04:08.077)
John Kozicki (04:14.025)
Yeah.
Eric (04:14.706)
I’m kind of all over the place in that way.
John Kozicki (04:18.375)
That’s really interesting and something I never really thought about because you mentioned the YouTube algorithm, which obviously very mechanical. There’s not that personality in there to say, like when I think about you, Eric, I think like, man, Eric’s personality shines through in everything he does. And I think that is super appealing to pretty much anyone who wants to learn how to play music.
Eric (04:41.939)
Thank you.
John Kozicki (04:47.627)
whether you’re into shredding or you’re into pop because you’re able to shift and you’re not, you don’t have that elitist attitude, but the YouTube algorithm apparently likes the elitist attitude or vice versa or whatever. Yeah. So I can.
Eric (04:58.868)
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t lean enough into like, if I was really, really strategic, I would lean into one thing only. And I would make far more negative videos than positive videos. But I just, I don’t like, like, as we know, like with news and with YouTube, if you hate something, you’re going to get far more engagement.
I’ve done a few videos like that when I’m like, you know what? There’s this is something I really don’t like but but I do kind of want to talk about it Anytime I’ve posted that video I always kind of have kind of an icky feeling afterwards and I’m like, I think I’m mostly just gonna stay away from that kind of thing and so Yeah, it’s it’s made it I think a more challenging long road, but I feel I I just feel better
John Kozicki (05:35.309)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (05:38.935)
Right, right.
Eric (05:56.484)
just being myself and I find that not pretending to be anyone other than myself is even if it doesn’t serve me in the short term I think in the long run that that’s what will serve me best.
John Kozicki (06:09.259)
Yeah, I believe in that as well. I fingers crossed. I hope that for you too. Well, so unlimited guitar.com is your website for all that. And obviously you’ve got a YouTube channel and you’ve done all the technical work to sort of put those two together. And but it wasn’t too long ago that you were in the brick and mortar world with
Eric (06:14.94)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (06:38.967)
with the rest of us or with maybe, I mean, there’s just two of us right now, so with me. And Fort Worth Music Academy was your school. But I didn’t wanna get into that about how you recently sold. And when I say recently, I think it’s been, what, in the past year or so that’s been finalized?
Eric (06:40.703)
Yes.
you
Eric (06:58.986)
Yeah, yeah, was October 1st, 2024. So less than a year ago.
John Kozicki (07:04.139)
Okay, so to backtrack and give a little backstory, when did you establish Fort Worth Music Academy? And I think it was a different name originally, correct?
Eric (07:13.832)
It was, yeah. The way it kind of came about was, you know, like pretty much almost anybody in our industry, it started out with dreams of rock stardom and touring the world. And my mom actually encouraged me smartly. So after I graduated college to teach, well, I was going to just teach guitar in the evenings. was like, that’s just a way to make money. But I’m not really passionate about
John Kozicki (07:26.221)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (07:43.306)
I don’t care about it, but I hadn’t really done it. So I didn’t even know and then my mom was like well Why don’t you substitute teach during the day like at an elementary school? And I’m like well, that’s smart. I’m not doing anything else. So long story short I ended up getting the music teacher job at my old elementary school And then all the while I was teaching lessons out of my house in the evening
John Kozicki (07:53.239)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (08:11.378)
And then it kind of got to a point where teaching the lessons out of the house became kind of too much. And I was like, I kind of have to pick. And while I loved teaching elementary school, only one of those had the growth financially that could support my family long-term. So then I just taught out of my house for several years. And then when it got to the point where I was teaching 80 people out of my house,
John Kozicki (08:29.101)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (08:37.674)
It was a lot for my wife, it was a lot for the neighbors, just those cars always there. And so I rented a space and called it Ridgely School of Music. And that was April 1st of 2014. And then I started hiring employees and people were always mispronouncing the name of the school. And so I thought, you know what, we live in the city of Fort Worth, let’s go with Fort Worth Music Academy. And we switched that name.
John Kozicki (08:41.964)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (08:53.207)
Okay.
Eric (09:06.098)
and I had the music school for a little over 10 years.
John Kozicki (09:10.965)
Okay, so 10 years. I’m at 11 with my studio currently. So kind of understand the that that journey. And then you decided to sell. So I do want to get into how all that worked. But first understanding your motivation. And what made you decide, you know, I think it’s time to sell or I
Don’t want to do this anymore? Where did all that come from?
Eric (09:43.21)
It all comes from one word and that’s ego and so this This is my warning to two people is to to check your ego and I think this is something I probably should like go to therapy for because I think there’s a lot to dig into and unpack with it Because what seemed like on the surface my motivation I don’t think was actually my my real reason for for doing it
John Kozicki (10:03.828)
Yeah.
Eric (10:12.202)
I had never considered selling my business and I’ve noticed with a few things in my life just in the history of my life It’s I think it’s really important to have a clear vision of what you want because if you don’t or you let yourself get sidetracked someone else will present a vision to you and then you may just find yourself either wanting to please that person or or
just because of a lack of clear vision for yourself, just following someone else’s vision. And which I don’t think is always a bad thing, but in this case, someone who owned other local music schools around the area just mentioned it to me and said, hey, have ever thought about selling? I was like, no, why would I do that? this is, it’s basically free money and I like my music school and it’s not…
John Kozicki (11:04.63)
Yeah.
Eric (11:10.728)
that terribly hard now after 10 years. mean, it’s, I was probably eight years in at that point. But, you know, at first it was hard as I’m sure it was for you working out some of the kinks in the beginning. But by the 10 year mark, you know, you’ve usually, we had a really good system in place and I was happy with it.
John Kozicki (11:24.651)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (11:31.99)
Yeah.
Eric (11:35.764)
But I think what really happened was maybe about a year after he had put, he had just planted that idea in my mind. And we had kind of hit a ceiling as a music school where I thought surely with all the work I’ve done, can get bigger than this. We can get a better studio space. I just had ideas for how we could make the school better. And we just seemed stuck.
John Kozicki (11:49.024)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (12:01.953)
Yeah.
Eric (12:04.666)
And no matter what I did, it seemed like we just couldn’t get past this certain level. And I kind of, and so again, here comes my ego. Me thinking, we’re not good enough. And here is somebody else who had built bigger schools than me. And I felt inadequate in.
John Kozicki (12:17.804)
you
Eric (12:28.392)
terms of not being able to get to the next level and I thought maybe the best thing is to just give this to somebody who can take it to that next level. That’s what our teachers deserve, that’s what our students deserve and I’m not giving them the best that they can have. So that was part of it. The other part of it was that I have always wanted to be a full-time touring musician and I thought I’m not getting any younger.
I fear after 10 years of owning a music school that I’m gonna be stuck. And that if that this level of comfort, I’m probably never going to pursue that full time. if I, so it felt kind of win-win. Number one, my own feelings of inadequacy about what we’ve done with the music school, handing that off to somebody else so that they can take the ball and run with it. But then also by cutting that,
John Kozicki (13:01.302)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (13:25.834)
chord by burning that bridge, it’s going to force me into action to take big action towards a music career. So we can talk about the aftermath of all of that and kind of the lessons I’ve learned from this, but I think those were my my true motivations.
John Kozicki (13:29.984)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (13:43.051)
Okay, that’s really interesting. And I’ll add a little bit of context here only because I’m somewhat familiar with the story you just told. Creative Soul Music School is the new name of your former studio. And I think maybe six, seven locations in your area, something like that, right? Okay, and so…
Eric (14:06.664)
Yes. Yes.
John Kozicki (14:12.678)
Maybe we’ll make this a therapy session. I don’t know. So that’s super interesting to me that you hadn’t thought about that. And they just approached you and like planted that seed from the time that they approached you and said, have you considered this to the time that you ultimately engaged in negotiations? What what’s the what was the timeline there?
Eric (14:27.017)
Yes.
Eric (14:41.716)
I think that was about a two year period. It was probably about a year after, and by the way, Casey is the owner of Creative Soul and I got nothing but love for the guy. He has been nothing but patient with me during the selling process and even after, and just really, really a great guy, really passionate about what he does. So about a year after,
John Kozicki (14:45.759)
Okay.
Eric (15:11.13)
I then called him up and we talked every few months, just kind of checking in. And then I finally said, you know, maybe I’d be interested in exploring this idea of selling. And then about six months after that of us trying to work something out, I realized, I was like, this isn’t gonna work. This doesn’t make sense. And then a few months after that, he called me back and he was like,
John Kozicki (15:23.404)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (15:39.752)
I have an idea for how I think it can work. And by the time he had called me at that point, I was knee deep into starting to play professionally in bands. And then also I had started another business that I just had an idea for and kind of without thinking through the consequences, I just kind of went for it. And I was pretty stressed out at that point.
John Kozicki (15:57.516)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (16:09.234)
And I was in such a state of stress that when he said, hey, I think we can make this work, I was like, fine, let’s do it because I don’t, I’m not giving the attention to the music school that it needs. And I’m kind of like burning the candle at both ends anyway. So I was kind of ready to do whatever was necessary to sell just with the emotional state that I was in.
John Kozicki (16:28.171)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (16:37.791)
Yeah, I hear where you’re coming from and I’ve kind of been following a little bit as a bystander on your journey through social media posts. So I know that that other business, you started a gym and like you’ve got courses and you’re deep into that. I think, all right, playing armchair therapist here, Eric, you said it in the beginning, you you, you kind of weren’t, you didn’t have a clear vision for what you wanted.
Eric (16:58.46)
Thank
John Kozicki (17:07.783)
And so, but you know you want success in like everything that you do. And so you’ve got all these fires burning and that I can see where that sort of went to overwhelm and.
Eric (17:16.479)
Yeah.
Eric (17:23.07)
Yeah, yeah, I was just doing too many different things. Ultimately, the vision was how do I make a living as a musician and support my family? And so, but I knew, well, in my mind, it was, I need to have these other businesses supporting that. And then it just got to a level where it was like, my gosh, I’m like with the gym. I loved it. I love the idea, but I was like, I’m…
John Kozicki (17:34.133)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (17:42.155)
Yeah.
Eric (17:50.684)
I’m doing this like sunup to sundown. I’m never gonna play guitar again. I’m never gonna be a musician if I continue in this way. So I learned that business only lasted three months before I realized I was like, I don’t have time to do this.
John Kozicki (18:07.217)
Mm-hmm. I can speak from experience as well with not starting other businesses, but Starting new projects and primarily diversifying my own business one thing that I’ve learned in doing that is It’s always those new projects those things are always a lot slower to to gain any sort of steam because in my head I think like
well, I’ve done this before. started, you know, like my current music school is my second. So I’ve gone through the building and sale process also. I did. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the but the building process when when you’re starting and it’s just you oftentimes in your life, you’re just like, OK,
Eric (18:44.916)
Wait, did you sell your first music school? I didn’t know this! my gosh! Wow!
John Kozicki (19:05.567)
This is what I’m focused on. This single thing. I have nothing but energy and time to put into this thing and it’s small. So managing that thing is really easy. As it grows, it becomes more challenging. So now in hindsight, you’re 10 years in and you’re like, got a thriving business. Yes, you have systems in place that make everything work well, but you still devote
you still have a full time job managing it, right? And so then when you say, I’m going to start this other side business or I’m going to start this other project in your mind, you think I did it before. I can do it again in this sort of time frame. Yeah. Not realizing like, yeah, but I can’t just not go to my full time job, which is running my current business.
Eric (19:48.298)
That’s what it was? Yes, yes.
Eric (19:58.076)
Yeah, well, so in my mind, the music school got to a point where it was pretty much running without me. And so I thought, you know, I don’t have to spend that much time on it. And I think when I started the gym, I didn’t realize just how much time I was actually giving to the music school. It was so that we had that was eye opening.
John Kozicki (20:21.351)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (20:24.958)
Yeah, okay, so let’s talk a little bit about that sale process and the negotiation process because…
I think you mentioned Casey is the new owner’s name approached you. He approached you presumably because he saw man, Eric’s got this great business and man, that would be a great addition to our company if he were ever willing to sell. So were there any specifics that you think he looked at or did he disclose what those specifics were about your business that made it attractive to him as a
Eric (20:41.439)
Yes.
Eric (21:05.105)
Yes, yeah, and it was, yeah, it made me proud because he said that most of the music schools he looked at were barely getting by.
John Kozicki (21:06.578)
as an acquisition.
Eric (21:18.586)
and he would see an opportunity of how to make them profitable, but he said what was appealing about my business was that we were already profitable and even though we had less students than a lot of the big music schools, we were financially in way better shape.
John Kozicki (21:18.846)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (21:36.7)
Mm-hmm. Okay. And in terms of big, small, relatively speaking, when he looked at your studio, what kind of numbers were you at when he decided, yep, I’m gonna buy this?
Eric (21:54.23)
We were kind of floating between the like 130 to 145 student range.
John Kozicki (22:00.778)
Okay, yeah, and having been there, that’s like getting to that 200 when you’re like between 150 and 200, for whatever reason, I’ve noticed that’s a hard number to jump through, that 150 to 200. And it feels good when you start seeing the numbers go up, but man, that over 200, I think that sort of sets.
That’s like this, for whatever reason, this weird bar that we all want to hit, right? We hit 100 and we’re like, yeah, right? And then the next one is 200, but that’s a tough one. Yeah.
Eric (22:38.548)
Yep.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, we never got to 200, but that was always the number in my mind that I wanted to hit, just like you said.
John Kozicki (22:51.946)
But yeah, like you said, you can be incredibly profitable even under 200. now when Casey’s looking at adding Fort Worth Music Academy to Creative Soul, his other locations, what are the numbers? I mean, do you know what the numbers are?
Eric (23:12.266)
I know that the total number of students that they had was about 1,400 students between all locations. So on average, 250 to 300 students, I think, per location.
John Kozicki (23:22.398)
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, they figured out that that next that next bump. So negotiation process. What was that like?
Eric (23:34.262)
Yes, so like I mentioned at first we were just talking numbers and he did the it bid did whatever it’s That’s called it bit. You know what I’m talking about
John Kozicki (23:46.098)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I didn’t do that when I sold but yeah.
Eric (23:49.948)
Okay, okay. So he did all that legwork and I sent him a bunch of numbers and everything. And so there’s some form, some industry standard formula that says like, hey, this is roughly how much it’s worth and all of that. And so we kind of just negotiated like how much, we didn’t really negotiate what the number, total number was, but how that was going to get paid out was kind of what we went back and forth on. And then,
Yeah, and then ultimately I walked away from that because it just didn’t make sense to me. I was at a point where it was like, okay, my business is profitable. My family is comfortable. I can work as much or as little as I want. I only had a handful of students of my own. My team was great. I loved my students. I had a great front desk person who, you know, they were all running the day to day. And then I was just there to kind of assist.
John Kozicki (24:28.468)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (24:47.314)
and put out big fires if I needed to, but that was happening less and less. I was really happy, honestly, with it, but it was just this, still this feeling of like, not enough, it’s not enough. And then my business mentor also was like,
John Kozicki (25:00.12)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (25:09.622)
I was like, hey, what do you think about this? And he was like, you should totally sell. It’s a great learning experience. And I started then thinking, what will other people think of me? Like, whoa, Eric built a business and then he sold it. He sold his first business and now he’s going to do bigger and better things. So again, my ego talking to me and just totally ignoring that like, Eric, you did the American dream. You achieved it. You built something great.
John Kozicki (25:24.372)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (25:28.508)
Right. Yeah.
John Kozicki (25:36.722)
Right, yeah.
Eric (25:39.418)
students were happy, our teachers were happy, I was pretty happy, my family was happy, like what more is there? But somehow it wasn’t it wasn’t good enough, right?
John Kozicki (25:51.196)
Yeah.
Eric (25:53.386)
So anyway, so I think I kind of had that realization a little bit. And so I walked away. But then when he had presented this new idea to me, I was knee deep in starting this other business. And…
And so when they presented the paperwork, he… This is going to sound so dumb to people hearing it from the outside, but when you’re in it, you just, you don’t always think rationally. He said, hey, we can save some money. We can just use one lawyer and split the cost. I know, it was dumb.
John Kozicki (26:22.131)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (26:32.668)
I should have hired my own lawyer to look over all the numbers and negotiate better, but I didn’t. I was just so hell bent on the idea of like, it’s going to be such a badge of honor to say I sold a business, that I just kind of went through. I didn’t pay attention to the non-compete. I didn’t pay attention to something else that I don’t want to get into the details of, but, we, we spoke about a very specific
thing that if something happened my payouts would stop and we had talked about what that was going to look like but then what it actually ended up being in the paperwork was very different.
John Kozicki (27:18.121)
Yeah.
Eric (27:18.122)
and that was quite frustrating. I kind of went through, combed through everything, and then I was like, you know, I trust them, we have a good relationship, but you know, honestly, when you’re putting together a contract for someone else to sign, you’re gonna put it together for you to have the best outcome, and then you expect that other person to negotiate, and I just didn’t really…
do that. So my non-compete should have been two years and it ended up being five years. So I still have over another four years to go before I can open another music school. Yeah, so I should have hired my own lawyer. I should have negotiated a two-year non-compete and that other piece I should have not done.
I should have taken that out entirely or if I think they would have said no I should have been willing to walk away at that point
John Kozicki (28:16.873)
Yeah, well, I can relate when I sold my first music school, it was an internal sale. Yeah, I sold it to two of my instructors who were working for me in vested interest. And the circumstances for me were I was gonna move out of state. The deal was done. So my choices were, all right, well, I either just pack everything up and close shop, right? Maybe give my student lists.
Eric (28:21.618)
Yeah, I’m very interested to hear about this.
John Kozicki (28:44.777)
to the instructors and say, see you guys. I could have, and this was, this was 2013. So I could have potentially looked around locally for other buyers, but I didn’t wanna go through that process. And so I had these two sharp instructors who were vested in what we had built. And so I approached them and they agreed to buy it.
Eric (29:02.759)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (29:14.729)
But very similarly, you know, they were, they never owned a business, right? They’d never been in this situation. It was my first business at the time. I knew, okay, I’ve got to hire a lawyer to fill out paperwork and drop this contract. And in going through that process with the lawyer, I learned like, you can write anything you want in this contract. This can be like,
any absolutely anything. And, you know, I it was a very simple contract. And because I was leaving state, there was nothing about like non competes or anything like that. And, you know, I liked these guys. I had no ulterior motives because I was looking at it from the perspective of I’m either going to walk away from this business basically and have nothing.
or I’m going to come to an agreement with these two guys that I like, and I care about and I want to see them succeed. And it’ll be mutually beneficial. You know, so I got a little bit of money in my pocket. So I don’t have to work for the next year and a half or whatever. You know what I mean? But so I guess my my situation was a little bit different. So we weren’t dealing with non competes and things like that. So did you ever at any point
Eric (30:27.486)
Makes sense.
John Kozicki (30:42.099)
Think about looking for other buyers because at this point I can think of two companies that I know that are national companies that look to buy music schools. And did that ever even like cross your mind?
Eric (30:59.238)
I I talked with Dave Simon about it a couple of times, the company that he was working with, we just weren’t big enough in terms of what we were doing. So they had a certain threshold.
that they wanted and so that was it. But no, other than that it was I wanted to sell to somebody that I trusted that I thought would be a good steward of the music school and since I had a personal relationship with Casey I trusted him and that yeah no no so it really didn’t occur to me to try to sell to anybody else.
John Kozicki (31:35.495)
Was there ever any consideration for negotiating a situation where like you could maybe teach for them or stay on staff in some other role?
Eric (31:47.914)
And I am. So my students that I’ve been teaching for a long time, I am still teaching at their new location at the music school. So I am still involved in a small way there. And then I have also presented to Casey an idea for kind of a win-win possibly moving forward. So my involvement with them may
John Kozicki (32:10.684)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (32:17.868)
It may expand, we’ll see. I think they know that I plan to, once my non-compete is over, October 1st, 2029, I’ll be opening my next music school. Like, no question. I figured that out the first week that I walked into their music school. I mean, it’s beautiful, the building that they have, everything they do. I think this is just a consequence of…
John Kozicki (32:29.202)
Okay.
Eric (32:46.984)
when you do your own thing for so long, you’re just used to doing things your own way. So coming under their umbrella and having to learn to follow their system, when I’ve had my own system, is just sort of like, well, I’ve already been doing it this way for so long. Why would I change and do it like that? And then I was just kind of like, I was like, I should do this again.
John Kozicki (32:59.452)
Right.
John Kozicki (33:11.24)
So kind of alluded to this, but regrets. I mean, it sounds like you had have regrets. You had regrets pretty quickly. How I mean, how quickly did that sort of set in after after you sold?
Eric (33:18.1)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (33:28.226)
It, yeah, like I said, it was within the first week of, yeah, yeah, it was like instant. I was like, no, I shouldn’t have done that. Let’s, yeah, let’s find a way to do it again. Because the reality is I loved my school, I loved the community that we had built. In my mind, before we, look.
John Kozicki (33:34.223)
Wow.
Eric (33:56.22)
It’s one of those things where it’s hindsight is always 20-20. But when, I don’t think I would have learned this any other way, but it just made me appreciate my school so much more. In my mind, my music school had no personality, there was no sense of community, there was nothing we were doing that was original or cool or distinct. We were just a run-of-the-mill music school.
John Kozicki (33:59.347)
Sure, yeah.
John Kozicki (34:18.307)
Ugh.
Eric (34:21.258)
That was my attitude. And then as soon as we walked into the new place, I started noticing, not for better or for worse, but just all the differences. And I was like,
John Kozicki (34:31.517)
Yeah.
Eric (34:32.592)
We did have community. We did have personality. The way we ran our concerts was special. The atmosphere of coming to our lobby was special. Everything we did was great. The students and the families that we served, they were special. Like we almost had, we had zero problems with people. Like we had great relationships with all the families. It was very rare for somebody to come on board with our school, have a bad experience.
John Kozicki (34:36.22)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (34:53.98)
Yeah.
Eric (35:02.526)
and leave immediately. And typically if it was someone who left immediately, it was for the best because they just weren’t a good fit. And then our teachers were special. And I just realized, I was like, our music school was more special than I realized. And so yeah, I have no doubt in my mind. I want to do that. I want to recreate that. Hey, kids.
John Kozicki (35:22.385)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (35:31.909)
As an outside observer, and again, I mean, I think I started this entire call, this entire podcast. That’s okay.
Eric (35:38.052)
sorry. Sorry. Hold on. Hey, okay. You guys, turn it on.
John Kozicki (35:44.2)
As an outside observer, and I think I even started this entire podcast talking about, you know, your personality and how I think it’s attractive to students and families. And you’re a warm, welcoming guy. You know, you’re a fun guy to interact with. And it is interesting how we don’t always see that in our own selves.
And because I’m sure all of that came through in your studio. And that speaks to the success and like what that culture was and the community that you’ve built. it is interesting that when you sort of took yourself out of it is when you saw like, it sort of created its own identity and took on a life of its own.
Eric (36:37.448)
Yes, yeah, yeah, totally. It’s, yeah, we had, like I said, we had, the families we worked with were amazing. Our teachers were amazing. The atmosphere of the school was vibrant, was fun, was welcoming. And there was a lot of life and personality to it, and our student concerts were the same way. But I just, yeah, I didn’t see it until it was gone.
John Kozicki (37:05.53)
In hindsight, and I’m thinking in terms of any other people like us who run music schools and might be thinking like similar, like, there’s nothing special about my music school or I think I should sell because of this or that. Do you think there would have been anything or anyone who could have talked to you about the great stuff that you did create in your studio that would have changed your mind?
I mean, like jokingly, you mentioned therapy.
Eric (37:38.314)
Yeah, if I had gotten into therapy about a decade ago, that could have prevented all this. I don’t know if there’s anything that could have stopped me because I am, for better or for worse, pretty stubborn. And once I’ve made my mind up about something, like there’s pretty much no changing my mind. And I, but it’s interesting because I’ve had…
John Kozicki (37:43.134)
Alright.
Eric (38:06.308)
quite a few people message me after I sold the business. They’re like, congratulations, must be nice. I would love to sell my own business. And I’m like pleading with all of them. Like, don’t. I’m like, maybe it’s the right thing for you, but really take a long, hard look at what your life looks like. And also what is your plan for after you sell? Because more than likely that money’s not going to last forever. You have to have a new line of income already ready to go.
John Kozicki (38:16.071)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (38:36.202)
And maybe if you just absolutely hate your business then okay, but like nine times out of ten I think most people They they They like it, but there’s just some of the frustrations and you know, the grass is always greener and so I think taking stock of like what really matters and what you’ve really built and the feeling of
getting rid of all of that is, I don’t know, but it’s hard. It’s hard to convey that feeling to somebody without going through it.
John Kozicki (39:15.644)
Yeah, that’s fantastic advice. And I think honestly, that’s the perfect way to end this, like, because you summed it up, you know, the grass is always greener. It feels good to make these decisions, right? To say like, okay, I’m going to do it. And feeling like any sort of baggage that comes along with that disappears and kind of turns out, well, we’re always carrying our baggage.
Eric (39:44.771)
That’s right.
John Kozicki (39:45.576)
Yeah. All right, Eric. Well, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. And man, I’ll be I’ll be counting down for you till 2029.
Eric (39:59.762)
I’m gonna have lots of time to come up with ideas and things between now and then and I’m just gonna enjoy the journey in the meantime.
John Kozicki (40:12.39)
Right. And in the meantime, unlimited guitar dot com is where your your courses are. And I poked around a little bit.
Eric (40:20.062)
I’ve got some great students in unlimited guitar. Just shout out to my students that I’m working with personally. Like my first online student, Jay, who lives in the UK, who’s still with me. And then Pedro from Australia. then more recently, and then Ryan, my friend Ryan out of Salt Lake City. then I’ve got like Trevor and Alex who more recently came on board. And we just have a lot of fun like in our live calls.
and in the video exchange, and then I have fun putting together the lessons and everything. So it’s cool. I’m really proud of it, and I look forward to continuing to run that even once I get a brick and mortar music school going again.
John Kozicki (41:05.8)
And that speaks to your ability to create that community. Even in your online community, you’re having fun with these calls and your students. And it seems like it doesn’t matter where you go, whether that’s brick and mortar or online, you’re bringing that personality and that sense of enjoyment to the learners. So congrats, man.
Eric (41:28.776)
Yeah, thank you. I hope so and I hope to continue doing that.
John Kozicki (41:33.244)
All right, well, Eric, again, thank you. And that’ll wrap it up for Rock School Proprietor Podcast. We’ll see you next time.
