Today we’d like to introduce you to Yelena Ovando.
Hi Yelena, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am a part of a dynamic husband & wife entrepreneur duo, with complementary skill sets – we stay in our respective expertise lanes, but know enough about each other’s lane to be dangerous, aka – appreciative. Alex Ovando has a degree in business and tons of experience, a true talent and passion for teaching, music, and all things technology. Alex has been teaching music lessons: guitar, piano, drums and bass, for over 20 years in the greater Memphis area. I, Yelena, is a trained musician (piano and voice), but is now an award-winning Business Developer and Marketer, with over 20 years of experience.
Together, we make a perfect team and have two very musical children who inspired us to pursue our dreams, challenge the status quo, and create a school, that is truly one of a kind.
We are both musicians, entrepreneurs and parents, who understand the value that music brings to someone’s life. We saw it happen to us, to our kids, and to our now students. Every experience at Music Box is unique, meaningful and transformational. We believe that Music moves, heals, empowers, inspires, transforms, and improves one’s holistic well-being.
We are also a trilingual family that knows a thing or two about learning and teaching languages. Alex is from Guatemala, Yelena is from Russia, and we speak all three languages (Russian, English and Spanish) in our family daily. At Music Box, we decided to also teach music as a language, which means we believe that you can hear it, process it, read it, write it, express yourself through it. And that is how we teach it – in every lesson (whether it’s a group or individual mode of instruction), students learn to play, improvise, compose and read music.
Our kids, Marco – 12, and Sofia – 9, helped us dream up the school, find and renovate the space, establish, test and implement the programs. They model our school motto by example, and help evangelize our school mission, every chance they get – to help aspiring musicians to become a better and more confident version of themselves. Our kids play multiple instruments, have tremendously improved their academic standing, since starting learning at Music Box, their confidence and emotional intelligence skills, as well as their ability to communicate, work in teams and perform in front of an audience.
Needless to say, we are very passionate about the school and the community we created and continue to invest in! Our Google reviews speak for themselves (search for “Music Box Germantown”).
The school has opened its doors to the public in August 2019 with 0 students, and today we stand 150 students strong. We offer piano, voice, drums and guitar/bass lessons; have a band program and a musical theatre program; we offer children’s camps, host field trips, and offer recording, performance and party experiences for both children and adults.
Our programs complement each other: one student can go through one or all, without repeating content and curriculum.
Our space is designed for everyone, with multiple engagement points that tell our story: Folks can sign our walls, Take a picture at our selfie station, Students take pics with our signature headphones, those who buy our merchandise, proudly wear it.
The educators we hire are simply amazing. We are very picky, and only offer employment to those who are first, passionate and capable educators, then professionals with a continuous learning mindset, and then – have a diverse background in musical training, instrument specialties, learning aspirations, experience, cultures. We ask our teachers to obsess about every aspect of our customers’ experience, always put their students first and personally invest in themselves. Together, we are united, consistent, stronger and able to deliver on our brand promise.
Our wonderful students are diverse, multi-lingual, multi-age, multi-cultural, & multi-talented. We treat everyone that walks through the Music Box doors as a musician, no matter how big or small, experienced or not.
I am very proud of the organization and the community we have created.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Noooo, the road has not always been smooth! General, as small business owners, operating during a worldwide pandemic, we come home every day worried, exhausted, pre-occupied, stressed… but at the same time, we come home accomplished, and with a sense of purpose, knowing that we impacted someone’s life today and made it a little better, more hopeful and fulfilling. We absolutely love what we do, as it’s really rewarding to watch our idea grow from nothing to something bigger than ourselves, something we can leave to our future generations to build on, make their own and continue our legacy. We would not have it any other way – all the rewards outweigh all the struggles. At the end of the day…
But if we are honest, it has been a winding road, full of struggles and moments that continue to shape us, continuously challenge us as a couple, tremendously grow us as humans, test us as friends, as contributors to our community, as bosses to our employees, as parents to our children, as partners to other small business, and as entrepreneurs. We constantly have to “face the music” :). I always follow this definition of courage that I read somewhere, I don’t even remember where… “you may be scared, worried, anxious, absolutely terrified…. but if you know that this is the right thing to do, look your fear straight in the eye, and do it anyway, and do it well.”
If I am to be specific, here are a few of our struggle examples.
1) First, and foremost, we totally took a gamble on ourselves. We invested all of our life savings into our business idea – borrowed against our properties, our children’s college funds, and our 401Ks. We did not know it would take off, but we did all the research, employed design thinking, did all the necessary prep, thought through best and worst case scenarios. It was just so much bigger than ourselves. We had to do it. People raised their eyebrows at us! But everything worked out. And the school has evolved into a steady source of income, inspiration, continuous energy and growth. Phew!
2) We are a married couple and parents first, so we have to be very disciplined about carving out time for each other, for the kids, and not work-work-work all the time. When you own and trying to grow a business it is very hard to put family first. We are blessed in a sense that kids love to be at the school, love to learn from our teachers and love to participate in all the programs. But we tend to spend many-many hours there and they have to help out, or just stay there until we are done with work. They miss home, their friends from the neighborhood, their toys. We have to have many conversations about why dad and I have to do what we do, why we work from 8 am to 8 pm without any days off for two years straight. We understand that it is VERY tough on them. They’ve had to grow up and mature, learn independence, hard work, practice patience and resilience, more than many kids their age. Our family motto though is work hard, play hard, so we intentionally watch our work-life balance, and take family trips every chance we get, play tourists in our own city, invest in new experiences and eat as many meals together as we can.
3) We were open for barely 6 months when COVID pandemic hit, and we had to completely close up our shop, or reinvent ourselves. So we chose the latter. We first pivoted to a completely online mode of operation – purchased and moved equipment and technology into educator’s homes, then, 3 months lager brought all educators back into the school and continue teaching students virtually. We invested in personal protection gear, additional classrooms, instruments, video and audio technology. At the same time we investment in our educator’s emotional health, training and bonuses. Not only we managed ourselves and our teachers through the change and exemplified cool, collected and calm leadership, we had to manage our students and parents through the changes as well. We had to be understanding when parents completely opted out of virtual learning, or stoped lessons due to their new circumstances, or their inability to pay. We lost what seemed to be all the momentum we gained, while continuing to lose our minds over how to power through this, how to survive.
After what seems to be a few tough months, I think what helped us come out of the first wave of the pandemic even stronger, was not loosing sight of our “WHY”. Why are we doing what we are doing? And that mindset told us everything we needed to make appropriate decisions, take actions, roll up our selves and go to work, day after day. We stepped up and thought to ourselves – how can we help? It is our responsibility to help, this is the reason why our school exists. We believe that music gives you strength and power, music heals and can provide a sense of normalcy and camaraderie. We couldn’t stop giving lessons, in fact we should give those lessons for free, at a discount, or on the “IOU” basis. And so we did.
Medical Heros took lessons for free, family members of seriously ill children, who have to be extremely careful, took lessons for free. We made up work for our educators when there was none to go around. So we all stayed afloat, looked our for each other. As a business, we still had to deal with unemployment claims, fraud, negative balances, all the motional turmoil, having to issue refunds, you name it… It got better, and may be not as scary as the first months of the pandemic were, but still, every day, we innovate, don’t take “no” for an answer. We empathize. We remain humble, determined and stay our course.
In 2020, I think, we earned ourselves several media features, a national award for serving our community with meaningful Music Programs, and surpassed our pre-covid student count. We optimized and made permanent our online programs, we safely ran 10 weeks of group music programming, we joined many useful organizations and qualified for some additional funding. What we have learned is that putting others first, empathy and kindness, hard work and believing in your ability to overcome – is the secret sauce.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The business (Music Box) is our family business – we are a mom-and-pop (literally) shop. I also work full-time for a large US Corporation during the day.
Music Box is a music school and we are different from other music schools in the area:
We are a family-owned business with passion for music education and investing in our local community. For that reason, we are flexible, adaptable and agile (unlike bigger franchises can be). We hope to grow our music family and continue to build on our years of international music education experience, as Music Box, the School on Stage.
Our repertoire and education methods are modern: the songs and techniques students learn are actually those that they listen to and enjoy every day. This keeps students in class, motivates them to learn more and advances through grades faster.
Our Programs teach how to read music, music theory, music composition and improvisation: These are the skills that stay with you as the foundation, essential to making music across variety of instruments and styles. In addition to regular music instruction, students are given additional tools, like technology, learning how to hear, read and compose music, as well as improvise in different music styles.
You learn and make music in variety of styles: Pop, Jazz, Funk, Blues, Rock, Ragge, Electronic, Country, R&B and more. You learn, practice and perform on a professional stage at the school, all while building, confidence, character and essential communications skills. Students will have ample performance opportunities.
Our teachers are multilingual: take lessons in English or Spanish.
We use Technology at Music Box: Technology is integrated into every aspect of your experience at Music Box throughout your learning experience. Whether you use your personal online Music Box portal, enjoy high tech instruments and equipment at school, produce music on device of your choice, or simply jam on stage with the band, we strive for a fun and innovative experience.
Our music program is comprehensive and customized to student’s learning preference: Students learn at their own pace, can take private, or group, or band lessons, or take advantage of all types at the same time. We offer great incentives and promotional programs for both our students and educators.
We are conveniently located in the heart of Germantown, TN and serving all the nearby communities and schools. We are open 7 days a week (including mornings, nights and weekends) so come and claim the spot most convenient to your schedule.
We also take pride in partnering with local organizations on fundraising activities, hold school nights and always give back to our community. We invite you to be part of this journey with us and take part in many upcoming volunteer and performance opportunities.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Sure. This is what I think helped us most.
– Have a well thought out and measurable plan. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or detailed, but it has to be something you can reference, build on, hold yourself accountable with.
– Test everything. Fail fast and fail forward. Failure is just as good, if not better of a lesson, than a success.
– Ask for feedback – frequently. Ask it of those customers that were unhappy with the experience. treat it as a gift and really use it to improve (it’s not personal, it’s business) really applies here.
– Be kind to yourself (you will get it right next time) and don’t strive for perfection, it stands in the way of progress.
Finally, please have fun! Your energy is contagious. 😉
If I knew that this experience would be so transformative and meaningful, I would summon up my courage and started the school 10 years earlier.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@musicboxinc.com
- Website: www.Musicboxinc.com
- Instagram: 901musicboxinc
- Facebook: 901musicboxinc
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8G33ukldydJg5M3sLUgBiw
