Step by Step
Calgary entrepreneur dances her way to success
by Jessica Patterson
Photo by Shaun Robinson
Whether it’s because of the sheer number of career choices, the demand for ever greater levels of post-secondary education or the challenging economic environment, it seems like most twenty-somethings spend more of their time trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives than actually getting down to the business of doing it. Some even manage to make a career out of the search for a career, bouncing frenetically from one pursuit to another in the hope that eventually the music will stop and they’ll find a chair that suits them.
But Amanda Hunsley, the owner of Prestige Dance Academy, has known all along where she was headed. Now, nine years after the Calgary-based dancer opened her business at the age of 19, Hunsley is well on her way to fulfilling her lofty ambitions. Her studio, located in Calgary’s southwest, provides a program of dance training and fun by technically trained teachers. Students can take foundation classes in jazz, tap and ballet and recreational classes in lyrical, hip hop, cheerleading jazz, creative performing arts and a modern/jazz mix. There are classes for moms with their two-year-olds in tow, and intensive classes for serious young dancers looking to make it to the next level.
Dance has always been a big part of Hunsley’s life. She started at the precocious age of three, and grew up devoting the hours that other kids her age might have spent on the playground or with a video game controller in their hand working on her craft. “When I was younger, dance was just a place I went to have fun,” she says. “It was always really rewarding, because the more effort you put in, the better you did.”
She’s applied the same formula to her professional career, and while her success has been driven in part by her passion, it’s also a function of her business-first approach to building a career around it. “I am an entrepreneur,” says Hunsley, the owner and operator of Prestige Dance Academy. That entrepreneurial spirit emerged at an early age, as Hunsley learned early on the value of a buck and the pleasures associated with earning a few of her own. Her ideas went beyond the typical lemonade stand, too. “She would fold laundry, do cleaning and make her Dad his lunch and invoice us,” her parents Pat and Don Harburn say.
Hunsley’s parents played an integral role in her success, lending their daughter $30,000 after the bank turned down the loan application that she filed as an 18-year-old with no equity to her name. Her parents expected her to pay back the loan, but they saw it as a low-risk investment in their daughter’s potential. “We never doubted her ability to become a success,” they say. “There was never any hesitation; if the timing was right then we were ready to support her in making it happen.”
Hunsley didn’t have any doubts, either, although the loan from her parents did add to the already considerable pressure that her ambitious goals had already created for her. “That’s the last thing you want when you’re 19, to fail and then owe your parents a bunch of money,” she says. “But I wanted it so bad that it was like there wasn’t anything that could make me totally fail. There were things that could happen that might give me trouble along the way, but I knew that I was determined enough that I would find my way through.”
That streak of determination runs deep in Hunsley, who as a young dancer began working at the studio, cleaning, doing administrative work and even a bit of student teaching. One summer, Hunsley and another dancer, Patti O’Brien, approached the studio owner with a proposal to run summer dance camps. They turned out to be a smashing success. Those camps were the first hint for Hunsley that her career might be in the front of the house rather than on centre stage. She quickly decided that she wanted to open her own dance studio, but knew that she couldn’t build it on ideas and enthusiasm alone.
Her parents suggested that she get some business skills, as they would come in handy as a small business owner. She applied for, and got accepted into, Mount Royal’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship program, and it was exactly what she needed. After just one year into the program, Hunsley felt she was ready to open her studio. There was one problem: it was going to take a few more years to finish her degree, and a few years to make the dance studio into a feasible business. But Hunsley, ever the entrepreneur, figured she’d do both at the same time.
Using money from the loan her parents extended to her, Hunsley eventually found 1,000 square feet in Glenbrook. The original studio was small, of course, but with the help of her family and more than a few friends Hunsley opened Prestige Dance Academy to the community. And while her youth might have been a stumbling block as far as the banks were concerned, it also kept her going during those lean early years. “The energy that I had really got me through it, because it was exhausting. You had no idea whether it was going to work or not.”
Kayley Jalali, a teacher at Prestige, has known Hunsley for 13 years, marvels at how far Hunsley has come. “Being a young woman starting her dance studio, I remember the frustration she felt when people didn’t take her seriously,” Jalali says. “Now, nine years later, she has waiting lists for classes at the studio and it grows every year.” Hunsley, who won the CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2004, credits much of her success to her single-minded dedication to her dream, and it’s a message that she shares with others. “If I ever talk to people who have a dream and who are passionate, I tell them to just take the first step. Jump off the edge and try to do it. If you have the desire and the passion and the willingness to work hard, you’ll find success.”
Now, Hunsley sees the payoff from her own success everyday. Where she once taught classes full-time, she now teaches one night a week and manages her business from home. Hunsley, who’s expecting, spends the rest of her time with her husband, Scott, and their toddler Brianna. And while Brianna and her soon-to-be-sibling are years away from having to figure out what they want to do with their lives, when the time comes Hunsley already knows what she’ll tell them. “Life is short,” she says. “It’s going to go fast, so you might as well be doing something every day that you’re passionate about. When my daughter wants to do something crazy, I hope – no, I’m sure – that I’ll be supportive, because my parents have been so good to me.”
Having spent her 20s building a business and with a growing family to tend to in the years to come, it would only be natural for Hunsley to wonder sometimes if she missed out on the pleasures of the feckless and carefree youth that so many of her friends enjoyed. But for Hunsley, it’s a tradeoff that she’s happy to have made. “It didn’t seem like I was really missing out on things,” she says. “I probably missed out on going to movies with my friends as often, or maybe I didn’t party as hard as they did all the time, but I certainly was able to find a healthy balance in life and school and business. I don’t regret it at all.”
Next Up is a series of profiles of emerging leaders in Alberta’s business community and public life.
Follow Alberta Venture On: