Meet the Founder

Built by an instructor, for instructors

Nic Lockleair

Founder of Tarnished Labs. Former martial arts instructor, now the one person building Dojo Forge.

Dojo Forge is built by me: no sales team, no support queue. I answer every question myself, and founding schools get my personal cell number, so if you get stuck setting up, I'm a text away. When you book a call, the person on the other end is the person who builds the software.

My sensei ran our dojo out of a briefcase. Attendance, belt tests, grading, waivers: he carried all of it, by hand, and still gave every student his full attention. I didn't understand what that took until I started teaching myself.

Dojo Forge is my way of lightening that briefcase, for him and for every instructor like him. I built it for my own dojo first and watched my fellow instructors get their time back.

I'm off the mat now, but I owe that community a lot. This is how I repay it: more time on the mat, more attention for every student, and less of the job living in a briefcase.

Our missionDojo Forge exists to give martial arts instructors their evenings and their students back. We build school management software for the way dojos actually run: belts, families, testing, and the quiet attendance gaps that turn into dropouts. Owners spend less time in the filing cabinet and more time on the mat. We keep setup simple enough to do yourself in minutes, start with what works today, and grow the product around the schools that trust us early.