Ukulele and three acoustic guitars sitting in the cabinet, a music stand placed in the corner, several music sheets scattered on the floor, a dual monitor system accompanied with voice recording equipment, an original modern impressionistic painting by Russian–Israeli self-presenting artist Leonid Afremov hanging on the wall. Greg Arney walked into his studio apartment, sat down in front of the computer and started managing his guitar school’s website.

“I basically manage my current business online, and I’m also working on a new business idea. I want to start an online guitar school in the future,” said Greg Arney, a musician, an entrepreneur a minimalist.

Greg Arney’s first official business—a small guitar school Boston Guitar Lessons opened in 2011 when he was still a professional music undergraduate student at Berklee College of Music. “I decided to become an entrepreneur because professional musicians don’t make any money,” Arney laughed when talking about his initial motivation to become an entrepreneur. “Music is my life, and running business allows me to keep doing what I truly love,”

It all started in the moment 17-year-old Arney found an old guitar in the attic of his parents’ house and played some random notes on it. He was fascinated with what he did and captivated by the sound the acoustic guitar was able to make, which, according to Arney, was: “some of the most gorgeous sounds on the entire planet”. Since then, Arney decided to learn how to play. His first guitar teacher was his father, a music lover and amateur guitar player. Arney practiced at least seven hours a day for an entire year.

Knowing that Arney became a guitar player, his friends started learning to play from him. “Learning guitar from Greg inspired me to become a musician too,” said Casey Merhige, a friend of Arney’s, as well as a Boston-based musician.

Three years later, a letter of acceptance for Berklee College of Music arrived. And with that Arney began his journey of becoming a professional musician. In his senior year of college, Arney realized the possible financial difficulties a professional musician might encounter and decided to start his first official business, a Boston-based guitar school. As an entrepreneur, Arney understood that opening a guitar school was the fastest was to make a profit because teaching guitar was what he was already familiar with.

Looking back, Arney regarded playing guitar as the very first true passion of his life. The goal of becoming an extraordinary musician has helped Arney develop his personal potential and saved him from the depression in his teens.

Currently Boston Guitar Lessons offer three kinds of major services: one-on-one instruction, Skype lessons, and instrument rental. With one-on-one instruction and Skype lessons, students are free to choose half-hour or hour sessions. Every teacher will fully assess the students’ level and give them specific and personalized tasks. Skype lessons allow students from anywhere in the world to take advantage of systematic training methods. “While there's no substitute for patient practice, a good teacher can save you hours, days, weeks, or even years of wasted time by bringing you straight to the tasks you need to be working on, and holding you accountable for your success,” said George Woods, guitar teacher at Boston Guitar Lessons.

Just like every other entrepreneur, Arney encountered a variety of difficulties running the business. Boston Guitar Lessons had a hard time at the beginning when the school hadn’t developed an efficient payment system yet. To make sure that his very first business function well, Arney developed a new payment system and enrolled each student in a monthly billing plan. In addition, a series of comprehensive lesson policies are made as well.

To Arney, owning a guitar school is not just about teaching how to play guitar. More importantly, it’s about offering something unique, something other guitar schools may not have. In January 2013, CBS Boston listed Boston Guitar Lessons as one of the best five places for guitar lessons in Boston area for its affordable price and various styles of lessons including pop, blues, rock, electric, Latin, jazz and funk.

Speaking of teachers at the guitar school, Arney said, “They are my employees, but we joke a lot. We get along well.” Four full-time guitar teachers work at Boston Guitar Lessons. Each of them has a different professional background and style of playing.

Anastasiya Dumma is a Russian guitar player who treats her guitar as her life and never lets anybody else touch it; Jeff Defonte is a Japanese culture enthusiast who specializes in rock and blues; Mike Debari is an active performer in Boston area who has more than 25 years of guitar teaching experience; George Woods was born to a musical family where his father was a jazz guitar player and his grandfather a world-renowned songwriter and composer in New York City’s famed Tin Pan Alley. Each teacher at Boston Guitar Lessons offers student a tailored instruction based on the five-volume Guitar Modus developed by Greg Arney.

Arney was also a teacher at Boston Guitar Lessons until summer, 2013. “Each relationship between a student and me was unique. I enjoyed connecting with all of my students,” said Arney.

When asked about the student who impressed him most, Arney referred to an eight-year-old girl named Marley. She was a student of Arney’s for nearly eight months. The first time Arney met Marley, she said she wanted to be able to play guitar for her grandmother, who used to be a guitar player, but was too sick to do so anymore. Marley left each lesson with hope to play for her grandmother, and came back with stories about how her grandmother was cheered up even just by the simplest chords.

Boston Guitar Lessons student Wen Yao said, “No matter you are a fresh man for guitar or already study guitar for a long time, you can get what you want about guitar in Greg's class. Greg has a lot of passion and patience. I really enjoy the time I had in Boston Guitar Lesson.”

In a Yelp post, Boston Guitar Lessons student Karen wrote: “Greg shows great skill in his ability to listen patiently and offer appropriate guidance when a student is in need. His strong musical knowledge is apparent in responding to difficult questions with both in depth feedback and a sense of humor. Best of all, the lessons are extremely affordable.”

“Greg Arney has the heart, mind and soul of a teacher. Empathetic and able to custom tailor an approach that fits the student. Greg inspires his students to excel at their goals,” said Michael Wartofsky, professor in the Harmony department at Berklee College of Music.

At the end of this past summer, Arney decided to travel the world and develop new business ideas, therefore he stopped teaching at Boston Guitar Lessons and has focused on running and expanding businesses. “I don’t want to keep teaching at Boston Guitar Lessons. As an entrepreneur, I want to develop more business ideas while traveling the world,” said Arney.

Currently, apart from running Boston Guitar Lessons, Arney is also working as a contractor at Berklee College of Music, where he offers web development consulting service to the college’s office of online learning and develops online learning initiatives for the college’s on-campus students.

At the same time, Arney is spending an hour per week working on his new business idea: an online guitar school. “I have learned a lot from the experience of running Boston Guitar Lessons. Now I want to start a guitar school, which is not only based in Boston,” explained Arney. The new online school will enable students from around the world to take guitar lessons whenever and wherever they want. They will use a unique approach, including an online learning program and the electronic version of the five-volume Guitar Modus designed by Arney. Arney hopes that eventually brick and mortar franchise schools will be established in different cities around the world.

As a musician, Arney practices guitar and writes music. Last winter, Arney co-wrote and produced an original soundtrack for QatQi, the word game available in Apple App Store and played by tens of thousands of gamers. The game and its soundtrack earned favorable mentions in publications such as Wired, the Telegraph and the Guardian. It was also featured by Apple in the "New and Noteworthy" section of the App store.

Interestingly, although a dedicated entrepreneur, what Arney spends most of his current time doing does not seem very business-related. Six or seven hours a day, seven days a week, Arney is learning a new language: Chinese. “I don’t have a specific reason for learning Chinese. I just decided to learn a language totally different from mine. I believe I will have the ability to use Chinese in four months. Plus speaking Mandarin might be useful some day in the future,” said Arney.

In the corner of Arney’s studio apartment stands a stack of neatly organized books, home decoration items and some furniture. Arney is getting ready to leave the country and travel the world. During the past five years, he has worked 70 hours per week. He was able to buy a lot of stuff that he wanted, but life became repetitive and therefore unexciting after a while. Having downsized materially, Arney became a minimalist and started living a simple life. Wherever he travels his business and musicianship will go with him. First stop on his itinerary? Thailand. It seems that he will be missing a cold winter after living in New England for 26 years.

“Being a musician and being an entrepreneur, it’s not one or the other. I’m dedicated to entrepreneurship because it enables me to keep writing and playing music. I consider myself a successful musician as well as a successful entrepreneur not because of the money I’ve made, but because I’ve been consistent and dedicated to work on whatever goal I set for myself,” said Arney, a musician, an entrepreneur, a minimalist, as well as a self motivator, an unconventional thinker, and a persistent explorer.