How Two Full-Time Employees Built a 100-Member Jiu-Jitsu Gym in 53 Days
Walk into OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective on a Wednesday afternoon and you'll hear kids drilling hip escapes while local art hangs on every wall.
There's a patio out back with a grill. A jam corner where members play guitar after open mat. A hostel across the street that sends tourists wandering in to train.
It looks like a place that took years to get right.
It took 53 days.
Alina Grayeske and Andres Cervantes opened OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective in Ocean Beach, San Diego on March 31st of last year. They signed the lease on February 7th. They both had full-time jobs the entire time. They still do.
This is how that happened.
Rather watch the episode? Here ya go:
The Breakfast That Started Everything
Alina had been training jiu-jitsu for over a decade. Andres for 15 years, earning his black belt under Michael Liera at Logos Jiu-Jitsu.
They'd talked about opening a gym for years the way people talk about writing a novel. Someday. When the timing's right. When we figure out the money.
Then Alina sat down for breakfast across the street from a former theater on Newport Avenue.
They put the for rent sign on this building and I knew from before that this building was a big space because it used to be a theater—3,800 square feet with no pillars in the middle.
She pulled out her phone before she finished eating. Called a friend from jiu-jitsu who happened to be a real estate agent. By February 7th, five days after spotting the sign, they'd signed the lease.
That was on the 2nd of February. We signed the lease on February 7th, and then we opened it on March 31st.
Fifty-three days. No business plan collecting dust in a Google Doc. No six-month runway of savings. Just a building that felt right and two people who decided to stop talking about it.
Winning over skeptical landlords
The building's owners were a couple who'd held the property for 30 years. They wanted a fitness facility. They didn't know what jiu-jitsu was. And they couldn't figure out how a martial arts gym was going to cover rent one block from the beach.
Alina and Andres sold them on what they'd bring to the neighborhood. The community. The foot traffic. The fact that Ocean Beach didn't have anything like this. It worked.
The couple chose them over whoever else came calling.
For anyone wondering what opening a BJJ academy actually looks like, Alina's version is a speed run.
Building It Themselves—On Nights and Weekends
Neither of them quit their jobs.
Alina runs operations for Electrum Performance, a strength and conditioning company built for jiu-jitsu athletes. Andres has his own career. They opened a gym on top of everything else they were already doing.
We both have other jobs. We opened this business while we both are employed doing other things. This is our passion project.
One day it’ll make us money, and that will be great. But for now, we wanted to bring this to our community.
During the build-out, Alina became her own general contractor, designer, and head of production. She jokes about her resume now, but at the time she was converting a dark, empty theater into a functional gym while working a full-time job during the day.
My resume has so many cool things on it now. I’m a contractor. I oversee head of production. I’m a designer. I’m a builder.
Andres worked his hours and showed up when he could. Friends from jiu-jitsu pitched in.
One connection led to a construction company that could match their insane timeline. That's one of the common challenges gym owners face, and it doesn't get easier until you build a team around you.
Everything fell into place. Barely.
The Open Mat They Held Before the Mats Were Finished
The mats showed up three days before opening day.
They'd signed a lease, gutted a theater, built out a gym, and the actual mats (the thing you need to do jiu-jitsu) arrived 72 hours before anyone was supposed to roll on them.
Our mats showed up three days before our open mat, and we actually had our first open mat without the frames fully on it.
We put the mats down the day before—ten of our friends came here and we just threw them on the space.
No art on the walls yet. Marquees stacked on the floor. The frames weren't finished. They opened anyway.
They came back the next day and finished the build. That first open mat, raw, unfinished, ten friends on a bare floor, is the kind of beginning you can't manufacture. You can only survive it.
Getting Operational (Fast)
Alina's background in gym operations saved them here.
Five years at Electrum Performance meant she already knew how to build a schedule, manage memberships, and keep a business moving. But 53 days doesn't leave room for shopping around.
She searched for gym management software built for jiu-jitsu and found Gymdesk. The free trial sold her.
It handled the website, check-in, attendance, billing, and merch sales in one place. Tablet at the front desk for check-ins. QR code in the gym that sends people straight to the website to sign up on their own.
It was made for jiu-jitsu, which really sold me because everything was integrated on what you needed. It was quick and easy.
When you're balancing a gym and job, anything that eliminates a separate vendor is one less thing stealing your sleep.
PRO TIP:
When you’re opening on a tight timeline, consolidating your website, check-in system, billing, and merch sales into one platform eliminates days of vendor shopping. Alina set up Gymdesk during the build-out and had members self-signing up via QR code on day one.
One Year In—What 100 Members Actually Looks Like
OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective hit 100 members before their first anniversary.
For a gym run by two people with day jobs, that's real. And they did it without either founder drawing a salary from the gym.
The name says what they are. "The Collective" means instructors from different academies and different disciplines teaching under one roof. Jiu-jitsu gi and nogi. Judo. Muay Thai, which wasn't even in the original plan.
A friend with a Brazilian black belt in Muay Thai wanted to start a program. Ocean Beach had no striking options. So they filled the gap. Fifteen people now show up consistently, and some of them are crossing over to try jiu-jitsu.
Thirty of those 100-plus members are women. That's 30 percent, a number that would make most gym owners do a double-take.
She credits a few things: being a female owner, having two female coaches (world champion Heather Morgan teaches the Sunday women's class; Manuela runs Muay Thai), and deliberately building a space where women's classes drive growth.
The Sunday women's class is free and open to anyone from any academy. That's the collective model in action, come train, wherever you call home.
They also launched a six-week free intro program for people who've never trained. Six community members, selected through an Instagram ad, getting guided through the basics before joining regular classes.
A week isn't enough time for a total beginner to stop being terrified. Six weeks is.
The kid who said "I'm not strong enough"
Alina teaches kids three days a week. Fifteen of them, ages five to eleven. She tells one story that sticks.
One of our little kids, he always at the beginning, he’s like ‘I’m not strong enough, I’m not strong enough.’
And now he’s at the point where he’s doing push-ups, wheelbarrowing somebody else. Nothing changed. He’s the same size he was when he started. He just now has confidence.
That's why people build culture around transformation instead of trophies. The founding class of adult white belts competed at Jiu-Jitsu World League within six months and came home with medals.
But it's the kid who stopped saying "I'm not strong enough" that tells you what OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective actually is.
What Alina Would Tell Herself Before Opening
Alex asked Alina what advice she'd give herself if she could go back to that breakfast across the street.
I think I would tell myself to continue to be patient—that good things come to those who wait.
We’ve been very fortunate in the one year that we’ve been open that we’ve been able to pay our bills and that we’ve been able to build this hundred-person community.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
You don’t need a perfect business plan, a six-month runway, or a year of preparation to open a gym. OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective went from a for-rent sign to 100 members in under a year—built by two people who never quit their day jobs. Start with what you have, lean on your community, and let the momentum carry you.
Patience. She wants 250 members someday. She knows it takes time.
Both founders still clock in at their other jobs every morning. The gym pays its rent and covers its costs. That's real first-year growth for most owners. Not a windfall, but proof the thing works.
They're adding a second day of women's classes this year. The art rotates. The grill still gets fired up after Saturday open mats.
If you're wondering how to open a jiu-jitsu gym or whether opening a martial arts gym while working full time is even possible, Alina and Andres are proof that it is.
Fifty-three days to build it. A lifetime to see what it becomes.
Gym management software that frees up your time and helps you grow.
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FAQ
Sean has spent the last decade creating content that helps businesses—small and not so small—grow smarter to allow operators to do more of what they love. You know, the fun stuff.
From shipping and international logistics to web development and marketing, he's done the work (not just the words) to scale retail and service businesses efficiently.
You can find his work at Sendle, Shogun, The Retail Exec, Gymdesk, and more.
