Meet the founder: Bonnie Lister Parsons
As the founder of SOS, do I see myself as a dancer or as a CEO? The answer is, why can’t I be both?
While I definitely am a CEO first — that’s the thing that I work really hard at being great at — I’ll always be a dancer. When I’m 80 years old, I’ll be a dancer. I think it’s something that is in your soul.
I started dancing when I was nine years old. The really, really cool girls that I wanted to be friends with at my new school were doing dance routines in the playground, so I found out where they did their classes and every Tuesday I’d go to their dance school with them. We quickly became friends.
The style was ‘disco’, which I think was the closest you could get to Top of the Pops, pop star dancing styles in the regional Midlands in 1997. We were entering competitions and doing quite well, but it wasn’t until five years later that I realised dancing would be my career. I went to a Britney Spears concert when I was 14 and it was this seismic moment where I realised that I wanted to be up on that stage. I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life.
At 16, I went to a performing arts school and spent two years dancing, singing and acting, as well as learning how to teach dance. Then I moved to America to learn from the best choreographers in the business in New York and LA. I’d get up, go to the dance studio, dance all day, go home, sleep, get up, do the same again. That’s how I got my first job, my first agent in America and my first agent in London who booked me to dance on the Royal Variety Show. I didn’t meet the Queen, but she met Russell Brand and I was stood behind him, so I’m saying it counts.
I can’t pick a single career-defining moment, but one of my favourites includes getting picked to dance on X Factor in London because it was such a hugely competitive audition process. And it’s Brian Friedman, who is just dance royalty, and because he choreographed the Britney tour that made me want to be a dancer. Plus, there’s the time I worked with Beyonce’s dance team — the choreographers I’d watched on MTV when I was a 14-year-old girl — which was a surreal moment too.
Alongside those incredible performances, I had been teaching. That’s a really natural way to make money as a dancer, so setting up my first dance business teaching people how to dance just felt like a really natural approach that was born from a need for stability. I realised that dance wasn’t able to fulfil my ambition on a personal level nor help me meet the financial goals that I now had — especially once I got past a certain age.
It’s funny because dance is seen as something physical and creative, but I think that it actually taught me incredible lessons in entrepreneurship.
I had to learn how to stand out in a crowd of 200 ambitious, talented dancers. How to make myself relevant to a choreographer. How to brand myself. My dance career taught me how to create a standout business and the power of working hard and smart in equal measure!
After three consecutive years of incredible demand for SOS, I realised I couldn’t scale at the rate I needed to if I was going to do this alone. I loved being in business, but I was only able to make money when I was physically there, doing something. I didn’t just want to employ other teachers because I knew that they needed more incentive than just getting paid an hourly rate for turning up to class. They needed it to be their thing — they needed a sense of ownership. It’s why the licence model really appealed. Now, we have 60 BOSSES (the name for our instructors) launching and running their own SOS schools. It’s been incredible to watch.
But before I could do that, I needed investment. I went into the funding world very optimistic and excited. Then I realised sexism was absolutely ingrained in the investment culture. Male founders were getting their businesses funded without anywhere near as much traction as SOS, while I was being told I was ‘too early’ for them to give money to.
I was shocked. I’d grown up with the Spice Girls and girl power, and in the dance industry you’d never not get a job because you were a woman. I’d been led to believe that the feminism thing was a done deal. But in the elitist business world, I saw the inequity and the injustice, and I realised this was representative of all power structures.
I’d been led to believe that the feminism thing was a done deal. But in the elitist business world, I saw the inequity and the injustice.
After lots of soul searching, I thought, ‘Fuck this’. I decided I didn’t want men investing in my business at that stage and I wanted to make a point, so I did an all-female funding round and it was the best thing I’ve ever done. I was told women don’t invest, they are risk-averse, and it was going to hold your business back. They were so wrong. Through sharing on my Instagram and with the SOS community, I raised £100,000 in two weeks.
Having my own journey of empowerment — or a lack of it — helped shape the values that are so key to SOS. I knew that I needed my business to support other women — finding ways to scale my brand while still making sure that the people were going to be really happy and fulfilled — not just on an emotional level, but also feel fulfilled financially. It’s been a real evolution, but SOS is now so much more than just a dance class.
Find out more about SOS at schoolofsos.com
Follow SOS on Instagram @schoolofsos
