How Ballet Ignited my Startup Journey

I trained hard for 15 years and finally landed a job at Nevada Ballet Theatre.  6 months later, the Covid shut down the world.  The entire dance industry was on pause, no one could work, train, or perform.  I didn’t know when things would re-open, if ever, but I did know that I wasn’t going to let that time go to waste.

I started looking for any dancing opportunity I could find.  It was tedious and unsuccessful.  So I started to think: What if there was a centralized way to find dance jobs as the world comes out of the pandemic?  The idea for BalletScout was born.

I teamed up with two software developers from Penn State and started creating an MVP.  We entered and won several pitch competitions and were invited to participate in the Summer Founders program where we got further mentorship and investors.

We then scaled to where we are today: Over 40,000 website users, a digital presence reaching over 1,000,000 people per month, 10 employees, and partnerships with over 50 major dance organizations.

While I may have gotten a lucky idea at an opportune time, the mindset of dance set me up for entrepreneurship.  In dance, we create, we strive for perfection, and we learn to market ourselves.  Giving a pitch to a small conference room was nothing compared to performing in front of thousands.  Plus, I was already used to trying and failing thousands of times before you find success.  

Through BalletScout, we have started to educate parents and dancers on the extracurricular possibilities boosted by dancing.  If you’d like to learn more about the skills that dance can cultivate, my article: Can Dance Be an Actual Career?

Penn State Summer Founders Progrma