Touring Musician Michael Anderson Is Building a National Franchise With Rockstars of Tomorrow

​Michael Anderson knows the music business from the stage. Over more than three decades as a professional musician, he toured internationally, worked alongside major bands and appeared on platforms including Howard Stern and Entertainment Tonight. But while pursuing music, Anderson also had to balance the realities of earning a living with the uncertainty that comes with trying to build a career in the industry.

​“I got to the point where I didn't want my future to rely on four other people in the music world,” he said. “So I decided to start teaching music out of my house while working another day job, and it started to grow really big and really fast.”

​Anderson founded Rockstars of Tomorrow in 2007 and eventually moved the business out of his home and into a brick-and-mortar studio. His approach went beyond traditional music lessons, giving students opportunities to perform, record and learn in spaces designed to feel more like professional music environments than classrooms.

​“I always said that the business we’re in is adding value,” Anderson said. “We’re enhancing someone’s life, making you go after something that you had no idea how to get to.”

​Rockstars of Tomorrow began franchising in 2016 and has grown to eight franchise units and three corporate locations. Anderson is now looking to expand the brand nationally, including through a conversion program for existing music studios with more than 50 students, while finding franchisees who see the business opportunity in performance-based music education.

​“I want to see us open up, as any franchisor does, hundreds of locations worldwide,” Anderson said. “Maybe this thing becomes a record label one day … Maybe we are training musicians from a very young age, helping them record records, write music and get out onstage.”

Anderson joined 1851 Franchise Publisher Nick Powills on a recent episode of the “Meet the Franchise” podcast. A transcript of the interview has been provided below. It has been edited for brevity, clarity and style.

Nick Powills: To frame some of this, I want you to go back. You're keeping another job while you're creating this business, and you kept another job for three years. How do you even get this thing going? At what point does it stop being a hobby and you're like, "All right, I'm ready to quit my job"?

Michael Anderson: Like most musicians at the time — or probably any time — you have to juggle trying to make it in the music world while living and surviving. I feel like that made me who I am today because I always felt like I had to work harder than everyone else to make sure I was able to leave, go on tour or record and still be a great employee to the company.

I got to the point where I didn't want my future to rely on four other people in the music world. So I decided to start teaching music out of my house while working another day job, and it started to grow really big and really fast.

This was right when the economy and the market were taking a crash in 2007, when real estate was really going downhill fast. I ended up working that job and doing all the things I needed to do, and it just kept growing.

I ended up quitting the job I had been doing for almost 20 years with this company and started teaching. I remember telling my wife, "Hey, I think I'm going to quit my job, and I think I'm going to do this full time. I think I'm going to take it out of the house, buy a brick-and-mortar studio and get this going."

That's exactly what we did, and it was the scariest thing I've ever done. But it was probably the smartest thing I've ever done, too, to get me to this point. I'm sure that's a common story for a lot of entrepreneurs.

It was really the understanding that I was in a situation where my future was depending on other people who had to want it as much as I did. I got to that point where I decided to start teaching out of the house, and I feel like I've been riding a wave this entire time.

Powills: I think about putting a dream to bed and creating a new dream. I think about the world's best rock stars. I don't think there's a ton of variance between those who make it and those who don't. Timing and luck play such an important part, and then, obviously, being able to build an audience.

But for you, at that point when you're still in another job, you're still dreaming about what it would look like for you to be a rock star. How did you become comfortable with the fact that you're going to put that dream to bed and build another dream in building a business? How do you manage that in your brain?

Anderson: That's a great question. I say this all the time: I feel like more of a rock star now than I did when I was onstage performing. I truly enjoy helping people and seeing them take whatever I did and go even further with it. That was a big deal to me. It was like, "You know what? This is a pretty rewarding job. I'm changing people's lives to do something very cool that I loved to do."

I always said that the business we're in is adding value. We're enhancing someone's life, making you go after something that you had no idea how to get to. What made it easy was the fact that I was able to help people, and it was very rewarding to see these guys discover things for the first time.

I remember I was still playing acoustic shows when I was making the transition, and I would bring some of my students. I'd say, "Hey, why don't you sit in with me? We'll play some songs." They'd be asking questions: "What is that? What does that mean?" I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is such a great learning experience. This is better than anything that you can get in a classroom." So I would show them and talk to them about it, and that got the wheels turning for this entire program.

Powills: Obviously, you had the skill set to be a professional musician. For those who don't have the skill set to get that far, what music symbolizes in confidence building and battling through something that might not come naturally — there are so many different benefits.

That's how you're helping people. You're giving them the confidence to believe in themselves so that when they go on and do whatever career they want to do, music is the foundation.

Anderson: I just found out today that two young musicians who started taking lessons with me when they were probably seven years old in our program — they're 21 now — are both leaving on tour with two different bands across the country.

They're both going to connect at some festival in Kansas City. Two completely different projects, and I'm like, "How cool is that?" We helped make that happen. I think that's pretty awesome.

Powills: So you get the business going. You quit your job. How does franchising get into the picture? Now it's like dream number three for you.

Anderson: It's pretty funny how this all ties together. When I was doing my day job, I was doing graphics, printing and running printing presses. One of the businesses that we don't want to say we necessarily helped launch, but we were part of their story, was a franchise called Budget Blinds. They ended up getting to like 1,000 locations across the country.

I would go to their conventions, where these guys are just corporate guys who started a mini-blind company. They would walk up on the stage, and you would think Elvis Presley or Metallica was walking up there. The whole crowd was going, "Yeah!" I'm sitting in the back room going, "What the heck is going on right here?" I just couldn't believe it.

They talked about their franchise. I saw this grow, and we would do a lot of work with these guys. We even got involved with another franchise called Sport Clips*, doing marketing and designing with them.

I was very close to that, and I had no idea this was planting seeds in my brain or in my future. But when I realized the business I created was really unique — we focused on some really different things than what competitors were doing — I immediately went, "You know what? I think I want to franchise, and I don't know anything about it."

I ended up reaching out to a friend who connected me with his attorney. His attorney connected me with a franchise attorney. It just so happened that the franchise attorney is the exact attorney who launched the Budget Blinds brand and did all their attorney work.

I thought, "OK, I'm in the right place." That's how that got started. I probably wouldn't be franchising a business if that didn't happen.

Powills: How long ago was that?

Anderson: I quit that job in 2007, and a lot of that work was probably happening in the late '90s and early 2000s.

Powills: At what point did you start franchising?

Anderson: I started franchising in 2015. I probably started putting it all together in 2014. I had a friend of a friend connect me with a guy who understood how to scale businesses, and he practically moved in with me. For probably a good month, I couldn't turn the corner without this guy being right there. He had a clipboard and his computer, asking me questions: "What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are you doing? Why are you doing it?"

That's how we created our systems and our operations manual. He captured every single thing I did with the business and what it took to do this. So we were able to take all that information and create our manual, which was a really valuable document for any franchisor.

Powills: How many franchisees do you have today?

Anderson: We have 10 right now.

Powills: If you go back to 2015, you could have one franchise, you could have a million. The definition of pain is really high. But did you have different expectations? Or are there similarities to where you are in franchising and where you were as a professional musician, where you're trying to figure out, "How do I get over the hump?"

Anderson: Business in general, I treat it just like I did any of my music or my bands. It's the same thing. You're building something, you're creating something, you're promoting it, and you're trying to get people to like it. It's very much the same world in that sense.

Before, you'd make flyers: "Come see my show." Now I'm making social media ads and saying, "Come see my show." It's just a different thing.

Powills: Are you happy with franchising? Are you excited about it still?

Anderson: Yeah, it's great. I'm loving it. There's so much we haven't even done yet, so many doors I haven't even opened yet. I feel like we've done very well to this point with the doors and the paths that we've gone down.

We've sold franchises, and it's all been practically word of mouth at this point. We have not done a huge marketing effort. We have not run those really big marketing ads to say, "Hey, come check this out."

I feel like that's what we're starting to do now, and I have a feeling this thing's going to open wide. We're in a great space. Youth enrichment is a really strong space right now. There's not a lot of competition. Our largest competitor recently sold for like $300 million. Right when that happened, everyone went, "Oh, what's happening here? What is this?" So that really put a lot of eyes on us.

Powills: Do you feel like you've nailed who the persona of your franchisee is, what they look like and what their backgrounds are? Is there any consistency in that?

Anderson: Are you talking about the actual people or the locations?

Powills: Actual people.

Anderson: I feel like I can still do a little bit better. I have great franchisees right now, but each one has exposed something that either I need to learn, work on or copy and repeat.

It's really honed in on the type of person that we want. The hardest thing is saying no. You've got somebody who wants to open up one of your businesses, and you're going, "OK, is this the right person?" versus, "Wow, I want to grow. I want to get more numbers. Yeah, let's go." That always makes it really difficult to be critical about who the right person is.

Powills: As an outsider looking in, finding someone who has an affinity for music — and if I go as extreme as the dad-band guy who's suit by day and rock star by night — the reality is they're probably going through something similar.

They still have this dream. They know what makes them happy, and it's not wearing the suit, but they know that the suit has to pay their bills. Obviously, to buy a franchise, you have to have done something of some level of significance because you have the capital to get into it.

But that seems to be the easiest persona: You have an affinity for music, you've made a little bit of money, you're stuck in middle management. Now look at what happened with you. You're the avatar of what someone looks like who said, "All right, here's how I build something up, quit my job and do this full time."

Anderson: Absolutely. I'm constantly evaluating who those people are and what we need to do. When I first started this, it was like, "OK, you need to be a musician." That's not necessarily the case. Being a musician is a great check, but you can be a music lover and still have a great business mindset, and that will get you very far with what we're doing.

I have people who have purchased franchises who know business and have no idea about music. Bottom line is, we're the face of your business where you're pulling the strings, but you've got someone who's hired who can walk the walk and talk the talk. That's easy to do.

Powills: How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?

Anderson: Like I mentioned earlier, I made a lot of things completely different, or there were certain things I focused on. One thing that makes us different from the competition is the vibe of our spaces. When you walk into one of our studios, you are stepping into the fairy tale.

Here's my comparison, and this will make more sense to California residents. You have two amusement theme parks. You have Disneyland, and you have their competitor, Knott's Berry Farm.

You go to Knott's Berry Farm, and their tickets are half the price of Disneyland. You still get roller coasters and rides and funnel cake, and it's fun with the family. It's a cheaper experience. But you look over the fence line and you can see the freeway. You can see the apartments across the street. It is what it is, and that's what I compare a lot of our competitors to.

When you go to Disneyland, you pay a much higher price and get a better experience. When you walk inside, you don't ever see anything outside. You are literally stepping into the fairy tale, and that's what I feel like we've done with our space.

We created these really vibrant spaces that you want to be at all the time because they're so nice. We have very specific, detailed designs for all of our rooms. We're constantly growing on that, so that's something I feel has separated us. We also build concert theaters inside of our studios, which is a huge deal because that's a revenue driver. Our students are working on an actual stage with a big sound system, lights and everything, and we can run concerts in-house.

We're also bringing in recording studios with real gear that you're learning or working with. We're making records. All that is happening at any given time within one of our studios. It's a real thriving space, and I haven't seen that from anybody.

Powills: From where I stand, I've never been in one of your units, but looking at how you've set up the brand, what connected me was thinking Foundation Room or House of Blues.

Anderson: Great. I love that.

Powills: You could go to a bar and watch a band and still hear great music. But when you build something that feels like it's a first-class experience, what you're experiencing with your body is first class, plus your ears are getting to connect with the experience. So it's almost like a five-senses experience.

The only two critiques that I have for you — take it for what it's worth — I hate when I see no people in photos because music is so built around people. All your photos are empty. I'm like, that's interesting.

Anderson: Don't show the space?

Powills: Show the humans, because they're going to be smiling. They're going to be rocking out. They're going to feel super excited to be in your space. That was one.

Two is — and obviously you're just starting to think about how we take this to the next level — the first image is kids. The reality is kids aren't going to own this business. Paint the picture for me because everything you're talking about is so much larger than how you're taking credit for it.

I would look back at your franchise website and say, "All right, let me paint the picture for the buyer." You have this image down at the bottom with two older people, and I'm like, that's closer to what it should feel like.

You're going to feel proud that you've opened this up in your community. You're going to be able to impact kids' confidence levels. Plus, now you've added all these other revenue streams that can protect the business if things change. And you really started this in 2007 or 2008, so you know what shit feels like when it hits the fan.

Anderson: Pretty much so.

Powills: You have all these pieces. Now you have to position them. For the outside buyer, even if you didn't have a point of differentiation, if they're sold out in a marketplace, I'm going to go downstream and see what else exists in the category if I want to get in. So you already have that advantage. But when you start saying, "We actually have a point of differentiation," I think that helps you tremendously.

Anderson: That's great advice. That makes me think, "OK, I'm going to redo my photos and make sure that we do something." I've spent so much time focusing on the individual studio level to grow the business and support our franchisees that the whole next step of selling the business is a whole other mindset and world. So I definitely appreciate that kind of advice.

Powills: I would play that back because I think the buzz term that connects with me is when you said "fairy tale." You're using it as the comparison on theme parks, but if I think about the experience, the fairy tale for a kid is you're going to be in a studio that professional musicians can use. You're going to feel like you're the rock star.

Every bit of the sensory experience for a kid is going to be the same: "Boy, I just got signed by a major label, and I'm going to go record an album." That's pretty cool. Maybe use the word "fairy tale" as something. It's really making the rock star fairy tale come true. You can experience what it feels like.

Anderson: I love it. That's fantastic. That's all great advice. You will see a change.

Powills: We've talked about dreams. You thought of being a rock star. Then you built a business, and you felt like you were even more of a rock star. Now you've done the franchising stuff, which is your third dream. You're still dreaming, but where does this go next?

Anderson: I want to see us open up, as any franchisor does, hundreds of locations worldwide. I see that happening. That's the next thing. Inside the walls of the studio or the company, who knows? We're all very much visionaries, sitting there constantly dreaming, "What could we do?"

Maybe this thing becomes a record label one day. Maybe we have something like that attached to it. Maybe we are training musicians from a very young age, helping them record records, write music and get out onstage. Maybe there's a management level to it, but everything stays in-house.

You build trust with us as a customer when your child is this age, and now the child is an adult making decisions, but they've known us, so they stay within the walls. Who knows? The sky's the limit. We have so many ideas. I don't want to dilute the brand by any means, but you never know.

Powills: I'll use an experience that I had this summer as the example. I went and saw Ben Folds perform with the Grant Park Orchestra, and I didn't even know what seats I was buying. I bought what were actually orchestra seats, where you sat with the orchestra.

We're sitting right by the percussion side, and I'm watching the passion of the percussionists. It was the Grant Park Orchestra, so it wasn't the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It's not like they're making a lot of money. Watching the precision and passion that these adults have — because there's no way this is their full-time gig. They can't make enough money. But their love for this was so high.

I'm saying that because it's how I opened this: Sometimes it's hard to find the intersection of passion, love and business. Sometimes that intersection feels so distant. I don't think it's that distant with music and business.

Part of it is you've got to get your story out there. Now you've got to go and do the promotional side. But I don't think you're far off. You can make your dream of hundreds of locations happen because there's an audience of human beings out there who would love to have this as their source of income. You just have to create that connection because if they can feel your energy and your emotion, you're not selling franchises anymore. You're facilitating them into a business that can take care of what they want to accomplish.

Anderson: Absolutely. That's something I feel like we're checking the boxes on in some cases, and in others we're not. I feel like it's only a matter of time before we're going to figure this out, and it's going to explode.

Powills: First of all, thank you for sharing your story. I look forward to seeing the progressions that you make. I think if you add that emotional hook back into your footprint, then spend money on marketing, the odds of you succeeding will only go up. I love the route that you're going, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Anderson: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Nick. This has been great.

Powills: For Michael, I'm Nick, this was another episode of "Meet the Franchise."

Watch the full episode above or on YouTube.