Hi all,
I work for Kindermusik International, the world's leading publisher of music and movement curricula for parents and their children, ages newborn to 7 years old.

We are currently looking to enter the Japanese market and are therefore looking for people who might be interested in teaching Kindermusik. We are not a franchise, all of our educators are licensed so there are no high investment costs involved. The training is online and once you are licensed you can teach anywhere in the world.

We provide you with a detailed curricula based on proven research and a thourough business manual as well as ongoing support.

As you can see from this forum the potential is huge. Our educators have varying backgrounds, many are mothers. What they all have in common however is their love for music and kids. You can learn more about us at: http://www.kindermusik.com/LicensedEducator/WhyKI.asp

If anyone is interested in this or want more info, then contact me and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

I can be reached at sniburg@kindermusik.com or right here.
Thanks. Sam

Dear Sam,
I think maybe your primary market is going to be the Japanese market, in which case you would want to get Japanese women on board. Seems to me. Just trying to help.

Cornelia,

Thank you for your advice, the problem with that is that Kindermusik is in English. The program would be great for Japaense parents who want their kids to be exposed to English at an early age. Do you have any suggestions as to how to find Japanese women who might be interested in an English speaking program like this?

Well, the numbers here are misleading. This forum may be in English and you might have some success in Tokyo, but I think it would be smaller than you may imagine. Do you know how many English speaking foreigners are living in Japan? or in Tokyo? Do you know how many of them have kids? Etc. I'm not trying to be negative, but a lot of people who have never lived here don't realize how small the foreign community is. In fact, the English speaking community is tiny in comparison to the Chinese and Korean communities.

I do agree that the English as a second language marketing angle could be a good one. Or you could consider translation of Kindermusik materials into Japanese.

P.S. the Japanese have huge amounts of children's music available to them. The pre-school programs on NHK channel TV all have music, and all this material is widely available on CD as well. If you look through some of the articles on this website (under the Entertainment heading at http://www.tokyowithkids.com/entertainment) you will find an article ""Dango San Kyodai" - a big hit children's song", just a hint at the "tip of the iceberg").
They also have several monthly subscriptions available where they receive activity guides and videos and CDs for the mother to do with her child(ren).
Once in kindergarten, songs are a huge part of any daily program.

Kindermusik is already run in Tokyo by Karla Watauchi at both the Tokyo Union Church and Tokyo American Club and well supported by the expat community. I have been doing her classes for at 4 and a half years with my 2 children.

Bingo ! Here in Tokyo we've got a total metropolitan population here that is greater than New York City's and the expat population is supporting two Kindermusik locations (using the same teacher) very close by to each other! Which I think sort of points out the problem with marketing only to the expat population. Thank you Cathy.

I bet that there is certainly room for Kindermusik in all the major cities at least, but it's going to take a bit of work and investment and time. First, a lot of the expats probably already recognize the brand but Japanese may not. Second, one doesn't know exactly what the competition is. For example, I had a conversation with a head of a large publishing house about 2 years ago. They didn't know why their comic book sales were suddenly declining and quite rapidly. They did some research to find out and learned that comic book reading (on the trains) was being supplanted by playing games on the mobile phones!

Thank you for your great comments.

Targeting the japanese market is definitely in our plans, but our experience has shown that during the build-up phase on a new market it is most often expats that get the program up and running. I'm delighted that there are already succesful Kindermusik educators in Tokyo, but I also think that the potential is huge, and that there are room for more, especially if we can reach the large portion of Japanese people who want their kids to be introduced to English at an early age.

Did that make any sense at all? :P

As for the investment and time-part, I totally agree. And we are in no rush, historically Kindermusik have grown by word-of-mouth and that will be the case in Japan too. Or so we hope.

/S

Sam,
I am quite interested in the opportunity you proposed and wrote you an email directly to your address on March 2, but I still haven't heard from you. Perhaps the mail didn't go through?
Looking forward to your reply!
Natasha

Dear Natasha,

I did reply to your email, but apparently it did not come through properly. Could you please send me another email with your email address in it? Sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Sam

Sam
Thank you for your swift reply.
Please try mikipon21@hotmail.com
Thank you!

Better late than never. I'd just like to thank Cornelia for doing a wonderful job with this site, and say that we got a great resonse off of this website. Please help her in keeping it up and running.

And as always, if anyone is interested in exploring the Kindermusik opportunity, contact me at sniburg@kindermusik.com. Also please give our amazing educators in Japan a chance to show you what a wonderful program Kindermusik is.

Hello,

I wanted to introduce a Kindermusik class that is coming to Hayama. The classes will begin in the fall. Please respond for more information.