that require little education or sophistication. After all, if a business is complex and cannot be replicated easily, it probably cannot be franchised. . . . You may well be bored out of your skull after a year or two running a franchised business. How will you handle that?”
These concerns should paint a bold red stop sign subtitled “look hard before you leap.” Still, generalizations can be misleading. Despite all the caveats listed above, there may be a franchise opportunity that is both a superb fit with your skills and the equivalent of a go-it-alone business. You might be a Mitch York.
An Exception: Maui Wowi’s Franchisee of the Year
Mitch York is one franchisee who succeeded through the go-it-alone approach to business. Before he investigated franchising, he had been a high-ranking magazine company executive and the president of LendingTree (www.LendingTree.com), one of the pioneering Internet-based mortgage services.
York decided that his core competency was in marketing, so he sought a business that would give him the freedom to focus on this skill. He spent several months investigating multiple franchise opportunities and ultimately purchased a Maui Wowi franchise for the New York metropolitan area (www.Maui Wowi.com). The company offers smoothies, coffee and other Hawaiian-themed beverages, and snacks from movable kiosks and fixed locations. Today, York operates multiple kiosks, with hourly part-time employees. After 18 months of operation, York was named franchisee of the year.
York explains that he chose the Maui Wowi franchise precisely because of the creative freedom it gave him: “I liked the concept, but what attracted me was that I could see all kinds of creative ways to apply the ideas that no one had used yet.” For
