This week’s 1 Million Cups presentation at the Kauffman Foundation featured a startup extolling the benefits of live concerts in the workplace and another offering a tutoring service for high school students preparing for the ACT college entrance exam.
Singer-songwriter and entrepreneur Fran Snyder explained how his startup, Office Concerts, was an outgrowth of his existing business, Concerts in Your Home, which books thousands of house concerts a year by tapping a vetted network of several hundred independent touring music artists.
Snyder said that the relaxing intimacy of a musician performing for a small gathering in someone’s home can be effectively transferred to the workplace in order to increase morale and even productivity.
Office Concerts packages start at $450, with a portion of the fee going to local arts organizations. The concept, Snyder said, offers companies a 35-minute concert (plus two optional encores) for their employees, who gain from taking “a real break at work with music.”
“Live music in the workplace can actually be a fantastic wellness program,” Snyder said, adding that “we’re not looking to cure the workplace of a particular ill—except boredom or exhaustion or tunnel vision, whatever it is.”
Snyder concluded by picking up his acoustic guitar and singing a contemplative ditty about a minstrel, presumably not unlike many of the touring music artists he places in house and office concerts around the world. For the record, his falsetto was in fine form.
John Stamm, founder of Tutorious, framed his local nonprofit startup as an affordable alternative for high school students wanting a tutorial course on the ACT college entrance exam.
While some tutoring organizations charge students as much as $3,000 for an ACT prep course, Stamm said, Tutorious charges $400 per student. The goal of his company, he said, was “to democratize tutoring by providing all students with access to high quality, individualized tutoring services.”
Properly readying students to take the ACT requires more than academic coaching, Stamm said.
“We do try to work with them on a mental, emotional level as well,” he said.
