Bonnie Sita of East Bay Dance Center: Transforming Dance Education Through Innovation
Bonnie Sita, founder and Executive Director of East Bay Dance Center, has spent over 30 years empowering kids through dance. With a unique mission to teach life skills through choreography. Bonnie’s studio focuses on building confidence, creativity, and community. Her bold pivot to include a groundbreaking after-school program didn’t just save her business but instead, revolutionized how dance studios can serve families.
From burnout to breakthrough, Bonnie’s story is a masterclass in resilience and thinking outside the box. When faced with dwindling cash flow and the threat of closure, she turned an idea she’d held for nine years into a new business model. By picking kids up from school for dance, art, and enrichment. The result? A thriving studio, a loyal parent base, and over $500K in added revenue.
This Episode's Highlights
- Dance is just the beginning: Bonnie’s mission is to build confident, capable kids through movement and creativity.
- Pioneered an after-school pickup program: She turned one parent’s wish into a new revenue stream that has revolutionized her studio model.
- Launched Studio Mastery Academy: Bonnie now helps other dance studio owners replicate her success nationwide.
- Mindset shift: She stopped asking “Can I?” and started asking “How can I?” A change that unlocked her next level.
- Built through adversity: Even after a pandemic, personal loss, and a fire, she kept building by focusing on service over survival.
Memorable Quote:
Know what you have, know how valuable it is, and know that if you don’t offer it to the right client, it’s not going to happen.