franchisee

The Franchise Category No One Talks About That Every Community Actually Needs

There’s a category of franchise that doesn’t get enough air time in development conversations. It doesn’t carry the visibility of food or fitness. It doesn’t have the infrastructure familiarity of home services. But when you look at the structural characteristics – recurring revenue, emotional loyalty, low footprint, real mission – it checks every box that investors and consultants should be paying attention to.

That category is children’s enrichment. And the conversation that made the case most clearly came from David Chang, CEO and Founder of Kung Fu Kids, in a recent episode of BrandONE-on-ONE with BrandONE Partners Michael Mudd and JT Thiessen.

David didn’t build a martial arts academy. He built a structured enrichment program over 25 years, starting in a garage in 2001, that uses that uses age-segmented curriculum and the martial arts belt progression to teach children what schools are increasingly unable to teach: how to set a hard goal, work toward it for months, earn the result, and handle the setbacks along the way. The franchise is Kung Fu Kids. The mission is to turn children into successful adults. The business model is one of the cleanest we’ve seen.

The Problem the Franchise Was Built to Solve Is Getting Worse

David has a specific name for the cohort he’s teaching right now: the iPad generation. And he’s direct about what that means. Children who grow up with instant access to every stimulation they want , and the ability to swipe away from anything that becomes difficult, are developing a different relationship to effort than any prior generation.

That’s not nostalgia. It’s an observable behavioral pattern with real consequences. The ability to defer gratification, to pursue something difficult without an immediate reward, to sit with discomfort and keep going: these are skills that don’t develop automatically. They have to be built. And more schools, more parents, and more pediatricians are saying that the window where those skills form is getting harder to use.

Kung Fu Kids exists at that window. The belt system – white belt to black belt – isn’t a measure of fighting ability. It’s a structured goal-setting mechanism. A child who earns a black belt has spent years pursuing something hard, failing repeatedly, and continuing anyway. That experience transfers. And for children on the autism spectrum or with other special needs, the Spectrum Stars program offers the same structure with the flexibility and patience those children need, creating some of the most powerful outcomes and the most loyal families in the entire system.

What the Business Model Actually Looks Like

Children’s enrichment brands frequently get evaluated on mission without enough scrutiny of the model. Kung Fu Kids survives that scrutiny.

Ninety-six percent of revenue is subscription-based. Members pay a flat monthly fee regardless of how many classes they attend, which eliminates the drop-in volatility that makes most service franchises difficult to staff and forecast. Franchisees know what next month looks like. That changes how they manage P&L, how they make hiring decisions, and how they think about growth.

The physical footprint is simple: 2,000 to 3,000 square feet of open floor space. No kitchen. No complex infrastructure. A lease signed in one month typically means a studio open the next. That speed to revenue, combined with the subscription model, means franchisees reach break-even faster than most comparable enrichment concepts.

Marketing and lead management are handled systematically. Sidekick Media manages digital acquisition. A dedicated call center contacts every new lead within five minutes of inquiry: a response window most local businesses can’t come close to matching, and one that meaningfully improves conversion from interest to enrollment. The first Kung Fu Kids franchisee is currently enrolling approximately one new student per day. That’s not a projection. That’s performance.

The Operational Infrastructure That 25 Years Builds

Most franchise concepts come to market with a promising concept and a partially built operating system. Kung Fu Kids is different. David Chang spent a quarter century building, testing, and refining the Kung Fu Kids model in company-owned locations before he offered it to franchisees. That timeline produces a different kind of document library, a different depth of instructor training, and a different level of operational confidence.

The centerpiece of that infrastructure is Woover: Kung Fu Kids’ proprietary LMS platform. Woover provides instructors with a class-by-class, minute-by-minute guide to exactly what they’re teaching, how they’re teaching it, and what the developmental outcome of each activity is. A franchisee with zero martial arts background can open a Kung Fu Kids studio. Their instructors, hired from the local community, not from a martial arts pipeline, can be trained and operating effectively within the system.

What Woover enables isn’t just operational consistency. It enables a staffing model that isn’t dependent on finding a rare specialist. That’s critical for scalability. And for the employee side of the equation, David built a career road map that mirrors the belt system itself: clear advancement levels, skills associated with each level, and visible progression that makes teaching at Kung Fu Kids a career, not a gig.

What the Right Candidate Looks Like

David is not looking for someone who can do a roundhouse kick. He’s looking for someone who believes in what the program does for children; they also need to be willing to trust the system he spent 25 years building.

The profile is consistent with the best-performing franchisees across BrandONE’s portfolio: community-oriented, relationship-driven, excited to own something that has real meaning in their town. The candidate who asks first about the karate is often asking the wrong question. The candidate who asks first about the parents in the waiting room – what they’re hoping for, what they come back the next week to report – is in the right place.

Semi-absentee ownership is possible and supported. The Woover system, the call center, the digital marketing infrastructure, and the career road map for staff all reduce the owner’s operational burden significantly. But David’s standard for franchise ownership is engagement, not absence. Attend training. Stay close to your franchise support team. Make the right management hire. Show up when it counts.

Why This Category Is Gaining Ground Right Now

The timing for children’s enrichment franchises is not accidental. In a market where parents are increasingly worried about screen time, social isolation, anxiety rates in children, and the absence of real-world skill-building from school curricula: a franchise that addresses those anxieties directly, with a structured program and visible results, has a built-in acquisition story that most categories can’t match.

The conversation David Chang has with parents isn’t a marketing conversation. It’s a values alignment conversation. Parents aren’t choosing a martial arts class. They’re choosing the outcome they want for their child. And when a parent sees that outcome: when they tell David that their child just started asking for harder challenges instead of avoiding them, or that their teenager finally made a decision without needing a parent to make it for them — they don’t leave. They refer. They become the word-of-mouth engine that makes every Kung Fu Kids location a local institution.

That’s the franchise category most consultants aren’t leading with. It probably should be in the conversation more than it is.

BrandONE Marks 10 Years as Emerging Franchise Brands Face a Higher Bar for Sustainable Growth

Franchise growth platform enters its second decade after a record year for new brand partnerships and continued expansion across resilient service sectors.

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — BrandONE is marking its 10th anniversary at a time when emerging franchise brands face increasing pressure to demonstrate strong unit-level economics, repeatable operations, differentiated positioning, and the infrastructure required to support franchise owners beyond the initial franchise award through opening, operation, and long-term growth.

BrandONE partners (left to right): Peter Barkman, Michael Mudd, JT Thiessen, Dave Schaefers, Jason Barclay
BrandONE partners (left to right): Peter Barkman, Michael Mudd, JT Thiessen, Dave Schaefers, Jason Barclay

Over the past decade, BrandONE has evolved from a relationship-driven franchise development company into a broader growth platform serving founders, emerging and established franchise systems, private equity partners, and prospective franchise owners.

The anniversary follows the most active year for new brand partnerships in the company’s history. BrandONE added more concepts to its portfolio than in any previous 12-month period, with new brands spanning senior care, home services, child enrichment, beauty, recreation, and other resilient service sectors.

The company is also supporting concepts entering categories where a clear national leader has not yet emerged. Brands including Delta Crown and Epic Septic give BrandONE an opportunity to help shape emerging franchise categories from the ground up.

“A compelling founder story and one successful flagship operation are no longer enough,” said Michael Mudd, Partner and CEO of BrandONE. “Today’s strongest franchise opportunities must demonstrate credible unit-level economics, repeatable operations, differentiated positioning, proper capitalization, and the leadership capacity to support other business owners. The best founders understand that franchising is not simply a vehicle for selling more locations. It is a long-term commitment to helping franchise owners build successful businesses.”

From Franchise Sales to Franchise Recruitment

BrandONE was founded to address a gap on both sides of the franchise relationship. Many founders had proven concepts and ambitious growth plans but lacked the specialized infrastructure, industry relationships and development experience required to scale responsibly. Prospective franchise owners, meanwhile, needed a more transparent and disciplined process for evaluating opportunities and understanding what ownership would truly require.

BrandONE built its model around recruitment rather than transactional franchise sales, with an emphasis on education, due diligence and long-term alignment.

“We recruit, we don’t sell’ has guided our approach from the beginning,” Mudd said. “The goal is not to convince every candidate to move forward. It is to help the right candidates make a well-informed decision with a clear understanding of the opportunity, the financial and operational commitments involved and what will be required of them to succeed.

“Our responsibility is to create transparency throughout the process. Candidates should understand their obligations as franchise owners, the capabilities and support system behind the brand, and the realities of building and operating the business. At the same time, the franchisor must determine whether the candidate has the experience, capital, leadership ability, and commitment needed to represent the brand successfully. 

“The strongest franchise relationships begin when both sides have the information and confidence to determine that the fit is right. That alignment creates a stronger foundation for the franchise owner, the brand, and the entire system.”

That approach has become increasingly important as franchise candidates gain access to more information and expect greater transparency, along with direct engagement with leadership teams, existing franchise owners, and the underlying economics of the business. 

A More Selective Model for Emerging Brands

BrandONE evaluates prospective brand partners based on consumer demand, unit-level financial performance, operational simplicity, market potential, competitive differentiation and the ability to reproduce the customer experience across multiple markets.

The company also places significant weight on what it describes as “founder readiness”: whether the founder understands why the business works, can clearly communicate the vision and is prepared to build the systems and culture needed to support a franchise network.

“A founder’s role changes dramatically when the first franchise is awarded,” Mudd said. “The founder is no longer responsible only for building the original business. They are now supporting people who have invested their capital, careers, and families’ futures in the system. That requires a different level of discipline, communication, and leadership.”

For many emerging franchisors, that shift requires earlier investment in training, technology, field support, marketing, real estate, compliance, and operational infrastructure, often before a meaningful royalty stream has developed.

Turning Distinctive Concepts into Scalable Opportunities

Another Nine, a technology-enabled indoor golf concept, illustrates how BrandONE helps translate a differentiated business model into a scalable franchise platform.

The brand combines private simulator suites, 24/7 customer access and a remotely managed operating model. BrandONE supported the founders with brand positioning, development strategy, candidate education, and access to the franchise consultant community.

In September 2025, two brothers from Cincinnati visited the original location. By October, they and a longtime friend had committed to three franchise territories. Before opening their first location, the group added four more, expanding its commitment to seven territories.

“A founder’s vision may begin in one location, but the right franchise owners can carry it into markets the founder may never have reached alone,” Mudd said. “At its best, franchising creates opportunity for owners, employees, customers, and communities.”

Building the Next Decade Around Greater Depth

BrandONE’s next phase will be supported by an expanded ownership and leadership group, including JT Thiessen, CFE, Partner and Chief Growth Officer, who joined the ownership team as the company prepared for its second decade.

BrandONE plans to continue investing in technology, data, marketing infrastructure and systems for measuring lead quality, candidate engagement, conversion and long-term franchisee performance.

“The next decade is about greater depth, not simply greater volume,” Mudd said. “We want to partner with the right brands, build stronger systems around them, and create better outcomes for both founders and franchise owners. Sustainable franchise growth is not measured only by the number of agreements awarded. It should always be measured by the strength of the network that exists years later.”

You can find out more about the journey of these brands, the BrandONE team and more on episodes of the BrandONE-on-ONE podcast.

About BrandONE
BrandONE is a franchise growth organization that partners with founders, emerging and established franchise systems, investors and prospective franchise owners. Through brand positioning, franchise recruitment, candidate education, development strategy and established industry relationships, BrandONE helps promising concepts grow responsibly while helping qualified candidates evaluate franchise ownership with greater clarity. Founded in 2016, BrandONE is guided by its core values of “Trust. Like. Respect.” and the belief that sustainable franchise growth begins with alignment between the right brands and the right owners. Learn more at www.brandonefd.com.

The Franchise Category That’s AI-Proof, Recession-Proof, and Growing – and Still Flying Under the Radar

For years, the loudest conversations in franchise development centered on home services, food, and fitness. These categories have real merit. But a different conversation is happening right now – quietly, in a category that often gets dismissed as trend-dependent or vanity-driven. That category is beauty. And the numbers, the retention rates, and the business models coming out of it are becoming harder to ignore.

That was the clearest signal from a recent BrandONE-on-One conversation featuring Meg Roberts, CEO of Head to Toe Brands, the parent company behind Lash Lounge, Delta Crown, and Bishops Cuts/Color. What emerged wasn’t a pitch for beauty franchising. It was a detailed, honest breakdown of why the business models being built inside this category are outperforming what most of the industry expects.

Beauty Was Never a Fad. It Was a Category Getting Professionalized.

The most common objection to beauty franchises in development conversations is that they’re trend-dependent. Here today, concept-of-the-year next year, gone the year after. Meg Roberts has heard it. She’s also watched it be wrong for 20 years.

When she joined Lash Lounge, she told her father she was going into lash extensions. He had no idea what she was talking about. A few months later, he called her back: “Margaret. I have seen it everywhere.” That’s not a trend. That’s a service category that hadn’t been professionalized yet. Lash Lounge helped create that standard and grew to 140+ locations in the process.

Delta Crown is following the same arc, this time in hair extensions. The brand was founded by Jenna Bowden in Colorado Springs, who spent eight years building a studio model that addressed everything traditional salons got wrong about extensions: inconsistent quality, unreliable service, no long-term care model, and pricing that made guests feel like they were making a one-time luxury decision every six months. Meg found Jenna on Instagram – “at my age, you shouldn’t be sliding into anyone’s DMs,” she says – and the conversation that followed became a full franchise partnership.

The Membership Model Is the Differentiator Nobody in Hair Is Talking About

One of the most significant structural decisions in this episode had nothing to do with branding, real estate, or technology. It was the Delta Crown membership model; it’s the kind of decision that quietly determines whether a franchise concept becomes durable or disposable.

Here’s how it works: A guest gets their first hair extension installation. At that point, they enroll in a monthly membership that brings them back for a lift (repositioning the extensions), a shampoo, and a blowout. By month six, they receive a full hair refresh – entirely new hair – without a price increase. Same monthly fee. Fresh hair. Predictable revenue.

Meg compares it to a cell phone plan. That comparison matters operationally. It eliminates the biggest friction point for guests, the perceived cost of re-installation, while giving franchisees something most service businesses never have: booked schedules and revenue certainty. With a membership model, the scheduling unpredictability that kills most salons disappears. Members book before they leave. Staff scheduling becomes predictable. And the business performs better when it runs leaner.

5 Reasons Beauty Franchises Are Gaining Ground Right Now

This conversation is bigger than one brand. Across the BrandONE portfolio, the brands gaining the most traction share a set of structural characteristics that beauty — particularly the specialty segment — happens to check in full.

1. They are AI-resistant by design. Nobody is outsourcing a hair extension installation to automation. Nobody is getting a scalp treatment through an app. The services require human skill, ongoing relationships, and trained professionals. In a moment where franchise candidates are increasingly asking what’s protected from disruption, beauty has a clear, credible answer.

2. They benefit from organic, peer-driven marketing. Women ages 16 to 80 are the number one beauty audience on TikTok and Instagram — not occasionally, but consistently. And the members themselves are the marketing channel. When someone gets a great result, they share it. They tag it. They answer when friends ask. That creates a marketing loop that doesn’t depend on algorithm changes or pay-per-click fluctuations.

3. They operate in recession-resistant spending categories. Fitness fads come and go. Food trends shift. Home service needs fluctuate with housing markets. Beauty, in Meg’s words, “just keeps adding and adding and adding.” The specialization happening now – lash studios, extension studios, nail studios, full-service salons with distinct identities – isn’t market saturation. It’s maturation.

4. The membership model creates revenue certainty. As JT puts it: “it gives the franchisee a lot of revenue certainty.” For brands built on a recurring model, the question of monthly revenue isn’t a guess, it’s the baseline. That changes how franchisees manage their P&L, make hiring decisions, and plan for growth.

5. They attract operators who are proud of what they own. This one doesn’t show up in most franchise development conversations, but Meg makes it explicitly: “there’s a little bit of cachet in beauty.” Operators who are proud of what they own show up differently. They attend convention. They call their franchise coach back. They push through hard quarters. That pride-of-ownership tends to create better franchise cultures across the board.

Bishops Cuts/Color: The Salon That Wins Because It Doesn’t Pick a Lane

Bishops Cuts/Color fills a different slot in the beauty segmentation map. It’s a full-service salon — cuts, color, balayage, buzz cuts, kids’ cuts — that sits between the value tier (Great Clips, Sport Clips) and the four-hour luxury experience. What it has that neither end of the market has is a real identity.

No uniforms. Murals on the walls. Good music. A franchise app that gamifies the client experience and is meaningfully improving store productivity. And importantly: it works for men, women, and children. There’s no gimmick, no single demographic, no theme that boxes it in. That’s harder to build than it sounds – and it’s what makes Bishops Cuts/Color genuinely defensible in its lane.

Head to Toe’s work since acquiring the brand has been about refinement, not reinvention. Move it back toward the center where it’s accessible without being generic. Improve the operational infrastructure. Let the personality stay. That balance is what franchise brands struggle to maintain as they scale — and what Bishops Cuts/Color appears to have right.

What the Right Franchisee Looks Like

Meg’s ideal candidate profile doesn’t start with industry background. It starts with orientation: community-minded, relationship-driven, willing to trust a system, and, critically, excited to own something they’d be proud to tell people about.

The wrong candidate, across both brands, is the person who arrives with preconceived notions and challenges the system before learning it. JT makes the point that this behavior at the evaluation stage tends to repeat inside the franchise relationship. When someone isn’t “supple enough to take direction and to listen,” that doesn’t improve once they sign.

Semi-absentee ownership is supported – Meg is clear on that. But it comes with non-negotiables: attend new business training, come to convention, take your franchise business coach calls, and make the right management hire. What you don’t need to be is the person behind the chair every day. What you do need to be is present for the things that connect you to the system.

Final Thought

The franchise industry often chases what’s visible. Beauty has been hiding in plain sight – growing steadily, professionalizing its verticals, and building the kind of recurring-revenue, low-footprint, relationship-driven models that tend to outlast every market cycle.

The real question now isn’t whether beauty belongs in serious franchise development conversations. It does. The question is which consultants and candidates get there before it’s obvious.