Case Study: Zumba

Zumba. It’s a thing. A cultural phenomenon that has spread across the world. A type of dance that millions of people actively do, promote, and love. But wait…is this a cultural phenomenon or something else?

The t-shirts say Zumba. The shoes made by Zumba. Clothing by Zumba. Hmmmmm wait a second. 

Zumba isn’t simply a type of dance that mixes latin dance. Zumba is different. It’s owned. It’s a centrally organized “fitness-dance-music-apparel-tech” business empire: not some decentralized, free dance movement. Thousands of trained instructors (all of which are paying Zumba and making income teaching Zumba) teaching over half a million classes to 15 million people in 186 countries every single week. Wow, fascinating. 

Zumba has an incredible story of growth and they are obviously doing a million things right. It has taken over the world as a globally recognized dance, while sustaining that growth through consistent profit. Zumba is a dance on the outside and a business on the inside. Zumba is sustainable. It makes lots of money in a number of different ways, and has a charity too. 

Dork Dancing can take some notes here. Dork Dancing is not run as a business. Only one week ago did we create a shop on this website to sell three things, with hopes to supplement donations. When we dance out on the beach, we don’t ask for money. 

As time passes, it’s becoming more evident that the financial sustainability of Dork Dancing matters. Dork Dancing has aspirations of becoming a global dance, cultural phenomenon, like Zumba. So maybe we should look into the business model.

How can we make money in such a way that doesn’t depend on donations? How can this sustain itself so that it can grow more powerfully without dependence on the goodwill of others? How can Dork Dancing tap into market forces to expand its impact?

These are questions that are ever-present in the backdrop of what we do, because it’s a problem that is not yet solved. The longer Dork Dancing is dancing out in public everyday without $$, the more it feels like we aren’t making progress in ways that we likely need to make this thing grow. 

Dork Dancing is a grassroots social mental health movement: an idea, community, and campaign. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get creative in finding ways to sustain ourselves better. Zumba would not have gone global without its thriving business model. 

We at Dork Dancing look up to Zumba, because Zumba has inspired the kind of impact that we dream of. If we can create the kind of impact Zumba has without creating a for-profit business, then perfect but at minimum, we need a stronger business model. We need to continue testing new ideas, experimenting with new concepts.

Dork Dancing is not spreading so fast. This stuff takes years. The history of Zumba is 20-30 years old. We are less than one. We need to be patient. We have confidence if we continue to add value and market this idea to wider audiences, beyond the city of Da Nang, Vietnam, then that exposure will create more demand and thus, opportunity.

Persistence + passion + patience yields progress. We study Zumba’s case, and look at its success in admiration.

Dork Dancing depends entirely on charitable giving. We hope you may consider supporting by either donating or shopping.