GEORGIOS Frangulis

GEORGIOS Frangulis He built an acai empire - Oak Berry, 1,000+ locations across 50 countries. He sat down with us to deliver a franchising masterclass. Here are 15 lessons... EP. 034 // OPENRESIDENCY.COM // GEORGIOS FRANGULIS 01 Franchising is using other people's money to scale your brand. That's the whole model. OPEN-RESIDENCY 02 A franchise isn't a job and it isn't a startup. It's hedged entrepreneurship - you eliminate a huge portion of the risk, but you still have to work. OPEN-RESIDENCY 03 The franchisee only has to think about one thing: their P&L. Everything else is already solved for them. OPEN-RESIDENCY 04 Build the business to be franchised from day one, not after. The duplicability has to be designed in from scratch. OPEN-RESIDENCY 05 The customer should never be able to tell if it's a franchise or a corporate store. That's the standard. OPEN-RESIDENCY 06 Go corporate in a new market first. Test everything, prove the standards, then open it to franchisees. You can't afford to get it wrong in a market that matters. OPEN-RESIDENCY 07 Burn a market and you burn it for good. Get the standards right before you hand it to franchisees. OPEN-RESIDENCY 08 Own the IP on your product before you scale. Whatever you let a third party hold, they hold the cards. OPEN-RESIDENCY 09 Verticalize the supply chain once you have the volume to justify it, not before. Timing is everything. OPEN-RESIDENCY 10 When you own production. your take rate goes from 6% to 18%. That's the math that changes the business. OPEN-RESIDENCY 11 The marketing fund is a separate nonprofit entity. Every dollar collected has to be spent on marketing - it never flows back to corporate. OPEN-RESIDENCY 12 Multi-unit franchising is where the real money is. Once you have a team and a proven operation, margins get dramatically better with scale. OPEN-RESIDENCY 13 The franchisees who win are the ones who already love the brand. If you have to sell someone on the franchise opportunity, that's already a yellow flag. OPEN-RESIDENCY 14 Never advertise for franchisees. Let brand love drive inbound. The conversion is better and the culture stays intact. OPEN-RESIDENCY 15 When a franchisor buys back franchises, the arbitrage is built in - franchisees trade at 3-5x EBITDA, but the corporate entity trades at 15-20x