The Entrepreneurial Genius
of Taylor Swift

Still, the course will be tailormade for Swift fans, with each session themed around a different album or Era of her career, along with friendship bracelet gifts for students, surprise songs during breaks and “Easter eggs” hidden in class content (Swift is similarly known to hide clues and callbacks for fans in her own music videos, album artwork and social media posts).  

McCormick has been a Swift fan since the early days of mega-hits “Our Song” and “Love Story” but began to see the entrepreneurship lessons in her 17-year career after attending one of the Houston stops on the record-breaking The Eras Tour in April. 

“I saw the show and LOVED it,” McCormick said. “And I realized I actually didn’t know that much about her career. I became absolutely enamored basically overnight and started getting into her whole discography. Taylor is truly impressive!” 

She added: “Never have I ever, like ever, been so engrossed in someone’s career after so little time,” referencing a lyric in one of Swift’s most popular singles, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” 

Swift has an estimated net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes, and made more than $780 million on the U.S. leg of her 2023 The Eras Tour, setting her up to become the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time. The Eras Tour concert film recently became the highest-grossing concert film in North America, with an estimated $95 million to $97 million in ticket sales during its opening weekend. 

Swift also broke artistic ground in 2021 with a rerecorded version of her album Fearless, launching a series of releases of her back catalog, in order to secure ownership of her first six albums after the masters, or original recordings, were sold for a reported $300 million in 2019. The rerecorded albums, dubbed “Taylor’s Version,” have dominated music charts with each release, generating new sales and streams for songs that are up to a decade old. 

That kind of success doesn’t come by accident, McCormick said, and will be the focus of the class. 

“The number one business lesson students can learn from Taylor is the way she treats her fans,” she said. “She is beloved because she truly does so much to make sure they are happy, appreciated and feel like they are important to her. If every company acted that way about their customers — they’d have way more customers.”