franchises? (have some money to invest)

[sonartec]

Hi

basically i have about $50K in cash that i am looking to invest, i already have about $50K in the property market and $250K in shares , i have a full time job and earn ok monies.

I live in australia, i was thinking of starting up my own business, something small and simple to start off with, soemthing i can build and grow over time, however since this would be my first time doing i was thinking of doing a franchise of some sort.

What does everybody think about franchises? Or would you suggest something else to do with my money?

ps: if there are any knew good franchises in USA that havent hit AUs yet, it would be great to know (since we are about a year behind the USA socially, lol)