Chapter 1
How My First Real Business Success Happened Before I Even Knew What I Was Doing...
Reading time: ~ 3 minutes
The first time I helped a business grow in a consistent, measurable way, it completely caught me by surprise.
I didn’t have a formal system yet.
I didn’t have a proven framework.
But somehow, it worked.
At that point, I was just a young musician trying to figure out how to make ends meet.
I had started a music school, Organic Music Lessons, after a failed attempt to start a real estate investment business in my late teens. The real estate venture left me in debt — and humbled. Teaching music was the only skill I had that could reliably pay the bills at the time.
I didn’t really know I was building a business back then.
I just needed to survive.
The school started small — just me, a handful of students, and a lot of uncertainty.
But I applied everything I had learned from reading business books as a teenager, from watching my parents’ real estate ventures, and from my short but intense time working as an executive assistant to a real estate investor.
I didn’t even realize it at the time, but I was doing what many small business owners struggle with:
- I was building trust.
- I was creating real value.
- I was solving a real problem in a way that customers wanted.
There wasn’t a grand vision.
No elaborate business plan.
Just a willingness to serve people — and a desire to do it excellently.
Within the first year, the student roster grew.
Within a few more years, I had hired a team of 15 instructors and admin staff.
We were consistently getting leads through local SEO, referrals, community events, and customer relationships — even though I didn’t call it “lead generation” yet.
Looking back, it seemed like a fluke.
But it planted a seed in me that never left:
➡️ If you serve people well, stay consistent, and focus on what they truly value — growth will come.
At first, I didn’t recognize that the success came from being close to the real needs of real people.
I just thought, “I guess I’m lucky.”
Looking back, it seemed like a fluke.
But it planted a seed in me that never left:
➡️ If you serve people well, stay consistent, and focus on what they truly value — growth will come.
At first, I didn’t recognize that the success came from being close to the real needs of real people.
I just thought, “I guess I’m lucky.”
But eventually, I started noticing something deeper:
Not every student was a good fit.
Not every parent was reasonable.
Not every family valued the things we offered.
We had attracted some customers who were more focused on price than on the quality of the experience.
They weren’t bad people — but they weren’t the right fit for what we really wanted to build: a place where music, growth, and genuine care were at the center.
That realization forced me to think differently about who we were truly called to serve.
We started repositioning:
➡️ Focusing more on students and families who valued quality, relationship, and long-term growth over price or speed.
It wasn’t an overnight change.
It was a slow refining — a lesson in discernment.
I didn’t have it all figured out.
But by being present with the problems, listening to what people said (and didn’t say), and watching the patterns, I began to learn what made a business truly healthy — and what caused hidden instability.
It wasn’t flashy marketing.
It wasn’t gimmicks or discounts.
It was trust.
It was quality.
It was clear communication of the real value we offered.
Even though I didn’t know it yet, this early experience planted the seeds of what would later become the heart behind NorthStar Growth Marketing:
- Building businesses that grow through trust, not hype.
- Creating marketing systems that align with real human needs.
- Serving clients as partners, not transactions.
But the second time I tried to build something new — after leaving the music industry and stepping fully into marketing and advertising?
It didn’t go anything like the first time.
That one was hard…
And humbling.