The “Boring” Business Model Making Regular People Millionaires

Franchising is one of the most

overlooked paths to [music] wealth in

America.

>> That's a very bold statement.

>> They said the most

>> the most overlooked.

>> There are more millionaires generated

from franchising than all combined

players ever in the NFL. And there's a

number of private [music] equity family

offices starting to get further and

further into franchising. And they're

buying both large franchises or they're

doing roll-ups.

>> You made this bold claim and I wanted to

fight you about it. Now I'm totally on

your team. Traditionally, franchising is

looked at as like, "All right, it's

either McDonald's and Subway, and you

got to have $3 million to do it. So,

only the wealthy can actually [music] do

it." But there's 4,000 franchise brands,

and if you're willing to do the

research, willing to do the work, there

are a lot of hidden gems of brands and

industries that are really taking off.

>> So, explain the path. What's the game

plan?

>> This is such a good hidden gem. I don't

want to talk about how I did this.

>> All right. What's up? Welcome, Alex.

Alex is the franchise guy that we have

invited on the pod. So, I don't know if

that's what you normally get called, but

that's what we're calling you. So, this

podcast called My First Million, one of

the re reasons we originally called it

that was because there was all these

different ways people made a million

dollars. And in my first 10 episodes, I

think I had a guy who did it in real

estate, a guy who did it with Amazon

FBA, a guy who did it playing poker, and

I was very fascinated just to hear all

the different ways you can win in

business for two reasons. One, I wanted

a menu of options I could go choose

from. How can you know which one sounds

most appealing to me? Which one sounds

like it fits me? And the second is I

like just hearing that you could be do

it in all these different ways because

it makes the impossible feel extremely

possible. I remember when I was sort of

pre- success, it felt like winning was

like just this needle in a hay stack. I

couldn't find it. And then as I've been

doing this podcast, I realized it's a

hay stack full of needles. You there's

so many to choose from. There's so many

different ways to win. You're going to

talk about kind of retail and

franchising. Did I do did I do you

justice there setting that up? Yeah,

absolutely. I honestly up until four or

five years ago was a bit of a I think

franchise hater and thought, "Oh, you

that's is that really entrepreneurship

or is that you are there viable paths

there?" And the more I've gotten into

it, the more I've realized it's probably

the most overlooked path to wealth

creation in in America and I've become a

big statement. That's a very bold

statement. Most

>> overlooked overlooked. [laughter]

>> All right.

>> Yes. Well, let's let's start with who

who you are. So you're you're a guy who

made your initial wealth in laundry in

the laundry business. So can you give us

the fast forwarded quick version of your

story?

>> Yeah, I'll try to be try to be short. So

I'm originally from smalltown Minnesota,

town of 15,000 people. Uh ended up in

North Carolina for college. Went to uh

to Wake Forest, studied finance, was

about to have a pretty kind of boring,

plain life, and then bought a laundry

business my freshman year of college. um

did seller financing. Had to learn what

that was at at 18. Uh learned what a

discounted cash flow analysis was at 18

just talking to, you know, business

school professors before I got into the

BIS school. And I ended up buying that

business and learned more doing that

than any class I took at Wake. You know,

we ran it, we grew it, we sold it for a

little over 10 times what we bought it

for and had an exit uh our senior year

for about 10 times what we bought it

for. And that set the path to complete

addiction. Why? Why did you buy a

laundry business as a college freshman?

Who does that?

>> So, I was I was working for them. I was

working for them as a way to make a

little extra beer money and and was

hooked. I was like, "This could work at

Duke and Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt and

you guys are graduating. I want to buy

it." And they asked for 30 grand and my

jaw hit the floor. I was like, "That's

the most money I've ever heard of." Uh,

and I had maybe two grand saved up. So,

had to get creative and figure out how

are we going to buy this and structure

it. Well, that's sort of like one of the

one of the three businesses college kids

starts. It's usually like some type of

like app or something where like college

kids could sell stuff to other kids. Uh

or a roommate matching app, which I did.

Or like a like a laundry map. Uh a

laundry business. I know Blake Mioski, I

think that's his name, the guy who

started Tom Shoes. That was his first

business was the laundry business.

[laughter]

>> What were you doing? You just go pick up

the laundry from students dorm rooms.

You said like, "Hey, you you know, I

remember when I went to college, I

didn't know how to do laundry. I'd like,

you know, grown up and my parents did my

laundry and so by the time I got to

school, I was a little confused. My

roommate had to teach me like what is a

dryer sheet and like why do you use

this? What are all these different

components? How long do you leave this

in?

>> Yeah. So, Tuesday was pickup day. You'd

leave your stuff outside your dorm room

door. We'd have runners, you know,

mostly football players that could hold

like 200 lb of laundry at a time. They

would just, you know, run up and down

the hallways, grab your bag. We'd

partner with vendors off campus. They

would clean it. We'd return it Thursday.

But the big unlock for us was kids

aren't paying for this. You know, it's a

bunch of broke college kids. It's their,

you know, affluent parents or, you know,

parents that are worried about them, you

know, being at college not knowing how

to do laundry. And so the big thing that

changed it for us that allowed us to go

from, you know, call it 30-ish,000 in

revenue when we first bought it to just

under 300 grand a school year in revenue

was get a booth at orientation week. And

for whatever reason, Wake gave us a

booth next to where you got your meal

plan, where you got your parking pass,

where you got your keys to your dorm,

like all the like marquee things you

need to do. And we went full Shamwow

guy. Like I was like, "Step right up.

We're the premier laundry service at

Wake. You got your kids got to have it.

You don't want them to go, you know,

clothesless. You got to sign up for

this."

>> Yeah. And they loved it. They thought it

was like the cutest thing. And they're

like, "Yeah, that's true. My kids, you

know, screwed going here and not knowing

how to do laundry. and I want them

studying or you know having fun or

whatever it was. And so we went from

yeah 30k a year in school year to like

280,000 our first year. Is this still a

business that any college kid could do

today? Like has this been a solved

problem or does every campus just have

kind of like a version of you who's who

hustles and makes the the campus the

freshman laundry service?

>> Yeah, I think Sam's right. Like the

number of people I've met that have gone

on to be serial entrepreneurs that were

like, "Oh, I did that in college, too.

like I thought I was so cool and special

and unique that I meet like 30 other

college kids that had a laundry business

at their school. So I don't think it's