It's very different in Europe vs US and even in Europe different places. In Germany I'd say is there e.g. a local judo matspace you could start on with all the facilities running classes 3-5 times per week? I'd recommend that start over a garage gym start.

I’ve seen a lot of gym owners over the years fall in love with themselves...

4 - Warm up with BJJ. People who have jobs and families don't have as much free time as they would like. If they're coming to a BJJ class, they want to do BJJ. They can do push-ups and sit-ups at home. They aren't there for strength training or to play football. If they wanted that, they'd go to a gym or join a football club. My coach started leaving out the calisthenics drills in warmups and we just do BJJ drills instead.

Oh yeah, mats sre really expensive. Gracies have a great video on obtaining mats for cheap.

I just opened up my own spot 7 months ago and it is going well. If you are thinking about it now, start drumming up interest now and build a contact base of people you can get in the door on day 1. Chances are if you have 10 people telling you, 'do it man! ill be your first student.' About 1 or 2 of them will actually show up and less than half of that will stick after a few months unless they already do bjj. So try and really remember and build a lot of contacts from your past I think building a gym is a lot about community if you start with too many classes you may end up spreading the community too thin and it will have trouble conglomerating. I still work a day job and only teach at night but I am close to taking my gym full time, at which point I will be starting day classes. To make a bjj gym work you will almost definitely have to teach kids and paying someone to do that will cut your margin really quickly and a lot of adult students in my gym are actually parents I drafted from the kids classes, so i would suggest teaching it yourself. Write down every lesson you teach. I would go with zebra mats or 3rd Coast Mats (find them on FB) over FUJI, feel free to DM me if you want to know why. Check the insta link on my beltchecker profile to see my gym here in Jacksonville and see the progress so far! Hope any of this helped, it was kind of just a 'stream of consciousness' reply All the best, -John

I bought 200 m2 mats for 2500 euros 4 years ago... Granted they were 20 years old judo tatami but it was a start!

Always prioritize your students improvement, experience at the gym and safety. Never forget who brought you to the dance. I’ve seen a lot of gym owners over the years fall in love with themselves, or overemphasize the competition superstars in their gyms and forget that the day to day students are the ones paying the bills, keeping the gym open and maintaining the gym culture. These are the people taking time, energy and money away from themselves, their families and work to be at your gym. Respect and do right by them and you will avoid a lot of the domino effect problems that happen over the years that happen when your focus is elsewhere. Also, focus on creating high quality services and do a reasonable job marketing and you will stand out. Bjj, martial arts and the fitness industry is rife with an imbalance between quality and marketing (in both directions.). If you do a great job then you can market with integrity and word will spread. Good luck, I hope that helps some!

8. Never get too much personal involved with students.

9. Sell everything you can [...] with your brand.

I always found this weird. Why wouldn't you? I have always been friends with many, many, many of the people who trained with me and it's never been a problem in any way. Quite the contrary, I think it's only been positive, both for social and business reasons.

This could be off-putting for many members. I know that it would annoy me a lot as a member if I was constantly pushed mouthguards, coffee mugs, hoodies, mouse pads and keyrings etc. like I see it being done some place.

Always prioritize your students improvement, experience at the gym and safety. Never forget who brought you to the dance. I’ve seen a lot of gym owners over the years fall in love with themselves, or overemphasize the competition superstars in their gyms and forget that the day to day students are the ones paying the bills, keeping the gym open and maintaining the gym culture. These are the people taking time, energy and money away from themselves, their families and work to be at your gym. Respect and do right by them and you will avoid a lot of the domino effect problems that happen over the years that happen when your focus is elsewhere. Also, focus on creating high quality services and do a reasonable job marketing and you will stand out. Bjj, martial arts and the fitness industry is rife with an imbalance between quality and marketing (in both directions.). If you do a great job then you can market with integrity and word will spread. Good luck, I hope that helps some!

I agree. This used to annoy me too when I was pushed to buy something that I did not need or wanted. However, if you have products in your school people are free to buy or not. Not necessary everything with your brand but offer products that naturally students may want. I would love train in a gym and get an 'açai' after a hard training (is delicious and health too). Or buy a T-shirt of the school if I liked it. Specially who is starting a new Dojo I think this will help to pay the bills. OSS!

Regardless of what your policy is when it comes to friendships, you would probably benefit from establishing a code of conduct for your instructors, to include the issue (among others) of dating students and co-instructors. Definitely make it clear what your policies are (I've learned from personal experience that this is important).

Regardless of what your policy is when it comes to friendships, you would probably benefit from establishing a code of conduct for your instructors, to include the issue (among others) of dating students and co-instructors. Definitely make it clear what your policies are (I've learned from personal experience that this is important).

4 - Warm up with BJJ. People who have jobs and families don't have as much free time as they would like. If they're coming to a BJJ class, they want to do BJJ. They can do push-ups and sit-ups at home. They aren't there for strength training or to play football. If they wanted that, they'd go to a gym or join a football club. My coach started leaving out the calisthenics drills in warmups and we just do BJJ drills instead, and his group got very popular. So much so, he actually had to stop taking new students because he ran out of space.