3 key success factors for judo clubs

It's not easy building up a judo club in Malaysia. This sport is so niche it makes cricket seem mainstream. There are probably more people doing triathlons than judo. Heck, there are probably more people playing dodgeball than judo.

There are three key challenges to building up a judo club in Malaysia:

Infrastructure
Firstly, you'll need a dojo, which is a big challenge from the start. It doesn't really make sense to rent a shoplot since you'll probably not use it full-time. Sub-letting it to other sports sounds okay on paper but in practice it's not easy to find sub-tenants. They all want the same peak time slot as you would want for your judo class (7pm to 9pm on weekdays). Renting space in a gym is not easy either because most gyms don't have big matted areas and whatever matted area they have would usually be 2 or 3cm thick jigsaw mats. This is not what you want for judo (ideally 5cm mats).

Coach(es)
But let's say you somehow manage to solve your dojo problem. Next up, you'll need good coaches. "Good" is  subjective of course but someone who has himself built up a successful judo club once told me that an appealing coach should have these qualities
a) Good competitor (ideally a former champion)
b) Technically very sound
c) Good at communication and marketing

The ideal scenario is to have a coach with all three qualities but if you can find someone with two out of three, you are still in pretty good shape. In the context of Malaysia though, you'd be lucky to find someone with one out of three of these qualities.

Members
Let's say you happen to have great facilities and a fantastic coach, you still need one more factor, which is just as hard to get: Players. A club needs members. But how do you get members when a sport is so niche? The answer is: with a lot of difficulty.

So, if anybody is thinking of starting a judo club, they'll need to tackle all three key challenges:
i) good infrastructure
ii) good coach
iii) critical mass of members

Two out of three isn't good enough. You'll need all three factors resolved or the club will simply not take off.