Saer · Case study

Soul Fighters Leander

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy · Leander, Texas

A builder-template gym site, rebuilt as a real software product — and launched in about five days.

A custom Next.js application with a self-hosted CMS the team runs themselves, a bespoke design system, live Google Reviews, lead capture, and full SEO. The kind of build that traditionally runs several hundred hours and tens of thousands of dollars.

Next.js Payload CMS PostgreSQL Tailwind Vercel
Brief to live in ~5 days · 7 responsive pages · View the live site ↗

01 — The challenge

What they started with.

It worked, and it held the real information — it just wasn’t theirs.

  • A hosted website-builder template — a stock stone-wall hero with the gym’s logo pasted on top as a glowing banner.
  • Generic template sections with default “GET STARTED” buttons and oversized stock headings.
  • The class schedule was a long, centered wall of plain text — readable, but hard to scan.
  • A third-party chat widget and a language toggle bolted on top.

It looked like a generic builder site — and it didn’t reflect the gym’s actual identity or energy.

02 — The rebuild

A real software product, not a brochure.

We rebuilt the site from the ground up as a custom application — with the content, design, and infrastructure the gym actually needed, all running on systems they can manage themselves.

  • Custom Next.js application (App Router) — no purchased template, designed and built for this gym.
  • Self-hosted Payload headless CMS the team runs themselves — schedule, programs, and content, no developer required.
  • PostgreSQL database, blob media storage, and automatic image optimization.
  • Bespoke dark design system built around the team’s own competition red — every screen designed, not assembled.
  • Custom motion system — scroll reveals and count-ups, all respecting reduced-motion.
  • Structured, scannable class schedule — six days, filterable by program and age.
  • Live Google Reviews, lead-capture workflows (free trial & ask-a-question), and GymDesk link-outs.
  • Full SEO implementation — structured data, a dynamic sitemap, and per-page metadata.
  • Authentication and role-based access for the CMS.
  • 7 polished, fully responsive pages, deployed to production on Vercel.
Before → after
The homepage
brunoguimaraesbjj.com
Before — the old stock stone-wall hero with the logo pasted on as a glowing banner
Before
soul-fighters-leander.vercel.app
After — the bespoke dark hero in the gym's own competition red
After
The class schedule
brunoguimaraesbjj.com/schedule
Before — a long, centered wall of plain text, hard to scan
Before
soul-fighters-leander.vercel.app/schedule
After — a color-coded, filterable weekly grid
After
Lead capture & CMS
soul-fighters-leander.vercel.app/free-trial
After — the free-trial lead-capture flow, wired into the CMS
After · free-trial lead capture, managed in the CMS

03 — The value

Same build, a fraction of the cost.

A production app of this scope is real engineering. Built the traditional way, it represents several hundred hours of work and tens of thousands of dollars in market value. We delivered it for a fraction of both.

Saer — what we charged~$1,500

A custom scope — the self-hosted CMS, database, and auth sat above our standard packages, which run $250–$1,000.

Traditional — market valueTens of thousands

Roughly $30k–90k depending on who builds it — freelancer through boutique or enterprise agency — and about 400–700 hours of engineering, typically spread over months.

How, and how long.

Built in about five days of focused, concentrated work. The speed comes from pairing senior-level judgment and direction with AI-assisted execution.

We still defined the architecture, made the product and design decisions, reviewed every output, caught the bugs, and resolved the integration failures. This is compression of expert work — not magic, and not zero-effort. That’s exactly why the price-to-value gap is real, and not too-good-to-be-true.

~$1,500
Saer price
$30k–90k
Traditional market value
400–700 hrs
Typical engineering effort
~5 days
Brief to production

Want this for your business?

Same care, same production quality — designed and built for you, fast. No template, no lock-in. Builds start at $250, fully bespoke from $1,000.

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Saer · Web studio Case study · Soul Fighters Leander