Real gym owners, real stories. Hosted by Gymdesk CEO Alex Cuevas—a Taekwondo black belt and lifelong martial artist—each episode takes you inside the gyms of BJJ, MMA, Muay Thai, TKD, judo, and karate school owners who built something worth showing up for. You'll hear how they got their start, what almost broke them, and the business decisions that keep the lights on and the mats full. Whether you're opening your first school or you've been running one for decades, each episode will show you a perspective on gym ownership you've never heard before.
[SPECIAL EPISODE] How to Start & Scale a Gym, with William Watts and Chris Wojcik
Pulled from a Gymdesk webinar and re-cut for the feed between seasons. Chris Wojcik is about to open his first gym, so he interviews someone who’s already done it: William Watts, co-owner of East Austin Jiu Jitsu Parlor, which was cash-flow positive before it opened its doors in one of the most competitive jiu-jitsu cities in the country.
William shares how he approaches presales (and the mistakes he sees other gyms make), why the Parlor never ran a single ad, and why he built the beginners program around no-gi. Chris has visited about 50 gyms this year, and he shares what he notices in the first five minutes, from the mood in the lobby to the odd rules that quietly send people packing. They also take on the “do I need to be a champion to open a gym” question, plus the boring but essential setup list: LLC, insurance, a separate business bank account, a lease, and a system to run it all.
William’s new book, The Jiujitsu Gym Operations Manual, is out now.
Links
Watch the Webinar Replay (https://gymdesk.com/webinars/starting-scaling-a-gym-with-william-watts-chris-wojcik)
More with William Watts
The Jiujitsu Gym Operations Manual (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBNX1PK8)
East Austin Jiu-Jitsu Parlor (https://www.eastaustinjiujitsu.com/)
Gymdesk Originals episode on the Parlor (https://gymdesk.com/originals/east-austin-jiu-jitsu-parlor)
More with Chris Wojcik
A Grappler’s Diary (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DS1J794V)
The Grappler’s Diary (https://thegrapplersdiary.substack.com/) (newsletter)
The Grappler’s Almanac (https://www.skool.com/the-grapplers-os-6057/about)
6 Oct 2026
Training Lived Here. Competition Lived There. Not Anymore.
Big news from the mat: Gymdesk and Smoothcomp are now one company.
Alex heads to Smoothcomp headquarters in Sweden to hear how it started. In 2006, two black belts ran their first tournament with registrations by email and a spouse checking the bank account for transfers. Later, a tournament run on badminton software collapsed under a pile of paper results, and one early attempt at software crashed so badly a co-founder had to walk out of the venue. Those failures led to the the platform that now runs 200+ events every weekend.
You'll hear why every decision starts with the athlete, how one organizer got his weekends back, and why an in-house tournament may be the best retention move you're not making.
Alex also shares what happens when your training records and competition records finally live in one place. If you've ever wondered what's next for your gym, your students, and the tournaments they compete in, this is where it starts.
29 Sept 2026
[SPECIAL EPISODE] How to Run Your In-House Tournaments At Your Gym, ft. Smoothcomp
This one's a little different — pulled from a Gymdesk webinar and re-cut for the feed while we're between seasons.
Alex sits down with Ricard from Smoothcomp, Jorge Britto from Jiu-Jitsu for Life in Toronto, and Jennifer Lujan from Montrose BJJ in rural Colorado to break down what most gym owners get wrong about in-house tournaments: they think it takes a stadium.
George has been running them since 2008 and now holds one every three months for kids only. Jennifer's students live five hours from the nearest city competition, so her in-house events became the practice run that gets them ready for the real thing. Ricard walks through setting one up on Smoothcomp in minutes—brackets, weigh-ins, a scoreboard on a TV—and the panel gets into what nobody warns you about: how small is too small, how to calm a nervous ten-year-old, and why the gyms that compete in-house keep members longer than the ones that don't.
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