Why This Decade-Long Tippi Toes Owner Resigned with the Children’s Dance Franchise

With over ten years as an owner of Tippi Toes, the 37-unit international franchise offering dance and enrichment for young children, Claire Portolese has loved being a part of the brand. The former child dancer and longtime friend of Founder Sarah Nuse, who operates several territories in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, Annapolis and Montgomery County areas, just recently renewed her franchise agreement.

“Tippi Toes really fills a need in these cities that wasn’t met before. There aren't a lot of dance studios that are really geared towards kids, and especially little kids,” said Portolese. “So when we came in 10 years ago, we definitely filled a void and have been providing that to the tri-state area ever since.”

Portolese grew up dancing since the age of three, so it has always been a huge passion of hers. After graduating from Vanderbilt and providing consulting services for 14 years, she felt she needed to find something that brought joy to her career — and dance made perfect sense.

By that point, Nuse had already had Tippi Toes running for over a decade, and the concept had been featured on the television show Shark Tank, so the brand was seeing great interest and growth. Portolese began to research the company more and became inspired to invest in opening a territory in the Washington D.C. metro in 2012.

In the 10 years since, she’s had great successes, which led her to open two more territories. She just renewed her franchising agreement with Tippi Toes.

Before the pandemic hit, their enrollment was at about 780 students between all of her territories, and she and her staff are working hard to build the client base back up as restrictions ease. Portolese has introduced the after-school enrichment program to many facilities and partnered with several vendors to offer services.

“Making those connections and relationships and furthering where we can offer these classes is really, really important,” said Portolese. “It has been great to see how we have grown over all this time, and I’m excited to keep introducing the arts and the love of dance to kids, as well as fulfilling Tippi Toes’ underlying mission of instilling good practices of nutrition and exercise.”

Moving forward, Portolese is eager to fill up classes again, with mask mandates just being lifted in schools a few months ago. She has been busy hiring quality teachers and getting ready for their full-time summer camp, which is extremely popular. Five weeks of the camp’s slots were filled at the beginning of the year. Each year, she hopes to add additional weeks of the camp until it runs all summer long and caters to as many kids as possible.

And the support of the corporate team at Tippi Toes has been paramount to Portolese's ability to offer these valuable services in the area. The brand has a universal curriculum that all franchise owners have access to, with videos of the choreography and their own music that Nuse and her sister Megan Reilly, Chief Operating Officer, create.

“That support has been great, and over time it’s become well-known that the brand is reputable. It makes it easy for franchise owners to bring in students because this recognition has been established,” said Portolese.

The startup costs to open a Tippi Toes Dance Company franchise range from $52,100 to $69,100, including a $35,000 franchise fee. For more information, visit https://www.tippitoesdance.com/franchise/.