Opening a BJJ Academy #1

Its so weird, but I never understand why its so hard to make a ton of money in BJJ gyms. For example, my gym has upwards of 60+ students paying $150 each, thats $9000 a month. Rent for our modest gym is what? $4000 at a most? if even that? That place cant be anymore than 1000 sq ft.

What other expenses are there besides taxes that could erode the remaining $5K?

Water, electricity, insurance, town licenses (at least in my country), wages for instructors/cleaning staff (if you have), someone at the reception desk (if you have), fixing things (equipment, floors, furniture), website hosting, phones... are some that come to mind.
 
Yes. Both incompetent in business and incompetent in jiujitsu. Sometimes people are just lucky

I don’t believe that at all!

When it comes to business, you either do it right or someone comes along and does it better.

If someone is bad at business and bad at jiu jitsu but is still “successful” that probably means they’ve invested time in developing a skill that matters but you can’t see.

You might want to find out what that is.
 
I don’t believe that at all!

When it comes to business, you either do it right or someone comes along and does it better.

If someone is bad at business and bad at jiu jitsu but is still “successful” that probably means they’ve invested time in developing a skill that matters but you can’t see.

You might want to find out what that is.

Sorry, I meant that as either or. I've known people incompetent at business, but great at BJJ succeed and people incompetent at BJJ but great at business both succeed.

I've seen some pretty bad Grapplers own schools in places like Wyoming, but I still count them as good at jiujitsu because they are for the location.
 
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location will be everything i had a gym for about a year out in the country in a tiny town about 35 minutes from a city 90% of my adults people were from the city having to drive all the way there out in the country

glad i didnt have to spend a dime on it
 
Its so weird, but I never understand why its so hard to make a ton of money in BJJ gyms. For example, my gym has upwards of 60+ students paying $150 each, thats $9000 a month. Rent for our modest gym is what? $4000 at a most? if even that? That place cant be anymore than 1000 sq ft.

What other expenses are there besides taxes that could erode the remaining $5K?

Equipment probably needs to be replaced every 10-15 years so you need to budget that. In BJJ it's mostly the mats that seems to cost a lot.

But like every business it's pretty much the living expenses of the owner and how much he pays for others to teach.

My coach is an army veteran so he gets a pension from that. He teaches pretty much every classes and the other instructor does it for free. He seems to have a very good deal with the building owner. At the end of the day it doesn't cost us a lot to train (700 canadian $ a year) and there'S loads of classes, the gym is beautiful and we have access to the main gym for S&C.

There's also the affiliation, we are Nova Uniao and they seem to be alright (I don't know the details), maybe other affiliations cost more.
 
Its so weird, but I never understand why its so hard to make a ton of money in BJJ gyms. For example, my gym has upwards of 60+ students paying $150 each, thats $9000 a month. Rent for our modest gym is what? $4000 at a most? if even that? That place cant be anymore than 1000 sq ft.

What other expenses are there besides taxes that could erode the remaining $5K?

5k per month is 60k per year with no benefits and taxes to pay. Payroll taxes alone on a sole proprietor is +15%.
Lets say utility's are just $200 per month. Thats $2400 per year. Insurance (liability) medical insurance, facility costs, loan payments (where did the money for those mats come from?), marketing and advertising, give the credit card company 2.5% if you take payment that way.........

Tough business.....

60k
Payroll Tax 9k
Utilities 2.5k
Credit card payments 2.5k

Already down to 46k with a lot of expenses to go.
 
5k per month is 60k per year with no benefits and taxes to pay. Payroll taxes alone on a sole proprietor is +15%.
Lets say utility's are just $200 per month. Thats $2400 per year. Insurance (liability) medical insurance, facility costs, loan payments (where did the money for those mats come from?), marketing and advertising, give the credit card company 2.5% if you take payment that way.........

Tough business.....

60k
Payroll Tax 9k
Utilities 2.5k
Credit card payments 2.5k

Already down to 46k with a lot of expenses to go.

Crazy man. I walk in there and think its such an awesome job. Get to do BJJ all day and thats your job....
 
Crazy man. I walk in there and think its such an awesome job. Get to do BJJ all day and thats your job....
Owning any business is hard. I work for a small company and my boss makes a ton of money. The same guy also mortgaged everything he owned for 20 years before it started to be successful. If you look at him now he only works part time and makes waaaay tooo much money for what he does. He is getting paid back for all the risk he took for so long. I can't blame him for what he takes now. He deserves it.
 
Crazy man. I walk in there and think its such an awesome job. Get to do BJJ all day and thats your job....
If you really want to do BJJ all day and enjoy it- you need to work for a gym owner. Get a salary, and let him worry about collections, marketing, repairs, building, etc.

People asked me and my dad for years why we never opened a martial arts gym- and the simple answer is- we enjoy the martial arts to much to do it as a business.

Now I teach in exchange for a family membership, few seminar perks and a key to the gym- life is much better that way.
 
the people that I know who own/run small gyms, the students pay for the rent/overhead (barely) and the owner/instructor lives off the privates.
 
If you really want to do BJJ all day and enjoy it- you need to work for a gym owner. Get a salary, and let him worry about collections, marketing, repairs, building, etc.

People asked me and my dad for years why we never opened a martial arts gym- and the simple answer is- we enjoy the martial arts to much to do it as a business.

Now I teach in exchange for a family membership, few seminar perks and a key to the gym- life is much better that way.

Yeah most people forget about this when they open a gym.

Opening a gym will result in you training less, not more. Sure you'll be around the gym more, but you won't be training for most of that time. You'll be teaching and doing all of the administrative things necessary to keep the gym running smoothly. Your personal training will almost certainly be cut back accordingly.
 
Equipment probably needs to be replaced every 10-15 years so you need to budget that. In BJJ it's mostly the mats that seems to cost a lot.

But like every business it's pretty much the living expenses of the owner and how much he pays for others to teach.

My coach is an army veteran so he gets a pension from that. He teaches pretty much every classes and the other instructor does it for free. He seems to have a very good deal with the building owner. At the end of the day it doesn't cost us a lot to train (700 canadian $ a year) and there'S loads of classes, the gym is beautiful and we have access to the main gym for S&C.

There's also the affiliation, we are Nova Uniao and they seem to be alright (I don't know the details), maybe other affiliations cost more.

Pretty sure you can claim the equipment depreciation into your loss and profit at the end of the year anyway. So you are covered.
 
Owning any business is hard. I work for a small company and my boss makes a ton of money. The same guy also mortgaged everything he owned for 20 years before it started to be successful. If you look at him now he only works part time and makes waaaay tooo much money for what he does. He is getting paid back for all the risk he took for so long. I can't blame him for what he takes now. He deserves it.

Owning a business is not hard but it is risky.

I worked for business owners and most of them are to useless and dumb to succeed in a salary job and that is the reason why they ended opening their own business.

Very similar to people that have to teach bjj for a living.
 
Pretty sure you can claim the equipment depreciation into your loss and profit at the end of the year anyway. So you are covered.

That doesn't cover it though.

Writing off depreciation just means you don't have to pay taxes on that money. That's fine, but the tax savings don't come anywhere near covering the cost of replacement at end of life. You still have to get that money from somewhere else.
 
What do you clean your mats with and how often do you clean them?
 
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