The Entrepreneur
Bethel Tsuzu started Mountain Music Store (then known as Furtados) in 2009, followed by Mountain Music Academy in 2010.
She is a Bachelor in Church Music, Majoring in Piano. Her inspiration for the music school came from an acoustic piano. She shares that there were literally no music stores selling acoustic pianos in Nagaland at that time which was highly needed to be a professional pianist. This led her to act on the idea of having a music shop where other private students could have access to any instrument they needed as well as original music books.
Soon her home started to fill up with students, creating the need for a facility where they could teach a larger number of students in a comfortable space. This led her to establish the music school, now known as Mountain Music Academy.
Genesis
When Bethel started, the market demand was high. At the outset, her vision was to facilitate and allow people to have access to a variety of musical instruments and music books, and to have a facility to not only own them, but to learn how to play music, hence the music school.
Nagaland is a land of music and musicians. But there are very few who have actually made it out there in the big world. The landscape is packed with talents and musicians, the market is in high demand for better sounds and more creativity, and hugely lacking professional platforms where they can enhance and grow it to a higher level. This led Bethel to believe that she could use her talent and passion to play a part in this industry.
Mountain Music Academy is a retail outlet for musical instruments, books and offers music education.
Besides trust and good services, the high quality teaching, performance platforms and future career options for our students are the aspects of our business standing out from others. The Academy is partially funded by the bank. They treat the repayment process with great importance to avoid accumulation at any cost.
People & Leadership
The Academy employs a team of 37. While hiring, Bethel looks for experience, a good level of musical knowledge, sincerity and commitment in the candidates. Bethel has built her leadership abilities one step at a time. She derives inspiration from other successful leaders.Her resilience and commitment to oversee any work till it’s finished, irrespective of whether it’s successful or not, has been a strong point for her.
Bethel has had her share of failures too.“The way I approached failures most effectively was to first accept it as a failure,” she confesses.“ After much deliberation and trials and errors to revive any failure, if there is no chance of survival, it is best to close the project at the earliest before it starts to affect financials and leave a mark that may go on for years and kill your business,” she adds.
Sometimes her failures have also been highly profitable for her in terms of personal growth and life lessons.She strives to be empathetic towards her team and support them in times of need.
Approach to Marketing and Branding
Mountain Music Academy relies mostly on social media marketing with good content, and no spamming.They are working on content so that their social media platforms weave their story.
Why Entrepreneurship
Bethel believes that she chose entrepreneurship because of the money and the natural interest to use her social skills to do something profitable both for her and the society at large. What she likes about being an entrepreneur is that she gets to be her own boss and that she can dream big and plan around it without anyone stopping her from achieving it. For her, entrepreneurship is to pick a dream, a passion, and convert it into a profit making business, with a strong courage to face the risks involved. She strongly believes that entrepreneurship must change lives at the end of the day.
Importance of Mentoring and Training
Bethel believes that mentoring and training in entrepreneurship matters in order to have an organized and efficient system. She has also received mentorship from some industry experts.
Leisure Time
When not at work Bethel teaches a Children’s choir, teaches piano, and spends a lot of time listening to serious music. She also takes the effort to go back to nature for some mindfulness. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is “earn and do your numbers very well. Don’t just follow your heart and look at short term desire for the sake of your own business. Ask yourself whether you are resilient and strong enough to handle stress on a very high level.”