Meet Noah Chen | Co-Founder & Community Growth Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Noah Chen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Noah, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
BJJLINK was born of out recognizing that in order for the martial art and sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to truly evolve and keep expanding globally, the Jiu Jitsu community needed embrace a shift towards a worldwide online presence. Before the creation of BJJLINK, there were no collective insights on almost any form of data surrounding the sport (how many people train around the world, how many academies exist, belt rank distributions, etc.), no way to truly connect with and engage with other practitioners outside of one’s academy, and no platform designed to help run Jiu Jitsu academies and businesses.

Our original team of 3 had come together and realized that despite the insane passion and engageability that is constantly fostered throughout the Jiu Jitsu community, there had never been a means to truly express one’s interests and opinions surrounding the art to others who also train. Unlike other sports like Basketball and Football which have dedicated media platforms, news channels, online groups, and other such ways to engage with their community, Jiu Jitsu’s only avenues for discussion and connection with other practitioners were through reddit threads that merely contained a percent of a percent of the entire community.

This gave rise to our flagship platform, BJJLINK Social, which is a one-stop-shop for connecting with Jiu Jitsu practitioners around the world. Acting as a merge of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, BJJLINK Social is designed specifically for the Jiu Jitsu community to indulge in everything Jiu Jitsu related; whether it be competition videos, joining event pages, reading Jiu Jitsu news, adding your own competition medals to your profile, and even tracing your own Jiu Jitsu lineage!

After some time, we then realized that we needed to cater to both the social side as well as the business side of Jiu Jitsu. This led us to then create BJJLINK Admin; the only Jiu Jitsu specific academy management platform available. All features and tools are designed specific to make running a Jiu Jitsu academy a seamless and hassle free experience. In addition to this, we have the most reasonable pricing on the market with the largest availability of features. We put a great emphasis on our customer service and innovation for the operations of Jiu Jitsu academies.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Here at BJJLINK, we are making every effort possible to redefine how Jiu Jitsu practitioners can connect and interact with each other. We want to separate ourselves from other Jiu Jitsu business by putting a huge emphasis on cultivating an open and inclusive community for those who are willing to come onboard our platform. Currently, the Jiu Jitsu business and news industry is heavily dominated by profit-oriented companies who desperately search for ways to boost their revenue at the blatant expense of their consumers and the community as a whole, leading to a constantly frustrated community that tends to find frictions within one another. We want to change this accepted view of how our beloved community operates through transparency and an actual desire to bring value and knowledge to Jiu Jitsu practitioners. We are extremely proud of the influence and following we have been able to cultivate these past 3.5 years as 90% of our efforts to do so have been completely organic and through one-on-one interactions. Getting to the point we are at now has been far from easy as the original rise of COVID-19 had put a huge halt to our company and our mission for about a year. We continue to innovate and create workarounds from this unpredictable situation and it led to us coming out stronger than before since mid 2021 till now.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Best Places to Eat: Tacos El Gordo, Menya Ultra, Mr. Falafel, PB Fish Shop, Sushi Ota Best Places to Hangout: La Jolla Cliffs/Cove, Gaslamp Quarter, ALTITUDE Sky Lounge, Balboa Park

Best Things to Do: Surf, Bar Hopping, Jiu Jitsu, San Diego Zoo, Belmont Park, Watching Sunsets

Best Places to Drink: Go Go Amigo, Wormwood, The Nolen, Kindred

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We want to dedicate our shoutout to the entire Jiu Jitsu community and specifically those who use our BJJLINK app. The community is what drives us forward and we wouldn’t be here without their support and help.

Website: https://bjjlink.com/info/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bjjlink/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bjjlink

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7aDQsQnmRHH4oYwdHrSn7Q

Image Credits
Instagram: @borojitsu and @slackbarrett