Case Study

Martial Arts on Rails

Founded in 2016, Martial Arts on Rails streamlines the process of managing memberships, billing and marketing for gyms and martial arts schools.

Summary

  • Eran, the founder of gym management software Martial Arts on Rails, was able to apply his personal experience to understand his customer’s software struggles.
  • After over four years as an early Square partner, Martial Arts on Rails joined and graduated from Square’s partner development programme, PartnerUp, in early 2020.
  • Martial Arts on Rails is now seeing an increase in leads through Square App Marketplace, and gaining customers at a rate of more than 10% a month.
  • Next, they’re looking forward to further integrations with Square and are helping to provide input and suggestions on how the partnership could continue to grow.

Eran, the founder of Martial Arts on Rails, created software to address the needs of martial arts studios based on his personal experience in over 12 years of training. He saw the backend of multiple systems and knew they lacked the muscle needed to work for modern studio needs.

So Eran created a product that could shape the gym registration process into something flexible, intuitive and comfortable to use. In 2016, MAonRails was in the ring: a gym management software that streamlines the process of managing memberships, billing and marketing for gyms and martial arts schools.

MAonRails originally operated with a different payment provider, until a potential customer asked to connect their existing Square account to MAonRails to accept payments. By the end of 2016, Square and MAonRails were integrated, and the partnership has been a strong selling proposition as a POS solution for MAonRails customers. With it, gyms are able to collect payments as well as create a free branded website to sell merchandise and share class schedules.

In early 2020, MAonRails revamped their user interface and began our PartnerUp programme, which helps partners in the early stages of growth launch their apps in Square App Marketplace. The programme furthers Square’s mission of Economic Empowerment by helping partners – and by extension, sellers – grow their businesses.

Since graduation, MAonRails has seen an increase in leads through the App Marketplace and a 10% increase in processing sellers.

In early 2021, MAonRails graduated from the PartnerUp program. Since graduation, they’ve seen an increase in leads through the App Marketplace and a 10% increase in processing sellers.

As partners like MAonRails move through the PartnerUp programme, they gain access to different tools to help them expand their products, including technical help, support contacts and engineering resources. Upon programme graduation, partners are assigned a dedicated partner manager to support them through future growth. For MAonRails, the win is in this level of support; if a technical glitch arises, the team can rest easy knowing they are speaking to someone at Square who can help. ‘With Square, every time I had a concern, I heard back from [our partner manager] the same day … even for issues that were not as critical, there was somebody listening on the other side.’

‘With Square, every time I had a concern, I heard back from [our partner manager] the same day … even for issues that were not as critical, there was somebody listening on the other side.’

– Eran Galperin, founder at MAonRails

And MAonRails was not just locked in with Square. The company philosophy has always centred around joint development with customers, and the belief that their ‘customers are our business partners’.

MAonRails maintains a certain level of business agility, stretching to develop feature requests like partial payments or mass promotions for customers. Down the line, MAonRails looks forward to expanding the existing Square partnership in more ways and adding new features to their integration. Until then, MAonRails continues to grow stronger alongside their customers and help gyms get in shape with Square.