Restarting my Old School...

[Draven]

Ok I may come into a huge amount of cash come March, say 50K (its actualy closer to 60K), so I'm thinking of re-openning my old school. I actually closed doen the origional due to financial issue with the new economy and got out without too much trouble from being in the RED cash wise. I actually broke even, but my personal security job has cut me down from making $1700 a month to about $750 a month in this economy. Minimum wage is not something I enjoy but whatever keeps me of fed right...?

So here is my figuring for the cash, a) restart my school; actually two schools where I have them open 2 hour a day, 3 days a week alternating schedules. School A: open Mon, Wed, Fri & School B: open Tues, Thurs, Sat.

I'm going back to my origional format for Classes;
Omoto Ryu Jujutsu/Ninjutsu
Street Focus Jujutsu
Tactical Firearms & Small Teams Tactical Training

Now martial arts classes are $65 a month & other schools in the area range from $30 to $60 but I'm forgoing the testing fees. Also I'm the only one offering tactical firearms training. Basic Idea is that the Tactical stuff will be a 40 hour course with 1 hour a week every saturday & each MA class running for an hour each day. I may even offer a discount for the students enrolled in both MA courses at one time; thinking $80 a month for both.

I should also mention that a) I can't attest to the historical legitimacy of the Ninjutsu & as far as I know it goes back 5 generations & has been modified with each generation. I'm a 6th gen student. The Street Focus Jujitsu is an SD adaption of Sport Jujitsu & Combat Jujitsu modernized to current threat conditions with some earily training in basic SD psychology & concepts. However the technical info is based on my training in Sport Jujitsu, military training, RBSD combatives training & BA in psychology (simplified into laymen's terms; I got the BA for promotion points in the Army). With the overall goal of meating modern SD threats.

So does anyone think this is a good business model or what?

Any suggestions would be appriciated?

 

[Steve]

Good luck. I hope you're successful. I couple of questions came to mind.

I'm curious about why you're looking at paying overhead for two locations. With a finite amount of startup cash, I can't figure out why you'd want to pay for two schools.

I'm also a little curious about your use of the term "sport jujutsu". I've never heard of that. Are you referring to BJJ or something like it? Are you going to rank your students in ninjutsu and jujutsu?

 

[Draven]

Sport Jujitsu is a pre-UFC MMA-ish art, in fact there was a Inside Karate Magazine with cover page featuring Ernie Boggs (a former Sport Jujitsu Champion & Team USA's Coach) calling Sport Jujitsu the Art of the 90s, it was the first to include all three ranges of combat in competition & competed with other systems before the UFC. The Gracies just had the Hollywood & UFC connection.

http://www.sportjujitsu.org/, http://www.yudanshafight.com/Whatissportjujitsu.htm & http://www.jujitsuamerica.org/sportjujitsu.php will explain most of it. Here is some videos for you;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj0gNOINEDw&feature=related

The two schools thing is based on the idea that comes from my current location. In my current home town, I have to compete with a 2 Karate Schools, a BJJ school, a Hapkido school & another Ninjutsu school (Bujinkan). So My idea is to start smaller schools outside the area of heavy business competition, the Bujin school isn't much competition business wise because they don't spar & that doesn't attract many students.

As for the ranking issue, I plan to offer ranking in both systems plus certification & recertification in the tactical classes; but the tactical stuff will be in one location only. I figure set up two schools to help prop up my other school during bad times, since I'll have a smaller population base outside my location I'll double down & spit the difference. Also I prefer the idea of smaller class sizes as well for the transmition of knowledge & training purposes; my methods work better with smaller class sizes.

Over head isn't too bad an issue; in one location I can get the building for $500 a month plus utilities & in the other $650 a month plus electric. My insurance is based on number of students and starts at $2,500 a year per 50 students. So I figure a 3 month test run would cost be about $7,100 at the other plus my electric bill. Which means I'd need about 110 students between the schools to break even.

If I come up with some outreach program for teens, I could get a $5,000 to $10,000 government grant for the non-profit work.

 

[Master K]

Best of luck to you. Please keep us posted.

 

[AmericanTangSooDo]

You may want to contact a company such as NAPMA (http://napma.com/eng/) or ATAMA (http://www.atama.us/). These groups may be able to help with advice concerning opening a school in today's economy.

By the way "Now martial arts classes are $65 a month & other schools in the area range from $30 to $60"? You must definitely not live anywhere in Los Angeles county, because I haven't seen prices that low since the late 1990s. Most schools are usually over $100 and pretty close to $200 a month here.

But anyway best of luck and much success in your business endeavor.