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Keenan Cornelius: “Size Matters – Also With Grappling Gyms”

Keenan Cornelius: “Size Matters – Also With Grappling Gyms”

If you’re someone who wants to open your very own Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/grappling academy, one of the problems you’re probably facing is the facility you’d hold your classes in. For example: should this facility be a bigger or a smaller one?
In the words of Keenan Cornelius, size matters when it comes to grappling gyms:

Does size matter? Yes. And it also matters with grappling gyms.
Let’s think long term. You know you want to do jiu-Jitsu forever, so why would you want to get a small space if you plan on working on this until you die?

If you truly want to succeed, Keenan explains, you need to “go big or go home”:

Obviously make sure you can cover rent if things go t*ts-up. But if you are a winner, then give yourself as much room to grow as you can afford.
The basic formula to know what you can afford is to calculate how many members you need at a certain price to cover rent and other expenses, then do a presale to see how much interest you have. Then adjust the space you can afford based off that.

You most likely won’t need more than “just” 100 students:

Most gyms only need 100 members to break even on pretty large spaces.

This is why many gym owners choose to set up shop in an industrial warehouse, it’s zoned different than flex space or retail space so you can get lower costs/sqft at a trade off for location and ease of access for people to drive to.

Sometimes it’s worth it.