SALES/ What Causes LAUNCH/ Google’s CAREER/ How to Go From

Hockey-Stick Growth P.20 Formula Career P.38 Employee to Boss P. 80

May-June 2023 / Entrepreneur.com

Your customers are speaking.

KHLOÉ KARDASHIAN and EMMA GREDE
mastered the art of engaging them—and pulled in
$200 million in annual sales.
 Behind every delivery is
a well-orchestrated effort.
We’re reinventing our network so you can deliver more value,
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 May-June 2023

FEATURES

P.30

Listen
Closely!
How did Khloé Kardashian
and Emma Grede build Good
American into a leading
size-inclusive fashion brand?
By deeply connecting with
(and quickly responding
to) their audience.
by LIZ BRODY

P.38
Google’s Formula
for Massive Ideas
An inside look at how
Google’s “moonshot factory”
turns the biggest ideas
into viable businesses.
by FRANCES DODDS

P.48
How to, Like,
Speak Better ON THE COVER AND THIS PAGE
Photograph by GREG SWALES
Are you self-conscious about
using words like like? KHLOÉ KARDASHIAN
After reading this, you won’t be. Makeup by ASH K HOLM
Hair by IRINEL DE LEÓN
by VALERIE FRIDLAND
Stylist, DANI MICHELLE
Seamstress, MIA PAR ANTO
Manicurist, ZOL A GANZORIGT
Pedicurist, MILLIE MACHADO

→ FASHION DUO EMMA GREDE

Khloé Kardashian and Makeup by CHRISTIANA CASSELL
Emma Grede at a studio Hair by VERNON FR ANÇOIS
in Calabasas, California. Stylist, SIMON ROBINS

May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 1
 May-June 2023

→ HOOKED ON LIKE
People think the word
is lame. But it’s, like, more
powerful than you think.
P.48

18 No Need to Know It All 26 Relieve Your Stress!

EDITOR’S BUSINESS How this founder thrives in
a complex space—by leaning
Juggling too much? Let this
new tech (and a toy) help.
NOTE UNUSUAL into being an outsider.
by LIZ BRODY
by MARIO ARMSTRONG

28 ‘Do I Really Need

8 How to Get a Lot Done
Without Burning Out
Are you managing your time...
or managing your energy?
by JASON FEIFER
11 Are Your Leaders
Creative Enough?
Why more creatives belong
at the top, according to
advertising legend David Droga.
by JASON FEIFER
20 The 3 Triggers
for Huge Growth
Hockey-stick growth is often
caused by three factors.
Here’s how they played out at
Airbnb, Tinder, and more.
by LENNY RACHITSKY
a Personal Brand?’
There are two ways to look
at personal branding:
It’s either indulgent and
self-centered, or it’s the best
tool you’re overlooking.
by ADAM BORNSTEIN

16 The Wrong Stuff

What’s the worst advice you
keep hearing? We shoot it down.
by FRANCES DODDS

2 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023 Illustration / NICOL ÁS ORTEGA

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 May-June 2023

FRANCHISE → LANDING MOONSHOTS

Kathy Hannun was
working at Google’s
“moonshot factory”
56 The Top 150 New when she helped start
and Emerging Brands geothermal energy
Want to buy into a fresh, company Dandelion.
new franchise brand? These
P.38
are the ones to start looking at.
by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

74 How to Find
Good People
Hiring tips from fast-growing
My Eyelab franchisees.
by MADELINE GARFINKLE

76 See the Opportunities

Others Don’t
How Drybar’s founders saw
a big new opening.
by MADELINE GARFINKLE

78 How They Drove

the Most Revenue
A father-and-son duo’s
three-step plan to
outearn everyone.
by KIM KAVIN

80 From Worker to Boss

These people made the
leap. They’ll tell you how.
by KIM KAVIN

89 Top Global Franchises

If you’re looking to
expand outside the U.S.,
check this list.
by TRACY STAPP HEROLD

CLOSER
108 What Inspires Me
How I improved my first
business with a simple shirt.
by JOHN WINNER
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DANDELION

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 EDITOR IN CHIEF Jason Feifer
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Are You
Productive?
Maybe you think you are. I did. But to avoid
burning out, we may need to think differently.
WHAT DOES productivity mean
to you?
Like, literally? What does it
mean for you to have a produc-
tive day?
Here’s my answer, which is
typical: “Productivity” means
I complete a list of tasks. That’s
because I organize my day
around my to-do list, and I feel
productive when I check stuff off.  something resentful, rushed,
But what if…there’s another
way to look at it?
“To me, productivity is about
energy management—not time
management,” says my friend
Katherine Morgan Schafler, a
psychotherapist and author of
the great book The Perfectionist’s
Guide to Losing Control.
To appreciate that, start by
considering the days when you
are not productive. Why didn’t
you finish more tasks? “It’s not
really because we run out of
the time to do them,” Katherine
says. “We run out of the energy
to do them.”
That’s why we must reframe
our idea of productivity.
Katherine first encountered
this in the work of consultants
Tony Schwartz and Catherine
McCarthy, and she said it
changed her life. Consider it:
What if productivity is about
managing your energy, not just
about managing your time? What
if it’s about doing things to keep
ourselves functional tomorrow—
not just burning ourselves out
trying to maximize today?
When we think this way,
8 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
many “unproductive” things
suddenly become productive.
Sleep is productive. A bike
ride is productive. Sharing
your new favorite songs with
a friend is productive. “Just
one hour of premium-quality
energy,” Katherine says, “is
going to serve you better
than 10 hours spent doing
exhausted, confused, disori-
ented in some way.”
When Katherine told me
all this, I replied, “Look, this
makes sense. I relate to it. But
also, entrepreneurs might have
12 hours to complete 14 hours’
worth of tasks. What is someone
to do when they feel a crushing
weight of responsibility, and the
only way to get things done is to
relentlessly do them?”
Katherine’s response changed
the way I think. She said, “What’s
the point of building something if
you can’t maintain it?”
Let it sink in.
I was recently at a bar with an
entrepreneur friend. He’s wildly
stressed. He has new ideas for
products—including one that
I think can make him a lot of
money, and save him a lot of
time, and make his life a lot more
manageable. But he struggles
to explore this great new idea
because he’s so consumed with
other commitments. He doesn’t
want to give any of it up, even as
he reaches a breaking point.
To which I said, with credit
to Katherine, “What’s the point
of building something if you
can’t maintain it?”
My friend paused. “You’re
right,” he said.
Are there times when we must
work hard? Work to exhaustion?
Sure. But the point is to build a
system—or at least, make sure
we’re building toward a system—
that doesn’t demand relent-
lessness. The point is to build
something we can maintain.
If you read this magazine,
it’s probably because you are
a task-oriented person. I am
too. I don’t think a lot about
energy, truth be told. But I
heard Katherine’s words when
I needed them—because I have
been working nearly nonstop for
months, and that has meant see-
ing fewer friends, taking fewer
walks, and reading fewer things.
I once thought I could do this
forever if I needed to, but I was
starting to realize that I couldn’t,
and now it also occurs to me
that I don’t have to.
That’s why, more recently,
I’ve had lunch with old and new
friends—right there, in the mid-
dle of the afternoon, while tasks
could otherwise be completed!
I’ve gone on hour-long walks.
I have just...taken some time.
Today, tomorrow, two days
from now, whenever you can
manage it—step away for a
moment. Do something that
doesn’t feel “productive.”
And then tell yourself: Yes,
this is productive.
Jason Feifer
jfeifer@entrepreneur.com
@heyfeifer
S U B S C R I B E : entm.ag/subscribe
Photograph / N I G E L P A R R Y
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P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E S Y O F D AV I D D R O G A

‘Creativity Has No Ceiling’

Want to improve your business? Advertising legend David Droga has the answer: Add more creative
people to your leadership ranks. b y J A S O N F E I F E R

May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 11
 Q&A

avid Droga is a CEO. But for a long time, he chose to go by a different title: Creative
Chairman. This wasn’t one of those cutesy titles, like Chief Fun Officer, that founders and
CEOs have been giving themselves for years. To Droga, the title reminded him of his
purpose. He rose to prominence with the advertising agency he founded called Droga5,
where he became the most-awarded creative at the Cannes Lions International Festival of
Creativity—and where, he admits, he didn’t need a specific job title at all. “I named the
company after part of my name,” he says, “so I could have called myself ‘head schlepper.’
It didn’t matter.” But he picked Creative Chairman to make a point about where creative people
belong in the business hierarchy: “Creativity has no ceiling,” he says.
The way Droga sees it, creative people are often overlooked in business. Yes, their talents
are appreciated. Their work is monetized. But C-suites are rarely filled with creative types,
and creative types rarely advocate for themselves as leaders or drivers of business. Droga
wants that to change—which is why, when the global professional services company Accenture
acquired his company Droga5 and made him the head of a $16 billion digital communications
arm called Accenture Song, he originally kept his Creative Chairman title (eventually handing
it over to a colleague this February). Now he uses his megaphone to push for more leaders like
himself. Here, Droga explains why creatives should be major decision-makers—and the mis-
takes they often make while trying to get there. 

12 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 THE
SMALL BUSINESS
OWNER NEEDS TO
BE UNSTOPPABLE

STORE
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its franchisees in Canada. Products, services, prices and hours of operation may vary by location. Copyright © 2022 The UPS Store, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Q&A
Why aren’t more creatives in
leadership roles?
There’s a false narrative
that all creative people are
irresponsible; that we are only
concerned with the soft stuff.
At my own agency, the
business plan was to make
relevant, influential work, to
work with people that I liked,
and to produce a product that
I thought was world-class. I’ve
never thought in my entire
career, How much money can
I extract from this situation? I
would always think, What can
we do? I think the average CEO
from a business track thinks,
What can I get out of this situa-
tion? A creative person thinks,
What can I add to this situation?
What can I give to this?
How did you originally make
the leap from a creative to
CEO—or, I’m sorry, Creative
Chairman?
When I first started, I was a
really selfish creative person.
I wanted to do everything
myself. I had a lot of success
doing that. Then as I moved
up the food chain, I discovered
that I actually liked other peo-
ple’s ideas as much as mine. I
liked helping their ideas come
to life. I felt like I’d opened the
aperture of what it was to be a
creator.
It wasn’t like I suddenly
woke up and thought, “I
want to do spreadsheets or
talk about creative values.”
That’s not how I’m wired. But
I am wired to want to see the
impact of what we do. I can
have more of a say in what we
stand for.
You want to see more creative
people in leadership positions.
That means you see something
lacking in how many current
leaders think. What is that?
I think a lot of people get
14 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
promoted because they can
move and pivot between roles
and be great managers of
people, and they’re great with
the purse strings. They don’t
really understand the essence
of what they make.
Don’t get me wrong, I under-
stand the need for people who
know how to operationalize
things. But they can’t forget
what they’re in service of. If
they’re working for a company
that makes a certain product,
that product is their lifeline
and their oxygen. You’re not
going to grow a company into
the future with efficiency
plays.
Not every person in the
C-suite needs to be a creative
person. It would be pandemo-
A LOT OF PEOPLE GET PROMOTED BECAUSE THEY CAN MOVE AND
PIVOT BETWEEN ROLES AND BE GREAT MANAGERS OF PEOPLE,
AND THEY’RE GREAT WITH THE PURSE STRINGS. THEY DON’T
REALLY UNDERSTAND THE ESSENCE OF WHAT THEY MAKE.”
nium. I’m just advocating for
there to be more.
Now you’re a CEO, but you
clearly identify as a creative
person. Is that so you don’t
lose touch with the creative
side?
I’m sure that’s true. It’s funny,
because when people talk
to me and assume that I’m a
regular CEO, I almost worry,
“Do they know that I’m actu-
ally a creative person?” I’m
a compromise, because I’m
part creative. And I’m not just
pure business. And for me,
I was like, I love being in the
middle. I love being creative
in an environment where it’s
creativity with accountability. I
really like that part of it, that’s
why I didn’t choose a side.
Are creative people excluded,
or are they also not pursuing
leadership paths enough?
There’s a myth for creative
people. I remember when I
was running an agency and it
was going public. They created
a stock program. It was an
amazing offer, and 100% of the
business-side people signed
up. In the creative department,
which was about 200 people,
25% signed up. I remember
thinking, We are so stupid,
because we think that if we are
good with money or that we
even think about money, that we
are no longer purely creative. I
want the people who are at the
center of it and creating ideas
to also feel like they have a
reward for that.
What do creatives bring to a
leadership role that noncre-
atives don’t?
To be a creative person doesn’t
mean you have to have gone
to art school. It’s a mindset.
It’s about looking at things
and having the audacity to
think beyond the next quarter.
Creative people jump ahead
of things, and we also are very
good at reducing things back
to their simplicity. I always said
that if ever I had a superpower,
it’s that I can dumb down any-
thing, because there’s so much
complexity in the world now.
Is there a way for the creative
side and the business side to
meet in the middle?
Creative people are thinking
about the end user. A lot of
the operational people are just
thinking about the practicality
of getting something done. And
you said a phrase that scares
the shit out of me, which is
“the middle.” It’s the medio-
cre middle that compromises
everything. It’s neither here
nor there. Most companies
are about taking dictation, not
about giving real opinions. How
can I tell the client what he wants
to hear, versus what they need
to hear? Maybe creative people
are more cocky or confident
because they’re thinking about
the emotion or potential of
something. I’ve always had this
saying, which is: Thank good-
ness for the logical and linear
thinkers—they make the world
go round. But it’s the creative
people who make it worth
living in. And we need both.
What do you say to someone
who identifies as a creative,
and wants more influence?
Have empathy for the person
you’re talking to on the other
side of the table. Understand
the problem you’re trying to
solve, as opposed to just trying
to sell something cool or that
you think is creative and fun.
When you take the business
side of it into consideration,
and what a creative idea is
solving for, then I think you’ve
got more chance of landing
it—as opposed to just selling
something because it’s creative.
I want to use creativity as a
shortcut to get to solving. It
doesn’t cost more to be great.
 Six Ways
When ‘What’s
Right’ Is
Just Wrong
Entrepreneurs hear the same advice again and again.
But that doesn’t mean it’s correct. Here, six
business leaders share the adages they object to.
16 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
WRONG/ “Do what you love and you’ll never
work a day in your life.”
“That’s highly misleading. I have always done what I love, and
that’s enabled me to build competitive brands and businesses.
But it’s hard work. Managing a team or a process or a business
does not come easy. I think the nuanced version of this would
be, ‘Do what you love and you will be able to take on all the hard
work that’s required to build a career or business.’ There is no way
around the hard work, even if you love what you do.”
—MICHAEL BOSSTICK, founder and CEO, Dear Media
WRONG/ “Hire a head of X sooner than later.”
“Advisors and investors will often tell you to hire a [head of] mar-
keting, engineers, sales, etc. I believe most companies either do
this too soon or hire from too large of organizations, where the
executive cannot ‘scale down’ to be effective at earlier stages.
You’ll often see these executives hired, immediately followed by
their ‘lieutenants.’ I prefer to just hire the lieutenants, and find
access to those later-stage leaders as advisors and coaches.”
—SEAN KNAPP, founder and CEO, Ascend.io
WRONG/ “Have a great 30-second pitch.”
“It doesn’t make sense to oversimplify complex business objectives.
If it were simple, everyone would do it! Companies like ours have a
multipronged approach that provides multiple avenues to success,
but it takes longer to understand when presenting. So we concentrate
on business circles that already care about environmental issues and
impact. When you identify the right audience, they have the interest,
patience, and receptivity needed for a more layered story.”
—VICKI VON HOLZHAUSEN, founder and CEO, von Holzhausen
WRONG/ “Build an MVP.”
“In categories where quality and consumer and expert trust really
matter, consider carefully whether it’s actually more risky to
launch with an MVP. For example, when it comes to fixing a hugely
broken product category—in our case, prenatal vitamins—an MVP
wouldn’t cut it. We had to completely redesign the prenatal vitamin
from the ground up. But that work paid off, because our prenatal is
renowned for meeting women’s needs optimally.”
—RYAN WOODBURY, cofounder and co-CEO, Needed
WRONG/ “Fake it ’til you make it.”
“I’ve always found ‘faking it’ to be much more stressful and less
enjoyable than embracing and being open about what I don’t know. My
journey as a leader, and stepping into my current role, definitely didn’t
come without self-doubt. But at the end of the day, I’d rather ask ques-
tions and stay curious than pretend I know all the answers.”
—KARA BROTHERS, president and general manager, Starface
WRONG/ “Scale revenue, and everything
else will fall into place.”
“That’s what I was told for a while, but now everything has changed.
Many brands spent tens or hundreds of millions in venture capital
building themselves into household names, and yet they still can’t
find profitability, because their business model just doesn’t work.
So I focus every day on the opposite of scale. We have incredible
tailwinds in our category, but we have to ensure that as we capture
demand, we understand our levers and unit economics.”
—NICK BODKINS, cofounder and CEO, Boisson
Illustration / P E T E R YA N
3 Reasons San Diego
is the Most Memorable
Location for Business
Meetings

When someone sets off to attend a business meeting or a big industry

event, they’re likely focused on the people they’ll meet and which goals
they’ll accomplish. Will they close a big deal? Dreaming up big, new
ideas? Finding new partners? But, often, it’s the location of the meeting
itself that creates the most lasting memories.

With a population of nearly 1.4 million, San Diego is where innovative

From arrival to departure, everything from a location’s weather, venues,
thinkers—among them at least 27 Nobel Prize winners—have called
culture, nightlife, and so much more are the details that stick in people’s
home. CBRE says San Diego’s tech-sector job growth makes it the
minds. One place that hits on all the right notes is America’s Finest City:
hottest among North America’s leading tech hubs.
San Diego. Located at the southern tip of California’s coast, San Diego
is booming with positivity, overflowing with innovation, and radiating
Innovation here is fueled by the fast-growing tech startup scene as well
creative energy.
as the city’s collection of world-class education and research facilities like
the University of California San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological
“Destination-specific programming, such as cultural and museum tours
Studies, and Scripps Research, just to name a few. If you want your
and local cuisine tastings, helps attendees feel connected with the area
event held in the heart of where big things are happening, then
they’re in,” says Julie Coker, President and CEO of the San Diego
San Diego is the place to be.
Tourism Authority. “Incorporating local vendors into your event allows
attendees to engage with businesses that embody the spirit of the city
they are in. These measures will help foster an environment in which
3. The culture is fun and inclusive.
San Diego’s innovative spirit, diverse cultures, and open sense of
people come together for meaningful experiences and conversations.”
community nurture an inspiring climate that’s conducive to collaboration
and creativity. From La Jolla to Little Italy, to Mission Beach to North
Here are four reasons San Diego is among the top locations to host
Inland and beyond, there’s an endless variety of dining venues with
unforgettable business meetings and events in the U.S.
spacious open-air settings and infectiously friendly people to satisfy
every mood and craving, no matter the neighborhood.
1. The weather is amazing.
Depending on where you’re located, your idea of “nice weather” may be
After your breakout sessions, attendees can break away and enjoy
different from the next person’s. But in San Diego, there’s no disputing
San Diego’s medley of coastal towns, seaside villages, urban enclaves,
the forecast. On average, every day is 72 degrees and sunny. That means
and cultural hubs that reflect the diversity of the entire region. “When
chances here are high that your next company retreat or conference
inclusivity and belonging are part of the culture around planning events,
won’t be rained out and leaving attendees feeling dreary and uninspired.
it creates an atmosphere of acceptance and respect and allows for
more opportunities of collaboration which can lead to more innovative
With 70 miles of amazing coastline and abundance of outdoor activities,
solutions,” Coker says.
the climate in San Diego helps people harness happiness and creativity,
while the city’s easy-going vibe creates opportunities for making valuable
To learn more about hosting a business
connections.
event in San Diego that will leave a lasting
impression, visit SanDiego.org/brightestcity
2. It’s a hub for innovation.
San Diego is the ideal location for collaboration and creativity for
Funded in part with City of San Diego
everyone from restaurateurs to scientists and engineers, to
Tourism Marketing District
businesses large and small, and technologists.
Assessment Funds.
 My First Moves

When NOT to Be a Know-It-All

How do you enter a complex industry as a newcomer? As Equip cofounder Kristina Saffran learned,
you start by accepting your limitations. b y L I Z B R O D Y

ristina Saffran nearly died during her freshman year of

high school. She had anorexia nervosa, considered one of
the most fatal mental health disorders, and was in and
out of the hospital as doctors struggled to find a solution.
It was a family-based outpatient treatment that finally
helped her recover.
She was so grateful that, at age 15, she started a nonprofit
to make this treatment available to others who couldn’t afford it. But
by the time she was 27, she wanted to make a larger impact and started
thinking about a telehealth startup specifically for eating disorders,
based on the same model of care.
When she met with Martin Rosenzweig, chief medical officer for
Optum Behavioral Health Solutions, part of UnitedHealth Group, and
described her vision for the program, he told her, “If you build it, we
will come,” offering to provide guidance into making it scalable and
workable with most people’s insurance. That was major. Still, it was
such a complicated industry. How would she tackle it with what little
experience she had?
That was in 2019. Today she’s raised $75 million, and her startup,
Equip, employs 350 people. Here’s what she’s learned:

LESSON 1/ You don’t that is because the person

need to know it all.
Saffran thought she knew her
blind spot. She didn’t have a
Ph.D. and was entering a clin-
ical field. So she brought on a
clinical cofounder: Erin Parks,
Ph.D., former director of out-
reach and admissions at UC
San Diego Eating Disorders
Center for Treatment and
Research.
reporting to you is not explain-
ing it clearly.’”
Saffran leaned into that.
She hired good tech commu-
nicators and realized her job
was not to know everything—
instead, it was to know enough
to figure out who to trust.  all her roles—especially busi-
LESSON 2/ Delegate
almost everything.
tion. Saffran hired a human
resources specialist to recruit,
but she wasn’t ready to give up
ness development. “This is
an area I’m good at and like
doing,” she’d say.
LESSON 3/ Track what
matters, not what doesn’t.
Equip started by serving ages
6 to 24, and this summer it’s
expanding into older adults.
But it isn’t without risk.
“The thing that keeps me up
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KRISTINA SAFFRAN

But as they raised money
and started hiring engineers,
Saffran floundered. She’d
accepted that she wasn’t the
medical expert on the team,
but now she realized she didn’t
really get the tech side—and
thought she had to. “I just felt
so much imposter syndrome,”
she recalls. “Then a men-
tor said to me, ‘You are very
smart. You can understand
technology, and if you don’t,
In the early days of a startup,
everyone does a little of every-
thing—especially the founder.
That suited Saffran just fine.
She oversaw marketing, han-
dled customers’ issues, and
personally signed on Optum,
as well as insurance provid-
ers Aetna and Anthem, among
others. But in early 2021, as
the team grew past 50 mem-
bers, Equip needed to become
a more formal organiza-
But slowly, she started hand-
ing tasks off to others—and the
big shift came last year, when
Equip hired a chief commer-
cial officer. Saffran had come
to realize she can only be suc-
cessful if she delegates 85%
of the decisions that must be
made. “It’s been a big learning
of, it’s really my job to think 12
to 18 months ahead, get lead-
ers in place, and then trust
them and delegate,” she says.  always be our North Star.”
at night,” says Saffran, “is the
tension between maintaining
our strong clinical quality and
needing to grow really rap-
idly to serve everybody.” But
this is a familiar tightrope, and
Saffran knows how to keep her
balance: by focusing on patient
outcomes. If they ever slip, she
says, Equip—which is already
on a path to profitability—will
pull back. “Patient success will

18 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
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 Growth
3 Ways to Drive Huge Growth
“Hockey-stick growth” rarely just happens. It’s triggered by something—and with the right strategy,
you can make it happen yourself. b y L E N N Y R A C H I T S K Y
e’ve all seen those charts show-
ing “hockey-stick growth.”
They are the envy of entrepre-
neurs who haven’t found it,
and among the most import-
ant moments in a company’s
history for those who have.
Hockey-stick growth tells a story: A com-
pany was slowly finding its way, and then—
rocket ship. The rest is history.
But hockey-stick growth didn’t just hap-
pen. Something triggered it. There was an
inflection point. What was it?
I was a founder and longtime product
lead at Airbnb, and now I write a newsletter
about product growth that’s the No. 1 busi-
ness newsletter on Substack. (Find it at
lennysnewsletter.com.) And I wanted to
20 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
answer this question: What precedes an inflec-
tion in growth? To find out, I spent weeks
researching inflection points and chatting
with leaders at two dozen of today’s most
successful companies—including founders
and early employees at Figma, DoorDash,
Tinder, YouTube, Snap, Airbnb, and others.
FROM THAT, I CAME TO THREE
CONCLUSIONS:
1/ The majority of growth
inflections sprang from a specific
product improvement.
2/ Many of the most durable inflections
came from the company doubling
down on their primary growth engine
(like SEO or virality).
3/ A surprising number of growth
inflections came from an unexpected
external event, without the product
changing at all.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S T O C K . A D O B E . C O M / V I TAVA L K A
Before we get into the stories, it’s
important to note that long-term sustain-
able growth is never as simple as just one
thing. Although a single moment can
(and often does) ignite growth, to build
a durable business you’ll still need to
build something that people want (through
ongoing product improvements), along
with a well-oiled growth engine that drives
lasting growth.
But it often starts with a single moment.
Let’s explore these stories; read on for
some of the examples I found.
 STRATEGY/ 1

Product Improvements
ndreessen Horowitz partner Andrew Chen popularized the Next Feature
A Fallacy, which is the mistaken belief that the next new feature will
suddenly make people use your product. But in my research, I found—
QUICK HITS

surprise!—that the most common source of growth unlock actually was adding
an additional feature. This doesn’t mean you’re only one feature away from
blastoff, but it does tell me that a better product experience is often at the heart
of unlocking growth. Here are some examples.
WHAT TO LEARN FROM AIRBNB
JONATHAN GOLDEN, Airbnb’s
first product manager, recalls:
No sooner had we learned to
build supply than a European
copycat came knocking on our
door. They had just received
$90 million in funding and ramped up
to 400 employees in two months. If we
lost Europe, we really wouldn’t be in the
business of travel anymore. Growing on our
own timetable was officially out the window.
We needed to change tactics and go on
an all-out blitz to capture as much of the
European market as we could. That meant we
had to be local. It was September 2011, and
our site was woefully U.S.-centric. In just over
three months, I purchased top-level domains
for nine countries, assembled a global transla-
tion team, contracted with Akamai to reduce
site load time, and restructured the UI on
every front-facing interaction to support long
Figma’s biggest
inflection began with
the public release
of Team Libraries in 2017,
about a year after launch.
The sheer amount of leverage
that it provided to design teams
made us such an obvious winner
text strings (crucial when you go from ‘aver-
against Sketch, Framer, etc.
age’ to ‘durchschnittliche’). We also shifted to
It changed the entire conversa-
a multicurrency payment platform.
Then it was time to build supply and
tion with large teams.”
demand. We opened offices in eight —BADRUL FAROOQI, first
European cities. [Cofounder and CEO] Brian product manager
[Chesky] cared about the types of people
we hired, focusing on ‘missionaries’ and
not ‘mercenaries.’ Emphasizing culture, we The original idea of
brought in employees who cared about and Netflix didn’t work.
who wanted to grow the community. We
also bought two smaller players in Europe,
But hundreds of failed
to seed supply. In January 2012, we did a PR experiments later, we finally
blitz to drum up as much press as possible. tested the unlikely combination
This pace might sound too fast—and it of ‘no due dates, no late fees’ and
was. The night before the international subscription; that ultimately was
launch, we were still trying to get the home- the thing that ended up working.
page translated! And we were undeniably And boy, did it work.”
neglecting operational challenges. But it was
—MARC RANDOLPH, cofounder
worth it. When competition comes after and first CEO
you, move ridiculously fast.”

The first big

25 AIRBNB growth unlock for
AIRBNB VS. PUBLIC COMPETITORS/
Duolingo was the
MARRIOTT
20 Valuations Over Time ($B) launch of the mobile apps,
2011- 2015 YTD (6/18/2015)
and betting on mobile as our
15 STARWOOD main platform. Duolingo originally
EXPEDIA
launched as a website. In October
10 WYNDHAM
2012, we launched the iPhone
5 app, and it quickly became
HOMEAWAY the No. 1 downloaded app in
0 the education category.”
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 —CEM KANSU, vice president of product

May- June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 21

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 Growth
STRATEGY/ 2
Doubling Down
ometimes, the greatest inflections come from a
S company doing more of what’s already driving growth.
SEO is a great example.
This changed the game at Pinterest, where
SEO was already the company’s primary
acquisition channel, as well as one of two
main channels to re-engage users. (The
other was notifications.) When the team
doubled down on its SEO work, says Jeff
Chang, an early growth leader at the com-
pany, “the amount of free traffic coming
from Google each day was quite insane. We
may have 100x’d or 1,000x’d SEO traffic.”
Virality and partnerships
are also key.
Dropbox credits a lot of its early growth to
two big projects. It ran a “Dropbox Space
Race” in 2012, which was a campaign to get
college students to all sign up for Dropbox—
STRATEGY/ 3
Harness External Events
rowth isn’t always triggered by a change in product or strategy. It can also come
G from an outside force (which is sometimes engineered from within). Examples:
SLACK
The biggest growth
inflection for Slack was a
PR and news media con-
sensus that Slack was ‘the next
big thing,’ partly driven by the
press’s own use of Slack, which
all had magically compounding
effects on our user growth.”
—MERCI GRACE, first head of growth
24 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
and the winning schools
earned free Dropbox space.
“It’s probably the most
zeitgeist growth hack I’ve
seen—I still meet people
who were in college during
those years who fondly remember the
race,” says early growth leader ChenLi
Wang. Dropbox also grew quickly after
partnering with Samsung, because the app
was included in Samsung’s new phone
onboarding. That led to more than 100 mil-
lion new sign-ups alone.
Finally, channel partnerships
can be critical.
This is what Instacart discovered and then
doubled down on. “Our first growth inflec-
TINDER
Jamie Anderson, an
Olympic gold medal-
winning American snow-
boarder, did an interview that
included Tinder at the Sochi
Olympics, discussing Tinder being
‘next level’ in the Olympic village.
It caught us by surprise, but our PR
team went hard on that.”
—JONATHAN BADEEN, cofounder
tion point was signing our first national
retailer and beginning our transition from a
consumer company to a retailer enable-
ment company,” says cofounder Max
Mullen. That sent a signal to other retailers
that “delivery wasn’t just a fad.”
I DON’T HAVE THE DATA to prove it, but I sus-
pect that this kind of growth strategy ends
up being the most durable. Because this
isn’t just about big jolts of growth; it’s about
building upon a winning strategy.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S T O C K . A D O B E . C O M / I C O N S G AT E
YOUTUBE
In the first year, two
videos achieved virality
that were different from
the vlogging of the time—a video
from Saturday Night Live and
one of Ronaldinho Gaúcho
juggling a soccer ball. Those got
NBC and Nike thinking of YouTube
as a distribution platform.”
—STEVE CHEN, cofounder
 Mario’s Picks

Stress Relief for Busy Days

Juggling too much? Let this new tech (and a toy!) help—selected by product expert
(and two-time Emmy Award winner) Mario Armstrong.

1 2 3

4 5

1/ Gogh to your
happy place.
You work too much. I mean,
look at you—you’re reading
a magazine about work
right now! Unplugging can
be helpful, which is why you
may find Lego Ideas The
Starry Night [$170; lego
.com] a meditative delight.
Reconnect with the Legos
you loved as a kid, but now
with a grown-up twist. And
when you’re done, you can
display it behind you for all
your stressed-out cowork-
ers to enjoy on Zoom calls
(which probably could have
been emails).
2/ A dock that
declutters.
Tidy up your desk while reduc-
ing neck strain. The 11-port
Anker 675 USB-C Docking
Station [$250; anker.com] is a
21.26-by-8.66-inch stand that
elevates a monitor by about
3.5 inches, with connections
built into one leg to handle
USB-C, USB-A, SD cards, and
an audio jack. Underneath is
a cable management system
to plug in less frequently used
ports, like HDMI and video
connections to a laptop. The
shelf has a wireless charging
pad for a phone. When your
day is done, just push your
keyboard and mouse under-
neath. All clear!
3/ Personal
storage solution.
Is Google constantly
reminding you that you’re
encroaching upon your free
15GB of storage? Western
Digital’s WD My Book
[from $100; westerndigital.
com] will save you. From
4TB to an unimaginable
22TB, this sleek, rectangular
drive is easy to set up, has
all the room to store con-
tent and documents from
a laptop and phone, and is
password-protected while
allowing for easy drag-and-
drop to a connected laptop.
Go ahead, just try to fill 22
terabytes of data.
4/ Look alive!
As any influencer knows, an
external light source helps
you look camera-ready—but
most desk lamps won’t do.
The Lenovo Go Desk Station
[$330; lenovo.com] is differ-
ent—and it even comes with
a camera itself. The lamp’s ad-
justable arm can shine three
different color temperatures
in any direction, and aiming
it at yourself will even out
your complexion. Cast with
its 4K webcam, which also
auto-tracks, so you put your
best face forward. The base
even multitasks with a few
USB-C and USB-A ports, and
a flip-out, 15-watt wireless
charging pad for your phone.
P H O T O G R A P H S C O U R T E S Y O F L E G O ; A N K E R ; W E S T E R N D I G I TA L ; L E N O V O ; W O R X
5/ Your new turf tamer.
Own a yard? People spend an
average of 21 hours per month
mowing them—often during
prime weekend time. Reclaim
Sundays (to catch up on work,
or not!) by employing the Worx
Landroid Vision [from $2,000;
worx.com]. Unlike other robotic
mowers, which first require you
to bury a boundary wire, the
Landroid has a camera to see
where it’s going. That helps it
avoid obstacles and stay out
of the planting bed. The bot
runs on a rechargeable battery,
makes almost no noise, and
can mow at night, so you wake
to a fresh carpet of grass—
that you can proudly tell the
neighborhood kids to keep off.

26 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 3 ways Startups Find
Unexpected opportunities
in WISCONSIN
When starting a business, having a great idea is
just the beginning of the process. To bring that idea
to life, you need to find market fit, consider funding or
financing, and perhaps most importantly, to decide
where you’ll set up operations to ensure that your
business can thrive.
Take it from Alex Tyink, who moved back home to
Wisconsin to start Fork Farms, a Green Bay-based
business that created indoor, hydroponic technology
allowing people and communities to participate in
the fresh, local food movement.
The idea for Fork Farms was hatched in New York City,
where Tyink started volunteering at a rooftop farm
and learning how to grow vegetables. Then he began
experimenting. He eventually found that using the
right combination of grow lights and reflective
surfaces, he was able to reduce the amount of total
energy required to produce a pound of food by almost
a quarter from the industry average, he says. Tyink
applied for patents and soon realized he was onto
something.
So why start his budding agriculture tech business
1,000 miles west in Wisconsin? Here’s why Tyink’s
business and so many others find opportunities for
success in the Badger State.
1. The supportive, tight-knit community.
Tyink says there’s something about Green Bay, and
Wisconsin in general, that people won’t find in other
parts of the country: A community that supports its
entrepreneurs from starting up to growing and
scaling. “In Wisconsin, there’s a tight-knit ethos, and
people have been so supportive of innovation and
creativity,” he explains.
Complimenting this strong sense of community,
entrepreneurs and their employees here enjoy a
superb quality of life coupled with low business and
living expenses (the cost of living in Wisconsin is
6.5 percent lower than the national average). Plus,
Wisconsin is home to some of the best colleges and
universities, which provides entrepreneurs with a
qualified talent pool.
2. Access to capital.
Another important part of Wisconsin’s entrepreneurial
ecosystem is its line-up of investment firms. Among
them is Titletown Tech, a venture studio and innovation
center located in Green Bay.
When Tyink began to explore options for funding, he
turned to the team at Titletown Tech. “Any time we
look at a company, we look for smart and talented
owners that are solving a meaningful problem with
their business, and Alex and his team covered that,” says
Cordero Barkley, a partner at Titletown Tech. “We figured
out what their needs were, from offering them the
opportunity to work out of our office space to working
out the details of what a funding round may look like.”
Entrepreneurs can also apply for loans or grants directly
through the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.,
which offers a variety of grant programs that can be
used to finance startup costs, expand operations, or
purchase equipment.
3. An ecosystem with a mission to help businesses thrive.
Wisconsin is home to numerous industries and a
diverse economy that provides entrepreneurs with
opportunities to find their market fit. One organization
that aims to lend a hand is WiSys VentureHome. With
multiple locations across the state, it connects campuses
and communities through a network of startup hubs,
providing entrepreneurs access to a full menu of
startup resources.
“If you have a great idea and pure intentions, you’re
going to find an amazingly receptive community of
people and other businesses who are willing to help,”
Tyink says.
To learn more about how businesses
thrive in Wisconsin, visit wedc.org
 HAVE A PROBLEM WE CAN SOLVE FOR YOU?
What’s Your Problem? TELL US AT HELPME@ENTREPRENEUR.COM

Do I Need a Personal Brand?

There are two ways to look at it: It’s either indulgent and self-centered, or it’s the best tool you’re overlooking.
by ADAM BORNSTEIN

Every founder seems to have a
personal brand, but it doesn’t appeal
to me. Do I really need to do this?
—ELOISE, SAN DIEGO
BEFORE I ANSWER your ques- ed opportunities add asymmet-
tion, consider the following rical upside to your business.
scenario: Which employee does more to
Imagine comparing two help your company?
people who work for you. One The answer is obvious, of
employee does everything that course. And it’s worth con-
you ask of them. The other sidering before you write off
does that, too—but they also go social media as an unneces-
above and beyond to identify sary, time-consuming, or even
opportunities outside of the narcissistic endeavor. Does it
job’s general requirements. take extra time? Sure. Do some
Not everything the second em- people use social media to feed
ployee does is a hit, but a few their ego? Certainly. But char-
things are, and those unchart- acter judgments aside, personal
branding offers you leverage that
hasn’t always existed for small
businesses. And amid growing
awareness about the value of
buying from local companies, it’s
a competitive advantage to show
customers the person behind a
product or service.
Hearing from or interacting
directly with individuals has
always appealed to our human
instincts, and big companies
have taken advantage of this for
ages. Think about the power of
celebrity endorsements. Nike was
just another brand until it had
Michael Jordan. People may pre-
fer certain brands or products,
but people trust people. Everyone
talks about this era as the “age of
the creator,” as if the rules have
changed entirely—but social me-
dia is just the latest variation on
how businesses have marketed
and positioned themselves for
years. The only thing new is that
individuals can own their distri-
bution and messaging.
So if you’ve decided to
build a personal brand, it
doesn’t—and shouldn’t—mean
that you’ve set out to become a
social media star. It just means
that you’ve decided to pursue
another avenue of brand mes-
saging. Start by setting realistic
goals for what you want to ac-
complish. For most people, it’s
a waste of time to try attracting
millions of followers. Instead,
think of your social media
account as another channel for
building trust, lessening costs,
or amplifying other efforts.
For example, want to save
money on PR? A personal brand
can help you tell your busi-
ness’s story, showcase what
makes you different, provide
customer service, and—most
importantly—listen to feedback.
You’ll be amazed at what you
hear when people have a direct
line to the person in charge.
(Not all of it will be good, but
almost all of it will be helpful.)
Yes, this is a significant in-
vestment of time. But think of
it that way—as an investment.
If you’re struggling with the
decision to add social media to
your plate, here’s the question
you really need to answer: Why
are you avoiding social media in
the first place?
I’ve known many founders
who grappled with this ques-
tion, and deep down, they’re
really afraid of one thing: that
their posts may get little or no
engagement. That could be
embarrassing, or a sign of their
business’s irrelevance! But if
that’s your primary concern,
I’ll borrow the advice Ryan
Reynolds once shared in the
pages of this magazine: “You
can’t be good at something un-
less you’re willing to be bad.”
Personal branding is a tool
at your disposal. When you
stop seeing social media as a
way to be famous and start
seeing it as an extension of
your business, you’re likely
to find that the investment of
time will yield a strong return
on investment.
Adam Bornstein is the founder
of Pen Name Consulting, a
marketing and branding agency.

28 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023 Illustration / F E D E R I C O G A S TA L D I

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KEEPING UP WITH
KHLOÉ KARDASHIAN and EMMA GREDE have stayed ahead of the curve with

30 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 THE CUSTOMERS
their size-inclusive fashion brand, Good American, by connecting deeply with their clientele. by LIZ BRODY

Photographs / G R E G S WA L E S E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 31
 he model wears a faded denim
jumpsuit that hugs her curves like
slalom skis. She’s tugging at the
zipper that goes up the front. And
the photo of her appears on the
Instagram page for fashion brand
Good American, where it garnered
more than 3,000 likes and com-
ments along the lines of “OMG,”
“NEED,” and “OBSESSED.”
But amidst the emoji flames and
heart-eyed smiley faces, a user
who goes by the handle @jazziole-
babe writes: “Prices r too high.”
That’s sure to have a familiar ring
to anyone with a company that sells things. “Customer obsession” is
hot lingo these days, especially in retail. Everyone is scrambling to
know what their shoppers want and need—and comments on social
media are an obvious destination, because even negative feedback
can be incredibly valuable. But finding useful insights often means
dredging through the sewer of knives-out viciousness and abusive
one-upmanship. And what do you do with something like “Prices
r too high”? OK, sure—but last time you checked, you were in busi-
ness to make a profit.
Making use of social media comments and other customer feed-
back is always tricky, whether you’re an everyday entrepreneur or
someone like Khloé Kardashian, who has more than 300 million fol-
lowers on Instagram alone. She also happens to be the cofounder of
Good American along with Emma Grede, a fashion-industry veteran
who’s becoming increasingly famous herself for her Shark Tank
“guest shark” appearances. “You have to get a good sense of when
people are just talking to talk,” Kardashian says, “and when to go,
‘You know what? I’ve read this enough, and where there’s smoke,
there’s fire. Let’s pay attention to this.’”
More than anything else, learning to pay attention is what’s
helped Grede and Kardashian build their size-inclusive brand Good
American into a serious force in fashion, employing over 100 peo-
ple and doing more than $200 million in sales last year.
A few years ago, when they saw a number of comments piling up
about prices, they took note. While they’d always meant for their
clothes to be accessible, Good American is not a low-end brand;
jeans go for around $99 to $199. That’s because the production
costs to make well-fitting apparel from sizes 00 to 32 Plus are hefty.
Lowering the price by decreasing quality was not an option. So they
focused hard on their customers, both on social media and off, and
tried to look at shopping through their eyes, asking: What are we
spending so much money on?
That’s when they saw the problem: A woman’s weight fluctu-
ates. “It’s true regardless of where they are on the size scale,” says
Grede. “I mean, I’ll be up or down six pounds depending on the
time of the month—”
“Depending on the day,” Kardashian quips.
The point, says Grede, is that “these women have two or three
different sets of jeans in that closet.”
What if they could solve this? The question led to an idea: They’d
innovate a fabric that stretches four sizes, as magically as the fic-
tional jeans in the 2005 movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Instead of lowering their cost, they’d increase their product’s
value—saving their customers from having to buy multiple sizes. It
was frustratingly slow and expensive to pull off, but in the end, defi-
nitely worth it: Their “Always Fits” jeans, launched in 2020, have
32 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
become one of Good American’s best-selling denim products.
For Grede, it was proof of a process that now underlies the
brand’s success: You listen, identify pain points, and then invest in
creating features that aren’t being duplicated elsewhere. “It puts a
moat around our company, right?” she says.
It’s a moat built on voices.
YOU PROBABLY KNOW who Khloé Kardashian is—but just in case
you missed all 20 seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians,
the various spinoffs, and the current show, The Kardashians, then
here’s the quick of it: Khloé is the youngest of the three original
Kardashian sisters. She is “the funny one,” down-to-earth and
K H L O É K A R D A S H I A N : M A K E U P, A S H K H O L M ; H A I R , I R I N E L D E L E Ó N ; S T Y L I S T, D A N I M I C H E L L E ; S E A M S T R E S S , M I A P A R A N T O ; M A N I C U R I S T, Z O L A G A N Z O R I G T; P E D I C U R I S T, M I L L I E M A C H A D O
good-natured, and always trying to make peace.
Grede, on the other hand, did not come from celebrity royalty.
She grew up in East London, a scrappy Black girl raised by a sin-
gle mom, in a family of women who embraced their curves. She
was barely 26 when, in 2008, she started a brand marketing com-
pany called ITB Worldwide that was eventually acquired by Rogers
& Cowan (she won’t say for how much). By then, she’d already
embarked on her next act.
The idea for a size-inclusive apparel line came to her when she
realized she was part of a problem. “I was working for the biggest
fashion brands in the world, casting these seemingly diverse cam-
paigns, and I thought, Wouldn’t it be amazing if they actually made
clothes to fit some of these girls?” she says. “We talk about women hav-
ing equal opportunity, and yet we let the fashion industry dictate that
if we’re over a certain size, we aren’t important enough to service. It
felt archaic to me. I just thought there was a huge opportunity.”
In 2015, she shared these thoughts with Kris Jenner, the
Kardashian family matriarch, whom Grede had met through her
fashion work. The following week, Grede was on a plane to Los
Angeles to pitch the idea to Khloé. The meeting was in a con-
ference room in Culver City, California, and all she had was a
PowerPoint she’d worked up on the flight—essentially a manifesto
of values, some images pulled off the web, and a bad placeholder
E M M A G R E D E : M A K E U P, C H R I S T I A N A C A S S E L L ; H A I R , V E R N O N F R A N Ç O I S ; S T Y L I S T, S I M O N R O B I N S
name. Kardashian was wary.
“When I was younger, I took every opportunity to hawk prod-
ucts or do this and that—I didn’t even know what I was doing half
the time,” Kardashian says. By 2015, however, she was much better
equipped to evaluate a good business deal, and she was only inter-
ested if she deeply cared about the project. She took the meeting
with Grede, but wasn’t expecting much.
In the room, though, Kardashian was impressed by Grede. She also
immediately understood the presentation: The customer was her.
Growing up, before all the fame and social media, Kardashian
was a cheerful, confident, athletic kid. She liked being physically
bigger than Kim and Kourtney—until she became an object of the
gossipy press. “I never knew I was, I guess, chubby or fat until the
weeklies and tabloids started telling me I was,” she says, her voice
hovering for a split second, as if careful to sidestep that old cavity
of insecurity. But even in her younger days, she hated shopping. In
the ’90s and early 2000s, there was no e-commerce, and in stores,
larger clothes were ghettoized. “My sisters loved to go to little bou-
tiques or chichi department stores. I was always being ushered to
some underground basement, always being thrown a mumu or
just being told, ‘No, you can’t shop here.’ And it made me feel so
much less than.” Nothing was worse than trying to buy jeans, espe-
cially trendy ones like Frankie B. “No disrespect to Frankie Bs—but
I have a butt and it’s not getting in Frankie Bs!”
Despite all that, Kardashian still felt sexy and attractive. “More
power to me,” she jokes. But she knew other women did not feel the
Shot On Location / CAL ABASAS, CALIFORNIA E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 33
34 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023

“We were like, ‘You
either take our
full size range or you
don’t. We’re not gonna
sell our souls more
than we already have.’ ”
same. In Grede’s presentation, she saw a brand that could channel
and spread that confidence around.
“The only thing I didn’t enjoy,” says Kardashian, “was the place-
holder name. I don’t even remember what it was.”
“I do,” Emma mutters.
At this point, we’re all lounging couchside in a nook of a cavern-
ous photo studio in Calabasas, the Los Angeles suburb of gated com-
munities where Kardashian lives. Having ditched her stilettos and
tight jeans, Kardashian is now dressed as if for a kid sleepover, in a
fuzzy onesie. She nestles into the cushions and floods the space with
a warm “we got this, girlfriend” appeal. Next to her, Grede is clad in
Good American jeans and a work shirt. She has an easy confidence
around her famous cofounder, and bristles with barely contained
enthusiasm. Come on, I prod. Tell us the placeholder name.
Grede busts out laughing: “Absolutely not.”
Even without a name, from that first meeting, the two women
saw what their advantage was. “The people making the decisions in
fashion,” says Grede, “were largely white men and not connected to
the customer.” She and Kardashian knew the customer intimately.
And they realized that if they could get inside her head even more,
they could make a lot of clothes for her.
So that became their game plan: Focus on the connection, con-
sistently improve it, and learn to watch their followers as intensely
as their followers have always scrutinized Kardashian.
GOOD AMERICAN launched on October 18, 2016. It was a
nerve-wracking day. Kardashian may have many advantages over
the average entrepreneur—in reach, in resources—but to her, this
also meant the bar for success was extraordinarily high. Anything
short of a smash hit could be portrayed as a humiliation. And this
was the first time she wasn’t just endorsing a product or partnering
with a sibling; it was a genuinely new business. Good American was
producing jeans in sizes 00 to 24—designed to look cute and sexy
on women of all shapes, which was something of a groundbreaking
proposition at the time.
Right as they were about to launch, Grede told Kardashian that
they should aim for $1 million in sales—that day.
“The number just came from foolery,” Grede says now. “I never
thought we’d do it.” But Kardashian took it seriously. “In my head,
I was like, “Let’s do a million? Sure, Emma, that’d be amazing,”
she recalls. “But it’s a lot of fucking money! And then to have it be
filmed? I can’t go down like this.”
Because, of course, it was being filmed: The tape was rolling
for Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Kardashian leaned into a full-
fledged freak-out. “I’ve always been known as the fattest sister,”
she told the camera. “And now that I’m over it, I don’t want to be
known as the failing sister.”
Before that day, she and Grede had given retailers an ultimatum:
They’d work only with stores that agreed to carry their full size range
and display it all in one place—no separate floors for “petites” or “plus-
size” (a term they avoided because of its negative connotations). In
2016, this was still not how stores tended to organize their clothes, but
Nordstrom agreed and became their launch partner. “It meant trusting
their vision,” says Pete Nordstrom, the company’s president and chief
brand officer, explaining, “The brand had widespread appeal, as it was
the first denim line to offer expanded sizes at a great value.”
Getting to launch was harder than they thought. Maybe Good
American had product-market fit, but the actual fit of jeans on all
these bodies was elusive. At the top of the size range, body shapes
vary widely, so you can’t just enlarge smaller sizes. You’ve got to
create different patterns, innovative fabric, and altered manufac-
turing processes. Factories just threw the specs back at Kardashian
and Grede and said they didn’t make sense. Hiring was a pain,
because there were so few fashion people who had worked with
larger apparel. And then they needed models. “Back then, there
was Ashley Graham…and Ashley Graham…and Ashley Graham,”
says Grede of the trailblazing curvy supermodel. That left real
women. So, how would they find them?
“We posted for our first open casting call,” Kardashian says. She
did it on Instagram.
“We posted?” Grede cuts in. “Khloé, you posted. I had, like, 27
followers.”
Kardashian ignores her. “We didn’t even have the name yet. We
were, like, hoping 10 girls come.”
They nervously waited on the appointed day at Milk Studios.
Some 5,000 women showed up—a lesson about what their cus-
tomer connection could do. “I knew Khloé had an enormous fan
base, but I didn’t get that it was a two-way street,” says Grede. “I
was like, That’s gonna be super useful for us.”
When they debuted online and at select Nordstrom stores, Good
American did indeed hit $1 million in sales on day one. And imme-
diately, the founders faced a major decision. “Another retailer, who
should remain nameless because they are now our client,” says
Grede, “put in an astronomical order for sizes 0 through 8.”
In scale, this was the kind of put-you-on-the-map order any
young brand would dream of—but again, their sizing went up to
24. If that retailer only sold sizes 0 to 8, it would chip away at what
made Good American special. It would also kick their core cus-
tomer back down to the basement. “And then what does that make
us? Just like everyone else?” asks Kardashian. “We were like, ‘You
either take the full size range or you don’t. We’re not gonna sell our
souls any more than we already have.’”
She smiles. Still, it was a hard decision. “Saying no to that level of
sales from that type of retailer?” says Grede. “That was very difficult.”
ONCE GOOD AMERICAN was out there, it was time to refine the
brand. Buoyed by the responsiveness to the open casting call—
which Good American has made a regular part of its marketing
strategy—Grede and Kardashian started holding targeted focus
groups on social media, asking women how the clothes could be
better, what else they wanted, what their needs were. “But even
with focus groups,” says Kardashian, “it gets murky, because every-
one has an opinion.”
So they started looking closely at the returns. Early on, they
noticed that a lot of size 14s and size 16s came back. “When you see
that,” Kardashian says, “you do have to go, OK, why? Let’s look again
at these comments.” What they learned is that customers were fall-
ing between the cracks of the even-numbered conventional sizes.
So in 2018, they invented a size 15. “To this day, it’s our third or
May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 35
fourth best-selling size month-to-month,” Grede says.
Then they discovered another problem with customer feed-
back: Sometimes what people say they want is different from what
they’ll actually buy. And sometimes the thing they’re asking for just
doesn’t make sense for the business. Grede and Kardashian haven’t
always gotten it right. Like when everyone was going crazy for rigid
jeans, “we made them—of course we did,” Grede says dryly. It didn’t
take long for them to realize that rigid jeans are not the most nat-
ural fit for curvy ladies. “We were quick to be like, ‘OK, we fucked
up, and we gotta figure this one out,’” says Kardashian, putting an
optimistic spin on it. “But it was also a great learning experience,
because you wanna be with the trends, but maybe it’s okay to do
‘rigid’ with a smidge of stretch. Like, our girl needs that.”
Eventually, Grede and Kardashian built a data and analytics team
to formalize the feedback process. But they continued observing
their audience on their social channels, like detectives searching for
clues. And about four years ago, they noticed something curious. By
then, Good American had expanded into bodysuits, and customers
were posting photos of themselves on social media swimming in
them. Which was great, except…
“We were like, ‘The bodysuits are not made to get wet!’” says
Kardashian.
“There’s an opening in the crotch,” explains Grede.
“Right,” Kardashian seconds. “It could snap open.”
Should they develop a swimwear category? they wondered. Their
customers clearly wanted it. And selling swimsuits in the smaller
sizes seemed like a no-brainer. But what about the higher sizes?
Would really curvy women buy teeny bikinis and monokinis? The
cofounders looked more carefully at the bodysuit category and
noticed that in the sexier cuts, the larger sizes were actually selling
better than the smaller ones. “So the wheels were turning, and we
could get a little bit of a foreshadowing based on what other things
were selling,” says Kardashian.
They decided to risk it, and the first line was ready in June 2020,
just as beaches had emptied for COVID and Good American’s retail-
ers were shutting stores and sending back orders. It was a hard
time, but they launched the suits anyway, and swimwear grew into
their second biggest category.
The next decision involved something their stylists picked up on:
The models at the open-casted campaign shoots didn’t have attrac-
tive shoes or boots that fit around their calves. Grede saw an oppor-
tunity—they could get into footwear. But Kardashian worried that,
unlike the swimsuits, this would be expensive, and the final product
would be too high-priced.
“I’m not gonna lie, we were both scared,” Grede says.
“You were way more on board than I was,” Kardashian says.
“Well,” Grede concedes, “I do have that kind of mindset that, you
know, we’ve done a lot of difficult things at Good American. Like, come
on, we do it.” Grede’s energy can be persuasive. Six months after the
swimwear, they launched their shoes—now their third biggest category.
In 2021, they stopped to take a breath. Grede had become a
founding partner of Kim Kardashian’s shapewear label SKIMS
(which has a reported valuation of $3.2 billion) and was launching
the plant-powered cleaning brand Safely with Kris, while starting to
appear on Shark Tank. Kardashian was busy with her show and, like
Grede, now a mother. Until then, Good American had been focused
on growth. But customers everywhere were increasingly con-
cerned about climate change and social equality—as were Grede and
Kardashian. So they decided to become a certified B Corporation,
an arduous process verifying that Good American adheres to high
standards of social and environmental responsibility. It also means
36 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
being accountable for balancing profit with purpose.
“Good American isn’t doing this just because we wanted to have
a buzzworthy moment. This is something that we genuinely believe
in,” says Kardashian. “I never want my daughter—or anybody—to
go through that experience that I went through. I want them to feel
seen and represented.”
EVEN WITH THE B CORP, from 2021 to 2022, Good American’s
sales increased by 30%. Today the brand offers sizes up to 32 Plus
and has wholesale partnerships with Saks Fifth Avenue, Revolve,
Bloomingdale’s, and Net-a-Porter. Last year it pulled off a collabora-
tion with the multinational fast-fashion chain Zara—a milestone for
both. As for Pete Nordstrom, he says pioneering with Good American
has not only been a win, but has also influenced the department
store chain. “The positive customer response to Good American has
inspired us to expand our approach to size inclusivity,” he says.
But Good American’s success—and a broader body positivity
movement—has also created competition. Nordstrom’s team has
asked more of their brand partners to produce extended sizes, for
example. And in the past seven years, the U.S. plus-size fashion
market has grown from around $23.7 billion to an expected $30
billion in 2023, according to a recent analysis by Future Market
Insights (FMI). Small size-inclusive brands like Big Bud Press,
Henning, and Universal Standard are grabbing attention, while
large companies from H&M to Nike have extended their lines
to include clothes for larger bodies. “One of the fastest-growing
markets in the apparel business is plus-size fashion,” says Sneha
Varghese, lead analyst for consumer goods at FMI. “And there is
still a lot of space for expansion.”
The fact that Good American sells casual clothes at a midrange
price point puts it in the sweet spot, according to FMI’s analy-
sis. It’s also got history on its side. “I believe any brand that is
size-inclusive from the start has a huge advantage over straight-
size brands—the grand majority of which have flat-out ignored
extended sizes for years,” says Melissa Moylan, vice president
of womenswear at Fashion Snoops, a global trend forecasting
agency. “It’s not easy to simply extend straight-size patterns, and
getting the fit wrong for a plus-size customer may mean they’re
not coming back anytime soon.” She points to Bodequality, the
inclusive effort that Old Navy rolled out with fanfare but ended up
pulling back from stores last year. “That’s exactly when a brand
like Good American holds its value; with not only a message of
inclusivity and representation, but a proven track record.”
Grede and Kardashian say they are excited by the competition. But
rather than racing ahead in their stilettos (which, take it from a wit-
ness, they can) to scoop up new clothing categories, the cofounders
are standing by their playbook—listening to where their customers
are now, and perfecting the products they already have. It’s a good
strategy, according to Moylan: “No brand is good at everything.” So
it’s wise to double down on what makes yours special.
As this magazine went to press, Kardashian and Grede were getting
ready to open up a new channel for connecting with their custom-
ers—face to face. It will be Good American’s flagship store in Century
City, California. “We’ve thought about this idea of inclusivity very
much in a product-focused way,” says Grede, “and now we’re figur-
ing out: What should the new shopping experience for our customers
be? How do we make them feel good as soon as they come in?”
They have their questions. Now, as always, they’re waiting for
their customers’ answers.
Liz Brody is Entrepreneur’s contributing editor.
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HOW TO
BRING
A MOONSHOT
DOWN
TO
EARTH
Want to turn a big idea into a real business? Here’s an inside look at
how Google’s attention-grabbing “moonshot factory” does it—by thinking
big, killing ideas quickly, reimagining problems, and every so often,
producing a company like Dandelion that just might change everything.
by FRANCES DODDS

38 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
Illustration / PETE REYNOLDS May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 39
 laine Weir is retired, which
means that—apart from the
swimming lessons she teaches a
few times a week—she has a lot
of time on her hands. So in the
summer of 2019, when she saw a
Facebook ad for the geothermal
energy company Dandelion, she
called them up to investigate. “I
had no intentions of buying this
thing,” she says, with a conspir-
atorial cackle. “But my daughter
suffers from asthma, so I wanted
to do my small part to reduce
our footprint. We were consid-
ering an electric car, but then I
saw this...”
She agreed to let a salesman come to her home, a 100-year-old
Tudor in the New York City suburb of Scarsdale. “He explained this
and that,” she says. “But when he said I could get rid of the air con-
ditioning, that’s when my ears perked up.” Like many homes, her
HVAC system required a giant, noisy set of outdoor AC condenser
units. “I said, ‘You mean these don’t have to be here?’ They’re right
next to my screened-in porch, and I can hear them in the middle of
the night, and they’re just plain annoying.”
This wasn’t the only information that impressed Weir that day.
She learned that geothermal energy is the most sustainable way to
heat and cool a home—emitting about one-fifth of the annual car-
bon dioxide that a gas- or oil-fueled system does. Once installed, it’s
also the most cost-efficient method out there, chopping down the
average energy bill by 65% or more. Considering that geothermal
technology has been around since the 1940s, Weir wondered, how
was this the first she was hearing of this?
That’s exactly the question that Kathy Hannun, who founded
Dandelion, began asking seven years ago—in a place far, far away
from the tidy lawns of Scarsdale. Back then, Hannun was working at
X, Google’s “moonshot factory” in Mountain View, California.
“At the beginning I was just trying to figure out: Why have geo-
thermal heat pumps not taken off?” Hannun says. “And are any of
those reasons good reasons? Meaning, if they were good reasons,
there was probably nothing I could do about it. But what if all the
problems were just circumstantial?”
For anyone interested in untangling a knotty, big picture prob-
lem, Hannun’s line of inquiry is a great place to start. And in her
case, those questions would propel a long, complex project that
gathered momentum at X, then spun out into its own startup,
flopped, was reenvisioned, wiggled out of numerous chokeholds,
and is now finally doing what many founders dream of: giving peo-
ple something that makes their lives better, for less money, while
helping the planet.
In other words, the story of how Hannun’s company started on
the whiteboards of Google’s “moonshot factory” and made its way
to Elaine Weir’s backyard is also a case study on what it takes to
bring a moonshot down to earth.
Rule #1/ Kill great ideas.
There are a lot of big, exciting ideas in the world. Most of them are
unattainable—but some of them are almost attainable. Those are
the most dangerous ones, because founders can lose years or even
decades of their lives trying to make them work.
At X, they have a saying: In order to create world-changing busi-
40 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
nesses, you have to be “passionately dispassionate.”
“We are obsessed with getting to big, exciting opportunities as
efficiently as possible,” says Astro Teller, the CEO of X. “But once
you commit to that efficiency, you have to winnow really harshly
on the basis of evidence. We are paying people to be passionately
dispassionate. You can get a lot done by being so passionate that
you’ll just blast through obstacles. But if your idea isn’t right, or
the world changes in various ways, it could just be hot coals out
to the horizon. And you being willing to walk over them won’t
change that fact.”
Teller is sitting in a conference room. On the wall behind
him, there’s a banner that reads “Keep Alphabet Weird,” and on
the table in front of him, there’s a thing that looks like a crystal
ball. (“It’s actually a moon. Someone got me this because, you
know, moonshots. It’s fun; it rotates.”) He’s wearing a Tigger
T-shirt under a zip-up hoodie, and his gray hair is pulled back in
a low ponytail. It all checks out for a CEO known to rollerblade
between meetings.
Google X (now just X) was founded in 2010 as a laboratory
for world-changing ideas that would, ideally, become profitable
businesses for Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Housed in a
converted shopping mall—with stratospheric internet balloons
hanging in the lobby and robot prototypes rolling around, sort-
ing trash—the moonshot factory is emblematic of a somewhat
more optimistic era in big tech. Its highest-profile success is
Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project. It also hatched Wing,
which makes delivery drones; the cloud-based cybersecurity suite
Chronicle; industrial robots company Intrinsic; and life sciences
company Verily. Other X projects have been integrated into exist-
ing Alphabet companies, including deep-learning technology
Google Brain, which fuels Google Search and Google Translate,
and GCam, a camera software that’s part of Google’s Pixel phones.
Some others, like an internet balloon company called Loon, have
recently shuttered.
Working at X sounds like it would be fun—the closest you could
get to living like a mad scientist. But it’s not for everyone. “There
are people who are very entrepreneurial,” Teller says, “but they’re
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y C H R I S M I C H E L (A S T R O T E L L E R ) ; D A N D E L I O N ( K AT H Y H A N N U N )
 → MAKING MOONSHOTS
Left: Astro Teller.
Right: Kathy Hannun,
presenting on
Dandelion.
unhappy here because they have an idea and they just want their
idea to win. They’re like, ‘But it could still work.’ And I’ll say to
them, ‘I agree with you. But I don’t care that it could work.’” Teller
has found that the instinct to assess exciting ideas with passionate
dispassion is actually pretty rare.
But Kathy Hannun, it turns out, was a natural.
When she graduated from college in 2009, Hannun knew she
wanted to work in renewable energy, and figured that nonprof-
its were the quickest route to making a difference. But after work-
ing with a few underfunded organizations in Mexico and the
Philippines, she decided to “figure out how to be effective in the
world.” For better or worse, that meant going where the money
was. She saw a customer support opening at Google, and—despite
never having wanted to work at Google, and having no interest
in the job itself—she took it. “I was like, Google’s a big company,
they’re highly effective in the world, they have a ton of resources.
We’ll see where it goes,” she says.
While working as a full-time Googler, she completed a master’s
degree in computer science at Stanford. That got the attention of
the fledgling team at X, which was hiring for an entry-level mar-
keter. And before long, Hannun saw her opportunity.
X is a collaborative culture, and even though she was junior on
the team, Hannun volunteered to lead a project that attempted to
turn seawater into carbon-neutral fuel. She was in her mid-20s, and
the only woman on a team of men at least a decade older, who all
had Ph.D.s. But her readiness to jump in impressed leadership. “She
had no background in any of this,” Teller recalls, “but she’s such a
learning machine that she was like, ‘I’ll figure it out.’” And she did,
Teller says. She brought the team together, made impressive prog-
ress, and oversaw the development of a machine that did, in fact,
turn seawater into methanol. And then…she killed it. She published
the results, and washed her hands of it.
“It’s one of the best kills we’ve ever had,” Teller says.
By that, Teller means that Hannun was able to assess the project
with passionate dispassion, using a key tool in the idea-winnowing
process: kill criteria. “Early on in a project,” he explains, “while
things are still good and most people can be sort of reasonable, I’ll
say, ‘What would be evidence that the reward-risk ratio just isn’t
good? Tell me what you hope to learn over the next six months or
year.’” That way, project leaders have a way to track their prog-
ress and an agreed-upon understanding of what success or failure
would look like. “The ultimate purpose of the kill criteria,” Hannun
says, “is a kind of forced clarity.”
In the case of the seawater fuel, the kill criteria was straightfor-
May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 41

ward: They needed to be able to produce a $5 gallon of gasoline
equivalent, at scale. It was the only path to a viable business. And
as Hannun developed the project, that looked increasingly unlikely.
First, the membranes used to take carbon dioxide out of the sea-
water degraded too quickly, and were expensive. Then it was too
difficult to pump seawater from a regulatory perspective, which
meant they were reliant on desalination facilities that had no incen-
tive to work with them—and anyway, those plants produce so much
carbon dioxide that it made the carbon savings kind of moot. “She
understood that her job wasn’t to make seawater fuel work at all
costs,” Teller says. “Her job was to answer the question: Could this
be a once-in-a-generation opportunity? And her conclusion was,
‘We think we could get to a $15 gallon of gas equivalent. That’s just
not gonna save the world.’”
For her part, Hannun says killing that project wasn’t as hard as
it might have been, because she’d already started researching geo-
thermal energy. “Ultimately it’s an opportunity cost thing,” she
says. “In my ideal life, I would use my time to do something impact-
ful. As soon as it became clear how many barriers there were to
scaling seawater fuel, I was like, ‘Then why are we doing this?’ The
heat pump thing could also be incredibly world-changing. And the
problems just seemed so much more tractable.”
42 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
→DIRTY WORK
From top left: Hannun
working on seawater
fuel, Hannun on
site at a geothermal
installation.
Rule #2/ Revisit ideas.
Where do breakthrough ideas come from? We like to think they
appear out of thin air—a visionary’s stroke of genius. But the team at
X knows better. Sure, some ideas seem to come from nowhere. But
many are just in hibernation. They were tried and abandoned. They
were ahead of their time. Or maybe they were only circulated in
academic circles, and never given a real-world try.
“What we should be world-class at here is evaluating ideas,”
Teller says, “whether they’re our ideas or somebody else’s. The
‘pride of ownership,’ and ‘not invented here’ attitude—those are
sources of inefficiency.”
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DANDELION
Geothermal systems, for example, had already been around for
over half a century. That’s why Hannun’s first task was revisiting
assumptions around them—without taking for granted that she
could do better. “There are a lot of good reasons the world is the
way it is,” Hannun says. “So it’s good to have humility, and not be
too dismissive. But it’s also good to have curiosity—like, I’m sure
there are reasons, but can I understand the reasons? Based on
your research, sometimes you realize, ‘Yep, there is a good reason
it’s always been done this way.’ But sometimes there isn’t.”
As she researched geothermal, she began to understand why it
had never gone mainstream. 
$437,295

Geothermal heat pumps work by transferring heat into and
out of a home using a refrigerant, like an air conditioner does. But
instead of moving heat into and out of the air outside the home,
the heat pump is connected to ground loops, or plastic pipes, that
extend vertically 250-500 feet into the earth, where the tempera-
ture is constant year-round (usually about 55 degrees). In the win-
ter, the pumps extract heat from the ground loops to warm the
house, and in the summer, the heat pumps remove heat from the
house and dissipate it into the ground through the loops.
The mechanics are fairly simple, but the installation process is
not. Traditionally, the rig needed to drill a hole that deep in the
ground is the same kind you’d use to dig a well, which is about
21 feet tall, eight tons, and transported on a bed the size of a
semitruck. Fitting that equipment in most suburban backyards
is impossible. But could that be solved for? Yes, Hannun came to
believe. No one had bothered to source smaller, more efficient geo-
thermal drilling equipment—but only because there wasn’t enough
market demand. “So this is a chicken or egg situation where no one
has the incentive to solve that problem,” she says. “But I said, ‘Okay,
if a company existed specifically to solve this problem, that would
be possible, right?’”
This was the idea she brought to the team at X, and they were
into it: They could develop a robotic solution, with optimized drill-
ing equipment. They called the project Dandelion, and got to work.
But that’s when Hannun began exploring another problem: cost.
While the lifetime price tag of a geothermal system is cheaper than
a traditional gas or oil system (because it’s so efficient to run), the
upfront cost of installation was unaffordable for most homeowners:
somewhere in the ballpark of $60,000 to $80,000. And there was
no financing system available to help people pay over time. Hannun
realized that to make geothermal accessible to the masses, she
needed to develop an end-to-end marketplace that advertised geo-
thermal, sold it, matched customers with HVAC companies to install
the systems, liaised with banks to finance customers’ purchases,
helped customers understand ever-changing government rebates
and incentives, and generally manage the whole experience.
This changed everything.
4 4 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
Teller says that, in the early stages of developing a business, it’s
often difficult to predict exactly what the nature of your problem
will be, or who the best partner will be to help you get there. You
must constantly revisit assumptions about where you’re headed,
and who to work with, and you can’t force old ideas to work in
new realities. That’s what happened to Dandelion: It was con-
ceived as a technology project, which was perfect for X, but it was
morphing into a financial, marketing, and communications proj-
ect, which was not.
Hannun believed in her concept. But it wasn’t going to happen
at Alphabet. “It was a startup,” she says. So in April 2017, Dandelion
spun out into the world.
Rule #3/ Focus on the hard problem(s) first.
When explaining the X approach to solving problems, Teller often
uses a metaphor. Maybe you’ve heard it; the media has repeated
it a lot. Say you were told to teach a monkey to recite Shakespeare
while standing on a pedestal. What would you do first? Some
might build the pedestal, to make quick progress. But Teller says
that’s foolish, because building the pedestal is the easy part. The
hard part is teaching the monkey to recite Shakespeare. So until
you’ve figured out if you can do that, you’re wasting time with
low-hanging fruit.
Hannun says this framework can be useful, but cautions that,
in most cases, it isn’t always clear which problems are big and
which are small. “With Dandelion, there were many problems,”
she says. “So part of our journey was learning what problems
matter right now.”
The first was the outdated drilling process, which is most of
what her team worked on at X. Once the company spun out on
its own, she raised seed money, and began marketing and rais-
ing awareness. Then she needed to figure out who would actually
install these geothermal systems, since she didn’t have her own
team of expert contractors. To solve this, she convinced a bunch
of HVAC companies to offer geothermal installations on top of
their existing businesses. Finally, they locked in a partnership to
provide zero-down financing to customers. By its launch date,
Dandelion had gotten a ton of interest from homeowners.
The hope was that all these solutions they’d worked out would
hold together, but when Dandelion actually launched, Hannun
says, their plan “pretty much immediately failed.”
The big problem they hadn’t foreseen was how hard it
would be to maintain quality and customer experience.
Because the geothermal industry was still so niche, almost no
one at the HVAC companies they’d contracted with had expe-
rience actually installing these systems, which meant that
many installations became a complicated, frustrating process
for both the customer and the contractor. And because geo-
thermal was only a small fraction of the HVAC companies’
overall business, the geothermal jobs were lower priority, and
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DANDELION
the companies weren’t willing to put resources toward train-
ing workers and streamlining their processes.
“We didn’t recognize the workforce issue when we were at X
because we hadn’t gone to market,” Hannun says. “But within
a few months, it became clear that no one had done the funda-
mental groundwork of asking, ‘How should these projects go?’”
Now Hannun had found the real problem: Before she could
build anything else, she needed to learn how to actually install
the thing she was selling. This meant vertical integration—hiring
installers, dealing with warehouses and permits and licenses and
all the dirty work. “All of it,” she says. 
Rule #4/ Think big, but be honest.
“All of it,” of course, was going to cost a lot more money. So Hannun
started fundraising again. And in this endeavor, she confronted an
unexpected problem: One of the most foundational lessons at X—to
be “passionately dispassionate”—could actually be somewhat coun-
terproductive in the real world.
Hannun had learned to be brutally honest and transparent about
her project’s weak points. “But in fundraising, the norms are very
different,” she says. “Investors are looking for the founder with the
big vision who believes they’re gonna take over the world.” They
wanted her to be more passionate, and less passionately dispassion-
ate. Hannun has adapted, but never fully subscribed to this mind-
set. “I think it’s too bad,” she says. “I feel like that attitude among
investors limits the type of personalities they fund in a way that
might not always be useful to them.”
None of this is news to Teller. X was designed intentionally to
shield the process of idea development from norms that govern the
business world. When fundraising, Teller acknowledges, “being
really honest is short-term stupid.” But he also started five compa-
nies before going to X, and remains convinced that founders should
lean towards honesty, even if it’s not what investors expect.
“For my second company, I remember sitting down with the
woman who gave us our first term sheet,” he says, “and I started
trying to talk her down on the valuation. She was like, ‘Oh honey,
I’m sure you’re a very good tech person, but you don’t understand
how this works. You wanna talk me up on the valuation.’” But he
insisted. And eventually, that investor would end up on the board of
his company. “I really believe that, even from a brass tacks business
perspective,” Teller says, “things like being honest and vulnerable
and telling the truth—those behaviors are long-term smart.”
Rule #5/ Expertise is optional. Clarity is not.
When you set out to solve a giant problem, it’s understandable to
wonder: Can I really do this? After all, most unsolved problems are
complicated. Many require technical skills or intensive industry
knowledge. What if you don’t have any of that?
Hannun was first seized with this sort of imposter syndrome
when she was at X, leading the seawater fuel project. “Back then, I
put a lot of value on domain knowledge,” she says, “which I did not
have.” Her only real qualification was the fact that she’d asked to do
it. “The opportunity felt very unlikely,” she says.
But as she muddled along and found her footing, she began to
understand something about her role.
“Some people are domain experts, and some people are the con-
nective tissue between domain experts,” she says. “My job was to
see the perspectives of many stakeholders and bring them together.
I didn’t need to know electrochemistry, because I had professors on
the team who were experts in that. I just needed to be able to com-
municate with them about what was important, and why.”
As time went on, she began to trust the value of this skill set. The
essence of her job, she now believes, is to give people clarity.
“I believe I can take on any problem as long as I have three
things: an understanding of the nature of the problem, the experts
needed to solve the problem, and the ability to motivate those
experts,” she says.
With Dandelion, Hannun understood the nature of the problem
for a long time. But she struggled with finding the experts to solve it.
So for a few years, Dandelion busied itself with simplifying the drill-
ing process and training workers on how to do it. “It was literally
choking our growth,” Hannun says. But then, in 2021, they had a
breakthrough. After going down a rabbit hole on YouTube, Hannun
46 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
“YOU CAN GET A LOT DONE BY
BEING SO PASSIONATE
THAT YOU’LL JUST BLAST
THROUGH OBSTACLES.
BUT IF YOUR IDEA ISN’T RIGHT,
OR THE WORLD CHANGES
IN VARIOUS WAYS, IT COULD
JUST BE HOT COALS
OUT TO THE HORIZON.”
came across a video of geothermal drilling in Sweden, where 20%
of homes run on geothermal energy. What she saw intrigued her, so
the Dandelion team took a field trip across the pond. The “Swedish
method,” as they call it, was a revelation. “It was literally five times
better than anything we had seen,” Hannun says. “They had opti-
mized for drilling equipment that was safe and small, inexpensive to
transport, easy to train people how to use and service. They had 50
years on us to figure this out. And they were so eager to teach us.”
Since then, Hannun says, Dandelion’s growth has exploded. “It
totally solved the bottleneck.” In 2022, their revenue more than
doubled. They’ve cut the cost of installation for each home in half;
it now averages $25,000 to $30,000, where it used to be $40,000
to $60,000, and Hannun says it will only go down from here. “I am
so aware right now of all the things in our cost stack that are still
under-optimized and more expensive than they need to be,” she
says. “We’re still on the steep part of the cost curve, and I predict it
will continue, like we saw with solar.”
As of last October, Dandelion announced that they’d installed
1,000 geothermal home systems—which, by 2050, will collectively
reduce carbon emissions by 413,000 tons, the equivalent of remov-
ing 13,000 cars from the road.
OF COURSE, when Elaine Weir saw Dandelion’s ad on Facebook, she
knew none of this. She just saw a company selling something that
sounded better than what she had. Now she walks out of her house
every day and delights in the change.
A few feet from her screened-in porch, where the noisy HVAC
units used to be, there’s a towering sunflower that stands vigil over
a “three sisters” garden, with corn, squash, and beans. “I got, like,
20 ears of corn!” she says. “They were disgusting, but I ate every
one of them.”
That’s not the only thing growing. The real estate valuation of her
house has gone up, thanks to the land she reclaimed and the value
of the geothermal system itself. Plus, when everyone’s energy bills
skyrocketed during the pandemic, hers stayed the same. And while
the heat pumps aren’t advertised as basement dehumidifiers, Weir
says they’ve made “the air very luxurious down there.”
So she’s become something of a geothermal evangelist. And not
too long ago, her neighbor told her she’d decided to take the leap
with Dandelion, too.
That’s how it goes at the beginning, with a world-changing idea.
Problem by problem, person by person, leap by leap. And then, all
of a sudden, all the reasons it once seemed impossible don’t seem
like very good reasons after all.
Frances Dodds is Entrepreneur’s deputy editor.
 Do You, LIKE, Say
LIKE Too Much?
Don’t Worry!
I’m a Sociolinguist,
and I LIKE LIKE.
You should, too—
because LIKE is
a lot more useful
than we give it
credit for.
by VALERIE FRIDLAND

Illustration / N I C O L Á S O R T E G A May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 49

 alk into any hip startup and what’s the
one word you’ll hear echoing across the
cubicles and over the Keurig despite
best efforts to rein in its use? No, it
doesn’t rhyme with luck or hit. This one
rhymes with hike and should be wildly
familiar to anyone who’s seen the mov-
ies Valley Girl or Clueless. Like may
sound juvenile, but it has taken over
our linguistic nooks and crannies in
almost every variety of global English. It
appears at the beginning of sentences,
in the middle of clauses, and now it
even introduces quotes. This expanded
use of like is so widespread that news
outlets ranging from The Atlantic to
Time to Vanity Fair to The New York
Times have covered what seems to be its
troubling and meteoric rise.
But before condemning like as a blight
on all that we hold professionally dear, let’s take some time to con-
sider why it might actually serve the greater communicative good.
Just maybe, there is more to like than we might at first believe.
LIKE IS AN INCREDIBLY AMORPHOUS WORD. Even when it’s
“appropriately” used, it’s a syntactical workhorse. Primarily, we
hear like as a verb, to discuss a fondness for objects or people (“I
like ice cream”). As a noun, we have preferences (likes) and their
opposite (dislikes). As an adjective, the word is infinitely applicable
(swanlike, buffoonlike) to mean “similar to” or “in the manner of.”
We also see like used as a preposition, as found in a simile construc-
tion (“She has eyes like the sky”) and as a conjunction to embed
another clause (“She rode the bike like she was on fire”).
But while these are considered the “appropriate” forms of
like, they too have not always been so well received. For exam-
ple, back in the 1950s, the grammar police were appalled by a cig-
arette ad that said, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”
Prescriptivists of the time denounced this “misuse” of like as a
conjunction where, standardly, the word as should have reigned.
(“Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should.”) Of course,
those people should have been more worried about cigarettes’
long-term effects on our health rather than our grammar.
Nowadays, the conjunction like is so pervasive that its
colloquial past is unknown to many of its users—even though
our traditional grammar books still label that use as incorrect
in formal written English.
What people complain about today is the newest type of like. In
my college linguistics classes, when I ask the students to name the
things that bug them the most about language, like is always at the
top of the list—often comically appearing in the very sentence that
denigrates it. “I hate how people, like, use like all the time,” they’ll
say. Once the offending word is mentioned, the students can’t stop
noticing how often it pops up in everyone’s speech for the rest of
the class period—and then the rest of the day, week, month, and
year. What drives this ceaseless advance? Ask most parents and
they’ll probably say it has something to do with adolescent laziness
or linguistic rebellion. Ask most employers and they’ll probably say
it has to do with a shift from a more formal workplace to a casual,
less professional setting.
Ask most linguists, though, and they’ll probably tell you we’re
50 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
missing the mark.
This new like is what linguists call a “discourse marker.” English
has an arsenal of these markers—such as so, you know, actually, oh,
um, and I mean—that don’t directly contribute to the literal content
of a sentence. Instead, they contribute to how we understand each
other by providing clues to a speaker’s intentions. For instance,
when I say, “Oh, I finally got a job!” my use of oh is a shorthand way
to prompt a listener to mimic my surprise. Discourse markers pro-
vide the social greasing of the conversational wheel. Without them,
our speech would sound more computerlike. In fact, try not using
any. Not only will you find it quite difficult, but others will find you a
less appealing speaker.
Discourse markers are by no means new or unusual. Shakespeare
made liberal use of them. The epic poem Beowulf even begins with
one (Hwæt!), meaning “what” in Old English, which was a signal
to the audience that something worth paying attention to will fol-
low. Old English texts from the fifth to 11th centuries are full of the
word þa, meaning “then,” which seemed to serve a similar role. By
the early modern period (15th through 17th centuries), interjections
such as alas, ah, and fie, among others, functioned to give a sense
of a speaker’s intentions or emotions (alas, ’tis true). The use of like
as a conversational marker, which today’s critics often blame on
modern youth, dates back centuries. The Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) cites an example from 1778: “Father grew quite uneasy, like,
for fear of his Lordship’s taking offence.” It also cites another exam-
ple from 1840, in a magazine of the era: “Why like, it’s gaily nigh
like, to four mile like.”
Like emerged as a discourse marker centuries ago for the same
reason that it has become so popular today: It is a surprisingly use-
ful conversational tool.
TO SEE HOW LIKE COMES IN HANDY even in professional settings,
take a sentence like, “I worked for, like, 80 hours.” The like that
appears in this example might not seem as if it is serving any strictly
necessary role. In fact, it could be deleted and the strict semantic
sense of the sentence would remain (“I worked for 80 hours”). But
you would lose some of what the speaker intends to convey, a cer-
tain linguistic je ne sais quoi. This use of like suggests the speaker is
not completely certain of how long they worked (or doesn’t really
care to be more specific) but is emphasizing the fact that the work
period was impressively long.
We will often state things strongly or weakly in order to persuade
a listener about a position we present, or to resist making a strong
claim, or even to share useful but potentially not exact information.
In our example, “I worked for, like, 80 hours,” the speaker’s intent
is to persuade the listener that the work was long and grueling, but
probably not that it actually lasted 80 hours. In fact, if taken liter-
ally, one might not have much interest in pursuing conversation with
someone so obviously in need of alternate leisure-time pursuits.
While often characterized as empty or meaningless in terms of
the semantic contribution, such markers can be an important com-
ponent of what we consider informative discourse. Compare the
sentence, “John was, like, 21, when he launched the company” with
the roughly equivalent utterance, “John was 21 when he launched
the company.” Should a listener know John, and also know that he
actually started his company at 22, the conversational import (that
he founded a startup at an early age) intended by the speaker may
be missed because the listener is more concerned that the sentence
violated what they know about John. In linguistics we call this the
truth-conditional meaning of sentences. Sarcasm and humor aside,
Illustration / N I C O L Á S O R T E G A
E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 51
 “
speakers and listeners tend to aim for credibility. Thus, there is a
subtle difference added by the use of like that may help a speaker
make a point about John launching his company without getting
sidelined by information regarding his age that could mess with
our truth conditions. One could easily have said, “John was about
Leaders of
21 when he launched the company,” but that comes across as more
reserved than carefree and hip. all sorts should
Just think about it this way: We hedge and qualify all the time
in business. Along with the perfectly acceptable terms “think,”
“may,” “possibly,” or “maybe,” like is just another way of expressing
relax about
degrees of certainty. censoring the
HERE’S ANOTHER WAY that like adds nuance.
My daughter (a model like user) and I were recently talking about
likes out of
a party she attended. When describing a fellow attendee, she said,
“She’s, like, one of the popular girls,” and then proceeded to tell their speech or
me about this tween Amazonian’s death-defying acts of coolness.
Now, I am doubtful that my daughter was trying to be vague about
the girl’s popularity. Instead, by introducing the noun phrase “one
the people
of the popular girls” with like, she was highlighting the point she they oversee.
”
was trying to make. In other words, she was using like as a linguistic
focuser. This function alerts the listener to a speaker’s emphasis or
subjective take on a particular aspect of the sentence.

52 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023 Illustration / N I C O L Á S O R T E G A

 “
There’s little
evidence that
its spread
will be halted.
Like it or not,
like is
becoming the
new norm.
”
The problem for some is that when like is used in this way, it can
seem to show up anywhere. But there is a method to the madness.
One study looked at how discourse marker functions of like were
deployed by speakers when retelling stories. It discovered that
both the original speaker and the listener tended to recycle likes at
the same points in the story when retelling it, suggesting that those
specific likes really did matter in qualifying or supplementing the
meaning. Like it or not (pun absolutely intended), like usage seems
to be intentional and essential.
And now the plot thickens. While the above examples demon-
strate the power of like as a discourse marker, the usage that seems
to really rally the grammar prescriptivists is like as a quotative
verb. As in, “I was like, ‘I can’t stand it!’ and she was like, ‘I know! I
don’t like it either.’” This form of nonstandard like use seems to be
the one people find most difficult to digest, which is unfortunate,
because it’s also the most rapidly expanding one in English.
In contrast to the long history of discourse-marker like, such
quotative like use is a fairly recent development, with the OED
first noting its appearance in a Time magazine article from 1970,
where it was used to report internal dialogue of the speaker: “And
I thought like wow, this is for me.” According to like experts, this
reference is a throwback to the “Like, wow” phenomenon associ-
ated with beatniks in the 1950s and beat/jazz culture in New York
City in the 1960s.
The popularity of quotative like use was mainstreamed by the
song “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa, with help from his daugh-
ter Moon Unit, in 1982. This song took popular culture by storm,
drawing a caricature of the speech style used by girls from
Southern California. Along with introducing the iconic phrase,
“Gag me with a spoon,” it acquainted many of us with like in both
its discourse-marker and quotative functions, helping to accelerate
its spread. Still, the song simply reflected, rather than started, an
undercurrent already in play well before it came on the scene.
When looking at how this be-like form is most often used,
54 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
Canadian researchers Sali Tagliamonte and Alexandra D’Arcy find
that it occurs most often with first-person narration of inner dia-
logue (e.g., “I was like” or “We were like”). Their findings echo
research from the early 1990s that discovered speakers alternat-
ing between say and like to take on different narrating roles—using
“they said” when directly reporting someone else’s speech but “I
was like” mainly when characterizing their own thoughts or feel-
ings. This suggests that be like is used primarily to help us convey
different perspectives while describing a story or an event, per-
haps to heighten dramatic tension.
Intriguingly, this rapid uptake and selective replacement of the
verb “to say” appears to correspond with a fundamental shift in
our narrative style during the latter half of the 20th century. Prior
to the rise of be like, our stories were primarily intended as retell-
ings of events. Now, however, we are also interested in narrating
our thoughts as if spoken out loud during the moments we are
describing. As a result, the focus has moved from strict reportage
of the events themselves to our processing of these events. The
verb “to say” didn’t sufficiently capture the subjective sensibility
this new approach required, which led to the rise of be like, serving
to inject first-person reflections. Think of the difference between
“Then I said, ‘Hello there!’” versus “Then I was like, ‘Helloooo
there!’” To say comes across as a verbatim quote while be like com-
municates a “something along the lines of” sentiment, and in fact
might be taken here to describe what I was thinking rather than
anything I actually said. Gradually, these first-person uses of quo-
tative like extended to use with all potential subjects, so that now
she can be like, he can be like, and so can they.
Not surprisingly, most studies have found a greater use of modern
like by younger speakers. But research suggests that it’s increasing
among older speakers too, and there’s little evidence that its spread
will be halted. Like it or not, like is becoming the new norm.
What does this all mean for you? Whether it falls from the lips of
those you work with or even your own, you won’t go wrong being
among the first to recognize this new like’s utility and purpose. It’s
especially helpful if you want to connect to millennials and Gen Z,
who will find you more appealing and approachable. So, leaders of
all sorts should relax about censoring the likes out of their speech
or the people they oversee. And for those who remain uncon-
vinced, instead of dismissing it as simply something to eradicate,
consider how like has traveled from the innovative edge to become
an enormously pervasive and popular feature of speech today—a
true linguistic entrepreneur if ever there was one.
What’s not to like about that?
→ From LIKE, LITERALLY, DUDE by
Valerie Fridland, published by Viking,
an imprint of Penguin Publishing
Group, a division of Penguin Random
House, LLC. Copyright © 2023
by Valerie Fridland.
 HOW
SUCCESS
HAPPENS
With Robert Tuchman
Listen to fellow entrepreneur and host Robert Tuchman go deep with some
of the brightest entrepreneurial minds as they discuss turning challenges
into learning experiences on the road to success.

Robert Tuchman Baron Davis

HOST & ENTREPRENEUR N B A AT H L E T E & E N T R E P R E N E U R

Photo Credit: REP1.

Filmed & Edited By Duncan Heger.

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 Listings

The Top 150 New and

Emerging Brands
These brands are fresh, new, innovative, and looking for forward-thinkers just like you.
by T R A C Y S TA P P H E R O L D
PHOTOGRAPH BY STOCK.ADOBE.COM/DEIVISON

o you like getting somewhere first? Introducing new things
to the world? Then you’ll love this list—because we’ve
rounded up the strongest emerging franchises in the
industry, all of which are looking for franchisees to join
them on a big new adventure.
There are a lot of interesting brands to choose from.
Some offer spins on already well-represented categories,
such as fitness, real estate, hamburgers, and lawn care. Others work
to create entirely new concepts like iced-tea drive-thrus, clear kayak
tours, mental health clinics, and dog wellness services. What you’re
seeing represents a wave of new energy in the franchise space, as
founders realize that franchising can help their brands grow quickly
and efficiently. It’s why, of the more than 1,000 brands that applied
to be on our annual Franchise 500 list last year, 360 of them had
only been franchising for five years or less! That’s a lot of newness.
Whatever your taste, if you’re interested in getting in on the
ground floor of a young franchise opportunity, there’s something
in franchising for you—and it’s why we made this list. Keep in mind,
though, that this list is not intended as an endorsement of any par-
ticular business. Our list can serve as a great jumping-off point, but
it’s essential that you also do your due diligence when researching
franchise opportunities. That should include consulting with an at-
torney and an accountant, reading the company’s legal documents,
and talking to franchisees about their experiences.

56 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 1 7
Mighty Dog Roofing
Residential and commercial
roofing services, siding,
windows, and gutters
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019
STARTUP COST
$215.7K-$383.4K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
195/0
Hommati
3D tours, aerial videos,
photography, augmented
What’s New at HTeaO
reality, and other services
for real estate agents
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018
STARTUP COST
$61.7K-$84.2K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
144/0

2 8
Jeremiah’s Italian
Ice Your CBD Store
Italian ice, gelato, ice cream CBD stores
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 2020
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$324.6K-$659.5K $69.8K-$90.3K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

66/19 275/0

3 9
1st Class Real HTeaO
Estate Iced tea
Real estate FRANCHISING SINCE
2018
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$235.2K-$1.6M
$32.7K-$208.8K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS 56/4
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
81/1
10
4
Koala Insulation
P3 Cost Analysts
Cost reduction consulting How does a drive-thru iced tea franchise sell more than 400
Insulation FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 franchises in five years, and earn No. 9 on this list? We spoke
FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 STARTUP COST with HTeaO’s chief development officer Andrew Hawes to learn
$68.7K-$79K
STARTUP COST
$147.8K-$190.1K TOTAL UNITS why franchisees see the brand as a sweet opportunity.
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS 38/1
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
313/0
11 To what do you attribute experience or a background in to attract multi-unit, multi-
5 KeyGlee
Wholesale real estate
HTeaO’s growth? restaurant management. brand franchise partners,
Corcoran It’s a model built around which is extremely hum-
Real estate FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 the most profitable part of a What types of franchisees bling. I still view us as a very
2019 STARTUP COST
$124.8K-$274.1K restaurant. Any restaurant has HTeaO attracted? young, unknown brand, so
STARTUP COST
$52.9K-$540.8K TOTAL UNITS owner will tell you bever- In the beginning, it was a to have someone with 20 or
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 123/9 ages are where the money lot of second-career-type 30 years of experience in
123/28 is made. We eliminated the people—people who said, the space take a leap of faith
12
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RJ HINKLE/HTEAO

frustration and equipment “I’d love to build a business means a lot to our team.
6 Randy’s Donuts
Doughnuts, breakfast that goes with food prepa- for myself, but I need that We’re still going to welcome
Sign Gypsies items, coffee
Special-occasion yard sign ration. And it doesn’t take a support mechanism of a single-unit franchisees, but
rentals FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 rocket scientist to realize that franchise.” So for the first bringing on multi-unit part-
FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 STARTUP COST water, tea, and ice are not few years, our growth was ners who can do five to 20
STARTUP COST
$526K-$1.2M
$4.2K-$9.9K TOTAL UNITS
too terribly expensive, so the heavily weighted toward stores over a shorter period
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
13/7
margins can be very lucra- single-unit operators, and because they have the infra-
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
769/1 tive. I think people can visu- they’ve been fantastic. Now structure already in place is
alize, Hey, this is something I that we’ve built some brand really going to be key to our
can do. I don’t need culinary awareness, we’re starting growth going forward.

May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 57
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

21 27
→ MAYWEATHER BOXING + FITNESS Mayweather Big Blue Swim
Boxing + Fitness School
Boxing group fitness Swimming lessons for ages
newborn to 10
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
2018
STARTUP COST
$299.7K-$595.5K STARTUP COST
$2.5M-$3.97M
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
48/3 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
5/10

22 28
Fundraising
University The Now Massage
Fundraising Massage services
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 2019
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$77.9K-$84.1K $477.5K-$819.1K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

63/9 26/4

23 29
American Freight Island Fin Poke
Furniture, mattresses, Company
appliances Poke bowls
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 2018
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$521.9K-$948.9K $214.6K-$429.5K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
6/361 23/1

24 30
YogaSix Iron Valley
Yoga studios Real Estate
FRANCHISING SINCE Real estate
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2018
$294.8K-$499.2K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $53.5K-$138.5K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
154/1
13
All Dry Services
15
Baya Bar
17
Surface Experts
19
The Vitamin
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
27/8

Water and mold Acai, pitaya, and coconut Interior hard surface Shoppe 25 31
remediation and bowls, smoothies, juices, repairs Vitamins, minerals, Smash My Trash
restoration avocado toast, coffee FRANCHISING SINCE supplements, sport Mobile commercial-waste Code Wiz
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE 2018 nutrition products compaction services Coding, robotics, and STEM
2020 2018 FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE enrichment classes and
STARTUP COST camps for ages 7 to 17
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST $133.1K-$213.5K 2021 2018
$86.9K-$212K $155K-$335K STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $492.9K-$944.9K $339.9K-$400.5K 2018
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS

P H O T O G R A P H B Y D R E W R U I Z / M AY W E AT H E R B O X I N G + F I T N E S S
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 59/0 TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
115/1 19/3 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $120.3K-$199.9K
30/675 149/2

14 16 18 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
8/2
Combo Kitchen
QC Kinetix LIME Painting Ghost kitchens/food halls 20 26
Home Care for the
Regenerative medicine
and nonsurgical pain
Residential and commercial
painting, coatings, and FRANCHISING SINCE
2020
Augusta Lawn Care
Services 21st Century 32
management therapies surface restoration
Lawn care and landscaping Home care, hospice G-Force
STARTUP COST care, medical staffing, Parking Lot
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
$3.3K-$357.5K FRANCHISING SINCE nonemergency medical
2020 2018 2019 Striping
TOTAL UNITS transportation Pavement marking
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE services
$220.1K-$328.8K $124.7K-$162.4K 105/1 $12.99K-$82.5K 2019 FRANCHISING SINCE
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST 2018
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
128/10 33/2 $209.9K-$273.5K
88/4 STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $29.8K-$107K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
12/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
36/0

58 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 GET UP AND
GO KAYAKING

UNLOCKED ADVENTURE

JOIN THE
#1 OUTDOOR
TOUR BRAND
IN THE USA
AND LAUNCH YOUR
DREAM
FRANCHISE
Today!
2023 Top New & Emerging Franchise
by Entrepreneur Magazine.
2023 Top Franchise Under $100K
by Entrepreneur Magazine.
2023 Top Trending Franchise
by Entrepreneur Magazine.
22 Current Locations.
50%+ Profit Margins.
Tampa Bay Franchise Ranked #1 Outdoor &
Nature Activity in the World by TripAdvisor.
Top Ranked Kayak Tours in the US by USA TODAY.
Donates a Portion of Bookings to Conservation. 20,0
00+
LEARN MORE

BE A PART OF THE WORLD'S HIGHEST

RATED CLEAR KAYAK TOURS:
Justin@GetUpAndGoKayaking.com
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

33 39
Get Up And Go
Kayaking
Guided clear kayak tours
Dave’s Hot Chicken
Nashville hot chicken What’s New at
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019
STARTUP COST
GET UP AND GO KAYAKING
STARTUP COST $626.3K-$1.4M
$53.6K-$87.1K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 66/4
17/2

40
34 Send Me a Pro
The DripBar In-home personal training
IV vitamin therapy FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2019
2019 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $49.1K-$84.8K
$136.5K-$338.3K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 57/0
28/1

41
35
Blingle!
Lean Kitchen
Company
Holiday, landscape, and Healthy prepared meals,
event lighting beverages, nutritional
FRANCHISING SINCE
supplements
2021 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST
2018
$369.5K-$422.5K STARTUP COST
$151.5K-$440.8K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
24/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
29/2

36 42
i4 Search Group
Healthcare recruiting Frios Gourmet Pops
FRANCHISING SINCE
Frozen pops
2021 FRANCHISING SINCE

P H O T O G R A P H B Y J I M M Y F A S H N E R ; P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y O F G E T U P A N D G O K AYA K I N G ( H E A D S H O T )
STARTUP COST
2018
$51.8K-$109.8K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$66.3K-$172.8K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
20/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
47/0 Since launching in 2016, Get Up And Go Kayaking has racked up
37 43 hundreds of millions of social media views, thousands of five-star
Moge Tee reviews, 20-plus franchises in Florida, and now earned the No. 33
Bubble tea, fruit tea, Joe Homebuyer
cheese foam tea Real estate
spot on this list. Owner Justin Buzzi explains how it all got started.
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 2019
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$158.7K-$269.3K $106K-$412K What inspired you to start outdoor recreation in the What are you looking for
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) a business offering clear springs here in Florida, in your franchisees?
50/3 48/0
kayak tours? so it got me thinking; People who are adventur-
In the summer of 2016, maybe there was a way to ous and who understand
38 44 my then-girlfriend (now fulfill some of that extra customer service. I love
Kitchen Refresh Cyberbacker
Kitchen and bathroom Outsourced personal my wife) and I tried to go demand. And I had seen owner-operators, because
cabinet remodeling and assistants
countertop installation FRANCHISING SINCE to a state park in central the clear kayaks online, no one’s going to care
FRANCHISING SINCE 2021
2019 Florida, and when we and thought it would be more about their business.
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $78.1K-$94K got there it was already cool to see the water and So I love when an owner
$13.3K-$160.9K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
at capacity. There was a aquatic life under you. starts out as their own tour
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 42/1 long line of cars—hundreds So two weeks later, I got guide so they can learn to
18/0
of people—being turned a loan from the bank and give the tours, which then
away. We tried calling sev- started the business up. helps them with hiring
eral other state parks and I wanted to be the first and training later on. And
springs, but they were to market giving tours in what’s better than getting
all completely full, too. I clear kayaks, so I just hit to kayak in beautiful places
hadn’t realized how much the ground running—or and share those experi-
demand there was for rather, the water paddling. ences with other people?

60 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 Franchise expansion has become increasingly international
in the last few years. Here are the 25 brands with the greatest
franchise growth outside of the U.S. and Canada from July
The Top 2021
150 to July
New and 2022.
Emerging Brands

53 59
→ CELEBREE SCHOOL Transblue Detroit Wing
Construction management Company
FRANCHISING SINCE Chicken wings
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2021
$147.9K-$244.3K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $506.4K-$662.3K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
21/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
15/1

54 60
Special Strong
Adaptive fitness for Clozetivity
individuals with physical, Custom closet design and
mental, and cognitive installation
challenges
FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2021
2020
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $81.5K-$157.5K
$56.9K-$68.7K
TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
42/0
6/1

55 61
Nautical Bowls
Motto by Hilton Acai bowls
Upscale micro-unit hotels
FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2020
2018
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $243.8K-$423.3K
$15.3M-$85.2M
TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
17/0
3/0

56 62
Mosquito Mary’s
Body20 Outdoor pest control
Fitness training using
electro muscle stimulation FRANCHISING SINCE
2020
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 STARTUP COST
$92.96K-$116.9K
STARTUP COST
$409K-$478.4K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS 11/1
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

45 47
AKT
49
Bath Tune-Up
51
Quick Mobile Repair
15/1
63
Strickland Brothers
10 Minute Oil Dance cardio and strength
fitness studios
Bathroom remodeling Electronics repairs and
sales
57 Burrito Shak
Burritos, tacos, quesadillas,
Change FRANCHISING SINCE Celebree School nachos
Oil-change services FRANCHISING SINCE 2020 FRANCHISING SINCE Early childhood education
2018 2019 and childcare FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE STARTUP COST 2018
2019 STARTUP COST $104.9K-$158.9K STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
$320.6K-$495.5K $151.4K-$174.8K 2018 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS $324.7K-$797K
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
$217.9K-$1.4M STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 37/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$740.2K-$963.7K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS 31/1 7/5 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS 6/1
38/73
48 50 52
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
7/26

46 GrassRoots Turf
Dryer Vent Squad
Dryer-vent cleaning and Rumble Boxing 64
Wize Computing Lawn, tree, and shrub care;
mosquito control
repair Boxing fitness studios 58 Casago
Property management and
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CELEBREE SCHOOL

Academy FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE Pokemoto vacation rentals

Coding, robotics, and FRANCHISING SINCE 2019 2021 Poke bowls, wraps, salads,
2019 boba teas FRANCHISING SINCE
design classes, camps, and STARTUP COST STARTUP COST 2020
competition prep STARTUP COST $52.1K-$68.4K $393.7K-$4M FRANCHISING SINCE
$100.8K-$151.6K 2018 STARTUP COST
FRANCHISING SINCE TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $82.98K-$329K
2018 TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 53/0 23/0 $137K-$294.9K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$38K-$67K 19/1
TOTAL UNITS 15/12
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 6/12
13/2

62 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

65 71
Ellie Mental Health
Outpatient mental health
services
Blue Kangaroo
Packoutz
Contents restoration
What’s New at
FRANCHISING SINCE
2021
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019
ELLIE MENTAL HEALTH
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$138.8K-$404.96K $177.9K-$381.4K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
9/18 16/1

66 72
Face Foundrie Stride Fitness
Facials, lash and brow Treadmill-based interval
services, skin care training
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 2019
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$196.9K-$368.9K $372.4K-$533.5K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
14/3 16/0

67 73
Preserve Services Layne’s Chicken
Multi-service construction Fingers
management
Chicken tenders
FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 2018
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$83.5K-$116.4K $656K-$1.3M
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
6/1 4/4

68 74
Poke Mahi Grand Welcome
Poke Vacation rental property
FRANCHISING SINCE management
2020 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2019
$142.8K-$295K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $37.9K-$167.8K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
9/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Cofounder and CEO of Ellie Mental Health Erin Pash is on a
20/5
mission to make mental health services more accessible, and
69
StretchMed
Assisted stretching
75 that’s landed her brand at No. 65 on our list. Here, she explains
Crave Hot Dogs how franchising helped her reach that goal.
FRANCHISING SINCE and BBQ
2019 Hot dogs, barbecue, beer,
STARTUP COST ax throwing
$86.7K-$182.8K FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 How did Ellie Mental What led you to We resisted at first,
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST Health get started? franchise? because we both thought,
11/4 $161.3K-$792.5K
I am a licensed marriage When we considered what We do not want to be the
TOTAL UNITS P H O T O G R A P H S B Y S H A R R I K E L L E R / E L L I E M E N TA L H E A LT H
70 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
17/0
and family therapist in
Minnesota, and my partner
made us successful, we
narrowed it down to three
McDonald’s of mental
health. We want to be locally
Valenta
Consulting, digital
transformation, staff
augmentation, training
76 at the time and I wanted to things: entrepreneurial owned by people with lots of
Epic Wings be a better place for clini- spirit, passion for mental passion. What we learned
FRANCHISING SINCE Chicken wings and tenders,
2018 fries, breadsticks, sauces cians to work, break down health, and being really is, that’s exactly what
STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE some of the barriers to grounded in a community. franchising is. It’s about
$64.9K-$93K 2018
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
getting access to care for So finding people who finding like-minded part-
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
45/0
$454.2K-$1.3M clients, and create a relat- could be our partners who ners. Every single one of
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) able brand that could help have passion for their own our franchisees we have
26/0 destigmatize mental health. communities was really hand-selected, and we go
I now own 20 clinics in important to us, especially through a rigorous pro-
Minnesota, and since we when it comes to building cess of making sure they
started franchising in 2021, trust. We went to talk to a fit our cultural values and
we have 500 clinics in 38 lawyer, and he said, “You’re are in this for all the right
states set to open. talking about franchising.” reasons.

64 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

85
The Great Greek
91
Wing Snob
→ LASHBAR
Mediterranean Grill Chicken wings and
Greek and tenders, sides
Mediterranean food FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2018
2018 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $255K-$475K
$476.1K-$798.3K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 30/0
17/6

92
86 Voodoo Brewing
Hello Sugar Co.
Traditional waxing and Craft brew pubs
sugaring FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2019
2021 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $331.8K-$762.5K
$50.6K-$59.9K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 11/5
19/11

87 93
Level Up
Home Clean Heroes Automation
Residential cleaning Design and installation of
FRANCHISING SINCE commercial and residential
2018 technology modifications
and integrations
STARTUP COST
$76.9K-$100.9K FRANCHISING SINCE
2021
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST
9/2 $51.8K-$68.2K
TOTAL UNITS

88
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
6/1
Network Lead
Exchange
Business referral networks 94
New Again Houses
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 Home purchasing,
remodeling, and selling
STARTUP COST
FRANCHISING SINCE
$12.5K-$25.2K 2018
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST
77
Buzzed Bull
79
Basecamp Fitness
81
P-Fit the Platinum
83
LashBar
38/0 $94K-$180K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Creamery
Alcohol-infused ice cream
Fitness studios
FRANCHISING SINCE
Standard of Fitness
Fitness, health and weight-
Eyelash extensions and
beauty services 89 33/1

2019 control services FRANCHISING SINCE

Iris Environmental
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
2020
2018 Laboratories
Mold and asbestos
95
Tapville Social
STARTUP COST $435.9K-$846.1K STARTUP COST inspections
$204.3K-$566.4K TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST $159.2K-$248.9K Self-service beer
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $155.5K-$370K FRANCHISING SINCE taprooms/kiosks/
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS 2018
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 9/5 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) restaurants
TOTAL UNITS
11/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 13/0 STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
6/3 $31.3K-$62.5K 2019
80 84
78 Tile Liquidators
82 OTA World
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
6/4
STARTUP COST
$134.8K-$1.1M
The Driveway Discount flooring stores TOTAL UNITS
Company FRANCHISING SINCE Heating + Air Massage chair and (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Concrete restoration,
repair, and maintenance
2019 Paramedics
Residential heating, air
accessories stores
FRANCHISING SINCE
90 7/2
STARTUP COST
conditioning, and air quality 2019 Wise Coatings
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019
$62.2K-$108.3K services STARTUP COST
Floor coatings 96
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF L ASHBAR

TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) FRANCHISING SINCE $59K-$156K FRANCHISING SINCE Boost Home
2021 2021 Healthcare
$88.8K-$168.98K 11/0 TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST Home healthcare
TOTAL UNITS $117.4K-$160K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $105.3K-$205.8K 27/0 FRANCHISING SINCE
40/0 TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS 2021
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
6/1 STARTUP COST
4/1 $149.6K-$261.6K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
4/0

66 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 AMERICAN FREIGHT
FURNITURE • MATTRESS • APPLIANCE
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

97 103
XP League
Youth esports leagues
FRANCHISING SINCE
Rubbish Works
Eco-friendly junk removal
and dumpster rental
What’s New at SCENTHOUND
2020 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST
2020
$58.2K-$224.2K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$106.4K-$144K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
29/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
10/0

98 104
Pure Green
Smoothies, cold-pressed Go Oil
juices, acai and pitaya Mobile oil-change services
bowls
FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE 2018
2019 STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $23.1K-$56.3K
$122.95K-$380.4K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 31/3
15/7

99 105
Cereset
At Home Eldercare Neuro-technology to
In-home nonmedical senior assist with relaxation, self-
care improvement, sleep, and
FRANCHISING SINCE
mood stability
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
2018
STARTUP COST
$66.9K-$110.7K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$104.4K-$226.6K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
4/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
43/2

100 106
JPAR Real Estate
Real estate ManageMowed
Landscape management
FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2019
$36.7K-$237.9K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $80.7K-$118K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
42/28 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Scenthound CEO Tim Vogel talked to us about how his business
20/2
evolved from a typical grooming salon into a membership-based
101 107 wellness studio for dogs—and then into a quickly expanding
KickHouse
Kickboxing fitness studios Smalls Sliders franchise, hitting No. 127 on our list.
FRANCHISING SINCE Cheeseburger sliders,
2020 waffle fries, shakes
STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
$104.5K-$495K 2021
STARTUP COST
How did the brand start? five core areas that all dogs Third, we had created this
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $1.1M-$1.3M In 2005, my wife Jessica need routine care for. entirely new category, and
26/0 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) and I started a mobile we wanted to be the lead-
2/2
102 grooming business, and
later transitioned to retail
Why did you decide to
franchise?
ers in that category, and
franchising offered a way
Uncle Sharkii
Poke Bar 108
PureOne Services locations. After learning There were a handful of to scale rapidly. Finally,
Poke bowls, boba milk teas,
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SCENTHOUND

soft serve desserts Crime-scene, biohazard, what dogs’ and dog par- reasons. First, we wanted part of our value proposi-
and hoarding cleanup;
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019
property restoration ents’ needs were, we piv- to amplify our impact, to tion is that we collect each
FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2021
oted into a wellness model. help people care for their dog’s health profile, and
$90K-$299.5K
STARTUP COST If you look at the top 10 dogs in a proactive way the more data we collect,
TOTAL UNITS $86.8K-$140.6K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) breeds in the U.S., only one to help them live happier, the better recommen-
4/2 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) of those 10 needs a hair- healthier, longer lives. dations we can make on
1/4
cut—but all dogs need care. Second, I’ve always been what dog parents can do to
It was around 2015 that involved in the entrepre- keep their pets happy and
we launched what is today neurial community, and healthy. So the more loca-
called Scenthound—“scent” I loved the idea of help- tions we have, the more
being an acronym for “skin, ing other people take the data we have to personal-
coat, ears, nails, teeth,” the entrepreneurial journey. ize and curate solutions.

68 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

117
Patio Patrol
123
Woofie’s
→ ALOHA POKE CO.
Residential outdoor pest Pet-sitting, dog walking,
control mobile pet grooming
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 2018
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$74.5K-$169.5K $125.3K-$209.8K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
7/0 3/1

118 124
Tierra Encantada DonutNV
Spanish immersion Mini doughnuts, juices,
daycare and preschool coffee drinks
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 2018
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$1.5M-$2.9M $185.1K-$253.5K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
2/8 11/1

119 125
Aloha Poke Co. ISI Elite Training
Poke bowls Athletic-based
conditioning fitness
FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 programs
FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST
2019
$140.9K-$388.3K
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $295.6K-$495.3K
2/12 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
19/5
120
Toastique
Toast-style meals, fruit 126
bowls, juices, smoothies Natural Life
CBD, kratom, kava, and
FRANCHISING SINCE
related products
2019
FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST
2019
$367.6K-$695.98K
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $191.9K-$306.5K
3/4 TOTAL UNITS
109 111 113 115 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
8/4
Sweat440
Fitness studios
Children’s Art
Classes
Savvy Sliders
Sliders, wings, fries,
Franny’s Farmacy
CBD products and
121
FRANCHISING SINCE Children’s art education beverages accessories
Preveer
Outsourcing, business 127
2019 studios FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE consulting, business Scenthound
STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE 2019 2019 services Routine dog care and
$262.9K-$597.9K 2020 STARTUP COST STARTUP COST grooming services
FRANCHISING SINCE
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST $411K-$765K $135.95K-$263.9K 2020 FRANCHISING SINCE
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $94.4K-$193.96K TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
2018
5/2 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$53.5K-$77.5K STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 17/0 6/3 $201.4K-$369.8K
TOTAL UNITS
6/3
110 114 116
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
9/0
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Compassionate
Helpers 112 Richard’s Painting Discover Strength
25/5

Home healthcare Southern Grounds Painting Personalized strength

training
122 128
FRANCHISING SINCE
Coffee, pastries, breakfast, FRANCHISING SINCE Salty Paws
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ALOHA POKE CO.

2019 lunch, and dinner 2019 FRANCHISING SINCE Dog ice cream shops Pinspiration
FRANCHISING SINCE STARTUP COST
2020 DIY studios
STARTUP COST FRANCHISING SINCE
$157.95K-$259.4K 2022 $50.2K-$96.3K STARTUP COST 2019 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
$322K-$502K 2018
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $456.5K-$999.5K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS $99.3K-$175.7K STARTUP COST
6/2 TOTAL UNITS 6/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$108.9K-$228K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2/7 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
1/3 8/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
32/1

70 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 The Top 150 New and Emerging Brands

139
City Brew Tours
145
Twinkle Star Dance
→ MR JEFF Educational craft brewery Academy
tours Dance studios for ages 2
FRANCHISING SINCE to teens
2018 FRANCHISING SINCE
STARTUP COST 2021
$68.2K-$91.5K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $104.4K-$167.1K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
6/11 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
3/4

140
Facial Mania Med
Spa
146
Big Chicken
Spa, esthetic, and med spa Chicken sandwiches and
services tenders, salads, sides,
FRANCHISING SINCE
desserts
2019 FRANCHISING SINCE
2021
STARTUP COST
$260.3K-$698.5K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$673K-$1.6M
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
5/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
4/2

141 147
Mr Jeff
Dry cleaning and laundry Monster Grass
services, pickup and Synthetic grass/artificial
delivery turf
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2018 2020
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$124.6K-$349.8K $46.1K-$66.9K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
686/4 8/2

142 148
Scoop Soldiers Hydrate IV Bar
Pet waste removal IV therapy spas
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2019 2020
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$61.3K-$111.3K $213.6K-$424.8K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
129
Dumpster Dudez
131
Koibito Poke
134
Grumpy’s
136
Veronica’s Insurance
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
21/13
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
4/4
Residential and commercial Poke bowls Restaurant Auto, life, home, and
dumpster rentals FRANCHISING SINCE Breakfast, brunch, and
lunch restaurants
commercial insurance
143 149
FRANCHISING SINCE 2019 FRANCHISING SINCE Southern Steer All Med Search
2019 FRANCHISING SINCE 2020 Healthcare industry
STARTUP COST
2019
Butcher
STARTUP COST $260.95K-$466.9K STARTUP COST Butcher shops and recruiting and placement
$88.7K-$128.5K STARTUP COST $28.7K-$111.6K groceries services
TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $574K-$1.3M TOTAL UNITS FRANCHISING SINCE
FRANCHISING SINCE
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4/0 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
2020 2019
7/1 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 19/38 STARTUP COST
3/1 STARTUP COST

130 132 137

$358.8K-$742.3K $61K-$83K
TOTAL UNITS
BooXkeeping TOTAL UNITS
Spiffy Bookkeeping for small and 135 1-800-Textiles (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
3/1
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
11/1
On-demand car care medium businesses Hite Digital Textile restoration
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE Digital marketing services FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 2020 FRANCHISING SINCE
2020
2022 144 150
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST STARTUP COST Magnolia Soap and VIO Med Spa
$101.6K-$181.4K $40.2K-$65.2K STARTUP COST $70.5K-$922.5K Bath Co. Skincare, cosmetic
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MR JEFF

TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $56.7K-$120.4K TOTAL UNITS Bath and home products health, and wellness
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) products and services
TOTAL UNITS FRANCHISING SINCE
13/35 2/1 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 45/0 FRANCHISING SINCE
2021
21/1 2018
STARTUP COST
133 138 $165.1K-$261.8K STARTUP COST
$938K-$1.2M
Renovation Sells True North TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
Residential presale Restoration (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
renovations Restoration services 7/12
12/1
FRANCHISING SINCE FRANCHISING SINCE
2020 2021
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$77.8K-$95.8K $83.5K-$190K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
41/2 7/2

72 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 PROVEN SYSTEM FOR SUCCESS
Find out why NOW is the perfect time to own a
travel franchise as a second career, a way to travel in
retirement, or a flexible work-from-home opportunity.

The technology Cruise Planners provides enables me to have

access to all my clients’ information over several platforms
whenever I’m traveling. Whether I’m on my laptop, my iPad,
or my phone, I have everything I need to maximize my level of
performance. I can truly work from any destination
in the world. Scan to see more
success stories
Jaimye Levine, Cruise Planners Franchisee since 2018

*Certain restrictions apply. NOTE: This advertisement is not an offering. An offering can only be made by a prospectus filed first with the Department of Law of the State of New York. Such filing does not constitute approval by the Department of Law.
 Franchisee

How to Find Good People

These two My Eyelab franchisees built a successful partnership and rapidly scaled a team.
How? By focusing on mutual benefit. b y M A D E L I N E G A R F I N K L E

eed a good business partner? Zain Attawala and Sagar

Panjwani have advice: Don’t just focus on your
strengths. Acknowledge your weaknesses, too—and
know how your partner balances you out. “That’s
where I think the majority of the people fail: They
don’t want to accept weakness,” Attawala says. This
strategy has proven itself out for Attawala and
Panjwani—which is how, at ages 32 and 27, respectively,
they’re the owners of 28 thriving My Eyelab locations across
Alabama and Georgia.
The pair met each other through their entrepreneurial
fathers, and quickly found their rhythm. “Now when anything
comes our way, it’s a very unsaid thing of: Who will take over
that?” Attawala says. “We divide responsibilities based on our
strengths. If it requires analysis and details, it’s Sagar—but if it → SEEING DOUBLE
requires creating a relationship, then it’s probably me.” Here, Zain Attawala (left) and
Attawala shares how they built a multi-unit franchise team by Sagar Panjwani think two
focusing on people first. sets of eyes on a problem
are better than one.

What’s the biggest lesson on aspects of our business

you’ve learned in franchising?
When you go into a business,
you want to do everything by
yourself—maybe because you
want to keep the funds so you
don’t have to pay salaries, or
you just feel like you’re the
best person to do something.
But we realized that we can’t
do everything ourselves. And
if it’s not done in time, then
there’s no point in doing it in
the first place.
Was there a moment where
you learned this?
no matter where we were
in the journey—because we
were opening locations,
constructing locations, finding
locations, and at the same
time, we had operational
locations that were making us
revenue. We were like, “Okay,
if we’re here, then we’re not
somewhere else. Then who’s
managing that aspect of the
business for us?” You don’t
hire everyone in one shot. You
just hire as you start realizing
what’s missing.
can do that job, you obviously
can use recruiting platforms—
but what’s worked for us is
our network, our community,
and connections. That also
answers the question of, “How
do you know they will do the
job?” Because we know them,
or have seen them throughout
some years or months. It also
makes life easier, because
they have seen everything we
accomplish and they want to
be a part of the journey.
can be mutually beneficial.
A lot of people don’t do this,
because to them it’s either
awkward or they see no ben-
efit. But we are constantly in
search of good people.
Not everyone works with
a business partner.
Why do you find it valuable?
Having two minds to review
something, to identify an
opportunity, to evaluate some-
thing, to analyze something—
it’s far better than one. And
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MY EYEL AB

At the opening of our third
location, we had a realization
that even if I allocate myself
to one location and Sagar
allocates himself to another
location, what happens to the
third location? What if some-
thing goes wrong?
We realized we needed
someone who could focus
So how do you identify
what’s missing?
If something is frequently
getting delayed or compro-
mised, or frequently coming to
your desk to be done, then go
back and try to figure out the
best way to solve the situation.
That’s how we identify a need.
To find an individual who
What’s your advice for
other franchisees looking
to hire great people?
The recipe for success is
building relationships and not
hesitating to talk to somebody.
I look at every event as an
opportunity to find new indi-
viduals who can play a part in
our journey—and the journey
our goals are similar, right? Be
successful financially, emo-
tionally, physically, whatever.
So if our goals are identical,
then I think it’s always better
to have somebody to fall
back on, because sometimes
desperation or aggression or
compassion can lead you to
decisions that are not viable.

74 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 Clean up with a
car wash franchise
Low labor costs Contactless guest experience
Membership-based model High automation

Start your journey today

©2023 Tommy’s Express, LLC. This advertisement does not constitute an offer to sell a franchise. The offer of a franchise can be made only through the delivery of an
FDD. Certain states require that we register the FDD in those states. The communications in this advertisement are not directed by us to the residents of any of those
states. Moreover, we will not offer or sell franchises in those states until we have registered the franchise (or obtained an applicable exemption from registration)
and delivered the FDD to the prospective franchisee in compliance with the applicable law. tommys-express.com 334D 2/23
 Franchisor

The Drybar of Massages

The team behind industry-disrupting concept Drybar is back with a new massage franchise, Squeeze.
Here’s how they spot opportunities that others don’t. b y M A D E L I N E G A R F I N K L E

lli Webb was still in the trenches at Drybar—the blowout

salon company she cofounded with her brother Michael
Landau in 2010—when she had her next big idea. It was just
an inkling at first. But by the time they sold Drybar’s
product line in 2020 for $255 million and the franchise
business was acquired by WellBiz Brands in 2021, the
inkling had become a full-blown concept: What if they
could revolutionize the massage experience the same way they had the
blowout? “We knew we were onto something really special again,”
Webb says. They called the new concept Squeeze, and it now has
70 franchise locations set to open across the country.
This time around, Brittany Driscoll, formerly Drybar’s vice
president of marketing, is one of the cofounders. Webb says that
choice was easy, because Driscoll is everything she’s not. “Brit-
tany is an operator,” Webb says. “We knew she was responsible,
organized, and systematized enough to get this thing where
it needed to go. And we don’t step on her toes. I think a lot of
partnerships go sideways when everyone wants to be doing the
same thing.” Here, Webb and Driscoll talk about knowing when
you have a big idea, and creating a company culture that attracts
the franchisees you want.

What was your “aha!” moment
for Squeeze?
WEBB: The thing I always talk
about is, “What is something
out there that exists, that you
love, but it’s just not done well?”
That’s what we realized about
the massage industry. There are
brands that send people to your
house, but they’re so expen-
sive. My brother would go to a
discount chain, but the book-
ing process was really annoy-
ing. And then once you go in,
You can read therapist bios and
reviews, and book preferences
like oil or lotion, or parts of your
body you like firm or less firm.
How do you know when an
idea is worth bringing to life?
WEBB: So many people have
said to me over the years, about
Drybar, “Why didn’t I think of
this?” Well, you probably did,
and then that was the end of the
thought. We all have so many
great ideas, but I’ve learned
→ POWER DUO
Brittany Driscoll (left)
and Alli Webb embrace
and encourage each
others’ differences.
and she got really excited. And
it was like, we might be onto
something again here.
What do you look for in a
Squeeze franchisee, and how
do you attract them?
DRISCOLL: Our operating part-
experience in their community.
That starts with our culture.
Every element of the business
has been designed to make
sure that the team feels taken
care of, first and foremost.
I really think that creating a
great experience starts with the
PHOTOGRAPH BY LINDSEY MCALISTER

there’s often a myriad of things
that aren’t great—the decor, the
way I’m always freezing. I like
certain things, but sometimes I
forget to tell them.
We realized there was a real
opportunity to improve this
industry largely the same way we
did with Drybar—from the very
first touch point, on the app.
to take note of that nagging
thought. If it keeps coming up,
the next step is to start talking
about it to people that you trust.
I’m a big believer in sur-
rounding yourself with peo-
ple who are smarter than you.
When my brother and I started
talking about it, we got excited.
Then we talked to Brittany
ners have come from incredible
backgrounds. We have Amazon,
Walmart, Disney, Coca-Cola,
Target executives. We have
retired athletes and technol-
ogy and beauty executives. It’s
exciting that they’re so accom-
plished, but what we really
hone in on is people who have a
passion for creating a feel-good
person delivering that expe-
rience. We’ve placed a lot of
emphasis on understanding
our operators’ family dynamics
and supporting them through
life events. I always say to our
management team: “Life is
hard. Let’s make sure everyone
knows we’re here to ride the
wave with them.”

76 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 Top Performers

How We Reached Top Revenue!

Each issue, we talk to top-earning franchisees—so you can learn what it takes to thrive.
Here’s how this Dogtopia duo became leaders of the pack in only three years. b y K I M K AV I N

arry and Brandon Greene are the top dogs of Dogtopia. And it happened fast.
The father-son team opened their first Dogtopia franchise near downtown
Denver in September 2020. The franchise offers dog daycare and spa ser-
vices—and by 2022, the Greenes had the highest daycare revenue among the
brand’s 223 North American locations. By early 2023, the Greenes were bring-
ing in the most revenue overall (depending on the week—some weeks they’re
second overall). Then they received an International Franchise Association’s
Franchisee of the Year Award. Dogtopia president and CEO Neil Gill calls them the
“perfect combination.”
How’d they do it? With focus. Before this, Larry had a successful career in manu-
facturing and private equity. Brandon studied animal science in college, and spent
some time interning in a dog daycare and boarding facility. Together, they became
dedicated to execution. “We never deviated,” Larry says. “We focused on that from
day one—trying to find the right fit of people. We invested a ton of money into the
facility and staffed better than everybody else to get a high level of service.”
Here are three of the Greenes’ core performance strategies.

1/ Serve both customers. 2/ Manage metrics. 3/ Know your value.

Dogtopia’s philosophy is that it has two cus-
tomers, but only one of them carries a credit
card. Brandon hires staff who love dogs, yes,
but who can also serve people. “By getting
these employees to ask the pet parents
about their day, see what they’re doing for
a living, talk to them about their kids—these
are things that other daycares aren’t doing,”
Brandon says.
The Greenes meet with their managers
weekly to talk about who’s ready for more
responsibility, and who’s struggling. Then
they discuss key metrics, including leads and
how many dogs walked through the door.
“It’s just a handful of metrics that everybody
impacts, and we review them every week, so
we know what our business is going to be
next week, plus or minus 5%,” Larry says.
The Greenes offer a premier experience, so
their pricing reflects that. They emphasize this
when training staff, and they don’t shy away
from it with customers. They also accept that
premium services can mean premium costs.
They often give free daycare to dogs who need
extra coaxing, for example. “We had one dog
who took two weeks to feel comfortable, and
now she has friends,” Brandon says.

The Franchisor’s Take

What makes a Dogtopia franchise successful? Three things, according to president and
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DOGTOPIA

CEO Neil Gill: They need a strong business operator for day-to-day store needs, a relationship
manager who truly knows the needs of dogs and their “parents,” and an operations manager to han-
dle back-of-house tasks like facility management.
“[The Greenes] have just done this beautiful job of putting those three pieces together,” Gill says.
“And then having Brandon mentored and coached by his father, it’s a perfect combination.” Generally, he adds,
Dogtopia has had good experiences with family team franchisees. “The [parent-child] thing works so well because
the respect already exists in the relationship,” Gill says. “You don’t have to employ a general manager and then
learn how to work together. Both parties have skin in the game, and they know what they do well.”

78 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 Feature

Franchising is full of people who worked at a brand—

and then bought their own piece of it. What drove their successes?
Eight of them share their biggest lessons.
by K I M K AV I N

80 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023 Illustration / Z O H A R L A Z A R

May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 81
 Feature

t some point in their

career, every worker
has probably thought:
I wish I were the boss.
In franchising, people
often achieve that dream.
They might start as a
cashier, manager, or in some role
at the corporate office, and then
rise up to buy a unit of a brand
themselves.
This is no accident. Franchises
are always looking for quali-
fied franchisee candidates who
appreciate their brand and are
dedicated to its success, and
many of them encourage their
best employees to pursue that
path. It’s part of the DNA of Lesson 1/ Ask for more.
Sam Cleavenger’s first job, at
I wanted to take on more lead-
ership. I think it’s the simple
franchising. Some brands even age 16, was with Jeremiah’s fact of asking. A lot of people
Italian Ice. He worked his way sit back and wait and think
have apprenticeship or financ- up from prep boy to general people are going to ask them. I
manager and then marketing think you have to vocalize that
ing programs to help their team manager for the brand. When you want to grow.”
members achieve the dream of he turned 24, he partnered
with his dad and opened a Lesson 2/ Be creative,
business ownership. store of his own. Today, he’s within boundaries.
working on opening more “Everybody has their own
So, what’s it like to go from stores and has 12 partners creative style,” says Bonnie
underneath him opening Alcid. But as she’s learned,
employee to boss? And what’s stores, too. creativity alone won’t drive
required to make the leap? On “Something that separated
me from my peers would be
success. It must be focused
and harnessed.
the following pages, eight peo- always asking what you can For example, she started her
do to excel,” he says. “I would career in design and printing,
ple share the biggest lesson they always ask my manager what I but really started flourishing

learned—and what enabled them could do to have more respon-

to finally say what so many oth-
ers want to say: “I’m the boss!”
sibility. Before I became a
general manager, I said I felt
like I was doing great, and I
wanted something more. I said
once she became the aquat-
ics director for British Swim
School. In that role, she says,
she was able to think creatively,
but toward a very focused

82 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023 Illustration / Z O H A R L A Z A R


goal—helping craft lesson plans
for new franchise owners and
their aquatics directors. Then
she became the school’s first
franchisee, and creativity took
on a whole new meaning.
She learned to hire people
who can have fun, and then
teach them how to be instruc-
tors within the school’s bound-
aries. “I can teach a child how to
swim, and I can teach an adult
how to deliver a swim lesson,”
she says, “but it’s their person-
ality that’s going to be able to
come out and connect with kids
and make them successful.”
Lesson 3/ Grow alongside
everyone else.
Tracy Welsh has grown a lot
since the pandemic. But she’s
also realized: If she’s the only one
growing, she’s failing.
Her journey began at Massage
Heights, where she was the direc-
tor of two locations. Both had
to shut down at the beginning
of the pandemic, and she wor-
ried about losing her job. Then,
to her great surprise, her boss
presented her with a different
opportunity: Would Welsh want
to buy the franchises where she
worked? “I thought, My gosh,
there’s no way that this could ever
happen,” Welsh says. She was
worried about financing, but
after meeting with a bank, she
realized she could do it.
“It made me grow in a way
that I never thought was possi-
ble,” she says. Then, as she built
her team, she realized she was
now in a position to help others
grow too. “You can’t just grow
yourself,” she says. “You have to
have the mindset that you want
to grow other people at the same
time, growing employees, grow-
ing guests, growing members.
Doing the same old thing and
never changing it up is not the
way to go as an entrepreneur.
You have to grow and evolve.”
84 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
Feature
Lesson 4/ Make smart
lease deals.
Ivette Escobar was assistant to the
founder of Sweet Paris Crêperie
& Café in 2012, and ultimately
became the brand’s chief devel-
opment officer. When she and
her husband opened their own
location, she knew the lease
terms were a key—because if she
couldn’t control the environment
her business was in, she couldn’t
ensure its success.
“We will not take a location
that will not let us do our facade,”
she says. “If they just want us to
put up a sign, we say no.” If you’re
looking for a space yourself,
she has advice: Ask for tenant-
improvement money to upgrade
the space. “If it’s a second-
generation space, they give you
less money, but that’s where
you have to have a really good
broker to negotiate and advocate
for you, to show them what you’ll
be doing for them and the traffic
you’ll be bringing, so their invest-
ment will pay off. If it’s a first-gen-
eration space where it’s brand-new
construction, or a shell with four
walls and you’re going to be doing
absolutely everything inside the
space, that’s where you can nego-
tiate more.”
Lesson 5/ Be the start of
a virtuous cycle.
Joe Jaros started delivering for
a Marco’s Pizza in high school,
became a shift manager at 18,
and told the owner he wanted
to become a franchisee at 21.
Eventually, they became part-
ners—and Jaros now owns five
stores. Now he wants to keep the
cycle going, by being the boss that
helps the next generation of fran-
chise owners thrive.
“I decided that I was going to
have my own apprenticeship pro-
gram where I take great operators
and turn them into franchisees,”
he says. But he does it in a very
particular way: He selects some
of his best employees and helps
them buy a piece of his own stores.
To him, it’s just good business. “If
it’s going to take me seven years
to pay off a store, and the aver-
age general manager lasts about a
year, I’m taking a lot of chances,”
he says. “If I know I have a great
operator to last the whole seven
years, my risk factor is much
lower. I figured, if I just make a
little less on each store, but I mit-
igate my risk, I’m going to come
out ahead in the end.”
Lesson 6/ Take smart risks.
Kelli Amrein had spent years in
childcare, including director posi-
tions where her job was to manage
teachers and schedules. After she
joined the staff of Celebree School
in 2011, she eventually got to see
the business side. “They gave us
full access to payroll and budgeting
and all the financial reports that
we could analyze to see where the
business was growing,” she says. “I
really liked that challenge.”
When Celebree started franchis-
ing, she was 41 with three kids—but
she took a chance and became the
brand’s fourth franchisee. “I really
would not have taken this leap if
it was in an industry that I didn’t
know enough about,” she says.
“I knew all of the risks that hap-
pen inside the building, outside
the building, the marketing, how
many hours a day it would take
to do things. I knew I’d have to be
available to answer questions after-
hours—I knew the risks, I knew the
industry.”
Lesson 7/ Ask for help
when others won’t.
Matt Peters was 16 when a friend
got him a job knocking on doors,
offering homeowners a free esti-
mate for Weed Man’s fertilizer
and weed control. At first, it was a
bust—he was too socially awkward
and didn’t know how to sell. “I had
to fall flat on my face a number of
times,” he says.
Instead of giving up, he
started asking others for help.
That included talking a lot
to the supervisor who drove
him and his fellow salespeo-
ple around. By taking their
advice, Peters blossomed into
a winning salesman—and at 24,
he bought his first franchise.
Today he’s 32 and owns two
locations. “I still see other peo-
ple that I think are much more
talented than I am,” he says,
“but I learned from good peo-
ple who were patient enough
to teach me and cared enough
to give me advice and feedback
and coaching. They either saw
potential in me or encouraged
me to do it and supported me.”
Lesson 8/ Make data-
driven decisions.
Austin Clark was playing college
football and had just finished
his kinesiology degree when he
had a career-ending wrist injury.
So he changed paths: He got
an MBA, became general man-
ager at D1 Training’s headquar-
ters, and then eventually went
on to become a D1 multi-unit
franchisee.
How does he grow his busi-
ness? By constantly tracking key
performance indicators: “Say,
marketing: I know what my cost
per lead is, my cost per 1,000
impressions, my funnel converts,
the percentage of my customers
that come through the marketing
funnel and end up scheduling
with us. By tracking those KPIs in
the data, and being in a franchise
system with other people track-
ing those same things, I can see
the areas where we’re struggling.
I can lean into the franchise and
see who has figured those mar-
keting pieces out. Who’s done
a really good job generating
more leads for less dollars on
Facebook and Instagram? I can
then go and look for people who
are great at that.”
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FRANCHISE ADVERTISEMENT

Meet Your
Franchise Match
Check out the franchises on the following pages to see
which opportunities align with your business goals.

Pillar To Post Hello Sugar

Home Inspection Beauty & Wellness
FRANCHISE ADVERTISEMENT

About Pillar To Post Home Inspectors®

Pillar To Post Home Inspectors® Facts







25 Years of Home Renovations

Made Pillar To Post the
™

Perfect Fit for New Career

C alvin Schatschneider, the franchisee
for Pillar To Post™ of Edmonton and
:HWDVNLZLQ$OEHUWDNQRZVÀUVWKDQGWKH
importance of a home inspection since he has
been involved in the home-building industry
for more than 25 years as a carpenter and
company owner. He and his brother ran their
own construction business for 20 years doing
new construction, renovations, and any other
home-related work. As one might expect,
Calvin feels the transition to home inspector
“was as easy as slipping on a pair of comfort-
able shoes. Certainly my 25-year career in
construction and home building has put me
in a great position for this new career, and I
am loving it.”
One of the many reasons Calvin chose
Pillar To Post Home Inspectors®, the largest
home inspection company in North America,
is the new technologies the company launched
during the pandemic.
These advanced technologies, along with
the business model, provide an exceptional
home inspection with unique and innovative
features that are all delivered within a
seamless brand experience. All developed
pre-pandemic and ready to be utilized when
it struck, the new features further highlight
Pillar To Post Home Inspectors’® standing
as a visionary in its industry.
Calvin launched his new business on
May 1st, 2022 and had a home inspection
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KLVÀUVWPRQWKKHKDGLQVSHFWHGKRPHVDQG
by his third month he was at 28 inspections a
PRQWK7KHÀJXUHKDVFRQWLQXHGWRFOLPE
“I was told I was the fastest in Canada
to ever get to 100 inspections just following
the marketing plan set by Pillar To Post™.
In my career I learned the adage “if it ain’t
EURNHGRQ·WÀ[LWμDQGWKDWVXUHO\DSSOLHV
to the Pillar To Post™ system. You could
not perfect it any more than they have. I
got the best training from them and still
turn to them with any questions. I would
recommend Pillar to Post™ to anyone for
their knowledge, software system, endless
support from IT and marketing support.
“Our PTP360 program goes beyond
any other in getting reports to realtors
and customers who cannot be present for
the inspection for one reason or another.
This has halted any limitations we have in
getting the job done.”

For Pillar To Post Home Inspectors® Information:

 (877) 963-3129
 franchise@pillartopost.com
 www.pillartopostfranchise.com
FRANCHISE
Unheard-Of YoY Growth In
The Brazilian Wax Market
our path to success at Hello Sugar
Y is set up to support you through
three incremental stages of trans-
formation. Every franchisee starts
with at least one Suite which requires
a minimum investment of $55,000
to open and brings in an average of
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HQGRIWKHÀUVWWZR\HDUVRIRSHUDWLRQ
Your Suite(s) will support you
while your Flagship location is being
built, which takes a full year. Once
fully operational, earning potentials
are $146,000/year on average from
your Flagship location. In the third
phase of your growth, we hope you’ll
continue to expand with us as we take
over market after market!
*Please see Item 19 of Hello Sugar’s 2023 Franchise Disclosure Document for a full breakdown of all financial performance figures contained herein.
About Hello Sugar
Hello Sugar Facts

WE VALUE TRAVEL, WORK-LIFE
BALANCE, AND RAPID GROWTH
At Hello Sugar, we’re obsessed with our
franchisees living freely, with the time and
ÀQDQFLDOVWDELOLW\WRGRVR0DQ\(QWUHSUH-
neurs fall into the trap of “buying a job,”
but at Hello Sugar, the average work week
for a single Suite is just 10 hours.
Travel runs deep in our culture. Every
year, we plan a franchisee getaway to dis-
cuss our goals and reconnect with every-
one. Last year we went to Bora Bora – we’d
love to see you in Iceland this year!
HIGH-TECH TURNKEY SYSTEMS
When you join the Hello Sugar team you’ll
own a business where marketing, training,
and reception services are all handled
For Hello Sugar Information:
 Ana Ferlan  ana@hellosugar.salon
 https://hsugr.co/franchise  (602) 737-0406
ADVERTISEMENT
by our team in Arizona. Our Average
Unit Volume sets a new standard in the
industry thanks to truly state-of-the-art
digital marketing technology.
We aim for every owner to expand
into a Flagship location within 2 years
RIRSHQLQJWKHLUÀUVW6XLWH
55 LOCATIONS AND
GROWING QUICKLY!
If you can manage a business and the
people in it, then you can be successful
as a Hello Sugar franchisee. Our USP
is that we offer a membership model
for both waxing and sugaring services
creating lifelong customers who return
on a monthly basis.

Want to Go Global?
Here are the top 200 brands opening franchises around the world—
and they might want your help doing it.
by T R A C Y S TA P P H E R O L D
P H O T O G R A P H B Y S H U T T E R S T O C K /A B V I S U A L A R T S
hen franchisors look to expand, they don’t just think
domestic. They increasingly think global. For evidence,
just look at the 1,321 brands that applied for
Entrepreneur’s 2023 Franchise 500 ranking. Among all
of them, international unit growth outpaced U.S. fran-
chise growth over the most recent three-year period
( July 2019 to July 2022). During that time, 28,369 fran-
chise units opened outside of the U.S., a 12.2% increase (compared
to 21,828 new franchises within the U.S., just a 7% increase).
Are you interested in buying a brand with international appeal—
and hey, maybe even becoming an international franchisee your-
self? We want to help, which is why we’ve crunched the numbers
and identified the strongest 200 brands that offer franchises outside
Listings
of the U.S. They’re presented on the following pages, in our annual
ranking of the top global franchises. We’ve based this ranking on a
modified version of our Franchise 500 formula, which analyzes all
eligible franchises based on more than 150 data points in the areas
of size and growth—with extra weight given to international size and
growth in this case—as well as costs and fees, franchisee support,
brand strength, and financial strength and stability.
This list can serve as a good starting point for your research,
but keep in mind that it should not be taken as an endorsement of
any particular franchise brand. Always read the company’s legal
documents, consult with an attorney and an accountant, and talk
to as many current and former franchisees as you can when look-
ing for the right franchise opportunity for you. 
May-June 2023 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / 89
 The Top 200 Global Franchises

15 22
→ KFC Baskin-Robbins Snap-on Tools
Ice cream, frozen yogurt, Professional tools and
frozen beverages equipment
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$293.8K-$636.4K $201.4K-$465.4K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
7,735/0 4,555/216

16 23
Hilton Garden Inn
Hilton Hotels and
Resorts Upscale hotels
Upper upscale hotels and STARTUP COST
resorts $20.2M-$31.1M
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
$38.7M-$162.3M (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

TOTAL UNITS 953/0

(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
490/50
24
Cinnabon
17 Cinnamon rolls, baked
Wendy’s goods, coffee
Quick-service restaurant STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $112K-$546.8K
$329.5K-$3.7M TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 1,805/2
6,637/412

25
18 RE/MAX
DoubleTree by Real estate
Hilton STARTUP COST
Upscale hotels and resorts $43K-$236.5K
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
$27.6M-$97.4M (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
9,120/0
TOTAL UNITS

1 5 9 12
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
500/0
KFC Pizza Hut Century 21 Real
Estate
Arby’s 26
Chicken Pizza, pasta, wings Sandwiches, fries, shakes F45 Training
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST Real estate STARTUP COST 19 Fitness studios
$1.4M-$3.2M $367K-$2.1M STARTUP COST $628.95K-$2.3M Dairy Queen STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $24.7K-$459.3K TOTAL UNITS Soft-serve ice cream, $350.2K-$565.1K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) burgers, chicken
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
26,277/221 17,336/22 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,445/1,116 STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
13,987/0 $1.5M-$2.4M 1,749/0

2 6 13 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

McDonald’s Burger King 10 The UPS Store 7,171/2 27

Burgers, chicken, salads, Burgers, fries, breakfast Hampton by Hilton Shipping, packing, Tim Hortons
beverages Upper midscale hotels mailboxes, printing, faxing, Coffee, baked goods, soups,
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$1.8M-$4.2M STARTUP COST
shredding, notary services 20 sandwiches
$1.4M-$2.5M TOTAL UNITS $12.3M-$22.8M STARTUP COST Papa Johns STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $122.2K-$508.5K Pizza $246.5K-$2.2M
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 19,196/51 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
37,664/2,032 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
2,824/0 $200.1K-$788.9K (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
5,463/1 5,287/4

3 7 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

Taco Bell
7-Eleven 11 14 5,239/520
28
Convenience stores Popeyes Louisiana
Mexican-inspired food Kitchen Ace Hardware Interim HealthCare
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$125.3K-$1.3M Fried chicken, seafood,
biscuits
Hardware and home
improvement stores
21 Medical and nonmedical
home care, medical
$575.6K-$3.4M TOTAL UNITS
Anytime Fitness staffing
STARTUP COST Fitness centers
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST
$292K-$2.1M
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KFC

(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 75,992/5,895 $383.5K-$3.5M STARTUP COST

STARTUP COST
7,435/465 TOTAL UNITS $125.5K-$199.5K
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$381.6K-$783.9K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS

4 8 3,810/41
5,456/218 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
5,056/16
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
627/4
Kumon
Dunkin’ Supplemental education
Coffee, doughnuts, baked STARTUP COST
goods $67.4K-$145.6K
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$437.5K-$1.8M (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

TOTAL UNITS 26,486/41

(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
12,957/0

90 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 IN G
& C O UNT
OVER 400 FRAN CHISES

WHY ARE SO MANY Well, it’s a no-brainer!

INVESTORS STARTING A
PuroClean is one of the fastest-growing franchises
in a recession-proof industry. Not to mention, you
don’t need any prior experience! Our state-of-the-

PUROCLEAN FRANCHISE? art training facility will teach you everything you
need to know to get started.
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 Franchise expansion has become increasingly international
in the last few years. Here are the 25 brands with the greatest
franchise growth outside of the U.S. and Canada from July
The Top 2021
200 to JulyFranchises
Global 2022.

29 36
Budget Blinds Homewood Suites
Window coverings, window
film, rugs, accessories
STARTUP COST
$140.5K-$211.8K
TOTAL UNITS
by Hilton
Upscale extended-stay
hotels
STARTUP COST
$20.3M-$30.1M
BY THE NUMBERS/
The 200 brands on this list had a combined total of 253,096 franchise
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
1,378/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) locations open outside the U.S. as of July 31, 2022. More than
534/0
a quarter (26.5%) of the companies on this list have more franchises
30 open internationally than they have open in the U.S.
Crunch 37
Fitness centers Paris Baguette
STARTUP COST Bakery cafes
$398.5K-$6.99M STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$635.8K-$1.7M
TOTAL UNITS
As of July 31, 2022, these were the 10 brands
360/48 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
3,722/20 from our list with the greatest number
31 of franchise units open outside the U.S.:
Carl’s Jr. 38
Burgers Matco Tools
STARTUP COST Mechanics’ tools and
equipment
1/ 7-Eleven 6/ Century 21 Real Estate
$1.3M-$2.3M UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S. UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $76.8K-$309.1K 68,704 12,085
1,622/54 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,915/4 2/ McDonald’s 7/ Pizza Hut
32 UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.

24,892
UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.

12,041
Wingstop
Chicken wings, fries, sides 39
The Maids
STARTUP COST
$315.3K-$948.1K Residential cleaning 3/ Kumon 8/ RE/MAX
UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S. UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $57.5K-$155.9K 24,861 5,600
1,841/32 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,429/160 4/ KFC 9/ Baskin-Robbins
33 UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S. UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Pirtek 22,405 5,459

Hydraulic and industrial 40
hose maintenance, repair, Pearle Vision
and replacement Eye care and eyewear 5/ Burger King 10/ Tim Hortons
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S. UNITS OPEN OUTSIDE THE U.S.
$219.4K-$899.3K $70.2K-$978.7K 12,142 4,665
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
586/1 460/111

34 41 42 44 46 48
Express Servpro Denny’s Dogtopia Paul Davis Pop-A-Lock
Employment Fire, water, and other Family restaurants Dog daycare, boarding, and Restoration Mobile locksmith and
Professionals damage cleanup,
STARTUP COST
spa services Insurance restoration security services
Staffing, HR solutions restoration, and
$1M-$2.3M STARTUP COST STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
reconstruction
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$688.3K-$1.8M $191.7K-$517K $137.8K-$170.8K
$140K-$400K STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
$216.9K-$270.8K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS 1,566/65 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS 193/2 277/0 616/7
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
857/1
2,050/0
43 45 49
35 Leadership
Management Ziebart
47 Auntie Anne’s
Canopy by Hilton
Hardee’s International Auto detailing, films, Upper upscale hotels Soft pretzels
Burgers Leadership and appearance and protection STARTUP COST
services STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST organizational training and $56.98M-$141.6M $146.1K-$523.5K
$1.3M-$2.1M development STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST $416.8K-$566.1K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $20K-$27.5K TOTAL UNITS 37/0 1,918/12
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,955/198 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
388/12
483/0

92 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
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HUU\HSZHSLZHJJVYKPUN[V0[LT PU[OL-YHUJOPZL+PZJSVZ\YL+VJ\TLU[;OPZZ[H[LTLU[PZMVYPUMVYTH[PVUW\YWVZLZVUS`HUKPZUV[PU[LUKLKHZHUVɈLY[VZLSSVY[OLZVSPJP[H[PVUVMHUVɈLY[V
I\`HMYHUJOPZL;OLMVSSV^PUNZ[H[LZYLN\SH[L[OLVɈLYHUKZHSLVMMYHUJOPZLZ!*HSPMVYUPH/H^HPP0SSPUVPZ0UKPHUH4HY`SHUK4PJOPNHU4PUULZV[H5L^@VYR5VY[O+HRV[H9OVKL0ZSHUK:V\[O+HRV[H
=PYNPUPH>HZOPUN[VUHUK>PZJVUZPU0M`V\HYLHYLZPKLU[VMVULVM[OLZLZ[H[LZ^L^PSSUV[VɈLY`V\HMYHUJOPZL\USLZZHUK\U[PS^LOH]LJVTWSPLK^P[OHWWSPJHISLWYLZHSLYLNPZ[YH[PVUHUKKPZJSVZ\YL45
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 The Top 200 Global Franchises

62 69
→ HOME INSTEAD Jan-Pro Cleaning Sport Clips
and Disinfecting Haircuts
Commercial cleaning Men’s sports-themed hair
salons
STARTUP COST
$4.8K-$58.1K STARTUP COST
$266.3K-$439.5K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
10,418/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,821/74

63 70
Marco’s Pizza
Pizza, pizza bowls, subs, FastSigns
wings, salads, cheese Signs, graphics
bread STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $234.3K-$324.5K
$242.1K-$633.1K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 761/0
1,058/45

64 71
Circle K
Buffalo Wild Wings Convenience stores
Wings, bar food, alcohol STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $268.5K-$2.1M
$2.5M-$4.6M TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,467/8,660
596/662

65 72
YESCO Sign &
H&R Block Lighting Service
Tax preparation, electronic Sign and lighting service
filing and maintenance
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$31.6K-$157.9K $65K-$352.2K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
50 53 56 59 3,270/6,665 60/42
Embassy Suites by Home Instead Ben & Jerry’s Great Clips
Hilton Nonmedical senior care Ice cream, frozen yogurt, Hair salons
Upper upscale extended-
stay hotels
STARTUP COST
nondairy frozen desserts,
sorbet
STARTUP COST 66 73
$103K-$130K $178.4K-$376.9K Holiday Inn and Wyndham
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
Holiday Inn Express Hotels
$45.4M-$71.98M (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $152.2K-$565.3K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Hotels STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS 1,182/5 TOTAL UNITS 4,447/0 STARTUP COST $1.2M-$78.5M
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$10.1M-$22.3M
242/0 572/11 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
54 60 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
4,248/2
153/0

51 Randy’s Donuts
Doughnuts, breakfast 57 Tapestry Collection
by Hilton
Curio Collection by
Hilton
items, coffee
STARTUP COST
A&W Restaurants
Root beer, burgers, hot
Upscale hotels
67 74
Keller Williams
dogs, chicken, sides, ice STARTUP COST
Upper upscale hotels $526K-$1.2M cream $3.1M-$118M Aqua-Tots Swim Real estate
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
Schools STARTUP COST
$3.7M-$140.2M (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Swimming lessons
$276K-$1.5M $182.4K-$335.7K
13/7 87/0
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $520.1K-$1.2M (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
128/0 1,091/0
55 891/2
61
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HOME INSTEAD, INC.

TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Home2 Suites by Minuteman Press 125/1
52 Hilton 58 Printing, graphics, and 75
Gyu-Kaku Japanese Upper midscale extended-
Midas marketing services Slim Chickens
BBQ Restaurant
Japanese barbecue
stay hotels
STARTUP COST
Auto repair and STARTUP COST
$75.9K-$187.1K
68
Anago Cleaning
Chicken tenders, chicken
wings, salads, sandwiches,
maintenance
restaurants $13.8M-$20.6M Systems wraps
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS $199.2K-$739.9K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Commercial cleaning STARTUP COST
$1.2M-$2.6M (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 967/0 $1.3M-$4.1M
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
551/0
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $11.3K-$68.3K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,941/0 TOTAL UNITS
795/33 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
152/10
1,791/0

94 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
Start, Run, and Grow
Your Business with
Franchising
 The Top 200 Global Franchises

76 83 89
Coldwell Banker Kitchen Tune-Up La Quinta by
Real Estate
Real estate
STARTUP COST
Residential kitchen
remodeling
STARTUP COST
$119.9K-$173.9K
Wyndham
Hotels
STARTUP COST BY THE
NUMBERS/
$31.2K-$491.9K $3.96M-$14.1M
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
2,214/588 261/0 785/137

The global franchise industry is dominated by

77 84 90 food, and that’s visible in our list: The top six
School of Rock Jiffy Lube Cold Stone
Music education Oil changes and preventive Creamery franchises are quick-service brands, and
maintenance Ice cream, sorbet, ice
STARTUP COST
cream cakes, shakes
$395.8K-$537.4K STARTUP COST quick-service restaurants make up a whopping
$232K-$422.7K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS $310.4K-$580.7K 18.5% of the total list.
275/46 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
2,007/183 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,253/5
78 85
CertaPro Painters
Residential and commercial ERA Real Estate 91 Here’s the full breakdown of all
painting
STARTUP COST
Real estate
STARTUP COST
Kinderdance
Children’s dance,
industries represented:
$155.7K-$232.4K $27.4K-$435.1K gymnastics, movement,
fitness, and yoga programs
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST
371/1 2,355/0 $18.2K-$47.9K
TOTAL UNITS
FOOD: QUICK-SERVICE
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
RESTAURANTS/ 37 brands
79 86 228/3
Planet Fitness Wild Birds
Unlimited LODGING/23
Fitness clubs
STARTUP COST Bird-feeding supplies and 92
Petland
$1.6M-$4.9M nature gift items
STARTUP COST
Pets, pet supplies, boarding, MAINTENANCE/ 23
TOTAL UNITS daycare, grooming
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $197.9K-$325.8K
2,091/233 STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $300.5K-$1.1M SERVICES (OTHER)/ 17
357/0 TOTAL UNITS
80 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
222/27 CHILDREN’S BUSINESSES/ 16
Motel 6
Economy hotels 87
Right at Home
STARTUP COST
$222.6K-$8.2M Home care, medical 93
Freedom Boat Club
BUSINESS SERVICES/ 15
staffing
TOTAL UNITS Membership boat clubs
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST HEALTH & WELLNESS/ 14
1,216/9 $87.4K-$156.2K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
$222.5K-$500.5K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS HOME IMPROVEMENT/ 11
81 665/24 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
251/96
Two Men and a PERSONAL-CARE BUSINESSES/ 10
Truck
Moving, storage, and junk 88 94
removal services Gold’s Gym
STARTUP COST
Health and fitness centers PuroClean AUTOMOTIVE/ 9
STARTUP COST Property damage
$105.5K-$435.6K restoration and
$1.5M-$3.6M remediation
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST
RETAIL/ 8
323/3 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
529/67 $88.8K-$231.7K
TOTAL UNITS FOOD: FULL-SERVICE RESTAURANTS/ 6
82 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
377/0
Glass Doctor RECREATION/ 4
Auto/residential/
commercial glass
installation, repair, and
replacement PETS/ 3
STARTUP COST
$158.2K-$300.4K
TOTAL UNITS
FINANCIAL SERVICES/ 2
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
189/0
FOOD: RETAIL/ 1

TECH/ 1

96 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023
 The Top 200 Global Franchises

95 98
The Exercise Coach AAMCO
Personal training
STARTUP COST
$148.4K-$381.8K
Transmissions and
Total Car Care
Transmission and general BY THE
NUMBERS/
auto repairs, diagnostic
TOTAL UNITS services
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
199/0 STARTUP COST
$223.6K-$330.5K
TOTAL UNITS
96 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) We asked the franchisors on our Top Global Franchises list where
555/13
Gong Cha around the world they are offering franchise opportunities.
Bubble tea
STARTUP COST
$162.4K-$314.2K
99
Sylvan Learning
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,168/587
Supplemental education,
STEM camps, college prep Based on their responses, the most popular
STARTUP COST
$85.5K-$186.9K regions for international expansion are:
97 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Take 5 Oil Change 556/6
Oil changes 1/ Canada
STARTUP COST
$734.5K-$1.3M 100 2/ Asia and Western Europe (tied)
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
InXpress
Shipping services
204/558
STARTUP COST 3/ Mexico
$85.6K-$166.99K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 4/ Australia/New Zealand
430/1

5/ Middle East
101 104 106 109 111 114
Image360 Once Upon A Child ServiceMaster The Habit Burger The Vitamin Kona Ice
Signs, graphics, displays, New and used children’s Restore Grill Shoppe Shaved-ice trucks
digital imaging, visual clothing, equipment, Commercial/residential Burgers, sandwiches, Vitamins, minerals, STARTUP COST
communications furniture, toys disaster restoration salads supplements, sport $149.99K-$189.3K
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
nutrition products
TOTAL UNITS
$208.3K-$428.3K $276.2K-$417.4K $252.7K-$358.8K $1.4M-$1.8M STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $492.9K-$944.9K 1,454/26
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
291/2 404/0 2,300/0 67/277 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
30/675
115
102 105 107 110 Signal
HouseMaster Home
Inspections
Expense Reduction
Analysts (ERA)
American MaidPro 112 Private security guard and
patrol services
Poolplayers Residential cleaning Travelodge by STARTUP COST
Home inspections and Business financial Association STARTUP COST
Wyndham $93.2K-$241.2K
related services consulting Recreational billiard Hotels
$105.6K-$130.8K TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST leagues STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
$61.1K-$107.7K $66K-$85.9K STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $174.95K-$9.3M 970/0
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $22.9K-$29.4K 265/0 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
311/0 710/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
332/6
453/0 116
Signarama
103 113 Sign products and services

The Alternative
Board (TAB)
108 California Pizza
STARTUP COST
$120.2K-$316.2K
Jazzercise Kitchen TOTAL UNITS
Business owner advisory Dance fitness classes Pizza, pasta, salads, (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
boards, coaching, strategic desserts, beverages
planning STARTUP COST 689/0
$2.4K-$21.8K STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $3.4M-$4.5M
$55.9K-$96.7K TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS 7,759/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
40/153
345/18
 The Top 200 Global Franchises

117
Carvel
120
Allegra Marketing → CHEM-DRY CARPET & UPHOLSTERY CLEANING
Ice cream, ice cream cakes Print Mail
STARTUP COST Printing, marketing, direct
$111.3K-$518.4K mail, signs, promotional
products
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) STARTUP COST
358/0 $128.2K-$410.7K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

118 244/2

Realty One Group

Real estate
STARTUP COST
121
$43.3K-$224.5K
Chem-Dry Carpet &
Upholstery
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) Cleaning
332/12 Carpet, upholstery, and
floor cleaning, tile and
stone care, granite
countertop renewal
119 STARTUP COST

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CHEM-DRY

The Good Feet $69.1K-$204.7K
Store TOTAL UNITS
Arch supports, related (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
products 2,597/0
STARTUP COST
$137.2K-$396.3K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
184/23

Clean homes. Support heroes.

Home Clean Heroes is a fast-growing residential cleaning
franchise that supports local first responders with every
home that they clean.

A portion of every cleaning fee Frequent, year-round

recurring revenue model
72%
goes to support local market
System
first responders Wide
Franchisor engagement with Revenue
Low investment opportunity extensive ongoing corporate Growth*
support
Custom front-line recruitment &
training tools to aid in employee retention

844-WHY-HERO BRANDS POWERED BY

homecleanheroesfranchise.com
©
Buzz Franchise Brands, LLC | 2829 Guardian Lane, Suite 100 | VA Beach, VA 23452. This information is not intended as an offer to sell a franchise or the solicitation of an offer to buy
a franchise. It is for informational purposes only. The filing of an application for registration of an offering prospectus or the acceptance and filing thereof by the New York Department of
Law as required by New York law does not constitute approval of the offering or the sale of such franchise by the New York Department of Law or the Attorney General of New York.
*Year over year growth from 2021-2022, as noted in 2023 Franchise Disclosure Document
122 124 127 130 133 135
Mathnasium Kid to Kid Plato’s Closet On the Border Sculpture Super 8 by
Math tutoring New and used children’s Teen- and young-adult- Mexican and Tex-Mex Hospitality Wyndham
STARTUP COST
and maternity clothing and clothing resale stores restaurants Bar and restaurant Hotels
products STARTUP COST STARTUP COST management solutions
$112.9K-$149.2K STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $269.7K-$407.4K $2.5M-$4.3M STARTUP COST $221K-$5.5M
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $347.2K-$542.1K TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $42.5K-$76.2K TOTAL UNITS
1,105/3 TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 497/0 25/109 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 2,693/0
98/12 275/11
123 128 131
Transworld
Business Advisors 125 Maid Brigade Sandler Training 134 136
Bin There Dump
Business brokerages; Eye Level Learning Residential cleaning Sales and sales- Senior Helpers That
franchise consulting Centers STARTUP COST
management training Personal, companion, Residential-friendly
STARTUP COST
Supplemental education $97.7K-$114.5K STARTUP COST Parkinson’s, and dumpster rentals
STARTUP COST $101.8K-$147.1K Alzheimer’s home care
$76.1K-$99.2K TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
$52.3K-$121.7K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST $86.2K-$170.4K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS 396/20 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $125.8K-$169.8K
284/0 TOTAL UNITS
359/1 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
567/744 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
227/0
129 132
335/13

Aire Serv
126 HVAC services PostNet 137
Code Ninjas STARTUP COST
Packing, shipping, printing, Trademark
Computer-coding learning signs, marketing solutions
$87.6K-$216.4K Collection by
centers for ages 5 and up
TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST Wyndham
STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $202.9K-$252.9K Hotels
$181.2K-$451.95K 231/0 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $227.8K-$14.7M
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 663/0
385/6 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
145/0
 The Top 200 Global Franchises

138
Boston’s
144
Wingate by → JAMBA
Restaurant & Wyndham
Sports Bar Hotels
Restaurants and sports STARTUP COST
bars $335.9K-$12.5M
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
$1M-$2.8M (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

TOTAL UNITS 179/0

(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
426/2
145
Tailored Living
139 Home organization, storage,
Jamba and garage flooring
Smoothies, juices, and solutions
bowls STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $185.2K-$298.7K
$170.1K-$843K TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 191/0
772/44

140 146
Fibrenew
Enviro-Master Leather, plastic, and vinyl
Services restoration and repair
Health and safety products STARTUP COST
for businesses $97.8K-$111.7K
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
$254.6K-$351.9K (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

TOTAL UNITS
301/0
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
96/0
147
Orangetheory
141 Fitness
EverLine Coatings Heart-rate-based group
and Services interval workout classes
Parking lot striping and STARTUP COST
pavement maintenance $589.1K-$1.6M
STARTUP COST
$127.8K-$237.1K
TOTAL UNITS 150 153 156 159
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Quesada Burritos & Rainbow SafeSplash / Nurse Next Door
TOTAL UNITS 1,489/21 Tacos Restoration SwimLabs/ Home Care
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
27/1
Mexican food Indoor cleaning and Swimtastic Services
restoration Child and adult swimming Medical/nonmedical home
148 STARTUP COST
$243.5K-$415.5K STARTUP COST lessons, parties, summer
camps
care
Grease Monkey $156.7K-$260.9K
142 Oil changes, preventive
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$115.1K-$211.6K
Mac Tools maintenance, brakes, light 170/2 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) $47.5K-$2.1M TOTAL UNITS
Automotive tools and repairs 380/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
equipment STARTUP COST (Franchised / Co.-Owned) 145/1
STARTUP COST
$120.5K-$340.5K
$187.3K-$688.5K
TOTAL UNITS
151 154
176/16

ShelfGenie
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
256/246 Custom pull-out shelving Ramada by
Wyndham 157 160
1,131/0
for cabinets and pantries Doc Popcorn
STARTUP COST
Hotels The Ten Spot Kettle-cooked popcorn
Nail care, waxing, facials,
149 $42.4K-$135.5K STARTUP COST
$197.6K-$9.9M laser hair removal STARTUP COST

143
Wyndham Garden
Mr. Appliance
Residential and
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
STARTUP COST
$303K-$453K
$55.2K-$394.5K
TOTAL UNITS
244/12 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
Hotels commercial appliance 850/0
installation and repairs TOTAL UNITS 96/0
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
STARTUP COST
$406.3K-$15.9M STARTUP COST
152 155
43/0
TOTAL UNITS
$80.9K-$158.6K
TOTAL UNITS
Five Star Painting
Papa Murphy’s
161
158
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
139/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned) Residential and Club Pilates
352/0 commercial painting Take ‘N’ Bake Pizza Reformer Pilates classes
Take-and-bake pizza Tutor Doctor
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JAMBA

STARTUP COST STARTUP COST

$76.2K-$184.3K STARTUP COST Tutoring
$185.8K-$388.2K
TOTAL UNITS $308.5K-$557.9K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS
$94.3K-$139.99K (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
246/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS 750/0
1,192/25 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
734/0

102 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / Month 2020

162
1-800-Got-Junk?
169
Church’s Chicken
Junk removal Chicken
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$162.8K-$245.3K $681.5K-$1.5M
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
160/5 1,346/158

163 170
Coverall Heaven’s Best
Commercial cleaning Carpet &
STARTUP COST Upholstery
$18.6K-$51.4K Cleaning
TOTAL UNITS
Carpet, upholstery, tile, and
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) wood floor cleaning
8,107/0 STARTUP COST
$61.9K-$110.1K

164
Martinizing
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
414/0
Dry-cleaning and laundry
services
STARTUP COST 171
$40.1K-$1.3M Carstar
TOTAL UNITS Auto collision repair
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
STARTUP COST
312/0 $298.2K-$804.3K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

165 745/14
Dale Carnegie
Workplace training and
development 172
STARTUP COST Merry Maids
$93.4K-$245.8K Residential cleaning
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$94.5K-$144.4K
219/1
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
996/0
166
Floor Coverings
International
Flooring
173
Escapology
STARTUP COST Escape rooms
$151.4K-$220.1K STARTUP COST
TOTAL UNITS $186.9K-$698.2K
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
239/0 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
52/7

167
Color Glo
Leather, vinyl, fabric, carpet,
174
Venture X
and surface repair and Coworking spaces
restoration
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$56.3K-$61.4K $388.1K-$3.6M

BE A PART OF THE CELEBREE MOVEMENT

TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)

127/0 49/0
High quality childcare is essential for today’s youth.
168 175
Stratus Building The Grounds Guys
Solutions Lawn and landscape
maintenance
Environmentally friendly Ready to leave the corporate world and
commercial cleaning and STARTUP COST
disinfecting $82.8K-$202.5K make an impact in your community?
STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS
Owning a Celebree School
$4.5K-$79.8K (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
251/0
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
2,900/0
franchise is your next right move!

CELE BR EES CHOOL .COM / F RA NCH ISIN G | 410. 25 2. 5 6 4 6

 The Top 200 Global Franchises

→ SNAPOLOGY

176
Qualicare
179
Abrakadoodle
182
Metal
185
Multivista
Medical/nonmedical home Art-education programs for Supermarkets Visual documentation
care, concierge services, children Metal stores services for the
and patient advocacy STARTUP COST
construction industry
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $38.1K-$81.9K $269.5K-$501.5K STARTUP COST
$85.6K-$192.5K $221.5K-$651.5K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 483/2 105/10 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
67/3 73/3

177 180
Mr. Rooter
183 186
Play It Again Sports
Asurion Tech Plumbing, drain, and sewer New and used sporting Bonchon Korean
Repair & Solutions cleaning goods/equipment Fried Chicken
Electronics repairs STARTUP COST Korean fried chicken
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST $80.6K-$191.1K $292.5K-$401.3K STARTUP COST
$118.4K-$369.6K TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS $483.2K-$1.2M
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) 242/3 284/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
431/406 385/5

178 181 184

Marble Slab
Hand & Stone
Massage and Facial
Snapology 187
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SNAPOLOGY

STEAM education Wyndham Grand

Creamery Spa programs Hotels
Ice cream Massage, facial, and STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
waxing services $73.7K-$497.2K
STARTUP COST $1M-$81.7M
$333.3K-$414.9K STARTUP COST TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
TOTAL UNITS
$591.2K-$740.1K (Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS 160/3 63/2
367/0 (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
513/12
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188 195 ZLWKKLVQHZ
Little Kickers Spray-Net IUDQFKLVH
Preschool soccer Exterior and interior home
programs renovation
STARTUP COST STARTUP COST
$25.2K-$37.1K $132K-$184.5K
TOTAL UNITS TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) (Franchised / Co.-Owned)
339/2 80/2

189 196
Microtel by 30 Minute Hit
Wyndham Boxing/kickboxing circuit-
Hotels training programs for
women
STARTUP COST
$6.3M-$7.7M STARTUP COST
$123.2K-$325.5K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
347/0
76/0

190
Challenge Island 197
$/($',1*6+2577(509$&$7,215(17$/)5$1&+,6(

Educational enrichment N-Hance Wood *UHDW0DUNHWV$YDLODEOH1DWLRQZLGH

programs Refinishing /RZFRVWRI(QWU\
Wood cabinet and floor
STARTUP COST
$50.2K-$68.9K
refinishing 3URWHFWHG7HUULWRULHV
TOTAL UNITS
STARTUP COST 5DSLGO\*URZLQJ,QGXVWU\
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) $58.5K-$197.6K
179/7 TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
435/0
191 6&$172/($51025(
Days Inn by
Wyndham 198
Hotels Chester’s
Chicken
STARTUP COST
STARTUP COST
$190.2K-$6.4M
$15.95K-$288.1K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned) TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
1,559/0
1,098/0

192 199
Cinnaholic
Cinnamon rolls, brownies, Tint World
cookies, coffee, catering Window tinting, vehicle
wraps, mobile electronics,
STARTUP COST auto accessories, detailing
$238K-$499.5K services
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
$259.5K-$399.5K
72/1
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
107/0
193
Pure Barre
Barre fitness classes and
apparel
200 OWN THE
Made in the Shade
STARTUP COST Blinds and More
$214.3K-$457.3K Window coverings
TOTAL UNITS STARTUP COST
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
619/2 $65.9K-$74.5K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)

194 134/1

Go Oil
Mobile oil-change services
STARTUP COST 270+ OPEN, AWARDED
$23.1K-$56.3K
TOTAL UNITS
(Franchised / Co.-Owned)
OR IN DEVELOPMENT
31/3
A DVE R T IS EM ENT

OPPORTUNITY
One of these opportunities could mark the turning point to owning a business of your own,
realizing your personal dreams and securing true financial independence. So go ahead, make
your first move by considerw ing all that they have to offer in this Opportunity Spotlight.
Then make your first call.

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To advertise in this section, please call 800-864-6864.

 verything I do today in business

The Shirt Is a System

by John Winner, CEO of Kizen 
can be traced back to lessons I
learned when starting my first
company at the age of 13. That’s
why I still hang on to my first uni-
form: an oversized yellow Tommy
Bahama shirt emblazoned with
an orange and black logo for
“Winner Computing.” It looks like some-
thing a retiree would wear to a bowling
alley, which perhaps explains why it was a
hit with the customers in my gray-haired
South Florida neighborhood. 
I started Winner Computing during the
PC revolution to help my neighbors—mostly
people’s parents and grandparents—set up
and learn how to use a computer. I quickly
had more business than I could handle on
my own, so after six months, I started hir-
ing my middle-school friends. But how
could we look like a real business, and not
just a ragtag group of kids? The answer:
matching shirts! And yet, looking back on it
now, I see that the shirts were about more
than just appearance. They were really the
first customer-focused system I’d ever built.
How so? Well, first, people trusted the
shirt—and once they came to us seeking
help, a marvelous chain reaction would
follow. As we fixed their computers, we
learned that most customers used these
machines to communicate with their kids
and grandkids around the country. This
meant our solutions tangibly enriched their
lives. In turn, our company became stron-
ger—because my young team could rally
around this important, shared mission.
Second, the shirt was incredible mar-
keting—but only when combined with a
job well done. The best marketing strate-
gies and “swaggy” shirts won’t get you any-
where in the long run if you can’t deliver
for people. But when we did come through
for happy customers, the shirts sealed the
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOHN WINNER

deal and led to a lot of referrals.

Lastly, the shirt was a good reminder
of the special joy that comes with being a
builder and an entrepreneur. Which just
made me want to build even more. 

WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

Tell us about a story, person, object, or something else that pushes you forward, and we may include it in a future issue. And we may make you
photograph or illustrate it, too. Email INSPIRE@ENTREPRENEUR.COM with the subject line “WHAT INSPIRES ME.”

108 / E N T R E P R E N E U R . C O M / May-June 2023

THERE’S AN
INNOVATOR
IN ALL OF US.
That’s why Dell Technologies and Intel create
technology with innovation built-in, so every
person and every business can do more
incredible things.

Contact a Dell Technologies Advisor

at 877-ASK-DELL or Dell.com/sb