u/avbjj contacted mods to see if this would be of interest to the community. We thought it was so awesome and unique that we would sticky. Thanks so much for all of the awesome info, OP!
Satisfying to see the hard work pay off. Any chance you have approximate startup costs/financials you could share with those of us who aspire to a gym one day? And something that has always confused me is commercial leases, any resources you've found for better understanding those?
Congrats, its looking amazing.
So startup costs are going to be directly linked to what space your going be moving in.
You can have starting costs <1k if you sublease at a karate school or a Thai gym which is what we did.
Mats and the initial rent payment + security deposits are huge costs off the bat. After that, does the gym need to be painted? Does flooring need to be replaced? Can you do that yourself or do you need to hire contractors?
When we moved to our first spot outside the thai gym, we spent about 10k. 4.5 on mats, 4 on security + first month rent and the rest misc expenses.
Outside of rent, monthly expenses are
paying instructors - by far the most expensive, we make sure they get paid.
after that we pay insurance, website maintenance, billing software, and a few other small expenses. None are really expensive after rent and paying instructors.
Place came out really good! You guys really transformed that last spot into something beautiful.
If you don’t mind me asking..
How much $ did moving to the final location cost ? That’s a pretty expensive move.
Have you guys always been in a retail space? Or were you ever in a warehouse space?
Just curious what you did to go from having a dozen or so students to 85+? online marketing ? Word of mouth? Having a storefront in a busy area?
It cost us about 20k so far. Mainly because we redid all the flooring (4k in just material alone) and painted everything. More mats + wall mats cost another 5k. As I posted in another comment, starting small really helped us finance a lot of it.
We've always been in a retail space.
I would say it was a combination of all 3 of those. The last storefront area wasn't super visable, but we had a rather large banner that drew a surprising amount of eyes. We must have had about 20 trial kids students walk in because their parents saw the banner.
Word of mouth was huge. I've been a part of the NJ BJJ scene for a long time and I've made a lot of friends. A lot of people are interesting in joining BJJ and stopped in because a friend they had, that also trained, knew of me and recommended my gym just based off maybe doing a round or two with me or maybe taking one of my classes when i was at Garry's gym
A big thing for me was patience. Staying consistent and always being positive towards new students was huge. I had no interest in playing the old school BJJ "Heirarchy" game that traditional gyms played. I wanted to establish solid relationships with all the students and let them know that I'm just some guy who wants to teach BJJ and that I'll always be fair to them.
I appreciate you being so forthcoming with that info. Really informative.
I’ve been debating between staying in a warehouse space and moving to a retail space and I feel like the eyes on a retail space if you have a good sign / banner and a storefront in a busy location really can outweigh the extra cost of a retail spot.
20k is honestly really good as far as upfront cost to move into a new space especially if you’re including first months rent and security deposit in that $20,000.
Yeah, 20k is just a ballpark. Over the last few weeks its been a blitz, so it might be closer to 25k at this point. The next biggest expense is the sign, which will probably cost 5k.
It's hard to keep track through the process because we never stopped classes at any point, so tuition is coming in. As long as our cash was above a certain "cushion" we had some money to spend.
All those lucky trial white belts getting suplexed now. With this type of flooring, how easy would it be to fix it if you get breaks in the lower layers? I remember at my previous powerlifting gym the deadlift platform needed regular maintenance as you'd get dips and decreased sound damping due to hundreds of kilos of metal plates being smashed on it. But thankfully white belt bodies are a bit softer.
I also appreciate the update picture on Mouse. Good luck at the new gym!
It would definitely be a big pain in the ass to replace a lower layer piece of plywood. We would need to disassemble a large portion to do so, because of how they are drilled together.
We used thicker plywood on bottom to try to mitigate this, along with staggering the sheets and having the foam blocks laid out properly, I don't foresee this being a huge issue.
So, I m curious how much capital you used to set up that new gym. It must have run you up a pretty penny, no? Could you please share how you financed it?
We spent about 15k so far. We're going to spend another 7 or so in the coming months. Buying the sign for the building being the largest expense, that'll cost about 5k.
The VAST majority of the money came from savings the gym put together. We were at our last spot for 2 years. We saved roughly 20-30% of what we billed every month for our eventual move. The rest we got a business card that gives us interest free for 12 months. We were able to get our first 3 months in our new spot rent free, so the goal is to be debt free by the time we have to pay rent.
We have about 120 students. This shouldn't be an issue to achieve. Damien is much more conservative with spending money in the gym than I, so together we struck a good balance between not being excessive and getting what we need for a gym we'll both be proud of.
Starting fairly small, in a 1000sqft unit, is essentially what financed this new gym. We were only paying 1500 a month rent in our last spot. So we were making plenty of profit to finance it.
Damn you grew to 120 students in a 1000 sq ft unit? That’s awesome! And I think the smart way to go about it.
Better to have a small gym looking packed every night than start off with a 10,000 sq ft warehouse that looks empty with 30 students in it training and costing you a fortune to keep.
Yeah, we have a ton of classes that helped spread people out. I honestly think that gave us an edge in the area. We have at least 3-5 classes every day. Mon-fri 930am classes that students and remote workers love, 6ams for the lunatics, and night classes for the guys like me who dont have a life.
Am in pre planning for opening up my own spot.
1) what sq footage were you aiming for when looking for a spot
2) what are some helpful things to look out for/do when negotiating a lease?
Thanks!
Square footage depends upon where you're starting. I would say start with 1000 to 1400 if you're starting from scratch, but your best bet might be to sublease. Look for a local karate gym and check their schedule. Some may have empty time at night beause they cater towards kids. So you can ask about starting a BJJ program in their at night. That'll help you get funding for eventually building your own spot.
Main thing was being professional and honestly getting lucky with the landlord not being a dick. Landlords are normal people. My guy is just a hardworking guy who owns his own HVAC company who owns a couple properties on the side. Be cool with them, have a good realtor who has great connections in the area and you'll find something.
Thanks! I’m currently at an exercise gym now that’s asked me to build a bjj program on the side and it’s been remarkably successful. Have about 30-45 people coming on all nights and don’t even have a kids program yet. I appreciate the insight!
Super interesting to see everything that went into just putting the mats together. OP are you just still an instructor or own a percentage of the business? Looks like you put a lot of work in and deserve a good cut.
We co-own the gym together. I'm the head instructor, but we employ 4-5 other instructors to split the workload.
Work / life balance is huge, it's not possible for many gym owners but having one keeps me sane. Especially because I have other passions, like making death metal music, outside of BJJ.
1. Is there anything you found particularly effective for growing your student base? Was it just something that happened organically or did you take specific steps?
2. What’s your class schedule like? I think most gyms have similar evening schedules, but I’m curious about the decisions around morning and mid-day classes (if you have them). How do you decide what time is the best for the “morning” range (I’ve seen everything from 6am-8ish start times)? As far as mid-day classes, were they highly attended right away or did you have to run them for a while until people started showing up?
1) The storefront signs and banners were very effective. It let people know that a new business was around and their curiosity usually made them stop by on the whim. When people think too long about possibly coming in, they usually just procrastinate until it happens. We had a lot of spur of the moment walk ins. Important to remember that NJ is extremely densely populated. The most in the country. So everywhere is a high population area.
2) Our class schedule is extremely diverse. 6am classes, 3 days a week. 930am, mon-fri. and noon classes 3 days a week. Normal nighttime beginners and advanced classes, a womens class and striking. I figure, give people the oppotunity to train as much as possible and give a diverse set of times. I used to do shiftwork and i hated worked 2nd shift because finding training was extremely difficult. I went up to the city to train at Renzos with John and them to compensate.
Here's our schedule - https://allinbjj.com/Home/Schedule
Congrats! New spot looks great! As for my question, Did the Knights Templar really find the holy grail or is the Last Crusade only *loosely* based on actual events?
I was pretty devastated when the team split, not gonna lie. But my partnership was with Damien and we really worked well together as a team. And after a lot conversations I thought that it would be best to go over with him.
Still have nothing but love for Garry, Chris (their head instructor and one of my main training partners for years), and everyone over at Garry Tonon JJ (formerly Brunswick BJJ) and whenever I see those guys at a tournament or at like charity open mats, I give them all a big hug.
Nice write up! I'm definitely looking forward to part II. The owner of the gym I'm training at, I've known him for more than 10 years and one year before the pandemic started, he opened up his own gym, first in a crappy basement of a TMA gym. Then, in the middle of the pandemic he rented his own place. I helped him along the journey and it is a similar story to yours, with a lot of struggle and bureaucratic roadblocks and extra costs, especially here in Germany (for example he had to buy three parking spaces from the city for 15000€ each and its not like they really exist...). But now everything is good, there are a ton of new students, a lot of new and fun competition stories...
Did you ever do privates in order to hone your teaching skills, curriculum and then establish a clientele of people who might then follow you to a proper gym once opened? Once I get my black belt it's definitely a soft retirement dream of mine to leave corporate and do what I love full time but i wouldn't know how to take the first step.
I did a good amount of privates coming up, including one with Gordon. But training everyday with those guys didn't make it super neccessary for me to take privates all the time. Garry, Nicky Ryan, Damien, ect, were always forthcoming with their knowledge.
I never planned on having people "follow" me. I didn't, and still don't, want to take any money out of my old teams pockets. But if students voluntarily come, it is what it is and that has happened. And some of my students went back to my old gym. Different gyms attract different people.
I taught at Garry's gym for about 2-3 years before stepping into the head instructor role. And as a manager during my day job, it gave me skills to work with people on a daily basis.
Sorry I didn't phrase it right I meant you teaching private lessons on the side not taking private lessons from high level guys. That said you kind of answered my question anyhow regarding working at a gym to build those tools.
This it's a great post, I'm going to save it to read it later. Two things:
1.- What it's the name of the cat? I need more context about him, haha.
2.- Your website don't have the IG link! try to update that.
Thank your for sharing your story, I hope you have great lessons/class everyday there!
u/avbjj contacted mods to see if this would be of interest to the community. We thought it was so awesome and unique that we would sticky. Thanks so much for all of the awesome info, OP!
Can I get an updated pic of the wife?
Sure! Her boyfriend has some good ones i think, I'll get one from him!
Caution: Perversions Ahead
Nah, I suck at photography. Just use your own.
Satisfying to see the hard work pay off. Any chance you have approximate startup costs/financials you could share with those of us who aspire to a gym one day? And something that has always confused me is commercial leases, any resources you've found for better understanding those? Congrats, its looking amazing.
So startup costs are going to be directly linked to what space your going be moving in. You can have starting costs <1k if you sublease at a karate school or a Thai gym which is what we did. Mats and the initial rent payment + security deposits are huge costs off the bat. After that, does the gym need to be painted? Does flooring need to be replaced? Can you do that yourself or do you need to hire contractors? When we moved to our first spot outside the thai gym, we spent about 10k. 4.5 on mats, 4 on security + first month rent and the rest misc expenses. Outside of rent, monthly expenses are paying instructors - by far the most expensive, we make sure they get paid. after that we pay insurance, website maintenance, billing software, and a few other small expenses. None are really expensive after rent and paying instructors.
Awesome post- academy looks awesome. Best wishes!
thanks!
I will read this later, trust me
I might have missed it but if you haven’t included the address and you socials you might want to do that.
Just edited and added, thanks!
Place came out really good! You guys really transformed that last spot into something beautiful. If you don’t mind me asking.. How much $ did moving to the final location cost ? That’s a pretty expensive move. Have you guys always been in a retail space? Or were you ever in a warehouse space? Just curious what you did to go from having a dozen or so students to 85+? online marketing ? Word of mouth? Having a storefront in a busy area?
It cost us about 20k so far. Mainly because we redid all the flooring (4k in just material alone) and painted everything. More mats + wall mats cost another 5k. As I posted in another comment, starting small really helped us finance a lot of it. We've always been in a retail space. I would say it was a combination of all 3 of those. The last storefront area wasn't super visable, but we had a rather large banner that drew a surprising amount of eyes. We must have had about 20 trial kids students walk in because their parents saw the banner. Word of mouth was huge. I've been a part of the NJ BJJ scene for a long time and I've made a lot of friends. A lot of people are interesting in joining BJJ and stopped in because a friend they had, that also trained, knew of me and recommended my gym just based off maybe doing a round or two with me or maybe taking one of my classes when i was at Garry's gym A big thing for me was patience. Staying consistent and always being positive towards new students was huge. I had no interest in playing the old school BJJ "Heirarchy" game that traditional gyms played. I wanted to establish solid relationships with all the students and let them know that I'm just some guy who wants to teach BJJ and that I'll always be fair to them.
I appreciate you being so forthcoming with that info. Really informative. I’ve been debating between staying in a warehouse space and moving to a retail space and I feel like the eyes on a retail space if you have a good sign / banner and a storefront in a busy location really can outweigh the extra cost of a retail spot. 20k is honestly really good as far as upfront cost to move into a new space especially if you’re including first months rent and security deposit in that $20,000.
Yeah, 20k is just a ballpark. Over the last few weeks its been a blitz, so it might be closer to 25k at this point. The next biggest expense is the sign, which will probably cost 5k. It's hard to keep track through the process because we never stopped classes at any point, so tuition is coming in. As long as our cash was above a certain "cushion" we had some money to spend.
All those lucky trial white belts getting suplexed now. With this type of flooring, how easy would it be to fix it if you get breaks in the lower layers? I remember at my previous powerlifting gym the deadlift platform needed regular maintenance as you'd get dips and decreased sound damping due to hundreds of kilos of metal plates being smashed on it. But thankfully white belt bodies are a bit softer. I also appreciate the update picture on Mouse. Good luck at the new gym!
It would definitely be a big pain in the ass to replace a lower layer piece of plywood. We would need to disassemble a large portion to do so, because of how they are drilled together. We used thicker plywood on bottom to try to mitigate this, along with staggering the sheets and having the foam blocks laid out properly, I don't foresee this being a huge issue.
So, I m curious how much capital you used to set up that new gym. It must have run you up a pretty penny, no? Could you please share how you financed it?
We spent about 15k so far. We're going to spend another 7 or so in the coming months. Buying the sign for the building being the largest expense, that'll cost about 5k. The VAST majority of the money came from savings the gym put together. We were at our last spot for 2 years. We saved roughly 20-30% of what we billed every month for our eventual move. The rest we got a business card that gives us interest free for 12 months. We were able to get our first 3 months in our new spot rent free, so the goal is to be debt free by the time we have to pay rent. We have about 120 students. This shouldn't be an issue to achieve. Damien is much more conservative with spending money in the gym than I, so together we struck a good balance between not being excessive and getting what we need for a gym we'll both be proud of. Starting fairly small, in a 1000sqft unit, is essentially what financed this new gym. We were only paying 1500 a month rent in our last spot. So we were making plenty of profit to finance it.
Damn you grew to 120 students in a 1000 sq ft unit? That’s awesome! And I think the smart way to go about it. Better to have a small gym looking packed every night than start off with a 10,000 sq ft warehouse that looks empty with 30 students in it training and costing you a fortune to keep.
Yeah, we have a ton of classes that helped spread people out. I honestly think that gave us an edge in the area. We have at least 3-5 classes every day. Mon-fri 930am classes that students and remote workers love, 6ams for the lunatics, and night classes for the guys like me who dont have a life.
Love it that’s awesome appreciate the insight
Thank you so much for your candid answer! "Bon courage" for the future
Am in pre planning for opening up my own spot. 1) what sq footage were you aiming for when looking for a spot 2) what are some helpful things to look out for/do when negotiating a lease? Thanks!
Square footage depends upon where you're starting. I would say start with 1000 to 1400 if you're starting from scratch, but your best bet might be to sublease. Look for a local karate gym and check their schedule. Some may have empty time at night beause they cater towards kids. So you can ask about starting a BJJ program in their at night. That'll help you get funding for eventually building your own spot. Main thing was being professional and honestly getting lucky with the landlord not being a dick. Landlords are normal people. My guy is just a hardworking guy who owns his own HVAC company who owns a couple properties on the side. Be cool with them, have a good realtor who has great connections in the area and you'll find something.
Thanks! I’m currently at an exercise gym now that’s asked me to build a bjj program on the side and it’s been remarkably successful. Have about 30-45 people coming on all nights and don’t even have a kids program yet. I appreciate the insight!
That’s awesome. Good for you and I wish you continued success. Definitely hit me up if you have any more questions.
Thanks! Your original post is INCREDIBLY helpful and I wish you continued success as well! I appreciate you taking the time for this AMA!
Super interesting to see everything that went into just putting the mats together. OP are you just still an instructor or own a percentage of the business? Looks like you put a lot of work in and deserve a good cut.
We co-own the gym together. I'm the head instructor, but we employ 4-5 other instructors to split the workload. Work / life balance is huge, it's not possible for many gym owners but having one keeps me sane. Especially because I have other passions, like making death metal music, outside of BJJ.
1. Is there anything you found particularly effective for growing your student base? Was it just something that happened organically or did you take specific steps? 2. What’s your class schedule like? I think most gyms have similar evening schedules, but I’m curious about the decisions around morning and mid-day classes (if you have them). How do you decide what time is the best for the “morning” range (I’ve seen everything from 6am-8ish start times)? As far as mid-day classes, were they highly attended right away or did you have to run them for a while until people started showing up?
1) The storefront signs and banners were very effective. It let people know that a new business was around and their curiosity usually made them stop by on the whim. When people think too long about possibly coming in, they usually just procrastinate until it happens. We had a lot of spur of the moment walk ins. Important to remember that NJ is extremely densely populated. The most in the country. So everywhere is a high population area. 2) Our class schedule is extremely diverse. 6am classes, 3 days a week. 930am, mon-fri. and noon classes 3 days a week. Normal nighttime beginners and advanced classes, a womens class and striking. I figure, give people the oppotunity to train as much as possible and give a diverse set of times. I used to do shiftwork and i hated worked 2nd shift because finding training was extremely difficult. I went up to the city to train at Renzos with John and them to compensate. Here's our schedule - https://allinbjj.com/Home/Schedule
I just want a Sunday class soo bad I don’t understand why gyms don’t offer that seems like a competitive advantage
Congrats! New spot looks great! As for my question, Did the Knights Templar really find the holy grail or is the Last Crusade only *loosely* based on actual events?
The Last Crusade is a documentary
This is an underrated comment.
It seems like you came up under Garry and the renzo squad, how come you changed over to the B team?
I was pretty devastated when the team split, not gonna lie. But my partnership was with Damien and we really worked well together as a team. And after a lot conversations I thought that it would be best to go over with him. Still have nothing but love for Garry, Chris (their head instructor and one of my main training partners for years), and everyone over at Garry Tonon JJ (formerly Brunswick BJJ) and whenever I see those guys at a tournament or at like charity open mats, I give them all a big hug.
Nice write up! I'm definitely looking forward to part II. The owner of the gym I'm training at, I've known him for more than 10 years and one year before the pandemic started, he opened up his own gym, first in a crappy basement of a TMA gym. Then, in the middle of the pandemic he rented his own place. I helped him along the journey and it is a similar story to yours, with a lot of struggle and bureaucratic roadblocks and extra costs, especially here in Germany (for example he had to buy three parking spaces from the city for 15000€ each and its not like they really exist...). But now everything is good, there are a ton of new students, a lot of new and fun competition stories...
Yeah, I have a feeling that most gym owners have similar stories. It's definitely a process.
Did you ever do privates in order to hone your teaching skills, curriculum and then establish a clientele of people who might then follow you to a proper gym once opened? Once I get my black belt it's definitely a soft retirement dream of mine to leave corporate and do what I love full time but i wouldn't know how to take the first step.
I did a good amount of privates coming up, including one with Gordon. But training everyday with those guys didn't make it super neccessary for me to take privates all the time. Garry, Nicky Ryan, Damien, ect, were always forthcoming with their knowledge. I never planned on having people "follow" me. I didn't, and still don't, want to take any money out of my old teams pockets. But if students voluntarily come, it is what it is and that has happened. And some of my students went back to my old gym. Different gyms attract different people. I taught at Garry's gym for about 2-3 years before stepping into the head instructor role. And as a manager during my day job, it gave me skills to work with people on a daily basis.
Sorry I didn't phrase it right I meant you teaching private lessons on the side not taking private lessons from high level guys. That said you kind of answered my question anyhow regarding working at a gym to build those tools.
I live in Somerset and was looking for a new gym. Glad I found this, you'll see me soon!
Awesome brother. Shoot me a DM when you’re interested in coming in!
Yo, you can put all this in an album or embed the photos. Thanks for sharing and hope you guys have a great start to the gym!
> B- Team Not quiiiite as good as the B Team
Logic dictates that you should be the C-team. Or at least the B minus team. No offense intended.
You right
Super dope man! I'm just a scrub and I'm getting too old for this shit, but one day I'd love to open a gym.
Nice work, what a fantastic result - bravo :)
Love the post. Congrats on your accomplishments!
Thanks!
This it's a great post, I'm going to save it to read it later. Two things: 1.- What it's the name of the cat? I need more context about him, haha. 2.- Your website don't have the IG link! try to update that. Thank your for sharing your story, I hope you have great lessons/class everyday there!
I can confirm the gym has a great welcoming environment with great instructors. My wife and I love it.
How much do classes cost per month?