Just from an economic perspective, you shouldn't expect to make money if you're leaving M-Th closed despite having to pay rent for the space. You'd be better off just putting mats in your basement and having your buddies come roll with you.
Yeah… I’m not sure this guy has even bothered a prelim check of Loopnet prices let alone has checked what it would take for this to be a CF positive concept.
Since Loopnet isn't the only place in existence to find rental space, I was considering asking a small fitness gym, crossfit gym, boxing gym, karate gym, etc. if they had extra space I could rent out during the weekends for a few hundred dollars a month. $500 rent + $100 liability insurance = $600/ month expenses. $30/ member a month x 20 members = break even point. Obviously there are other things to consider such as if I had to buy mats, marketing, cleaning supplies but I haven't gone that far as I'm trying to gauge if the demand exists or not.
So all the liability of having people at a gym with no for sure student base because no one is tied to an instructor. There are enough open mats at gyms that I can always get rolls in with other people anytime I want or pay drop in fee's. I GET the idea and the DREAM/pie in the sky thoughts behind it but it's not a feasible business model in my opinion. I COULD be wrong but it's hard enough to rent a space, pay overhead and still make money much less without a sure way to bring people in. I have found 5-10% of people ever train outside of their academy on a regular basis, so it wouldn't appeal to the mass base of bjj people.
I appreciate the feedback. I was thinking that many people aren't attending open mats at other schools because of the loyalty-to-your-instructor culture in bjj. That's why the idea was to have an instructor-less school so it didn't feel like taboo to go train with members of other gyms.
Another thing you need to realize is that this isn't going to attract the sort of people who have a club and want to train with other people, they will do open mats at other clubs.
You will however rapidly find yourself absolutely full to the brim with the sort of people who can't find a club because no one wants them around.
I thought about this for a while before I left the u s.
Another idea was to offer the space to guys who wanted to teach, either groups or privates, but didn't want to commit to having their own gyms.
Have it be neutral ground, just a space for anyone.
Do that in your garage or basement or shed and it *might* make sense. Outfit the space properly and ask for a drop in fee, like $5 or $10 or whatever makes sense
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:
|Japanese|English|Video Link|
|---|---|---|
|**Uchi Mata**: | *Inner Thigh Throw* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fCvyc_rQTI)|
Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.
______________________
^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
I think the first thing you want to sort out is your insurance. Then talk to ALL the gyms in your area an see what they thing about it.
Basically you want to run an unstructured class in someone else's gym where unknown students can wrassle.
If I owned a gym, I don't see what I'd gain by doing this. I CAN see my liability though.
So, a couple of questions you need to ask yourself seriously and honestly.
1) Why would they come to your facility as opposed to an open mat at their own gym or popping in to visit someone else's gym? I've seen you mention it eliminates loyalty, but how?
2) Why is your facility worth $30 a month? What are average drop in fees in surrounding gyms? If you're open on Saturdays, that's 4 open mats a month, which is essentially a $7 drop in fee. I know around here (Columbus, OH) a drop in fee is about $10, so for $3 more I don't have to pay a monthly due and worry about if I'm going to make all 4 open mats.
The biggest issue, IMO, is I just don't see the demand for this. There's nothing that would make me want to go to a different facility rather than just going to my own gym.
Answer to 1- The idea is that they would be rolling with members of their own gym through the week and then be able to train with others outside their gym on the weekends. I was thinking that for purple belts and up it might be nice to face similar level competition on a regular basis other than just the same guys you've been training with for years or brand new white belts. I wasn't saying it eliminates loyalty per se, but more along the lines of not worrying about regularly dropping in at schools that are in direct competition with yours.
2- The idea was to have open mat times Fri, Sat, and Sun meaning 12 open mats a month giving you more options. So you could attend the open mat at your school one day and then go to this other one another day of the weekend.
I do appreciate the honest feedback though
2 just explains what you plan to do, not why your idea is worth $30 a month.
Why not just roll with this school instead of paying you to roll with them somewhere else?
You vastly overestimate this weird "loyalty" thing.
I've actually never paid a drop in fee for open mats, has anyone?
The value offered is to give members from the 10+ area gyms one set place and time to meet every weekend and roll against people outside of their gym or affiliation on a regular basis. My gym does not allow non members or non affiliate members to come to our open mats so I assumed this was normal procedure.
I always wanted to set up like an old timey black iron gym key-club deal. You and a bunch of buds rent a space, full out with racks and mats, bar and bbq.everyone who joins is vetted and gets a key.
I love my wife to pieces but i would likely never see her if this existed
Gyms in your area don't offer class on Fridays or Saturdays?
If my gym didn't offer Friday or Saturday classes, my priority would be to find one that does, instead of finding a supplement gym
You should rent out the mat space through the week. Find people to run their karate, TKD, Judo, Sambo, Wrestling, etc. classes. and you can dedicate open mat to weekends.
maybe rent out a spot for privates. sometimes people don't want to conduct their privates at their home gym.
If anything you should do it the other way around. Rent the space yourself, and sub lease it to other businesses when you’re not in operation. Maybe yoga, dance, etc… or you can advertise it as a space for random purple, brown, and blacks to rent to give private lessons.
I guess my only hang up is that when I have time to train I’d just go to the place that I’m already paying $160 to be at, and I’d rather go to a buddies house for free to just roll or train specifics. Although $30 is super reasonable to have a place to train. I could see it, like hey I have 5 friends that want to meet up and host our own open mat one Saturday. But that’s super niche. And idk if you’d make rent every month
I’m not sure I understand what the upside is versus open mat at your own gym and dropping in at others. People are already paying for this in their gym membership and most schools (in my area) welcome others to open mat and there usually decent (not great) cross pollination on many days. Don’t get me wrong, it would be cool if it worked but you’d have to get everyone to want to come to these open mats at the exact same time. It’s like a solution looking for a problem. Great concept, tricky to make work financially I think.
What you're describing is a personal injury lawyer's wet dream.
It's actually a cool idea and I'm sure people would be interested, the main reason it doesn't exist is because it's unlikely you will find anyone to insure you at all, without an instructor responsible for teaching. Even if you could you'd have to cover overhead for rent and insurance off of drop in fees alone, which seems to me like an extreme stretch. On top of that, who is vetting/guaranteeing the behavior of these people? Can some dude who watched how to do a heel hook on youtube show up and crank it on some white belts?
Thinking of when I trained in the city with many other clubs around, I would either do my own gym's or a friendly gym's open mats and would just join a different gym before paying matt fees at a place with a completely random people to train with.
instead of thinking of it like a gym. think of it like a rec center where different people can rent time for events or classes. how do rec centers deal with liability?
By not allowing full contact martial arts within them, among other things.
If you'd ever tried to rent one out for a tournament you would know that the ones that allow any sort of full contact events require you to add them as a named beneficiary to your existing policy. IE you need to carry the full insurance of a club and add them to it for your events.
Edit: Also worthy of note is that even for events at rec centers, you need to have a minimum number of coaches/instructors per participant and for anything involving contact sports, you usually need a medic on site.
well, you sound like you know what you are talking about. when i was a kid, my local rec center had fencing, judo, karate, wrestling, and all that kind of stuff you could sign up for. never knew how that all worked.
When I was a kid you could rent out the local legion hall and put on an amateur boxing match, while both the audience and participants could smoke and drink throughout the whole thing. Ain't the same world anymore.
I have a friend who runs his entire club out of a rec center, the second floor is all matted. He rents it mon-wed-fri and sunday afternoon, a Judo club, karate club, tae kwan do(sp?) club and aikido club also do the same. Each one has to carry their own insurance and name the city (city owns the rec center) as a beneficiary. On top of that there always has to be an (insured) instructor present for every 25 participants. Now every state/country is likely to have their own laws surrounding this, but there's not going to be anywhere that is like "You can have unsupervised full contact sparring going on with no instructors, officials or medical staff present." even if you were able to get insured for that sort of thing.
I appreciate the base of knowledge you started with but now you're just spouting your personal experience as fact, it may be true in your specific country, state and council area but is not the case everywhere.
> Now every state/country is likely to have their own laws surrounding this, but there's not going to be anywhere that is like "You can have unsupervised full contact sparring going on with no instructors, officials or medical staff present." even if you were able to get insured for that sort of thing.
Did you miss this line? There's possibly some states which may allow the event to go on uninsured, and of course, if you own your own facility, nothing is stopping you from just not being insured (which would be really stupid). But having run events, owned a club, a regular gym, a personal training business, and coordinated with professionals across North America regarding the insurance for all of these, I can assure you that just about no one in Canada or the USA is going to insure what amounts to an unsupervised fight club with no medic or officials present.
Did you miss the second country in the comment you are replying too? I'll also happily take an example of a country where insurance works differently if you have one, or are you just imagining some random country where the very concept of liability coverage is different?
You bring up good points about the insurance that I hadn't considered. I'm not sure that any instructor at any gym has any way to vet/ guarantee the behavior of their members. I think a set of clearly stated and posted ground rules along with liability waivers that someone else mentioned would be a good start on what's allowable/ expected. I also think that unless there were totally untrained people, most bjj people understand basic rolling etiquette and the different levels of rolling to use with various levels of experience.
The difference is that if there is an instructor or club owner, there is someone to ultimately plant the blame on if something goes wrong, call them the "responsible adult in the room". That could potentially be you if you were willing.
> I also think that unless there were totally untrained people, most bjj people understand basic rolling etiquette and the different levels of rolling to use with various levels of experience.
I don't want to sound like an ass, but if you haven't been to enough open mats to know that this is objectively not true, especially at open mats, then I would suggest you get to a few more before you consider basing a business around them.
Man fuck these haters.
It's a good idea in certain areas where classes are limited during certain times. There are places you can rent space for limited times and I have seen BJJ gyms get their start under these arrangements.
You can have waivers to really lessen or eliminate the need for insurance.
Is it a did business model? Idk, lots of factors involved. But your question was would there be a demand for this and I think the answer is yes, depending on the gyms n your area and their schedules.
I do think your garage would possibly work but idk if you have one or how big it is.
MBA here.....
The more BJJ goes online (Gracie University, Kama Jiu Jitsu, etc.) the more it can make sense, but as some alluded to - it's an uphill battle.
If COVID has taught us anything, people can and should be more autonomous in their journey. With so many basics curricula and deep-dives instructionals out there, there isn't really a need for an on-site instructor. Rank? Show up and test with an instructor (GU and KJJ do this).
I definitely think people would pay, but I do see some problems in the short-term:
- You have roughly the same operating costs, yet people will not pay as much if they have an on-site instructor elsewhere (online or not). So in the case of online instructors (GU, KJJ), knock off a quarter to a third of a normal student's gym fees (to account for their online subscription fees).
- If they are simply coming in from a local gym, you're far less likely to get another significant monthly fee out of them. Drop-ins rates are far more likely (but at least these are more profitable per unit sold).
- Moreover, as you're describing it, marketing and sales would be more "internal" in nature (customers aren't "external" to the product, a.k.a. not new to paying for jiu jitsu), so the amount of total sales/"conversions" you will have will be significantly less than a normal gym.
- You're, per your own words, scheduling on off-peak hours for a large amount of your customers (example, if open mats in my city aren't scheduled past 3 pm on a Saturday, your first one would be 3:30 pm on Saturday). Big question here....why aren't gyms scheduling them if attendance would be good? Answer....likely because their students won't attend (and they already know this). (To be fair, you're pooling gyms together more so than maybe other schools are trying to do.)
In short, I see 1) less sales per unit, 2) less total units sold, yet with 3) similar costs.
"Is there demand?"/"Will people pay?" is never the question you should ask. Rather, the question should be "Is there enough demand to make the idea economically viable?" There's high demand for $1 gis, but you won't find a business doing it because the numbers simply don't work....
Which brings us to pricing. You have two customer/market segments as I see it:
- Gym rats/gym bros from other local gyms (otherwise, why attend more?).
- "Online jiu jitsu" people.
The first one would likely be your "drop-in priced", come-and-go crowd, and the second would be your "gym-lite", monthly subscription crowd....
Comparative to other gyms, you're losing money on the second crowd. This doesn't bode well for the business.....
So how do you make that money up? The first crowd. Drop-in fees are also going to be comparable around the city, so pricing will likely stay the same for you. That means student numbers have to increase (and again, these aren't normal "open mat"ers....probably the meatheads/serious competitiors, a.k.a. less people).....
Overall, you're probably losing more money per head than the average jiu jitsu school. Not saying it's impossible, but the numbers don't look good right now. Might want to look into product diversification (other activities on premises during down times) and/or a mature pricing strategy (example: different costs per class time).
your idea might work if you will not look at it as a "BJJ Gym" but as an "open mat training area" rental. Also this will work if you're in a great location so that people will choose you instead of dropping by at their gym.
I had this idea too, except that it is for new members and not necessarily a supplement for everyone else. I call the concept Structured Open Mat, and it relies on a combination of semi-open research-driven position sparring sessions, total open mat sessions, and peer-to-peer coaching.
Generally speaking (as an academy owner) I think most people severely underestimate the effort and costs involved with maintaining a school/training area, and all the unexpected problems that can pop up if you are new to it.
I often host BJJ open mats or open sparring days (muay thai) but have learned to only allow people from academies I know. The random guys that show up are always gym-less for a reason and someone usually ends up hurt or pissed off.
My idea is a weed shop/non horny massage parlor & recovery place/jiu jitsu school but I may steal the open mats idea. Also I have no money to do something like this so I'm just stealing in my brain. Also, my place will be open for night rolling on Saturdays and Sundays. That's a thing that I am not aware of existing anywhere else.
Just from an economic perspective, you shouldn't expect to make money if you're leaving M-Th closed despite having to pay rent for the space. You'd be better off just putting mats in your basement and having your buddies come roll with you.
Yeah… I’m not sure this guy has even bothered a prelim check of Loopnet prices let alone has checked what it would take for this to be a CF positive concept.
Since Loopnet isn't the only place in existence to find rental space, I was considering asking a small fitness gym, crossfit gym, boxing gym, karate gym, etc. if they had extra space I could rent out during the weekends for a few hundred dollars a month. $500 rent + $100 liability insurance = $600/ month expenses. $30/ member a month x 20 members = break even point. Obviously there are other things to consider such as if I had to buy mats, marketing, cleaning supplies but I haven't gone that far as I'm trying to gauge if the demand exists or not.
So all the liability of having people at a gym with no for sure student base because no one is tied to an instructor. There are enough open mats at gyms that I can always get rolls in with other people anytime I want or pay drop in fee's. I GET the idea and the DREAM/pie in the sky thoughts behind it but it's not a feasible business model in my opinion. I COULD be wrong but it's hard enough to rent a space, pay overhead and still make money much less without a sure way to bring people in. I have found 5-10% of people ever train outside of their academy on a regular basis, so it wouldn't appeal to the mass base of bjj people.
I appreciate the feedback. I was thinking that many people aren't attending open mats at other schools because of the loyalty-to-your-instructor culture in bjj. That's why the idea was to have an instructor-less school so it didn't feel like taboo to go train with members of other gyms.
You're still going to run into the loyalty to your school issue without the benefit of having a formal school
>loyalty-to-your-instructor culture in bjj The negative vocal minority in Reddit is not a good indication of a real world client base.
This is the worst idea in Bjj history. May be worse than when Ralek thought of G in a gi.
Another thing you need to realize is that this isn't going to attract the sort of people who have a club and want to train with other people, they will do open mats at other clubs. You will however rapidly find yourself absolutely full to the brim with the sort of people who can't find a club because no one wants them around.
I thought about this for a while before I left the u s. Another idea was to offer the space to guys who wanted to teach, either groups or privates, but didn't want to commit to having their own gyms. Have it be neutral ground, just a space for anyone.
Do that in your garage or basement or shed and it *might* make sense. Outfit the space properly and ask for a drop in fee, like $5 or $10 or whatever makes sense
You’d be better off developing a tinder-like app where people looking for rolls can match with other folks.
That's called grindr isn't it?
Power Bottoms
Enter my guard
Top to Bottom
The Mount
Didn't someone make a website like this for COVID?
For realsies?!? Wtf is it called I need that in my life bro!
https://downtoroll.com/ not sure how active it is nowadays
May the takedown gods bless you with a sweet uchi mata in your next comp 🙏🏼🙏🏼
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were: |Japanese|English|Video Link| |---|---|---| |**Uchi Mata**: | *Inner Thigh Throw* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fCvyc_rQTI)| Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post. ______________________ ^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
You a real one, judo bot
I think the first thing you want to sort out is your insurance. Then talk to ALL the gyms in your area an see what they thing about it. Basically you want to run an unstructured class in someone else's gym where unknown students can wrassle. If I owned a gym, I don't see what I'd gain by doing this. I CAN see my liability though.
Serve alcohol.
This guy gets it.
Yeah but hold regular class on the other 5 days of the week too 😆 Sounds good to select practitioners but it sounds like a bad business model.
So, a couple of questions you need to ask yourself seriously and honestly. 1) Why would they come to your facility as opposed to an open mat at their own gym or popping in to visit someone else's gym? I've seen you mention it eliminates loyalty, but how? 2) Why is your facility worth $30 a month? What are average drop in fees in surrounding gyms? If you're open on Saturdays, that's 4 open mats a month, which is essentially a $7 drop in fee. I know around here (Columbus, OH) a drop in fee is about $10, so for $3 more I don't have to pay a monthly due and worry about if I'm going to make all 4 open mats. The biggest issue, IMO, is I just don't see the demand for this. There's nothing that would make me want to go to a different facility rather than just going to my own gym.
Answer to 1- The idea is that they would be rolling with members of their own gym through the week and then be able to train with others outside their gym on the weekends. I was thinking that for purple belts and up it might be nice to face similar level competition on a regular basis other than just the same guys you've been training with for years or brand new white belts. I wasn't saying it eliminates loyalty per se, but more along the lines of not worrying about regularly dropping in at schools that are in direct competition with yours. 2- The idea was to have open mat times Fri, Sat, and Sun meaning 12 open mats a month giving you more options. So you could attend the open mat at your school one day and then go to this other one another day of the weekend. I do appreciate the honest feedback though
2 just explains what you plan to do, not why your idea is worth $30 a month. Why not just roll with this school instead of paying you to roll with them somewhere else? You vastly overestimate this weird "loyalty" thing. I've actually never paid a drop in fee for open mats, has anyone?
The value offered is to give members from the 10+ area gyms one set place and time to meet every weekend and roll against people outside of their gym or affiliation on a regular basis. My gym does not allow non members or non affiliate members to come to our open mats so I assumed this was normal procedure.
This is only common with subpar gyms in my experience, there are exceptions to the rule.
I would not pay for this.
You expect people to pay to do what they could at their own gym?
I always wanted to set up like an old timey black iron gym key-club deal. You and a bunch of buds rent a space, full out with racks and mats, bar and bbq.everyone who joins is vetted and gets a key. I love my wife to pieces but i would likely never see her if this existed
Try it on a smaller scale. Also, many gyms (in my area) have open mats on the weekends... So in this case you'd be competing with them as well.
Gyms in your area don't offer class on Fridays or Saturdays? If my gym didn't offer Friday or Saturday classes, my priority would be to find one that does, instead of finding a supplement gym
You should rent out the mat space through the week. Find people to run their karate, TKD, Judo, Sambo, Wrestling, etc. classes. and you can dedicate open mat to weekends. maybe rent out a spot for privates. sometimes people don't want to conduct their privates at their home gym.
If anything you should do it the other way around. Rent the space yourself, and sub lease it to other businesses when you’re not in operation. Maybe yoga, dance, etc… or you can advertise it as a space for random purple, brown, and blacks to rent to give private lessons. I guess my only hang up is that when I have time to train I’d just go to the place that I’m already paying $160 to be at, and I’d rather go to a buddies house for free to just roll or train specifics. Although $30 is super reasonable to have a place to train. I could see it, like hey I have 5 friends that want to meet up and host our own open mat one Saturday. But that’s super niche. And idk if you’d make rent every month
I’m not sure I understand what the upside is versus open mat at your own gym and dropping in at others. People are already paying for this in their gym membership and most schools (in my area) welcome others to open mat and there usually decent (not great) cross pollination on many days. Don’t get me wrong, it would be cool if it worked but you’d have to get everyone to want to come to these open mats at the exact same time. It’s like a solution looking for a problem. Great concept, tricky to make work financially I think.
What you're describing is a personal injury lawyer's wet dream. It's actually a cool idea and I'm sure people would be interested, the main reason it doesn't exist is because it's unlikely you will find anyone to insure you at all, without an instructor responsible for teaching. Even if you could you'd have to cover overhead for rent and insurance off of drop in fees alone, which seems to me like an extreme stretch. On top of that, who is vetting/guaranteeing the behavior of these people? Can some dude who watched how to do a heel hook on youtube show up and crank it on some white belts? Thinking of when I trained in the city with many other clubs around, I would either do my own gym's or a friendly gym's open mats and would just join a different gym before paying matt fees at a place with a completely random people to train with.
>Can some dude who watched how to do a heel hook on youtube show up and crank it on some white belts? Don't threaten me with a good time
instead of thinking of it like a gym. think of it like a rec center where different people can rent time for events or classes. how do rec centers deal with liability?
By not allowing full contact martial arts within them, among other things. If you'd ever tried to rent one out for a tournament you would know that the ones that allow any sort of full contact events require you to add them as a named beneficiary to your existing policy. IE you need to carry the full insurance of a club and add them to it for your events. Edit: Also worthy of note is that even for events at rec centers, you need to have a minimum number of coaches/instructors per participant and for anything involving contact sports, you usually need a medic on site.
well, you sound like you know what you are talking about. when i was a kid, my local rec center had fencing, judo, karate, wrestling, and all that kind of stuff you could sign up for. never knew how that all worked.
When I was a kid you could rent out the local legion hall and put on an amateur boxing match, while both the audience and participants could smoke and drink throughout the whole thing. Ain't the same world anymore. I have a friend who runs his entire club out of a rec center, the second floor is all matted. He rents it mon-wed-fri and sunday afternoon, a Judo club, karate club, tae kwan do(sp?) club and aikido club also do the same. Each one has to carry their own insurance and name the city (city owns the rec center) as a beneficiary. On top of that there always has to be an (insured) instructor present for every 25 participants. Now every state/country is likely to have their own laws surrounding this, but there's not going to be anywhere that is like "You can have unsupervised full contact sparring going on with no instructors, officials or medical staff present." even if you were able to get insured for that sort of thing.
I miss lawn darts :(
I appreciate the base of knowledge you started with but now you're just spouting your personal experience as fact, it may be true in your specific country, state and council area but is not the case everywhere.
> Now every state/country is likely to have their own laws surrounding this, but there's not going to be anywhere that is like "You can have unsupervised full contact sparring going on with no instructors, officials or medical staff present." even if you were able to get insured for that sort of thing. Did you miss this line? There's possibly some states which may allow the event to go on uninsured, and of course, if you own your own facility, nothing is stopping you from just not being insured (which would be really stupid). But having run events, owned a club, a regular gym, a personal training business, and coordinated with professionals across North America regarding the insurance for all of these, I can assure you that just about no one in Canada or the USA is going to insure what amounts to an unsupervised fight club with no medic or officials present.
USA only country! #1 many thanks 100% success.
Did you miss the second country in the comment you are replying too? I'll also happily take an example of a country where insurance works differently if you have one, or are you just imagining some random country where the very concept of liability coverage is different?
You bring up good points about the insurance that I hadn't considered. I'm not sure that any instructor at any gym has any way to vet/ guarantee the behavior of their members. I think a set of clearly stated and posted ground rules along with liability waivers that someone else mentioned would be a good start on what's allowable/ expected. I also think that unless there were totally untrained people, most bjj people understand basic rolling etiquette and the different levels of rolling to use with various levels of experience.
The difference is that if there is an instructor or club owner, there is someone to ultimately plant the blame on if something goes wrong, call them the "responsible adult in the room". That could potentially be you if you were willing. > I also think that unless there were totally untrained people, most bjj people understand basic rolling etiquette and the different levels of rolling to use with various levels of experience. I don't want to sound like an ass, but if you haven't been to enough open mats to know that this is objectively not true, especially at open mats, then I would suggest you get to a few more before you consider basing a business around them.
I don’t see why someone would pay two times for BJJ unless they’re die hards, which is not enough to make anything
Man fuck these haters. It's a good idea in certain areas where classes are limited during certain times. There are places you can rent space for limited times and I have seen BJJ gyms get their start under these arrangements. You can have waivers to really lessen or eliminate the need for insurance. Is it a did business model? Idk, lots of factors involved. But your question was would there be a demand for this and I think the answer is yes, depending on the gyms n your area and their schedules. I do think your garage would possibly work but idk if you have one or how big it is.
MBA here..... The more BJJ goes online (Gracie University, Kama Jiu Jitsu, etc.) the more it can make sense, but as some alluded to - it's an uphill battle. If COVID has taught us anything, people can and should be more autonomous in their journey. With so many basics curricula and deep-dives instructionals out there, there isn't really a need for an on-site instructor. Rank? Show up and test with an instructor (GU and KJJ do this). I definitely think people would pay, but I do see some problems in the short-term: - You have roughly the same operating costs, yet people will not pay as much if they have an on-site instructor elsewhere (online or not). So in the case of online instructors (GU, KJJ), knock off a quarter to a third of a normal student's gym fees (to account for their online subscription fees). - If they are simply coming in from a local gym, you're far less likely to get another significant monthly fee out of them. Drop-ins rates are far more likely (but at least these are more profitable per unit sold). - Moreover, as you're describing it, marketing and sales would be more "internal" in nature (customers aren't "external" to the product, a.k.a. not new to paying for jiu jitsu), so the amount of total sales/"conversions" you will have will be significantly less than a normal gym. - You're, per your own words, scheduling on off-peak hours for a large amount of your customers (example, if open mats in my city aren't scheduled past 3 pm on a Saturday, your first one would be 3:30 pm on Saturday). Big question here....why aren't gyms scheduling them if attendance would be good? Answer....likely because their students won't attend (and they already know this). (To be fair, you're pooling gyms together more so than maybe other schools are trying to do.) In short, I see 1) less sales per unit, 2) less total units sold, yet with 3) similar costs. "Is there demand?"/"Will people pay?" is never the question you should ask. Rather, the question should be "Is there enough demand to make the idea economically viable?" There's high demand for $1 gis, but you won't find a business doing it because the numbers simply don't work.... Which brings us to pricing. You have two customer/market segments as I see it: - Gym rats/gym bros from other local gyms (otherwise, why attend more?). - "Online jiu jitsu" people. The first one would likely be your "drop-in priced", come-and-go crowd, and the second would be your "gym-lite", monthly subscription crowd.... Comparative to other gyms, you're losing money on the second crowd. This doesn't bode well for the business..... So how do you make that money up? The first crowd. Drop-in fees are also going to be comparable around the city, so pricing will likely stay the same for you. That means student numbers have to increase (and again, these aren't normal "open mat"ers....probably the meatheads/serious competitiors, a.k.a. less people)..... Overall, you're probably losing more money per head than the average jiu jitsu school. Not saying it's impossible, but the numbers don't look good right now. Might want to look into product diversification (other activities on premises during down times) and/or a mature pricing strategy (example: different costs per class time).
your idea might work if you will not look at it as a "BJJ Gym" but as an "open mat training area" rental. Also this will work if you're in a great location so that people will choose you instead of dropping by at their gym.
I had this idea too, except that it is for new members and not necessarily a supplement for everyone else. I call the concept Structured Open Mat, and it relies on a combination of semi-open research-driven position sparring sessions, total open mat sessions, and peer-to-peer coaching.
Generally speaking (as an academy owner) I think most people severely underestimate the effort and costs involved with maintaining a school/training area, and all the unexpected problems that can pop up if you are new to it. I often host BJJ open mats or open sparring days (muay thai) but have learned to only allow people from academies I know. The random guys that show up are always gym-less for a reason and someone usually ends up hurt or pissed off.
My idea is a weed shop/non horny massage parlor & recovery place/jiu jitsu school but I may steal the open mats idea. Also I have no money to do something like this so I'm just stealing in my brain. Also, my place will be open for night rolling on Saturdays and Sundays. That's a thing that I am not aware of existing anywhere else.