I consider January 10th our birthday, because this is the day back in 2015 where we had our first Moosiko customer. Her name was Nandini. Watch the video below to hear our story.
I was teaching guitar at the time in New Haven and a Yale med student wanted to learn Sweet Home Alabama. I created a PowerPoint file and sent it to her and said “Just follow along and send me what you’ve learned in a few days.” The very next day, she emailed me this:
I realized, oh man this actually works! Here is part of that PowerPoint slide that has since turned into the Moosiko Method.
I didn’t start working on Moosiko right away. The idea kind of simmered in my mind over the next 3 years. It wasn’t until mid-2018 I got serious about it and started building and pushed it out to the world. In late 2019 we were experimenting selling as a tool for teachers, which was the original use case when I was teaching guitar privately. We started to have a bit of success but when COVID hit, online learning tools became essential, and we found our stride.
Nandini said something that also inspired me to start Moosiko. She said, “All the online guitar learning resources are made for men. Dark, aggressive black and yellow colors with with long-haired guys rocking on their electric guitars.” This comment is why our color scheme is blue and purple, to be a bit more neutral, even leaning more feminine. Diversity and inclusion is a big part of our mission. Music is such a powerful tool to reach people emotionally and teach them about gender, sexual, and cultural differences that we might not be exposed to in our own communities. Read our piece on Music Matters to learn more about our efforts.
Our non-male rocker inspired color scheme of blue and purple
Since 2015, we’ve grown to help 4,500 students learn guitar across 50 schools. The student experience has remained similar to my original vision, with just a few hundred more songs instead of one. The teacher experience has evolved a lot as we’ve added skills tracking, practice time metrics, and student videos.
Every year around this time I always reminisce about that med student and listen to her audio file. It always makes me smile.
– Dan Mascola, Founder Moosiko