fbpx

CSUF Business Plan Competition Winner Profile: Piano With Jonny


Yannick Lambrecht (left) and Jonny May (right) at the CSUF Business Plan Competition Finals sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurship

As you know from reading the recap of the CSUF Business Plan Competition hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurship the first place winner of the compeitition was Piano With Jonny. Presented by Cal State Fullerton students Jonny May, Reuben Ponce De Leon, and Sylvia Dang along with co-founder Yannick Lambrecht, Piano With Jonny is well on its way to shaking up the music education industry by using technology to help thousands of people learn how to become better pianists from an accomplished piano player: Jonny May.

“I’m thrilled to have won the Business Plan Competition!  It was awesome, scary, and exhilarating at the same time! …Going into to it, I really didn’t know if I would win.  I had some amazing competitors with great ideas and strong execution strategies…I highly recommend the CSUF Business Plan Competition to any student with a business idea!” states Jonny.

Piano With Jonny is a web-based business that sells digital piano educational content that enables students to learn music online without the hassle of having to travel or pay hourly fees. On the website, students follow along on the recorded video as Jonny explains and demonstrates a particular genre ranging from blues to jazz to rock to many other genres. In other words, this isn’t your prototypical piano teacher.

The website also offers lessons from learning how to play a particular song to learning one particular technique at a time. The site also offers sheet music through SoundSlice.

Piano With Jonny earns business in two ways: 1. Through individual product sales and 2. Through membership dues. These useful products include in-depth video tutorials with an easy to see overhead display of Jonny playing the piano as the keys light up, as well as interactive sheet music for customers to play along with as fast or slow as they like.

Launched in September 2015, the membership program on Piano With Jonny gives users full access to all products online for only $40 a month (the monthly charge goes down if you prepay), as well as interactive assistance on the exclusive member Facebook page.

Much of Jonny’s audience has been derived from his YouTube channel, with over 15 million views and over 100,000 subscribers. Here’s a recent video he posted to celebrate his 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

What’s different about Piano With Jonny in comparison to other online tutorial services is that it focuses on teaching the piano to intermediate level piano players and not the beginner level, like most online services target. Additionally, the website specifically targets teen and adult piano players that want to learn non-classical styles. These are people who are dedicated to honing their craft as piano players.

Jonny expects his company to be an $8M company by 2020 and his current goal is to reach about 10,000 subscribers.

Written by Traci Muldoon

CSUF Entrepreneurship

We are dedicated to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs develop the skills that they need to compete locally and globally. The CSUF Entrepreneurship program does many things, including: consulting projects where students serve up fresh strategies to actual businesses, competitions for students from middle school to grad school, helping entrepreneurs go from concept to launch, frequent seminars and office hours for entrepreneurs and professionals, and much more. Interested in becoming a part of the CSUF Entrepreneurship community? Reach out to us at csufentrepreneurship@fullerton.edu for more information! CSUF Entrepreneurship depends on the support of the community, please go here to donate.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *