Building a BJJ Academy Without Being Buried in Admin
19 YEARS PATRICK HAS TRAINED & COMPETED
2x MASTERS WORLD CHAMPION
200+ ACTIVE MEMBERS
Coach and Operator. The School Needed Both.
Patrick Teruel has been training and competing in jiu-jitsu for 19 years. A 2x Masters World Champion and Canadian Jr. National Team Head Coach, he built NEO from his basement — 62 people training out of his home before they found a real space. When they opened at 12 Fisherman Drive in Brampton, the culture came with them.
Solana Be found Patrick during COVID, training online from her living room. She came from accounting and operations — and what she saw wasn't just a great school. She saw a growing operation that hadn't yet found the right tools to match its ambition. She joined to help fix that, and is now co-founder.
The School Was Ready to Scale, But the Admin Wasn't.
Patrick coaches, competes, runs the business, and raises four kids who all train. Solana isn't full-time. There was no dedicated admin — just two busy people and a spreadsheet that stopped working the moment the space expanded. They'd used other platforms before. None of them fit cleanly enough to stick with.
What they needed wasn't powerful. It was simple — simple enough that neither of them would have to become a software person to make it work, but capable enough to grow with a school that has its sights on 500–600 students.
“I know what’s coming in, what’s coming out, I know how to rank people, and I know how to convert leads into members. I’m good — everything else is gravy.”
Fully Organized—No Extra Overhead Required.
Solana had already built websites in Wix and Squarespace and integrated Stripe during COVID. She did the same with Gymdesk — mapped the whole thing before onboarding even called. What sealed it for Patrick was simpler: he opened the ranking tab and saw every BJJ belt, white through sixth-degree black. That was enough.
Since going live, the phone rings differently. Leads come in through Google now — something that never happened when 90% of their growth came through word of mouth and referrals alone.
The Operational Shift
Without the Right Tools
- Outgrew Excel as the roster grew
- No way to track who showed up to class
- Belt promotions managed manually
- 90% of new students came through referrals and social media only
- Financial visibility required back-and-forth between two busy people
- Announcements sent piecemeal across separate channels
With Gymdesk
- One system — members on it from day one
- Students check in on the app every class
- BJJ belt ranking built in — click, done, notes added
- Google leads coming in alongside existing word-of-mouth
- What's due, outstanding, and paid — three numbers, always visible
- Announcements and technique clips sent through the app
Discipline First. Then Fun.
When NEO started, the roster was almost entirely color belts — people who already knew Patrick, already trusted the system. Now, as new white belts find them through Google every week, the culture is doing its job: the discipline is visible from the first class, and it doesn't feel like a rule. It feels like the place.
Gymdesk didn't change what NEO is. It gave Patrick and Solana the headspace to keep building it — developing the next generation of leaders, the teenagers they're already teaching to run sales calls, read dashboards, and one day open their own schools.
“I know what’s coming in, what’s coming out, I know how to rank people, and I know how to convert leads into members. I’m good — everything else is gravy.”
Run Your Academy. Not Your Inbox.
Gymdesk handles the admin so you can stay on the mat.
