GRADR BJJ Academy Management Platform: The operating system for your BJJ academy

Hi everyone — Nic here, the founder of GRADR. I've spent 27 years in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I was the first black belt Roger Gracie ever awarded, and I've coached academies on four continents. So when I started thinking seriously about opening another academy of my own, the first thing I did was write down everything I'd actually need to run it the way I wanted — curriculum, attendance, grading, billing, retention. Then I went looking for software that could do it. And it didn't exist. Every "gym" platform treats a yoga studio, a CrossFit box, and a BJJ academy as the same business: take payments, mark attendance, done. They'll let you record a belt, but they have no idea what a belt actually means. Attendance doesn't talk to grading, the schedule doesn't know your curriculum, and the student can't see their own progress — so the owner ends up holding all of it together in his head, which is the exact job you bought software to get rid of. That was the problem. What GRADR became, though, is bigger than what I first pictured. I started out thinking I was building a scheduling-and-billing tool. What I realized along the way is that the real unlock is connecting everything: you define your curriculum once — guard, mount, stand-up — and that single decision flows into the schedule, into attendance, into who's eligible for promotion, and into what each student sees on their own progress screen. One decision showing up in five places. That's the part no generic tool can fake, because it requires actually understanding the art. GRADR is new, and I built it as the working black belt I am, not as a tech company chasing a market. I'd genuinely love feedback from other academy owners and instructors here — tell me what I've missed.