"Service" franchises

[bigbabyjesus]

In my distaste for continuing to grind online poker as a full-time job, I've been looking into franchises lately as my first venture in the world of small business.

Right now, everything is up in the air and I can go alot of different directions, but just for reference, I have about $50k to invest outside of poker bankroll/living expenses. If I grind hard enough and the quality of online poker doesn't deteriorate too much, I could probably have $100k in liquid capital to invest in a small business within 12 months. I also don't want to leave the Southern California area (LA or San Diego is fine,) which is more expensive but I like the quality of life in certain regions down here.

I've read all the franchise threads from this forum for the past year; some great info on Subway's but it appears that kind of venture is 1) very difficult to make good money at without a lot of capital to invest in multiple stores 2) essentially buying myself a job.

I've started looking more at a service type franchise, would would require less start-up capital. Namely, ones such as tax services like Jackson Hewitt or Liberty Tax. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with these franchises.

I can't seem to find any #'s on how much they make per year, but the consensus on franchises like Subway were they make 1/4th of the initial investment, so I wouldn't be making very much with these services ( example start-up costs for JH ) although this 25% of investment for a tax service company is just speculation on my part.

I also feel an advantage of using one of these as a franchise is I could play poker online while downtimes at work. I know I just said I wanted to get out of poker, but I feel a change of pace would get me out of the "grind" feeling.

Any words are appreciated. Also, if anyone knows of any different kinds of service franchises I should look into, please tell.

[ahnuld]

wish I could help billy but I know nothing of franchises. I really dont think its the answer to your boredom with poker though. I mean, invest the money, be it a business, real estate, individual stocks or index funds but the last 3 are what I suggest unless you are really ready to work at a low hourly job, hard.

[bigbabyjesus]

[ QUOTE ]
wish I could help billy but I know nothing of franchises. I really dont think its the answer to your boredom with poker though. I mean, invest the money, be it a business, real estate, individual stocks or index funds but the last 3 are what I suggest unless you are really ready to work at a low hourly job, hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I understand, I'm definitely in a "feeling out" process of what I would like to pursue further than poker.

Thanks for the advice. As for real estate, I am interested in it, though the uncertainty of online poker keeps me from investing in it right now.

For now I'm going to put the 50k into something liquid. I haven't really researched it (I'm owed alot of money by a friend.. I know I know, but he's a 2p2 mega baller so it's not a worry) but I'll find a good place for it.

For some reason I find something intriguing about owning a franchise. Perhaps I just need to face the harsh reality about how much I have to invest isn't going to make me any money unless I go with some risky, new idea. I just really want to break into small business somehow. More research on the way.

[SlowHabit]

From the tone of your post, I speculate [which is never a smart thing to do] that you haven't been involved in running a business or be part of a management team before. This is not a direct attack at you but I just want to point out that people, especially winning poker players, underestimate how much work is involved in running a business. And running it well.

Also, "I could play poker online while downtimes at work" speaks volume of how much thought you have put into this. Ok, perhaps you have thought about this a lot but I don't think you're thinking the situation correctly and is overly optimistic with your future forecast.

Also, I think you're currently in a bad downswing. Don't worry, I am too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] But the sun will shine again. Hang in there!

[bigbabyjesus]

[ QUOTE ]
From the tone of your post, I speculate [which is never a smart thing to do] that you haven't been involved in running a business or be part of a management team before. This is not a direct attack at you but I just want to point out that people, especially winning poker players, underestimate how much work is involved in running a business. And running it well.

Also, "I could play poker online while downtimes at work" speaks volume of how much thought you have put into this. Ok, perhaps you have thought about this a lot but I don't think you're thinking the situation correctly and is overly optimistic with your future forecast.

Also, I think you're currently in a bad downswing. Don't worry, I am too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] But the sun will shine again. Hang in there!

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I realize all this. I hope you also realize I'm not going to begin this franchise next month. This is all research and when something intrigues me, I try to get more information on it.

This is all really 12+ months down the road, if I were to pursue it, before any of it really became a reality. I know there's some great advice on here and some very smart people so that's why I'm asking with a very limited amount of knowledge about the subject.

Perhaps the "play online" while at work makes it seem like I think I can [censored] around and put in 40k hand months while at work. That's not what I really meant.. I more mean that I feel it would be convienent to be in an actual office (as opposed to something clustered like a Subway,) so after work or during the slow season (there is a slow season in the tax world, isn't there?) I could put in hands.

I just want to reiterate, that yes, I know life and real business is not a cakewalk. When the time comes outside of poker, I will put 100% into anything that I do because I know that is my best chance to succeed.

[SlowHabit]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
From the tone of your post, I speculate [which is never a smart thing to do] that you haven't been involved in running a business or be part of a management team before. This is not a direct attack at you but I just want to point out that people, especially winning poker players, underestimate how much work is involved in running a business. And running it well.

Also, "I could play poker online while downtimes at work" speaks volume of how much thought you have put into this. Ok, perhaps you have thought about this a lot but I don't think you're thinking the situation correctly and is overly optimistic with your future forecast.

Also, I think you're currently in a bad downswing. Don't worry, I am too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] But the sun will shine again. Hang in there!

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I realize all this. I hope you also realize I'm not going to begin this franchise next month. This is all research and when something intrigues me, I try to get more information on it.

This is all really 12+ months down the road, if I were to pursue it, before any of it really became a reality. I know there's some great advice on here and some very smart people so that's why I'm asking with a very limited amount of knowledge about the subject.

Perhaps the "play online" while at work makes it seem like I think I can [censored] around and put in 40k hand months while at work. That's not what I really meant.. I more mean that I feel it would be convienent to be in an actual office (as opposed to something clustered like a Subway,) so after work or during the slow season (there is a slow season in the tax world, isn't there?) I could put in hands.

I just want to reiterate, that yes, I know life and real business is not a cakewalk. When the time comes outside of poker, I will put 100% into anything that I do because I know that is my best chance to succeed.

[/ QUOTE ]
"After work or during the slow season" have a different meaning to me than "while down time at work." To me, the phrase "while down time at work" means business is slow, there's no customer, I'm going to grind a few hands and sit out whenever a customer comes in. It is obviously fine if you do it outside of the schedule work hours.

Anyway, I apologize if I sound harsh; I was hoping it sounds more like "constructive criticism."

[bigbabyjesus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
From the tone of your post, I speculate [which is never a smart thing to do] that you haven't been involved in running a business or be part of a management team before. This is not a direct attack at you but I just want to point out that people, especially winning poker players, underestimate how much work is involved in running a business. And running it well.

Also, "I could play poker online while downtimes at work" speaks volume of how much thought you have put into this. Ok, perhaps you have thought about this a lot but I don't think you're thinking the situation correctly and is overly optimistic with your future forecast.

Also, I think you're currently in a bad downswing. Don't worry, I am too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] But the sun will shine again. Hang in there!

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I realize all this. I hope you also realize I'm not going to begin this franchise next month. This is all research and when something intrigues me, I try to get more information on it.

This is all really 12+ months down the road, if I were to pursue it, before any of it really became a reality. I know there's some great advice on here and some very smart people so that's why I'm asking with a very limited amount of knowledge about the subject.

Perhaps the "play online" while at work makes it seem like I think I can [censored] around and put in 40k hand months while at work. That's not what I really meant.. I more mean that I feel it would be convienent to be in an actual office (as opposed to something clustered like a Subway,) so after work or during the slow season (there is a slow season in the tax world, isn't there?) I could put in hands.

I just want to reiterate, that yes, I know life and real business is not a cakewalk. When the time comes outside of poker, I will put 100% into anything that I do because I know that is my best chance to succeed.

[/ QUOTE ]
"After work or during the slow season" have a different meaning to me than "while down time at work." To me, the phrase "while down time at work" means business is slow, there's no customer, I'm going to grind a few hands and sit out whenever a customer comes in. It is obviously fine if you do it outside of the schedule work hours.

Anyway, I apologize if I sound harsh; I was hoping it sounds more like "constructive criticism."

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the words; I appreciate any advice.

[spex x]

There are a lot lot lot of these types of franchises in the world these days. Over the last ten or so years or so a lot of startups have been infected with the franchising craze. There is even a franchised business that picks up dog [censored] in people's yards. No kidding.

I am aquainted with a guy that owns a couple 'We Buy Junk' franchises, and those are pretty lucrative for him. Well, success is implied by his life-style, I have no idea if he's making any real money. But I do know that he is very busy, and it seems to me like he works just about 24 hours per day.

I'm not trying to discourage you at all. But I, like others here, think that you need to seriously consider the amount of work that owning a small business takes. It is a huge amount of work. Even if you buy a franchised system, you'll be acting as manager for a few years.

I've owned small businesses in the past, but now I only do real estate. It takes less time and I enjoy it more because I like to negotiate, make deals, and solve problems.

Small businesses are very much about managing people - both employees and customers. RE is somewhat about managing people, but much more about knowledge. Its also much more passive. I work about 18 hours a week now, as opposed to running a small biz, where I worked about 100 hours a week. And all of those 18 hours are buy choice - there is rarely a time where I can't take off two weeks for vacation. This won't be the case in a small business.

Both RE and small biz require significant amounts of knowledge and expertise to make any real money. But in both you can learn as you go. Each will appeal to a differnt type of personality.

I'd suggest that rather than thinking about what type of biz you want to get into, you think about what kind of life you want to have, and then work backwards to figure out which course will get you there the easiest. IMO, it probably won't be a small business. My .02.

[Tien]

spex is dead on.

[Tien]

Don't just go into a business for the sake of going into a business.


Figure out where u want to be 5-10-20 years from now and THEN figure out how you are going to get there using business.