The software we were forced to use was built for yoga studios in California — pretty, expensive, and useless for tracking belts, sparring rotations, or who'd been cleared to roll after a knee injury. Small gyms were paying hundreds a month for it, on top of insurance and rent, and quietly closing.
So we built our own. QR check-in at the door so nobody needs to sit at reception. Injury and medical records the insurer actually accepts. Class bookings, gradings, packages, bank-transfer dues ticked off in one list. Then friends at other gyms wanted in.
Then a yoga studio asked if it would work for them too — and it turns out the tools that run a BJJ academy run a yoga studio just fine, you just switch off the bits you don't need. Today the Gym App is built for BJJ, MMA, Muay Thai, Judo, boxing, gymnastics and yoga rooms alike, and every member of a partner gym can train at any other partner gym on the network.
The rule hasn't changed: build what athletes and coaches actually use, not what looks good in a pitch deck.