Anyone here own a franchise?

[cdlamis]

DH's business partner is retiring this year so they both are discussing selling the company- instead of his partner selling just half to someone else. After doing some research, DH is thinking of opening up a Subway. Our city was listed as the fastest growing city in the U.S. and it would be profitable to open up a Subway anywhere around here right now.

Anyone else own a franchise? Any suggestions? DH even said "why don't you ask the ladies on your BBB to see what they think." I thought that was too funny that even he runs here first with any type of question. :)

Daniella
Mom to Julia 6-13-02
and Isabella 12-18-04

[C99]

My parents just sold their franchise (not Subway). My dad looked into doing a Subway franchise before my parents ended up w/ the one they did, and he said that Subway was kind of weird about it -- undercutting successful franchisees, etc. -- and that the returns were really not very high, about $30K per license. The big question is whether or not you have good, reliable talent nearby to staff it. I can pass along my parents' e-mail address, if you want to ask them any questions about franchises in general or the due diligence they did on Subway. Just e-mail or PM me.

[Sarah1]

A friend of mine looked into opening an Einstein Bagels franchise in her old neighborhood (near Pasadena)--there was no bagel place around and she thought it could do really well. She and her DH are extremely smart and pretty well-capitalized people, and they were floored by how liquid you had to be to be approved to open a franchise--I think for Einstein's you had to have $100K cash in the bank. She couldn't believe it. I don't know if Subway has similar requirements.

[kelly ann]

So funny you ask this because I was researching a particular opportunity yesterday - Hallmark. However, Hallmark is not an official franchise so you don't have those fees. If your area is really growing, I would look into many types of businesses. For example, Dream Dinners and similar dinner businesses seem to be in the midst of increased development in our area - for this type of business the hours of operation to the public are significantly less than a Subway. Of course, maybe the profits are less??

Good luck !!

[Calmegja2]

We looked into franchises as a way of diversifying ( we own oild changes and carwashes around our state), specifically restaurants, and we shied way from it, in the end, because the start up costs were huge, the failure rate was very, very high, and with many of thelicense agreements, our profit ability was really limited.