The original agreement between Kindermusik and SimplySignUp expires in July, but YourVirtuoso will continue to be available, supported and enhanced. The team at SimplySignUp (SSU) is happy to be taking over full responsibility for supporting the service which they defined, designed, and manage today.
Who is SSU?
SSU was formed in 2004 by Gerry Cobley and a Raleigh NC based software design company to address the need for a web-based application serving music studios, dance studios, etc.
Gerry's 15 years administering Julia's large (top 1% Maestro) Kindermusik studio provided the detailed knowledge which, along with with his MBA, business experience with Gartner and his partners' business application and web design expertise combined to create the critical mass needed to develop YourVirtuoso.
SSU has no other investors, and developed YV without any outside funding (not even from KI).
Why is the Agreement Expiring?
SSU and KI hoped that YourVirtuoso would eventually benefit virtually all Kindermusik educators. For this reason, KI elected to make it mandatory for new licensees. What we (SSU) have learned is that there are a very large number of educators who have such small enrollment (10 or 20 students) and no burning desire to grow, that even the $14.95 and the couple of hours to set YV up were beyond their needs. KI plans to address this with their new Class locator based system, and while we provided a proposal to have this interwork with YV and use existing YV capabilities, KI have elected to build it on their own.
What is changing in July?
As a subscriber to YV, very little will change about the service itself. The service has always been owned and managed by SimplySignUp (SSU) and in July the only significant change we expect will be that SSU will take over customer support from KI. The end-user license agreement you accepted when you registered for YV was between you and SSU and is not affected (though we may clarify your full ownership of your data, and ask you to affirm that you are a licensed KM educator who can use the KI logos in your website).
What About the Future of YV?
From the SSU perspective, we are a small but viable corporation focussed on providing a fully integrated, fully featured suite of studio administration and internet marketing tools. This remains our vision, and we have no intention to pull the plug on YourVirtuoso.
We have no plans to increase the subscription price for YV, including YV 2.0 at this time.
KI has no desire to deny you access to KI curriculum information, and we will put a process in place to promptly update curriculum information when necessary.
We will, however, be free to add features based on your needs, not constrained by KI's priorities, and we will putting a process in place to capture your priorities.
We cannot speak to the specifics of which YV features will and wont be duplicated by KI on Kindermusik.com, but our expectation is that educators with significant enrollment, non- Kindermusik curricula, reporting and tracking needs, or concerns over KI ownership of their customer data will find YV the best, if not the only, option. Only time will tell, so we recommend you wait and see.
Should I Let Kindermusik Have an Archive of my Data?
Here are a few facts and one opinion for you to consider:
... and the opinion... Your customer list is the crown jewel of your business. Be very careful how you share it. My advice is not to share it at all - whenever KI sends an email (like Tune In) to your prospects, selling old DRMY inventory for example, with no mention of kindermusik classes, it devalues the Kindermusik brand from the educational values you have spent years promoting. ...end of opinion...
We cannot speak to the specifics of which YV features will and wont be duplicated by KI on Kindermusik.com, but our expectation is that educators with significant enrollment, non- Kindermusik curricula, reporting and tracking needs, or concerns over KI ownership of their customer data will find YV the best, if not the only, option. Only time will tell, so we recommend you wait and see.
Should I Let Kindermusik Have an Archive of my Data?
Here are a few facts and one opinion for you to consider:
- SSU uses a professional, secure hosting company and data is backed up by us every 30 minutes, and transferred to tapes for offsite storage every day.
- In YV 2.0 you can create complete reports for customers and prospects, and export those to "CSV" files which can be stored on your computer and read by excel, word etc.
- SSU has not been informed of how the data would be used by Kindermusik
... and the opinion... Your customer list is the crown jewel of your business. Be very careful how you share it. My advice is not to share it at all - whenever KI sends an email (like Tune In) to your prospects, selling old DRMY inventory for example, with no mention of kindermusik classes, it devalues the Kindermusik brand from the educational values you have spent years promoting. ...end of opinion...
SSU is committed to supporting you, and protecting your valuable customer data.
