How one woman turned a passion project into a business

A love of teaching and dance inspired Telissa Timpone to take on a passion project that’s now become a thriving business. Here’s how she did it.

Sebastian Canning, 7, James Shi, 6 Joyes Shi, 6, Telissa Timpone, Natasha Canning, 9,and Ellamae Connolly, 10, from Step Up Dance. Picture: Evan Morgan

A Townsville woman who turned her ‘side hustle’ into a booming business has urged others to follow their passions after hitting a major milestone.

Telissa Timpone started Step Up Dance Studio as a passion project five years ago, but quickly found herself faced with not only the outbreak of Covid, but balancing a work-life schedule.

“I work full time in the beauty industry, but things are going really good. I’d previously taught dance for about 13 years and I started Step Up as a bit of a side project just because it was my passion,” Ms Timpone said.

“When I started it, I think we had about 25 students all together, and we’ve just hit a big goal of ours of having 100 students in total.

“Things definitely slowed down quite a bit while Covid was going on, but these last few years I’ve had to devote a fair bit more time, because it’s growing and the word is getting out.”

Sebastian Canning, 7, James Shi, 6, Joyes Shi, 6, Telissa Timpone, Natasha Canning, 9,and Ellamae Connolly, 10, from Step Up Dance. Picture: Evan Morgan

Ms Timpone said that the students were ‘loving’ learning to dance at the school, with the expanding organisation employing five other teachers in order to keep up with demand.

“I’m very proud. I really want to encourage other people who maybe want to do the same thing or take a leap and give it a go.

“A lot of people are quite supportive, it’s really hard to do something like that, there’s already so many large established dance schools that have been around.”

One big benefit keeping Step Up competitive with other, larger, more established schools is their focus on hip-hop music and dancing styles. “Because the dance school specialises in hip-hop, we actually have quite a lot of boys, one of our classes even has more boys than girls, which is something that’s really good to see,” Ms Timpone said.

“It really helps their confidence, you see kids that have never danced before come in, they’re anxious and nervous. It’s a bit like doing a sport, it’s a really good environment for meeting friends and by the end of the year they get up on stage and give a big performance.”

Ms Timpone said she was excited to keep expanding the number of classes offered, and eager to add to their already growing student cohort. “The next step is just more and more classes. I feel so happy that people are loving what we’re doing, it wouldn’t have been possible without the other staff, and Ben, the owner of BFITT.”

Originally published as How one woman turned a passion project into a business