Her music agency is booked and busy post-pandemic

Ana Jaquim’s Preludio Entertainment is a booking agency that provides musicians for life’s special moments, including weddings, ceremonies, baby showers, and parties. Launched in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic took over, Preludio Entertainment had an understandably rough start. Instead of becoming discouraged, Ana and her roster of musicians went to work creating content including DIY videos, song covers, and virtual concerts from home. When the world started opening back up, Preludio Entertainment had a trove of sample videos and sets for their clientele to choose from. Now Ana is fielding constant bookings and bringing beautiful music to special events everywhere. 

Here’s how Ana is managing being busier than ever:
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⁠On how she stays motivated
I think my passion for music and business started when I was in middle school. I was in a national-level music program in Mexico where I saw many children from very diverse backgrounds coming to this one place and changing their lives with music. Music helped them in their lives in general and changed how they did things. 
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⁠Seeing that really put a spark in me to want to keep doing that for other people—to create opportunities and change peoples’ lives through music. Music transcends and stays throughout our lives. 
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⁠On helping out her friends through business 
Most of Preludio’s musician roster are my friends. We went to school together at Wayne State University in Detroit. I studied music business and was in the orchestra, and they studied music performance. I saw that they needed to be practicing and performing all the time, and they didn’t have the time to put out their best branded self and be business-minded. So I get to do that for them. ⁠
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⁠On the pandemic actually becoming a positive thing
What happened at the time [with the pandemic], for most businesses it was difficult, and it was also the year that we launched. It was a very slow startup process for us. We started doing a lot of content, including DIY videos playing song covers and orchestras playing together from home. We started doing that and it helped us a lot having all that content out there as we were launching. 
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⁠The year after was a good year for us because we had all of the canceled bookings come back, plus the ones that were newly scheduled for that year. That was a really cool thing for us. Having content when you start is so important. We learned that and were forced to do it, but it helped us get more bookings, and now it’s looking pretty good for us—now we’re triple booked! 
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⁠On managing those triple bookings
This summer we have three weddings in one day. This is our first time being triple booked and it’s a challenge! 
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⁠Creating a project process has been very beneficial for us. There is a set of steps that need to happen for each wedding. I have created a process to keep track of everything so it’s just check, check, check–then it’s done and we can take care of our personal lives and other jobs. As long as that process is running, we are running. 
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⁠On turning to others for help
If I don’t have the answer, I know someone else has solved it. I like working together with other people and helping them too. If I’m having a tough situation, I don’t know everything, but I’m sure someone has already solved it. 
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⁠On why she relates to the Incredible Hulk
Sometimes I feel like Hulk from the Avengers. He says, “I’m angry all the time!” but for me it’s: “I’m stressed all the time!” 
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⁠When you’re an entrepreneur, your mind is in everything. You wear all the hats, and have to be in the high-mind constantly, so you just learn to deal with that. You’re definitely on all the time. It’s not just your day job, it’s your business. You have to take care of it, and when things have to get done, they have to get done.