Built to sell. Driven to open.
Franchise Drive helps proven emerging brands build the franchise program, generate and qualify candidates, manage the sales process, and move signed franchisees toward opening. Every engagement is led by operators who have built and scaled real franchise systems.
200+
Locations open and in development in the founder’s own system
9 → 51
Location growth, early 2022 to end of 2024 (FDD-reported)
20+
States the founder’s brand operates across
0
Franchise terminations or non-renewals, 2022–2024
Founded by the operator behind a national health-and-wellness franchise — grown from nine locations to a system of 200+ open and in development, with national press recognition and pro-sports partnerships along the way. Read the full story.
These figures are the team's prior operating experience with its own brands — not Franchise Drive client results.
Why units fail to move from sold to open
Signing a franchise agreement is the easy half. Site selection stalls, opening teams don't get hired, training ramps compress — and a sold territory quietly becomes a number that never opens. Most sales reports emphasize awards. We report awards and openings, side by side.
That's why our model runs through opening: misaligned incentives can put the close ahead of long-term fit, so we qualify for long-term fit and track every award through opening — with a service line dedicated to exactly that.
Validate. Build. Sell. Open.
01
Validate
Your unit economics, your FDD, your readiness — audited honestly before anything is sold. If the numbers don’t support franchising yet, we say so here.
02
Build
FDD coordination with your counsel, Item 19 preparation, territory architecture, operations playbooks and training design.
03
Sell
A qualified pipeline generated under your brand — sourcing, Item 19-anchored education, validation, discovery days. You approve every award.
04
Open
Onboarding, opening-readiness support and recruiting for critical leadership roles, tracked until the unit is open and reporting.
Food, beverage and wellness is the business we know from the inside
We don't develop every kind of franchise. We work with emerging food, beverage, health and wellness brands, because that's where our team has actually operated — which means the advice is specific, not borrowed.
- Restaurant and retail unit economics
- Real estate and opening timelines
- Labor models and manager recruiting
- Item 19 development from store-level financials
- Franchisee validation that holds up
- Store-level operations and support cadences
- Moving agreements from sold to open
Nine locations to a national system
Before Franchise Drive, our founder built an emerging wellness brand into a national franchise system — the FDD, the pipeline, the openings, the mistakes included. The full case study, with dated numbers, is public.
No lead resellers — here's what replaces them
- Paid search and paid social, run under your brand
- Founder-led content and organic search
- Direct outreach to qualified operator profiles
- Referral sources and industry relationships
- Retargeting and structured nurture
- Franchise events, where the sector supports them
The media budget is yours, agreed before launch, and spent through your own accounts — so the audience data and the pipeline belong to you. You see the channel mix, the spend and the results in a weekly report: qualified candidates by stage, conversion, declines and why, and awards versus openings.
We say no more than we say yes
A good fit looks like
- A validated concept with real, defensible unit economics
- Operating locations a candidate can walk into
- Franchisees — or early customers — who would vouch for you on a call
- Capital allocated to grow, not growth expected to fund itself
We'll pass on
- Pre-revenue concepts looking for a program to make them real
- Brands that want volume at any cost
- Any engagement that requires stretching an Item 19
Know what you're buying before you buy it
Ungated, plain-language explainers on how this industry actually works — FSOs vs brokers, what firms like ours really charge, and what your sales partner is never allowed to say. Read them before you sign with anyone. Including us.
Read the explainers