Anyone bought a small franchise?

ferry

My current job may be ending soon and after what will be my 2nd redundancy in 5 years thinking of trying my hand at running a small business and operating a small franchise seems to appeal with the mentoring you receive.
To be honest I have no idea what type to consider,really early days,guess it will have something to do with interests or what I enjoy,but can anyone kick off my interest with this by helping with some pros & cons.

My maximum investment would be under 10k so I would appreciate ideas also on to best to invest this.

I'll have more questions along the way but thanks for the advice so far

Fx

paddyrg

What's your passion? What do you care about enough to not be bothered it's eating 60+ hours a week, every week for no money? That's the reality of making a small businesses work, especially with tiny capital.

£10k sounds a lot more money than it is, and almost all franchises are going to require startup spend in at least this order of magnitude, all before you make a penny. Yes, your franchisor will help teach you their model, but could you learn all that from inexpensive business courses at college instead?

Also, what else does the franchise bring you? Do they have a brand name you've already heard of or used? Do they generate leads/jobs for you? Provide marketing? Cheaper supplies? Do they provide anything you cannot get cheaper elsewhere? Is the brand top of your list for a particular service? Is there really a big market gap you can fill without franchise fees?

In my own small, humble opinion, the vast majority of franchises you can afford will not be worth it for you.

SailorSam

In the past i've looked at franchises and wondered whether they'd be worth it. Like you i wasn't sure what, i can turn my hand to most things and with a bit of training. I thought of something practical like the ones that come to Tune your car, or clear the drains; some sort of courier, but lots of others as well. £10k doesn't seem a lot, they all want a lot upfront, then start to take big percentages of your takings.
In the end i decided if i was to start any sort of small business i'd be better off just buying whatever equipment i was going to need and learning to use it.
Update:
In the end i bought a Black Cab and Plate. Particularly at first when i was paying off my loan i worked lots of hours, you're never going to earn a fortune but it gave us a good living for over 25yrs. So i suppose that was a bit like a franchise.

Pennywise

A franchise that Joe Public can buy for £10k and can operate without any industry-standard trade/professional qualifications or experience isn't going to be worth buying.

Mistral001

Am I correct in thinking that franchising is not as popular as it used to be? In these times where there seem to be a lot of small businesses starting up, I would have thought there would be more franchise opportunities.

Charityworker

Personally I'm an event organiser. I'm always finding myself looking for small companies that can provide refreshments at my daytime events but no one does it. If it were me I would look into providing mobile hot drinks for events in the local area including bubble tea which is very popular at the moment. There's a franchise that runs a coffee bar from the back of a bike. That's the kind of thing I would look for to provide event refreshments. When you think about how many craft fairs, wedding fairs, school fetes etc that go on it could be very lucrative.

ferry

Thank you all for your input guys, from my research it seems that a franchise makes a safer bet than a business from scratch? I could be looking at this the wrong way but I also need to earning as soon as I can.
Would a franchise provide this?

Thank you for the ongoing help

SailorSam

This report says the failure rate of a franchise as apposed to a private start-up is not that great. But to buy into a Franchise could cost you 5 times more than going alone.
You'll get nothing for £10k. The successful Franchises like McD's will cost you mega-bucks. Think of the things the Franchise will want you to have ..... premises; vehicles; advertising. £10k isn't going to scratch the surface.

http://www.moyak.com/papers/franchising-failures.html

SailorSam

OP you seem to believe that going down the franchise road is the right thing for you, I think then you need to look what hobbies and interests you've got and look for a franchise around them......... We all work harder when we're doing something we enjoy. Then pick out 2 or 3 which you think may give you a good living, and come back here telling us of your choice and getting others opinions which they think is best, before you sign up and hand over your money.

Mistral001

Recently a small clothes alterations and repair shop opened in my local town. It seems to be a franchise. Those types of franchise must be fairly inexpensive. Also there are garden maintenance franchises like Green Thumb which can hardly cost a fortune.

SailorSam

While searching for a job on the Reed website i've just come across this.

http://www.reedcommercial.com/franchises/

You may get some ideas.