If you’ve been thinking about leaving corporate but the risk feels too big, this episode gives you a smarter way to look at it.

Brett sits down with Alex Smereczniak, a former EY consultant who left corporate early, built a high-growth business in the laundry space, and later launched Franzy—a platform designed to make franchising easier to research and navigate.

This conversation covers the mindset shift that helps people stop overestimating the risk of leaving, plus why franchising can be an underrated “business with guardrails” path for escapees who want ownership without building from scratch.

What we cover

• Alex’s escape story: college entrepreneurship → EY → leaving after a year and change

• The moment that validated his decision: an EY partner’s biggest career regret

• Why fear is often self-created—and how to get past it

• A practical worst-case scenario exercise to reset your risk tolerance

• Why franchising is a business model, not an industry

• Franzy’s concept: “Zillow for buying and selling franchise businesses”

• How AI + coaching can narrow thousands of franchise options into a realistic short list

• Underrated franchise categories and trends (senior care, home services, turf, and more)

• The “corporate is one customer” reframe—and why ownership builds equity

Key timestamps (approx.)

• 00:00–03:30 – Alex’s corporate stint + why he left fast

• 03:30–08:30 – The EY exit interview story: “It wasn’t my ladder”

• 08:30–12:30 – Why making money outside corporate is more possible than people think

• 12:30–20:30 – The worst-case scenario exercise (the fear-killer)

• 20:30–28:30 – Alex’s journey building a scaled laundry business + why franchising clicked

• 28:30–33:30 – What franchising actually is (and what most people misunderstand)

• 33:30–40:30 – Franchise categories you probably haven’t considered

• 40:30–46:30 – Equity, control, and why “owning” beats “leasing” your career

Big takeaways

• Most people overestimate the risk of leaving corporate. The real risk is staying dependent on one employer.

• You don’t need a perfect plan. You need small wins and momentum—then you adjust.

• Franchising can be a fast path to ownership because you start with a proven playbook, support, and guardrails.

• Ownership builds equity. A job pays you, but it doesn’t typically create an asset you can sell.

Who this episode is for

• Corporate pros who want out but feel stuck because of risk, family, or finances

• Escapees who want a “business with guardrails” instead of starting from scratch

• Anyone curious about franchising beyond the usual fast-food stereotypes

Resources + links

• Franzy https://franzy.com/

• Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-smereczniak-40310329/

Hey Alex, welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Thanks for having me, Brett. I am really excited about what you're doing. And I think the timing we talked about a little bit before, but just the timing in the world right now with how much organizations are evolving and things are changing. I really appreciate what you've built and for having me on to talk about AI and escaping corporate and franchising and all the things that you can go out and do.

That's awesome. Yeah. you just perfect segue into it. You'll love a guest that'll lead me right to where we're going. no, like I said, when I heard you on a different podcast, I'm like, oh, we got to get Alex. It's been a while since we've talked about franchise and where this industry is going. Some of the things that you've done differently and why I think it makes sense for escapees to seriously consider this path. Because again, if you don't want to start from scratch and we'll get, we'll get into the franchise model later.

But yeah, no, so I'm super, super excited to have this conversation. But first we do, I always like to ask my guests if in fact they did have an escapee journey to share a little bit about it. And you did what one year in corporate before you said this isn't for me. And then the rest is history, right?

It was a couple of internships and then a year and some change. And then I haven't been back since and I don't think I ever will.

And what was it, you were at EY, right? You were in consulting when you started.

Yeah. So my background, I, from Minnesota ended up in North Carolina where I'm at now, went to Wake Forest university and thankfully had an entrepreneurial moment in college. did a laundry and dry cleaning business in college. and if I hadn't had that, I don't think my eyes would have been open to what else was possible. think I was conditioned like many of us are to get good grades in high school, to then get good grades in college, to then go get your fortune 500 job and

do that for 50 years and die. And I thought, okay, I'll go find a great brand name job and I'll go make a career. And doing that college laundry thing really just made me realize you can make a lot of money doing a lot of other things. And I was naive to that. I granted I was young, but I think a lot of people that don't get exposure to those types of experiences remain naive to that most of their lives. And I've seen it firsthand with clients we work with and

Right?

friends of friends or family friends who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, it doesn't matter the age range that I can tell are still naive to the idea that you could probably go take all this valuable knowledge you've learned and apply it for yourself and make more money than you're making today. It's just, it's scary and it's unknown. So I was very grateful for that experience in college. I did go work for EY doing consulting for an internship over a summer and then about a year and a half call it after college.

OK.

I'd sold the laundry business in college. I wanted to keep going, but my partners wanted to go do investment banking and marketing at Pepsi. And I was like, I'm not going to, yeah, I'll go get a real job too, I guess. That's what we're all doing. And EY felt, it seemed like it would be entrepreneurial to me. It's consulting, you're going to switch projects every couple of months or year. You'll work with different people. And as far as corporate jobs go, I'd say consulting is...

Real jobs.

you know, is one of the more entrepreneurial ones. But for me, it was still just like, I wanted to move fast. I wanted to be responsible for the good and the bad of my career. I didn't want to be capped in my upside. And I just saw the partners ahead of me, 15 years older than me or 15 years more experienced than me. And I would, I'm a curious individual. I would ask them, you know, what's your day to day like, and do you have any regrets? Would you have done anything different in your career? And thankfully, a lot of them are very open. And I kept hearing this theme of

Yeah, I make a lot of money, but I don't really feel fulfilled. And it's not my, you know, I climbed the ladder, but it wasn't my ladder. And I still get calls at three in the morning by XYZ from bank of America, cause something, some fire is happening and like, need to respond to it. And it says this, I could tell there was this like lack of full fulfillment and like happiness. And I kept thinking and going back to if work is something, whether we want to or not have to do a majority of our life.

I might as well find something that I'm really good at. I enjoy doing. And I think I was told this line that a lot of us were told of, if you find something you love, you never work a day in your life. And I used to think that was like just some like BS. And then I did the college laundry thing. was like, I actually loved that. There was parts I hated. It was challenging. It was tough. But I really loved the majority of it.

Right, right, right.

And I thought, okay, if that's what it's like at a college level, like what if I did that at a larger scale, like really tried to make a full career out of being an entrepreneur and running a business and doing something for myself. And so I saw all these Uber for X businesses popping up in 2015, know, my year and a little over a year at EY at that point. And I thought, I have no kids, not married. I thankfully graduated without college debt, you know, in part because of the business I started.

I am in the best position ever to take that kind of risk. And in hindsight, it actually wasn't that big of a risk to begin with, but it's, think like everyone, it feels like it, like, what if I fail? I just saw that, know, Uber for X stuff and I knew I needed to go do it, but I was scared. What would my family think of me? What would the, you my peers at EY think? I mean, there are all these like smart, you know, top 20 undergrad people, know, partners making a million plus dollars a year and I'm going to have to...

It feels like it.

go do an exit interview where I tell them I'm going to leave a big four consulting firm to go start a laundry business. You can imagine how nerve wracking that was. And I want to share this and I've shared this on other shows before, but I have to do an exit interview when I'm leaving EY. And there's this one partner, his name was Mike Onak, kind of a scary name too. And he was like one of the guys that opened the Charlotte office for EY a couple of decades ago. And he's a tough guy.

And I remember going into the interview, nervous, shaking, you know, Alex, here you're leaving. What are you, what are you leaving for? And I tell him, I'm going to go start my own pickup and delivery laundry and dry cleaning business. And I'm waiting for him to laugh at me. And instead I get the exact opposite. I saw this guy who was kind of an intimidating presence. He's a very successful person at EY. And I can tell, he starts to tell me the story of one of his biggest regrets.

you

And it was that he didn't go and start, had this idea for a wealth type of practice, wealth advisory practice in his mid to late twenties. And he's like, I think about that probably every other week. And I never did it. Like I'm successful here. I make a lot of money, but he's the one who said that line. I climbed the ladder, but it wasn't my ladder. And I regret it again, almost every other week. And he, kid you not.

got like a little teary-eyed as he was telling me this. And I was like, this is a guy who, in the outside looking in, has figured it all out, has made all this money, has been successful in corporate, and even he is not fully fulfilled and fully satisfied with the decisions he's made throughout his life. that to me, and he, so that really shocked me and gave me a sense of like, this is the right decision. But then he also told me when I was leaving, Alex, and if this thing doesn't work out for you,

we would hire you back in a heartbeat. You're going to see and experience things that people here might not be exposed to for a number of years because it's just a slower track. And that really gave me permission. And not that I needed the permission, but it really gave me permission that this was the right thing. didn't need to feel the shame or embarrassment or judgment that I thought might have existed. And it really proved to me that fear of doing something else is all in my head and it's self-created. And a lot of people can't get over that.

Yeah.

It is this, no, it's so much there too. But if I guess first question, did Mike ever go out on his own and start something even later? Or did he retire at EYs? He's still plugging away.

He retired, he was older. I want to say he was in his, and EY I think makes you retire at like 55. And so I think he was in his like early 50s at this time. So he's retired at this point and he's done. And again, has a ton of money and success from that perspective, but you could tell he's like, didn't have my like professional athlete career when I could have kind of thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I get it. mean, I'm late to this. was in my early fifties when this whole process started and you said something early on that I think is so important to folks still in corporate is you don't understand. I don't want to say it's easy to make money, but like I said, when I transitioned, I was in consulting too. I'm like, Oh, I went to a consulting. I convinced them to bring me on full time, right? Because, Hey, we can build out this practice and do these things, but yet it was still.

in corporate, I didn't have final say on decisions and anyway moved into my own path. But it kind of took me a couple of years to figure out that yeah, this isn't necessarily rocket science, right? There's ways to make money. And it's the people that take action. And it's it's just as simple as you saying, know what, I'm going to go do this.

You

And you know, kind of what, opened my eyes early in what I'm trying to do this podcast is show people the paths. There's so many different paths. And when I first started coaching folks and is life outside of corporate right for me.

And it was mostly when I started this, I was focused on Gen X. I'm like, we paid our dues. We've been in corporate for 25 years. Let's use our experience to go. After about a year, I realized this isn't a Gen X problem. It's a corporate problem. But when, but a lot of the folks I was talking to, Gen Xers, but this kid who was 23, maybe 24, not even in consulting, but was a CRM specialist in a company. like, can I do this on my own? I'm like, a hundred percent, right? Small businesses struggle with data. They may or may not have a CRM. I would put together a little package. You can go in on a monthly.

Hahaha

basis and say, I can clean up your data and set this up. Never thought I'd hear from them again, but like six weeks later, he's like, Hey, I already got three clients, right? And very limited experience, but he's like, I went and had the conversations and it's a problem that these businesses had. So that's when I'm like, I, I've got to get more aggressive because if you've got 25 years experience, there's ways you can go take advantage of this thing. So that's really what fueled my mission to go get and talk to folks like you, right? That share.

Hahaha

that experience. So anyway, I didn't want to gloss over that fact.

Well, you made me had a realization as you were saying that too. And I think it's when you're at the stage in your career that I was, or that this individual that you just mentioned was in, you have the lack of maybe confidence because you don't have the number of years of experience and you're not sure that people might pay you for this thing that you know how to do. But what you do have is this curiosity, naiveness, that's almost an advantage where you're like,

Yeah, whatever. I'll go try almost like I did. You know, don't have a family or I'll just go figure it out. Worst case scenario, I'll have to find something else. And so there's that persona. But then there's the person that's been there for 10 plus years who now has so much valuable experience managing people, operations, understanding P &Ls, navigating, even the navigating of politics within a corporation, like all of these skills that you have and you're so valuable, but you've lost that like almost childlike.

Right, no fear.

naiveness and curiosity. again, I don't know how to describe it, but you've people get kind of stuck and they lose, you know, they lose that sense of themselves and ability to, you know, to go do it. And it's like, you have to speak differently to those two different personas and, and, know, create that confidence again in different ways. But both are, I think equipped in their own right to go be their own boss, do their own thing, bet on themselves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think part of what it is, longer you're in corporate, the more you're stuck in that box. Cause I think back to my early corporate days, my first job, I'm like, why do we have this distribution center here? This is dumb, right? Just things that you see. That's just, and it's just the way it's always been. And then over year over year, you just kind of get pushed in tighter into the box. Don't rock the boat, right? Don't make the waves. And then pretty soon you kind of forget what that, that innocence was, or that why wouldn't we do it? Even if you know it's the dumbest thing ever.

Ha

Yep.

You're not saying it's just not worth the effort to get to go after it. And so the other thing I think even late in your career, right? When I had kids, I mean, college, I got weddings coming up. you would think, whoa, don't rock. One corporate is in as safe as it yet. Unless you get to that C-suite or partner level and a consulting firm.

Yeah

You're probably not going to pay if you want to live the life that I want to live and right now, you know, work off of a draw for 401k for 35 years, right? You're going to have to find something else. So that's the only thing I find with any age. Everybody still wants to work. They have no problem putting an effort in doing it. They're just done with the corporate game. So,

I think the risk piece is one I'd be curious. know you weren't in there very long, but it's not as risky as people want to make it out. You can always go back to corporate if this isn't for you, but I don't know if you'd had thoughts on that before.

Yeah, no, definitely. I I think it's a lot of decisions around jobs, money. You there's some level of risk weighting, you know, and tolerance we're all doing. And I would say that is one different, because I'd ask questions of like, what do think makes an entrepreneur? What makes, you know, an operator? It's all these things. And I have no doubt most people that have, you know, some level of challenging corporate experience, the capability is there. The skill set is there.

And so it's in them. It's just now they needed to develop the confidence and the ability to go and the appetite for risk and getting a few of those small wins to see it through and not give up. Cause a lot of people will try something for six months and then they give up because I should, I knew I should have stayed in my safety box and I knew I should have done that. And so a lot of it's also just like, you know, that perseverance, I think to break through, to naturally kind of reset your risk tolerance to where it probably was when you were in high school and college and Hey, I can go do these things and I'll,

Right

I'll be fine. I'll still live. And so when I have people that are, they've got families or they have other, you know, real, their real responsibilities. I don't want to just wipe them under the rug is you get really, you make it a math formula, like a budgeting exercise, almost of like, Hey, if I were to go do this and the worst case scenario were to happen, what does it cost me? Not in opportunity costs, even though you should consider it, you know, what do I give up an income? should definitely still think about it, but what does it actually cost me? If I've got a couple hundred grand squirreled away,

Right.

or whatever it may be, and my family spends six grand a month and my wife has a job or doesn't have a job, lay it out. What can you realistically sustain if you make zero money? And the reality is, you're not going to make zero money for a whole year unless you're terrible at this. And then in six to eight months, you've gotten zero clients and no progress, then yeah, you should maybe go back to corporate or finding something else that works. But I like to break it down because then the fear...

Right.

you know, the rational part of our brain can start to really combat the maybe emotional, irrational part of our brain that brings up these fear, you know, responses that aren't necessarily real. I'll share an example that I had when I was a first year into doing the laundry thing. We had five guys living in a three bedroom apartment because we didn't have, so like our math equation didn't really work because we didn't have much money saved. I had some money for my laundry business in college, but the other two guys didn't. And so, you know,

Yeah.

We had to be very, very scrappy, scrappier than most because of us being younger in our career. didn't have a war chest or a cushion behind us. And there were a couple of moments in the first year where I couldn't sleep. I felt like all these people are depending on me. They took a bet on me. We'd just started to raise some money from investors. Now I got people putting serious money behind us. I'm not a CEO. I'm 25 years old and I've got people.

in their thirties and forties working for me. And I'm like, they just think I'm a kid because I am kind of a kid still. And there was a lot of self doubt and a lot of sleepless nights. And I eventually had a conversation with myself and said, Alex, you will never be what you're capable of being if you keep just constantly bringing fear into your brain and doubt and viewing yourself this way. And so what I did is I did this exercise where I played out all the worst case scenarios. I was like, what if you do fail miserably and all those investors lose money?

Yeah.

people don't have a job anymore and you're a failure. Like what actually happens? And I'd never stopped and like really forced myself to think about all these paths. And the conclusion was, all right, worst case scenario, no one's dead. All right, so there's no like, no death or like, you know, irreversible things happening, no serious injury. Okay, so great. No like permanent, you know, irreversible things happening.

I was like, you are probably out an income you could have made for a year or two equating in after tax of, I don't know, 50 to 75 grand. All right, in the grand scheme of things, big deal. These investors who are already very wealthy people have a little bit less wealth and they got into this knowing the risk of what's their angel investing and doing what they're doing on purpose. And whether you're a startup or you're buying a car wash, people investing are doing their diligence, you're giving them the information and they are making their decision and taking a bet.

Right.

Some are riskier and some are less risky bets. But again, these people that are doing that are doing this from a position likely of strength and they have a number of bets out. And so worst case scenario for them, a wealthy person is a little less wealthy. So I actually started to feel not that I didn't care about my fiduciary responsibility to them. It was just, I was more accepting of, as long as I work my hardest and have good intentions, if we end up failing, you know, it wasn't for a lack of trying, those people are not going to be mad at you and judge you and be angry with you and try to find good investors as well that will understand that. So that group is safe.

The people working for me that might be out of jobs, well, if you're good at hiring people and you're being picky about who you surround yourself with because that matters so much as you're building a business, you know these people are highly capable and someone would gladly have them on their team. And you're gonna be the person you've always been, Alex. You're gonna be a good person. You're gonna help them find a landing spot and they'll also be okay. So now it's you, Alex. You're left with all this failure and you're ashamed.

And I was like, remember what that partner told you is like, you'd be better equipped and better off before this experience than you would have been had you stayed at EY. Well, honestly, even if you fail, look at all the stuff you learned that your peer group is not even thinking about and not getting that experience doing. And so even a loss is a win for you, Alex, especially at this juncture for you and your career. And so I laid it all out and I was like, what the hell am I not sleeping for? And I didn't have a sleep, I haven't had a sleepless night since. And I take that approach with almost everything in my life, relationships.

you know, marriage, a friendship, a new venture. It's like, what's the worst that can happen and can you come back from it or not? And most of the time it's like, yep, you're not dead. You're not, you know, bodily harm that's irreversible. Like you will find a way back. And that is such a peaceful, you know, comforting realization that's allowed me to go take risk beyond what I traditionally would have been comfortable taking.

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I never even thought about pushing it this far as you do, but it makes so much sense, right? What is the absolute worst case, right? You're still alive. End of story, right? it's, It's, again, I think too, when you're comparing it to corporate, if you get caught in a layoff, it's probably an eight to 12 month cycle to find a new job. If one, you find the job you like, and two, if these companies start hiring again, so might as well become self-sufficient. It's, mean, and the other thing I've started really encouraging people, which has opened some

Hahaha

eyes is if your employer was you are a business one right now but your only client is your employer is that was that a good customer for you probably not right I mean is this somebody that you would actually keep as if you were a business and I think getting people to reframe how they do this even if you go solo for six months realize right again it's not selling it's problem-solving and a lot of those

The experience you get from doing that, you can take back into corporate and not be so reactionary, right? We just, again, we just get beat down the longer that you're there and you just accept things for the way they are. You don't have to, right? It's, taking that control. But like I I love this exercise. I'll give you full credit when I put people through it, but yeah, what's, what's the worst case that that's going to happen. And when you put it, lay it out, you're like, yeah, I guess that's a good point. Right.

Ha

It's not so bad. It's not. And some people's answer, I mean, I'll be honest, I've seen the flip side of that where I do this exercise with people that want to buy, you know, franchise business. We're helping them and they're like, look, I've got three kids, my wife's a stay at home, you know, mom, we've got, you know, a couple hundred grand saved and these, you know, with an SBA loan, they got to guarantee the house. And I've got three kids under 18. Their math does start to get tougher. There's doesn't mean there's no solution, but they have more on the line. They have,

Hey, can your wife go back to work? Is that an option? Hey, can you raise capital and you be the operating partner so you're putting less up? There's still solutions even in the more dire or tougher equations I look at. There's still a possibility if you are willing to believe in yourself and bet on yourself. And so for those listening that are in that situation, I don't want people to give up either and say, hey, my worst case scenario is actually pretty bad. It's like you're never truly backed into a corner.

tougher, yeah.

If you reach out with your arms, there's a wall on both sides, and that means you got two options. And so it's not like you're stuck in one spot. And I try to make sure people are thinking that way. Again, if this is something they believe in and believe in themselves.

Eyes wide open,

Yeah. And I've had some folks that have gone back into corporate, to build a runway. I'm like, they're like, you know what, the solo path, this is where I'm going. I just need another year in corporate to build a nest egg, to be able to go do this the way I want. I'm like, start getting some clients again, obviously non conflicts, those types of things. There's absolute ways to start making money while you're still in corporate to, to do this. But I'm with you. There's a, if you want it, right. It's if you don't want it you're not sold on it, it's going to be hard to, get behind, but.

I think of all the folks, I've had thousands of, at least a thousand conversations now with folks and I think less than 10 % go back into corporate.

Because that's just the preferred path that some may go back to make I said make more money But once you get out and you have control of your time you have control of your future It's really hard to look at corporate the same way But it's so hard to be able to communicate that me from here to folks still in corporate the like Brett You don't understand like I do understand I was there

But I understand exactly what they're, what they're saying. So, um, that's the other thing I found everybody needs their spark moment as much as you can lay out all the pros, the cons, the benefits, the worst case scenarios. It's like leading a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Everybody's got that moment when they're, they've either had enough or they're, ready to go. so like I said, I haven't figured out the secret sauce to get more people to prep for it. Be ready in case I plan for the worst hope for the best, but.

Hmm.

Yep.

But that's the mission that we're going to keep fighting to get more and more of these folks. So, all right, with that said, I did want to spend the majority talking about franchise as an option. So maybe you kind of walk us through how you came up with the idea for Franzi, what it is, and then we can get into a little bit of if you're still in corporate, hey, is this a path for me? But I'm curious about the origin story of why you built this.

Yeah. So I'll start with the, the second laundry business I did, you know, after my, my stint at EY, you know, that was, and I'll try to hit the highlights so we can get into the francy piece, but it was an eight year, you know, Uber for X was happening. was Postmates, DoorDash, Instacart shipped all these on demand, everything. And just, felt like, especially with Amazon, everyone wants it now. They want convenience. And I thought, why don't I do what I did in college, but on a larger scale, like single.

you know, uh, single family homes, dual income families with household, know, sorry, dual income households with kids that you have more money than time. Like would they pay for this and use this even if they have a washer and dryer? And we bootstrapped to 60 grand a a month, sorry, 60 grand a month in revenue on our own. And then we raised some capital and we thought, all right, there's some product market fit here. And then over the next eight years, we raised 33 million in venture capital. We, we launched, you know, a dozen plus cities.

Okay.

And then learned a lot. mean, it was an up and down roller coaster that, you know, that's story still being written there. but we started vertically integrating in 2018 and building physical laundromats because we, you know, the quality we had to protect the unit economics were better. And it was not what we were initially anticipating, but enough of things happened that told us we need to build our own stores and have control of our own destiny. So we built these stores in a partnership with Electrolux. That worked really well. And the hurdle became, well, laundromats aren't cheap.

Right.

close to 40 stores open today. And that's where I got this idea for Fransy as I saw how people are exploring franchise concepts. I saw how many people were working with brokers. I saw how much money brands were paying brokers. And I just thought this feels like good old boys club and very misaligned and 60 % commissions being paid. Yeah, six zero. And I thought, why don't we do what Zillow did where, you you democratize access to all the data.

Wow, okay.

You can go do some online shopping for homes by yourself. And then most people still engage a real estate agent, but they've done a lot of heavy lifting. They know what they like, they want, they've thought through things a little bit more. And some people do go buy direct and they save 3 % of the purchase price. Our thought was, can we do something similar for business buying and selling, starting with franchises specifically? And so think of Franzy as the Zillow for buying and selling franchise businesses.

Thank

We launched, we started working on the platform summer of 2024 and then launched officially in January of 2025. So we're about a year in, we've helped dozens of people find the right fit, leave corporate, some of them are commercial real estate guys that want to diversify their income and their existing portfolio of businesses they own. Some are sophisticated franchisees that are, they own 50 units of a couple of concepts, but they want to find the next one.

And we helped them do that. So it really ranges from people just getting into it, leaving corporate to, you know, folks that are five to 10 years into their franchise journey. if you have a portfolio doing 50 million in revenue or 40 million in revenue across 20 locations. So it really, it really ranges. And we help soup to nuts from the moment you have the idea of buying your first or 10th franchise to getting open. help with finding the right lending options, entity formation.

We give you free one-on-one coaching with folks that have been or are franchisees themselves. I own a few units of a few different concepts myself. And our team has that same prerequisite. They have to have had some level of franchise experience because we want to make sure we're giving advice and help that is valid or based on experience. And then we've built this very robust AI model that takes all this data from 4,000 plus franchise brands plus other third-party data.

Census data, Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And we then match that with Brett's unique characteristics as an individual. What is Brett's risk tolerance? What is Brett's financial capability and picture? What is Brett's background and operational experience? And then ultimately, what are Brett's goals and interests so that it's something you could actually see yourself enjoy, see yourself enjoying doing? And we use the AI to then pare down from the 4,000 plus concepts. What are Brett's top 10? And that's where

an advisor comes in, hey, we've looked at these first 10, what do you like, not like, we give feedback, we go through the list again, and then we get you in front of the brands, warm introductions, and you're now having that relationship kind of forming time with the brand to see if you like them and they like you and if it's a good fit or not.

Okay.

Yeah, I love, I love that. Again, that's when I heard this concept. I'm like, yeah, it's been a long time coming that, cause it does, again, I think this makes sense where I used to joke business in a box, right? And every franchise a little bit different. I shared offline my experience early in my career with a not great franchise because it wasn't the right, it was completely solo. I came into it after it was already done, but,

They did provide some of the support, right? The operating support, but I mean, what I tried to do and I called in every favor I could, because it was a bagel franchise. don't know if anybody I've told that on the podcast, but this was in the nineties. So before the full bagel boom, but I was new to the operating model and they, wasn't getting it from California. So I called in every favor I could to see if I could get into McDonald's you. Right. Because McDonald's and their franchise is that university they had in Oakbrook, which was just down the road for me. I'm like, I couldn't get in. said absolutely not. No.

favors, you can't call anybody in because it's only for their franchises to go through. But I understood that the power of having that process and the support to do it. like I said, even when I or a couple years ago, I still started looking at some different franchises. I think one was in stretch labs and some other newer concepts that are coming out. So like I said, when I heard you on the different podcasts, you know what I need to reconsider, I still need to consider this because I think from a portfolio career diversifying,

Ha ha.

I think franchise, it makes sense. So maybe for the audience, if they haven't thought about what franchise, maybe take a step back, franchise is, what's your definition of franchise? Who's the ideal candidate for this? And maybe some of, which I think a lot of us still think about it's Jimmy John's or McDonald's or that are franchises, but there's literally, you just said 4,000 different concepts, right?

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you asked that way too is taking a step back. A lot of times people think franchising is a it's an industry and while there's elements of it being an industry, it's really a business model. And the business model is that, hey, I as a franchisor have developed the brand, a playbook, a series of competitive advantages. Maybe it's bulk purchasing power. Maybe it's a big national account we have or we get customers from. Maybe it's a technology I invented that better enables you to more efficiently

or with higher quality operate your business. And then I license that essentially, or allow you to do that in exchange for you paying me some sort of ongoing royalty to use that competitive advantage. But that competitive advantage should be, should generate a greater value than the five to 10%, whatever royalty it is that you're paying me. And so everyone wins. I get expansion and reach with this competitive advantage I've created without having to operate all of these small businesses essentially nationwide.

And you get to start on square three instead of square one as an operator and have the fallback support of a peer group of other franchisees and me as a franchisor. And so that's the value of this, but it's a business model in my opinion, versus a industry. And that model expand, covers so many industries from health and wellness to senior care to early childhood development to fitness concepts to.

Yeah, I like that.

food and bev and your quick service restaurants to hospitality. Most people don't realize Marriott's and Hilton's, they're franchises. A lot of hotels are franchises. And it's 8 % of our country's GDP. It is a massive part of our economy. And just it gets kind of overlooked. And I've tried to figure out why I think part of it's because most people assume, that's McDonald's and Subway and that's for wealthy people and it's unattainable. And so you kind of write it off as an option or a path for you.

Or there's the other side where it's like the brand new, super emerging, definitely riskier brands and they hear horror stories from friends where they got into something too soon and they got burnt by it. And the brand didn't have that competitive advantage fully developed yet. And there was risk there. doesn't mean, franchising isn't mailbox money where you put a dollar in over here and you get $3 out the other side. You are very much still an entrepreneur, a business owner making a lot of your own decisions.

and running the business like you would if you were doing it on your own. Again, you're just starting from step three instead of step one. And if your goal is to get to step 10, you saved yourself some time and some headache, but you still have.

Yeah, I like to say you put guardrails on the business, right? So as a solo or just as a starting business or buying a business, right? There's no, there's no guardrails. You make a wrong turn. It's going to be hard for you to get it back on. You can, you learn, but I mean, that's one of the things like, and again, I'm assuming part of your process is vetting their, their models and their process and satisfaction for it. But yeah, it just de-risks, I think some of that as well, because you don't have to be a

Yep.

seasoned operator in a lot of cases for this to work.

Exactly. The other thing I think about too, and I mentioned it earlier, is there's so much that you do learn in corporate. Again, managing people, operations, understanding a P &L, training might be part of it, depending on what your background is. It's actually kind of a training ground to become a multi-unit franchise or business owner. You have a lot of those transferable skills just because you don't know anything about gutters or laundromats or...

restaurants doesn't mean you can't figure that part out and transfer the other skills that are very similar. People management, P &L understanding, talking to customers, et cetera. A lot of it transfers over.

Yeah, and I know you can't talk about favorites, but are there any interesting new concepts that are coming up that we wouldn't even think it'd be available for franchises? Like said, I think we think of auto centers and restaurants. didn't even realize Marriott was franchise model. But what's some of the newer interesting ones that we're starting to see? Because I'm guessing this is going to evolve, right, as the world evolves into different businesses, that there's always going to be a franchise opportunity for somebody looking to scale.

Yeah, it's as even as industries change and expand or decline, like franchising is kind of ebbing and flowing with it. There's years where if someone asked me, how's franchising doing this year? It really depends on how is how are all these industries that franchising is involved in? How are they doing? Because, you know, I might say senior care franchises are booming right now because there's a huge aging population. But food's taken a little bit of a hit because there's all these new concepts and people are way more conscious about their

yeah.

your health and what they're putting into their body. And so some these fast food concepts are down. someone who doesn't understand franchising fully and might have, you know, again, initially thought franchising is McDonald's and Subway might think franchising is bad and it's down because all the restaurants are bad and down, but they forget about the home services franchises or the senior care franchises that are doing really well right now. And so when you ask, you know, which, which areas are you interested in? Like I, you know, I like senior care a lot right now. There's still

And we do market research on our own and we'll call into different markets, acting as customers for certain things, just to see what does demand look like and service quality. And with senior care, there's wait lists for months and sometimes a year plus for availability, but there's all this pent up demand. And so think there's a lot of opportunity for in-home senior care, in-home medical based care, because those are two different things. I think there's opportunities for more facility based care.

to be developed that's franchise and has benefits there. I like home services as well. just, mean, even during COVID when people were worried about getting furloughed and, you know, layoffs, et cetera, people were still spending tons of money on home improvements and their space, know, their personal space. And so some home services that are more needs versus wants, I like a lot, cause there's more kind of durability and, you know,

ability to withstand tougher economic times and they're cheaper to get into home services brands. You don't need to build a physical location. You know, a lot of them you're out for a truck and some equipment and you know, the franchise fee is relatively affordable and you can get started for under 200 grand or you know, 150, 100 to 150 grand. So for those they're more accessible and some people, you know, if their backgrounds in sales or you know, that type of work.

A lot of home services are high ticket sales at the end of the day. And so you, as an owner operator, that skill transfers and you've a crew that's doing the actual building of the fence or reroofing or pool installation, whatever it may be. Um, so I like that category for a lot of people too. There's one called garage Kings or they just epoxy garages and put, you know, custom storage into the garage.

Yeah.

you

They just started doing new garage doors and before they even offered that just with the epoxy and the shelving, the average unit volume was over a million dollars in revenue per territory. And you don't need a lot of equipment for that. It's epoxy and you order the shelving from the franchisor and you got a smallish crew installing those. so the margins are pretty good on that million dollars. And for a lot of people that more than replaces their corporate income.

Really interesting.

Now they've added garage doors where they're actually replacing garage doors, which is a little bit more specialized labor But that's added another half a million or so in revenue to each territory because they've got a whole new and they're expanding That's why I like about franchise oars is they're adding new products new services They're you know, they're experimenting at their corporate locations and then rolling it out more broadly when they've proven it in There's one called Waterloo turf that's interesting as well. They do artificial turf I think

You know, my generation, especially they're looking for more experiences and they don't like to do a lot of manual labor. And so they'd rather spend their time having someone else, you know, order the groceries and deliver their house, the food. You know, they don't want to cut their own grass. So they're paying people to cut their grass or you go to the next level and you just don't have grass. You have turf, you turf your whole backyard. And in some cases, municipalities are actually prohibiting

Right.

people from growing grass because of the water usage. So in Las Vegas, for example, is actually starting in 2026. You can't grow grass in Las Vegas, you're not allowed to anymore. And so a lot of people are turfing their yards and commercial apartment buildings or multi-unit apartment buildings, have turf for dog areas. And it's just, again, they don't have to have ongoing maintenance anymore. You have someone to come cut the grass. So they just have the one-time expense and then they're done. So that's an interesting franchise.

Interesting.

When I say there's a franchise for everyone and everything, there really is.

You weren't kidding.

Yeah, I, again, thinking too, right? Cause there's probably macro trends, like thinking about longevity and right, there's a good chance we'll live to a hundred. I'm much older than you. So you may even be over a hundred. think mine is nine better than a 50 chance, 50 % chance of me living past 90 years is probably over a hundred. And just the, know some of that's healthcare, but I think there's right. used to be the gyms and then there was Jenny Craig's of the world. And so I think, so I think there's probably a path for macro trends, but there's also the,

like the home services aren't going away. Plumbering isn't going away, right? Things you need around AI is not going to fix that. You still need folks to come and do these things. yeah, you've got me excited. I've got to get back in and get my profile filled out because I'm actually super curious to see what's out there and what the landscape looks like with franchise, the new franchise concepts as well. Probably there's some that I didn't realize were franchises.

Ha

There's a couple of goofy ones I'll share. I there's ones for like picking up dog poop in people's yards as a franchise. There's an AI, it's like a virtual reality franchise where you can go and it's for kids birthday parties and stuff. And it's just like immersive AI experience, almost like a modern arcade, if you will. And then there's one for crime scene cleanup. It's called Bio One, but like you're going to clean up some kind of pretty gnarly.

you know, stuff and people, of course, you can imagine they pay people a lot of money to do that because people don't want to do, you know, it's not a job that, you know, necessarily people really want to do, but there's a, there's a franchise for that.

stuff.

They're signing up, yeah. I didn't know that was a friend, just, I don't know, it's a funny story, but probably 15 years ago I was playing golf in a tournament with some groups and one of the guys, pair we were paired up with.

worked for owned a company called Aftermath. Exactly what you would think. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, mean, fire departments aren't supposed to police departments aren't supposed to have contacts, but they tell the homeowners like, hey, there's this company does this type of work type of thing. And he's, it was unbelievably profitable for what they're doing. And they were using, I think paramedics and firemen as the cleanup crew to come in after it just.

Yeah, never would have thought. I don't know if that's my appetite, but I'm sure somebody out there would be, somebody's got to do it, right? That's the end of the day. So this is awesome, Alex. Thank you. I appreciate you. You spend the time. Is there anything that we didn't cover? I know we were across the board on some stuff, but.

Mm-mm.

Yeah.

No, one of the only things I would say, and you kind of touched on it earlier, like, as a corporate employee, it's like you have one customer, it's the employer, and that's a lot of exposure and risk that you have versus you owning your own business. might have hundreds of customers where you're diversifying some of that. And the other kind of analogy that I've been thinking of more recently, and you said something that made me think about it, was you're not...

You're not building equity necessarily in a job. It's kind of like leasing a house at any point. The landlord can say, Hey, you're out. moving back in or, you know, I've got another tenant I want to have come in and, you know, replace you essentially that, you know, that's an analogy. Yeah, that could be an analogy for AI today. Um, but if you own the house and in this case, if you, you own the business, whether it's franchised or not, you are getting paid.

Yeah, thanks for your time.

while also having asset appreciation, you're building a business that is generating value and has an exit outcome and potential and multiple to private equity, to another franchisee in that system. But similar to buying a home, again, you're building equity. And I just think that that's a theme that a lot of people maybe take for granted or look over. And I just wanted to highlight that again, as you think about your job.

think about it as you leasing your house for your whole life, which a lot of people wouldn't do because they're like, I want the equity and I want the asset. Why wouldn't you do the same with your career and your own self-worth and self-value?

In control, right? You're just not in control of anything in that corporate career anymore. Again, unless you make it to the C-suite, which then you've got a nice payoff and you probably don't have to worry about anything. Um, short of that, it's completely reactionary, right? To your point, the good quarter, we're going to lay off, right? We're pulling back the police house. We're tearing it down, right? We're just not going to get you. So good luck here is, you know, six weeks of pay, go figure something out. And I think just having that control is, so important. And again, I think, like I

Yeah.

I've always been a fan of the franchise and I think it just if folks out there in corporate thinking about now's the time to explore this right go see what it's gonna take maybe do work in corporate for two more years side you know put some

Stockpile some money off to the side and say all right. I know it's gonna take a $50,000 investment this type of time frame, but I can see myself doing this so Again, I appreciate you sharing the possibility and I love when people reinvent an old industry. So Appreciate you doing that. I'm sure there's other out there that you could go after but I'm guessing this is gonna be the focus for a bit because you said this are you gonna do this for

Selling businesses as well down the road right franchises. Now are you looking at businesses? I thought I heard you kind of mention that

Yeah. So we're actually already starting to help people to resale. So if you do come to us and you say, Hey, I want to buy an existing business. It's still within the franchise arena for now. But if you say, instead of starting a, you know, Jimmy John's or a, restore, you know, hyper wellness, fitness, retail business, I want to buy an existing one. I want to build, know, find the site and develop it and build it from the ground up. I want to go buy Brett's existing cash flowing business. we also help.

people will identify and navigate that as well. Same site, you still go to Franzy. The first question really is like, which brand, right? What can you afford? What are you gonna be good at? What does your risk tolerance allow? And then there's the path of you wanna buy an existing one or develop one in a territory that hasn't been opened yet. And we help navigate both of those.

Trust me. The Axe of the Union.

That's awesome. No, I'm excited. Like I said, you'll see me poking around there quite a bit here in the not too distant future. So, um, that's awesome. All right. Well, I appreciate the time Alex and you're welcome back anytime talking about this. Cause I have a strong sense that this is going to get some, some positive feedback just because it's again, I think it's a path people probably didn't consider, but they absolutely should. So I appreciate you spending a few minutes with us today.

Love it. Yeah, well, we're here to help.

Yep. Thanks for having me on Brett. And if anyone wants to follow our content or check out any of our stuff, you can look for Alex from Franzy on X or Twitter or my full name, Alex Smirsnak on LinkedIn or Instagram. And we've got all sorts of good educational content, newsletter, podcasts as well. So feel free to check it out.

Yeah, absolutely. And we'll obviously link to that in the show notes so people can find it. But if not, it's F-R-A-N-Z-Y and you can't miss it. all right. Thanks, Alex.

Thanks, Brett.