FlowWithTheGo -Estimated for childcare, CPR, business licensesFanToFighter - Also $1000 in licensingWhat kind of license
CanadianMMA94 -Looking like 1750FanToFighter - We have mats for the school, most we are gonna need to buy is the signs.What's your square footage?
FaceToFace - Are you the instructor or are you relying on someone else to teach for you?For the main classes I am a co-instructor or sub instructor, and run the children's classes. 2 other people will be instructing. One is the main instructor/business partner, other is friend/good schedule and reliable. I am going to operate the business the majority of the time.
Right now we are at another gym, have a customer base solely off BJJ. All customers are aware we are gonna get a new building (strip mall so not inside a mall) and we are only 4 months old and gaining new members everyday. We plan to have enough members to cover costs before we leave.
Kying you are awesome! With the space you operate how many students do you have an how many students do you think it can support? If it hits any higher would you consider going to a bigger location?
It seems like you have a "traditional" job along with your gym. Is that right? I was thinking of doing the same but haven't heard of others that have done that. How is that? What prompted you to do both at same time? Plans to focus on one in the future or it works out pretty good for ya?
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I really appreciate this thread as this is what I want to do as well.
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This may be completely irrelevant to you guys.
But, I started a "micro gym" along with two partners a little over 1.5 years ago.
It's not a home gym or a garage gym. It's in a real commercial space with a business license and etc. We teach 7 classes per week. But, it's only about 450 square feet total with about 300 square feet of flexi-rolls (we'll be expanding to 350 square feet this week).
It's turned out to be a great way to control costs in that difficult first year-and-a-half when many gyms fail.
Because of our low overhead, we are able to charge our members $40/month. Our price point is less than 50% of most of our competitors. Obviously, this has helped tremendously in building up our student base from scratch.
It seems like almost 100% of our students either compete or want to compete very soon. I think it's because guys who are amenable to competition care more about the instruction than the facilities. We are super happy this demographic is the one that has been attracted to our gym.
As the gym grows, we will just slowly upgrade to larger and larger spaces as the old space gets too packed.
Obviously, this isn't the way to earn a living (or any non-trivial amounts really) right off the bat. But, for us, it has been a great way to mitigate the risk of going broke in the first year-and-a-half.
kying I've been a fan of your place since you posted you're "My shrine to marcelo garcia" thread. I actually have it in my favorites at my house.
Tap21 can you post some more info about your place?
I've run two part-time academies while I worked a full time job. Takes up a lot of your time and can be tough if your married or have children. Trying to do both is very time consuming! 60 hours a week, not to mention tournaments on the weekend.
It was also frustrating because you see the potential in your BJJ program, but can never fully devote the time needed for it to flourish.
Last year, I quit my full-time job to run a BJJ academy full-time! What a crazy adventure it's been! There are a lot of costs that people don't usually plan for or fail to see in the beginning.
Here is a list of typical expenses from month to month:
Rent
Telephone
Internet
Electric
Gas
Water
Software
taxes (plan to put away each month)
Credit card fees 3% is typical
Cleaning supplies
Advertising / marketing ( budget for and do this. This is where most people fail).
Doing this from my phone, so this is all I can think of for now.
Thanks guys. All your input is truly appreciated. Soon I will be dedicating my entire life to this academy so I want to as prepared as possible.
Matthew Godden -
kying I've been a fan of your place since you posted you're "My shrine to marcelo garcia" thread. I actually have it in my favorites at my house.
Tap21 can you post some more info about your place?
What would you like to know?
As mentioned above Marketing & advertising is a big one.
You need a steady stream of new enquiries, new trial members, & new join ups.
Probably when you first open you'll get a lot of curious visitors turning up just to check the place out but these are probably the same losers that turn up to inspect every new martial arts club that opens up within a ten mile radius, they will come in & do a few free sessions, waste your time then they'll tell you that they are between jobs at the minute & can't afford to pay for training then they'll go back to doing kung fu in their mums basement.
The best advice I can give is to direct your advertising at people who have no idea about martial arts
Great thread.
LetsTalkItOut - Kying you are awesome! With the space you operate how many students do you have an how many students do you think it can support? If it hits any higher would you consider going to a bigger location?
It seems like you have a "traditional" job along with your gym. Is that right? I was thinking of doing the same but haven't heard of others that have done that. How is that? What prompted you to do both at same time? Plans to focus on one in the future or it works out pretty good for ya?
Thanks! I've had my "regular" job (operations manager at Verizon) since I graduated college in 1995. I havent thought about making the full time leap because I have 3 kids (ages 10, 8, and 8) and I just couldnt risk not having a steady income and/or health insurance for them.
Now, if I had 100 students, then I suppose I could do it!
I only have somewhere around 560 sq feet of mat space or so- enough for 4 pairs to roll comfortable. Because my rent is so cheap ($610), I would love to stay at my place until I have at least 30 paying members (I have around 18 or so...I don't do contracts, so people come and go).
I currently only have classes twice a night (M,W) and once on Friday and Saturday. Beginning in May, I will begin teaching an additional No Gi class on M, W.
I believe my current location could easily accomodate 50 paying students, if I had different class times so it wouldnt be took crowded in one class. I think the most I had was 22 people in one class.
Keep in mind, when Marcelo was in NYC for about a year, he had around 140 paying students (at Alliance NYC), and they could only accomodate 4 pairs rolling at once as well. Sometimes, we had classes of 30+ people in them!
PS- I forgot to answer your last question. I'm a pretty conservative person. My end goal would be to build up a school with at least 50 students. That would give me about an extra $3k of income per month (after expenses).
I have a feeling that my regular job will eventually end (I work from home, and get paid pretty well). If that is the case, I would want to stay in the town I presently live in (Gainesville, FL) because I split custody with my children 50% here.
If I do stay in town, I'm guessing I would need to take a reduction in salary (from another regular job that I would be applying for) by at least 3k or so.
So, If I am able to run a semi-successful school, this will be an insurance policy that I can afford to be with my kids if I get laid off.