By Zach Collier
At the height of my private teaching career, I had 22 students. Some were taking beginning piano lessons and others were taking guitar. Still others were taking songwriting and music theory lessons. I had to juggle various subjects, lesson books, and lesson plans.
Beyond that, each student had their own specific needs and goals. One wanted to play their first show at Velour while another simply wanted to work up enough courage to play a song in front of their mom and dad. One of my students had autism, and more than a few had ADHD. All of them required a specific, tailored approach.
Don’t even get me started about juggling lesson cancelations and scheduling time to send out invoices. It was a lot to keep track of.
That’s why I’ve been absolutely stoked about edTonomy lately. I was invited to use it ahead if its official launch on May 1. Created by brother/sister duo Lexa Duno and Carlo Andreu, edTonomy is meant for private teachers of all kinds who are trying to organize and grow their teaching business.
“We’ve put our heart into building a tool that’ll empower educators to see just how valuable their skills – and they themselves – truly are,” says Duno, the CPO of edTonomy and a former fifth-grade teacher and literacy specialist.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re growing a side hustle to supplement your teaching salary or transitioning beyond the classroom altogether – there’s great tools here for everyone. Especially private music educators.
In short, edTonomy is a one-stop dashboard of useful tools that helps to get you organized. The calendar works as a digital calendar should – with a few important distinctions: you can choose whether the calendar event you create is a group class, a private lesson, a seminar, or time you’re not available. You can also keep track of how much you charge each lesson within the event. This can either be a fixed amount or a variable amount per student.
edTonomy also has an invoice generator and built-in payment processing via Stripe integration. Gone are the days of me managing a Google Calendar and then hopping over to Square and/or Venmo and having to input duplicate information at every location. edTonomy rolls it all together.
Another game changer is the discovery tool. You can build out your own profile, which lists your upcoming events, the type of subjects you teach, a bio, etc. People looking for private instructors can browse through the teachers who are using edTonomy and then DM you if they like what they see. You can also onboard each of your new clients digitally, which is really helpful.
All in all, I think edTonomy is a simple, user friendly, and intuitive app. It costs $40 a month, which is akin to teaching one free lesson a month. To me, that trade is a no-brainer. It makes every other paid lesson a breeze.
edTonomy launches on May 1, 2023. Make sure to follow edTonomy on Instagram and join the waitlist here. You can also learn more at edTonomy.com. While you’re waiting for launch, check out local singer/songwriter and guitar instructor Mac Wright.
Provo Music Magazine 