Case studies //
Elevate by ICMP
ICMP had spent thirty years teaching musicians on campus. Elevate was the business we built to reach everyone who wasn't ready to walk through the door: courses from £15, online, taught by the people the industry actually hires.
- Sector
- EdTech
- Engagement
- Co-founder: proposition to go-to-market
- Period
- Founded 2021 · traded to sale
01 //
Where this started
ICMP is a specialist contemporary music school in London: three decades of teaching, industry-working tutors, a campus, part-time short courses, summer schools and degrees.
But the ladder only started partway up. Somebody who has just picked up a guitar, or who wants to understand how the music business actually works, is not ready to book a week on campus and is nowhere near applying for a degree. They are on YouTube, or on one of a hundred subscription platforms staffed by people with no teaching standing at all, and once they are there, they are gone.
So I co-founded a second business inside the first one to build that missing bottom rung. Not a marketing campaign for an existing product: a new company, from the proposition and the business model canvas through the market research, the financial model and the board case, to the brand, the platform, the catalogue and the route to market. It traded until the business was sold.
02 //
What was actually going on
This was never an e-commerce problem. It was a progression problem. ICMP could teach somebody brilliantly from short course to degree, but it had no way of meeting them at the very start: the point where curiosity is cheap and commitment is nil. Elevate was built as the first stage of a single learning journey: dip a toe online for fifteen pounds, come to a short course or a summer school on campus, and for the ones who catch it, a degree. A feeder, not a discount rail. Which is also why it never cannibalised anything; it was filling in the step below.
03 //
The work
- 01
Business case and model
- Market and category research to size the opportunity and find the learner ICMP had never been able to reach: the one who wanted to start, not to enrol.
- Business model canvas, then the financial model behind it: pricing, unit economics, cost of acquisition, contribution, the shape of the first three years.
- The case taken to the board and funded: a new company inside the school, with its own P&L, its own platform, its own payment rails and its own brand.
- 02
The ladder, and where Elevate sits on it
- Stage one, deliberately: online, self-paced, bite-size, no entry requirements, no application, nothing to commit to beyond an afternoon.
- Stage two is ICMP's own part-time short courses and summer schools on campus. Stage three is a degree. Elevate was designed to hand people up the ladder rather than hold onto them.
- Which means it works two ways and both are wins: a hobbyist buys one course, enjoys it and never comes back, and that is a perfectly good outcome; somebody who catches the bug has just met their first ICMP tutor for fifteen pounds, and the next rung is already in front of them.
- 03
Proposition and brand
- Positioned as ICMP's flexible, self-paced entry point: visibly of the school, clearly not the degree, and never presented as a substitute for it.
- The promise pitched at the actual buyer: study music your way, no entry requirements, learn from the people the industry already hires.
- Catalogue architecture across instrument, production, songwriting and music business, with curated bundles for people who want a path rather than a single lesson.
- £15 to dip a toe; £99 for a course taught by a name the buyer already owns records by, Ace from Skunk Anansie among them. Recognition doing the work that a prospectus cannot.
- 04
Launch and go-to-market
- Took a direct-to-consumer product to market from an institution that had only ever recruited students through admissions.
- Price architecture from £15 up through £99 named-tutor courses and bundles, with instalment options so cost was never the reason to close the tab.
- Industry partnerships built into the proposition rather than bolted on, because for this buyer the tutor's credits are the proof.
- 05
Video and industry partnerships
- Produced the video work end to end: the brand film and the course films that carry the proposition.
- Secured the industry partnerships behind the catalogue, with Ableton and Audient sponsoring courses.
- 06
Search and e-commerce visibility
- Built organic search into the main acquisition channel, for a product with no brand awareness and a category full of well-funded competitors, that is the only affordable route to scale.
- Course pages marked up as products so they could earn rich results and merchant listings rather than plain blue links.
- Affiliate programme run alongside, including partnerships well outside the obvious education channels.
04 //
What changed
£10k
monthly revenue inside the first six months
From zero. No product, no brand, no customers at launch; roughly ten thousand pounds a month within six months, direct to consumer, in a category we had never sold to.
959k
search impressions in a month
Peak monthly organic visibility, for a business that started with no brand, no audience and no traffic. Category-level demand captured by structure and content rather than bought.
6.6k
clicks from search in a month
Also peak: organic doing the acquisition work paid media would otherwise have had to fund, in a category where the competition is well capitalised.
£15–£99
the first rung on the ladder
Fifteen pounds to start; ninety-nine to be taught by someone whose records the buyer already owns. Bite-size by design: an end in itself for a hobbyist, and the step below the campus short courses, the summer schools and the degrees for everybody else.
05 //
The work itself
The product is the proof. Courses from £15, taught by people with credits the buyer already knows, sold in ninety seconds to somebody who has never set foot on the campus.
Brand filmTwo films
Meeting people at the beginning
The proposition had to be watchable in under two minutes: real tutors, real credits, nothing to apply for. The films carry the school's weight so the price does not have to apologise for itself.
DigitalDirect-to-consumer course catalogue
icmp-elevate.com
A catalogue that has to sell a £15 course on the strength of who is teaching it. The ICMP name does the credibility; the price, the absence of entry requirements and the instalment options do the conversion; the tutor's credits close it. Scroll inside each window.
Elevate went from an idea to a revenue line I could put in front of the board — built lean, growing month on month, with customer acquisition that never needed a paid budget behind it. By the time of the sale it was adding real value to the group.
Jenny Marzano — CFO, ICMP
Why this might matter to you //
Most established organisations sell at one point on a ladder and then wonder why the market feels small. The people who would eventually buy the expensive thing cannot get anywhere near it yet, so they go and learn somewhere else and never come back. The work is to build the missing bottom rung (cheap, immediate, genuinely good, and pointed upwards) and to prove it with a model before anybody spends money on it.
Brand & Positioning Define what you stand for, who you’re for, and why you’re the right choice.
Marketing Strategy Positioning, audience, channels, and a roadmap connected to revenue.
Start-up Marketing Advisory Stress-test your proposition before you take it to market.