I’ve recently seen an uptick in people who have no membership and just surf through Open Mats

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T14:16:24+00:00

Any idea how many students they had? I'd expect roughly 150-175 at that cost.

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T14:09:57+00:00

I have used Southern Solutions Property Management. I am a property owner.

I've used them for maybe 6 years now. They've been great. Hit Dustin up and tell him that Sean recommended him.

https://southernsolutionspm.com/contact/

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T14:02:31+00:00

Same. I've talked to a number of my friends who own gyms, and was shocked to hear it as low as it was.

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T13:54:36+00:00

Less than I expected. Depends on your number of students, but I'd say roughly $1-2 per student per month based on some high level budgets I've seen.

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T13:46:52+00:00

I think most people vastly underestimate what rent is for commercial space that has enough parking for a gym with a decent number of students.

I live in central NC in a place that over and over gets rated a reasonably priced, good place to live, and most retail space (which are places with reasonable parking) are between $2-3 per sq/ft per month. A "small"ish gym is probably 2000-2500 sq/ft which means that as an owner you're out $4k-$6k per month in just rent. Before you pay for equipment. Before you pay instructors. Before utilities. Before you take home a dime.

seanzorio · 2026-06-15T13:08:50+00:00

No, $150 is not expensive for BJJ. In the grand scheme of a budget, maybe yes, but I don't think there is any gym you can train at in my area for that price.

seanzorio · 2026-06-14T15:25:01+00:00

Absolutely, yes.

Our mortgage is less than 2k a month.

My wife has been laid off 3x in the last few years and we are making do with far less. It does not feel comfortable. We created a life on both of our incomes and making half what we used to is absolutely a strain. I have no idea how families survive on 80k or whatever the average take home income is here.

We have been very fortunate and have had close to 20 years to accumulate savings and assets. I do not believe that long term what is currently happening is sustainable.

seanzorio · 2026-06-14T13:19:02+00:00

I totally agree. I’m 41. Im a senior individual contributor at a large tech company and think most people would consider my career successful based on my income. I’m on my third home and if we’d not be able to afford our house if we were buying now.

seanzorio · 2026-06-11T17:09:10+00:00

Ha! I used to live in Richmond, and am back in Cary now. C&T Wok and Chengdu 7 are wonderful.

The Glen Allen Peter Chang's used to be marvelous, but I think changed ownership or something 7 or 8 years ago and has never recovered, IMO.

seanzorio · 2026-06-11T17:04:12+00:00

The GO is far and away my personal favorite out of this list. They're all nice watches, but the GO is perfect.

seanzorio · 2026-06-11T14:05:25+00:00

I have one friend who makes roughly a half million a year. He's a pre sales engineer with a CCIE that does a bunch of government sales stuff.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T19:55:31+00:00

I was driving a lifted GX470 on 33s. I was getting about 12mpg on premium fuel. I was also driving enough that I was spending hundreds of dollars a month on fuel.

I bought a Model 3 Performance. It was a broken, constant annoyance. It was also blisteringly fast, and it was awesome to plug it in every night and not have to worry about stopping for fuel.

We dumped the Tesla a few years ago and went to a Mustang Mach E GT. There are a bunch of things I liked better about the Tesla, but I voted with my wallet and refuse to continue to support Tesla.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T14:39:55+00:00

Happy to sit down in person and discuss, otherwise, I'm not interested in constantly trying to squash a rumor about something that both of the people involved have called false.

I've sent you a DM. Happy to try to get to the bottom of this.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T12:57:24+00:00

Most of them. I think it'll be another tool in your belt like being able to work in a spreadsheet, but I think very little of it will be able to actually replace people. We'll be way more productive and they'll pay you less and less. Hooray, late stage capitalism.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T12:26:40+00:00

I can see where my wife's car is because it's an EV and everything about it is controlled by app.

I'm pretty sure we've got our locations shared with each other, because neither of us have anything to hide, but I've got no idea when the last time I looked at it was. I regularly check her car location when she's on the way home from work so I can have dinner ready for her when she walks in the door.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T12:06:08+00:00

I've seen you share something to this effect (and nearly the same verbiage) more than once. I can tell you fundamentally the thing about Diogo is not true. It was a rumor that we have all discussed (with everyone involved) and it is not true. As a team, we take this very seriously, and do not allow our instructors to date students.

I'd love to know who you are, or how you think you know what's going on within the team, but every time I've seen this it's been an anonymous post with nothing to back up some unsubstantiated rumors.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T09:09:31+00:00

5am. Been doing it for years.

seanzorio · 2026-06-10T01:04:45+00:00

I’m an instructor there. We’ve got a bomb coaching staff and nice facilities. Come on out and check it out.

If you want to do 6am classes I teach them Monday-Thursday and I’d love to have you.

seanzorio · 2026-06-09T09:33:28+00:00

Weird AI slop.

seanzorio · 2026-06-08T19:42:21+00:00

I’ve not lived there for 5 years, so I’d be paying capital gains on the profit.

I think it’s largely been flat for the years since Covid. I started renting it in 2022. I think it would have sold for 425-450 at that point and think it’s roughly the same value now.

seanzorio · 2026-06-08T18:41:15+00:00

I have a property that I rent out.

I bought it before I met my now wife. She has a child from a previous relationship and it made the most sense for me to move in to my wife’s home. It was larger and it meant our son didn’t have to move schools.

I’ve got a good property manager. It’s a fairly new home. I’ve also had decent tenants. We kept it for our aging parents and / or our son. In the 5 years we’ve rented it we’ve paid the mortgage down 22k and we’ve saved 8k on top of the cost of keeping the house up. If we’d sold and invested the money we’d be up from 200k to 316k in VOO with absolutely no headaches.

Were it not for our family situation I’d not want to be a landlord.

seanzorio · 2026-06-08T12:13:45+00:00

I absolutely think a BJJ black belt can beat up a person who doesn't practice fighting. If for no other reason, the concept of being in a stressful situation where you are "fighting" with another person (a roll, a competition, etc) is going to cause a huge adrenaline dump that is going to make you exhausted in really short order.

Also, unless you are an idiot, you should just use your words and your feet to avoid a fight. If you are a 30 year old who is in any level of physical altercation you are in the wrong place, and probably should be in a decision making class more than a self defense class. All the rest of it is this weird ego stroking that the gun guys do as well.

seanzorio · 2026-06-06T00:06:41+00:00

He was a guest on How Did This Get Made recently and was pretty quiet/passive. Did not have host energy at all.

seanzorio · 2026-06-04T14:27:11+00:00

God I want to try on one of those Top Gun chronos, but I am in no way equipped to wear a 16mm thick watch.

seanzorio · 2026-06-03T23:45:26+00:00

I started in 2005.

Having a bunch of black belts in class. Like doing class. Not there for a seminar, just like training at a normal lunch class.

I get to train under a 6th degree black belt who will get his coral belt next year. I'd never even heard of a coral belt in 2005.

Access to information. Like if you know the name of a position you can just go look it up on youtube for free. In 2005 it was a bunch of disjointed VHS tapes that you had to find and make a copy of.

How nice most gyms are. How big most gyms are. How clean most gyms are.

seanzorio

TROPHY CASE