Easy Franchise, easy money
The man behind one of the most successful franchises in the country wants you to know that you can make money out of your own business without having to run it.
It almost sounds too good to be true, like a franchise business run on autopilot. But this is the ambitious plan of Easy Franchise, an online platform cofounded by Jose Magsaysay, Jr., CEO of Potato Corner.
Easy Franchise offers a consolidated list of currently a thousand franchises, while promising to later on introduce a service that will run franchises on behalf of entrepreneurs.
This online platform, launched in February, wants you to make informed choices by giving you quick access to information you otherwise will not easily get.
The company was cofounded with RJ Ledesma, company general manager Bubbles Lim, and Anton Ojeda, former country manager of restaurant search site Zomato.
On the website, you can choose from a list of businesses based on the industry you prefer—such as food—and your budget, which can range from P50,000 to more than P1 million.
Easy Franchise also acts like a matchmaking service, but instead of linking you to more unrequited love through dating apps, it will help you get a return on investment by matching you to franchises that fit your goals and capacities.
“This idea came about really because I was traveling abroad and I would give a lot of talks about entrepreneurship, especially to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs),” Ledesma said.
He said many OFWs want to buy a franchise for their retirement plan, but are having management problems, like in cases wherein they let their relatives here run it.
“Many of them have been burned before by having their relatives run it,” he said.
That leaves a gap, a hole where the profits should have been. So what do you do when you’ve been burned once?
The answer is easy. Easy Franchise.
“Part of what we provide is our ecosystem, which is actually a support system also, especially for our OFW heroes,” Magsaysay said.
“You’ll have a partner you can trust who will manage the business for you. We will provide you regular reporting,” he added.
This promising service, along with other additional services such as accounting and supply chain support, will be launched in July, company officials said.
This also spells an opportunity for the franchise industry, which aims to hit P1.3 trillion worth of revenues in 2020, since the market players can use this to increase their exposure. Officials said they expected to earn from advertisements, among other revenue sources.
For now, however, there is still a lot to improve on the rather young website.
Some of the franchises we checked on the site still don’t have the necessary information on them, such as the franchising fee.
Nevertheless, the company has big goals.
For this year, it wants 2,000 brands in total to sign up to the platform while securing 1,000 matches between investors and franchisors, company officials said.
It is banking on the tried and tested formula of franchising, which has brought fortune to brands like Jollibee, Goldilocks, and of course, Potato Corner.
Lim said franchising had a 90 percent success rate. But it might not always be that easy.
So if you can’t trust your family or your closest friends with money to run a business, why not trust a company cofounded by the CEO of your favorite flavored french fries?
