Sums add up to £500k for maths whiz's music store

HE was about to embark on a career in one of the most highly paid professions in the country.

But 22-year-old Jonathan Clark's passion for guitars led him down an entirely different path.

After graduating with an honours degree in mathematics from Heriot-Watt University in summer 2007, Jonathan, who lives in Craigleith, decided to abandon a potential career as an actuary and instead follow his dream of opening his own music shop selling imported instruments.

The shop – Imported Instruments – which he opened in Ocean Terminal aged 21, is now on course to turnover half a million pounds in its first year.

Towards the end of his university course, Jonathan, who has played guitar since he was 14, started to sell guitars online which he had purchased with his father, Jonathan, 52, during trips to Japan and America.

Jonathan said: "It kind of all happened by accident really. On the first trip to Tokyo in August 2007, I bought a relatively small amount of guitars – about six or seven – and it was really just to make a little bit of money.

"We went on a buying trip to second-hand music stores and general guitar stores in California too, in February 2008, where we tried to find the best guitars that you might not get here."

This time the pair returned with around 100 guitars – electric, bass and acoustic – and purchased a similar number on their second trip to Tokyo in October 2007.

"Anything that we felt was a little bit different or a little bit special, we would snap it up," added Jonathan.

Jonathan opened his first shop in Ocean Terminal in August last year.

After "rapidly outgrowing" the unit, the shop relocated to a bigger space last month – tripling in size – on the first floor of the shopping centre.

It now stocks around 400 musical instruments, mostly new and used guitars, but also mandolas, mandolins, banjos and even whistles. Prices of the guitars range from 30 to 3000.

Jonathan, who hopes to explore the "high end classical guitar market" in Spain in future, said: "It gave us the space to allow us to build a quiet room at the back of the unit which will hopefully be finished at the end of this month.

"We will be doing things like guitar lessons in store and guitar repairs."

Jonathan said: "I felt it was going to be more captivating for me to do this rather than become an actuary and it suited my interests a lot better.

"I'm not sure in the current climate whether being an actuary would be a good thing or not. I think I have made the right decision for myself.

"I have always had a passion for music but I probably didn't see this realistically happening."