Hello
There's a franchise i found that's SBA 7a Qualified that's only 10 minutes from where i live in Houston.
What are the due diligence items to keep in mind that are different from a regular business purchase?
Does anybody have experience buying a franchise? or running one?
Would like to connect with somebody that's done this before.
Buying a Franchise - Due Diligence

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Really like the comment above mine. Franchises give you the earnings potential of an owner, with near employee-level security. But you will be more of a manager (employee), than an owner, with a franchise. So you have to know what is driving you towards business ownership. If it is just the $$, then this might work for you.
Find out churn rates among franchisees, but the only person that can give you this info is the franchisor, so ask them, but take it with a grain of salt. Definitely talk to ex-franchisees and current franchisees that you find yourself (look on LinkedIn).
Most newer franchises have truly awful support. So you get to donate part of your profits to them, but they provide nothing post-opening. They all get sued and learn they have to hire a bunch of people to support the franchisee, so age of franchise is significant.
For the franchisor, ask about the details of ongoing litigation. If they've been around for more than 5 minutes, there's always some litigation. Ask them what the revenue / profit looks like for the average franchisee. What are the max/min/median revenue / profit numbers for the first year? Second year? What have they seen that is the biggest indicator of a successful franchisee in their business?
The data you want to see is there - that's a nice feature of franchises - but you've usually got to demand to see the unvarnished data.