I came into franchising from a different side than the one network owners usually come from. Not as a franchise seller, but as a buyer: in 2023 I signed an agreement and became a partner. Then I bought out the SneakNFresh trademark and rebuilt the network. This column is about what I saw on both sides of the table: why most franchises don't bring their financial model to life, why long-term money is more reliable than quick money, and what a business, in my view, should look like.
I started as a partner
In 2023 I signed a partner agreement. Like any partner, I came with expectations. It seemed to me that behind the sign there was a system: a clear model, numbers I could lean on, support that works when it's needed. I put in my own money and my own time and counted on being led along a proven route.
In reality, it wasn't all that tidy. Not a catastrophe and not an outright deception — it's just that between what is said before signing and what you get after, there turned out to be a big distance. And I had to cover it myself.
Now I am grateful for that experience. You can't get it sitting on the other side of the table. When you are a partner, you see a franchise from below: how support really works, what every “we'll clarify and get back to you” costs, what happens to a location when the numbers from the presentation don't match the numbers in the cash register. That knowledge later determined almost everything we did with the network.
what was wrong — and why it isn't a one-off
If I lay out my partner experience on shelves, a short list comes out.
There was no digitization. Orders, money, people — everything lived in different places and in different heads. The head office had a poor view of what was happening at a location. The location had a poor understanding of what was happening in the network. Every question turned into a correspondence, and every number into a subject of discussion.
Expectations did not match reality. The sales department feeds partners a lot of disinformation. They promise a flow of clients, payback periods, support at every step. Not necessarily with malicious intent: sales are paid for selling, not for how the location will live a year later. But the partner makes the decision based on exactly these words.
The head office could not live up to it. And this is the most interesting part. It tries — honestly tries — to deliver what sales promised. But it simply can't. The franchise's internal structure gets in the way, or wrong budgeting, or the financial strategy of the franchise itself, or just poor management.
There are many reasons, but the essence is one: no system, no digitization, no transparency.
I am not naming names, and it isn't about them. This is how most franchises on the market work. Talk to partners of different networks — you will hear the same story with different scenery. We are here to change that.
buying out the trademark and rebuilding the network
At some point I realized that complaining is pointless. You can explain endlessly how it should be, but as long as you have no way to do it, it's just talk. I bought out the SneakNFresh trademark and rebuilt the network — all the processes, from how an order is taken at the front desk to how money and royalties are calculated.
We put a huge amount of effort and time into creating worthwhile products, structures and a system. The word “rebuild” sounds like a one-time decision, but it isn't. It is a complex process in which everything is connected to everything. You can't change the intake standards without changing the training. You can't reassemble the accounting without touching the financial model. You can't promise a partner transparency and leave the numbers in a spreadsheet that one person sees. If you change just one thing, a month later everything goes back to where it was.
Today that is 70+ locations in 6 countries, 712,321 orders since 2021, 175,834 clients and 7,000+ orders per month — across the SneakNFresh network, including locations that keep records outside the CRM. But the numbers are a consequence. What matters is that behind them there is now a system, not the enthusiasm of individual people.
why I am for long-term money
There is something I see all the time: unfortunately, most people just want to earn here and now. That is an understandable wish. But behind it the most important thing is forgotten: long-term money always gives fewer risks and steady growth on all fronts.
What does quick money look like in a franchise? Sell as many franchises as possible. Promise more so that the person signs. Collect the fee, and what happens to the location a year later is not so important. Over a short distance this works. Over a long one, the network accumulates unhappy partners, closed locations and a reputation that takes years to wash off.
Long-term money is when you earn together with a partner, not off a partner. When the network grows because the locations work, not because the sales department talks well. When you first put together the standards, the training and the accounting, and only then open new locations. This is slower. But each step rests on the previous one, and risks don't pile up in some corner until they go off all at once.
The same goes inside. An employee with clear pay and a clear growth path stays for a long time. A client whose order doesn't get lost comes back. A partner who sees their own numbers doesn't get into a dispute with the head office. None of this gives an effect in a month. All of it gives an effect over years.
This is important, and it gets forgotten.
why franchises don't see the financial model through
A huge number of franchises fail today not because the financial model doesn't work, but because they can't see it through. Partly for the same reasons I wrote about above: incompetence or lack of motivation.
For me, a financial model is not a forecast and not a slide for sales. It is a map. It is needed not to guess how much a location will earn, but to understand what that depends on. How many clients a day are needed to break even. What matters more — the average check or the flow. What share of revenue technician pay takes, and how it changes as the location grows. What royalties the location's economics can bear so that the partner still has something to work for.
But a map is useless if nobody follows it. “Seeing the financial model through” means checking it against the facts every month and tuning whatever diverges. Two things are needed for this. The first is numbers that can be trusted. The second is people who can and want to work with them. Without the first, the model stays a hypothesis: they put in “roughly this many clients” and “roughly this check”. Without the second, even exact numbers change nothing: nobody reads them.
Separately, about a franchise's financial model. It is the network's most responsible document: a future partner decides to invest their money based on it. A model drawn up for the sale — with an optimistic flow, without seasonality, with the location manager's pay forgotten — the partner will check themselves, at their own location, a few months later. And that won't be their mistake. I have been in their place and I know what it's like.
the answer — digitization and transparency
If the cause is one — no system, no digitization, no transparency — then the answer is essentially one too.
Digitization is not about software. It is about making the business stop depending on the memory of particular people. Every action leaves a trace: the order is taken, the work is done, the money is received. Then you stop managing by feelings and see which location is growing and which is sagging, which services bring money and which only load technicians. The practical side — in what order to digitize and where people stumble — we covered in the article how to digitize a business.
Transparency is when the partner and the head office look at the same numbers. Then you can argue about terms, but not about numbers. Royalties are calculated from the money that actually came into the cash register in the month, and both sides see what the sum is made of. In detail — in the article royalties without disputes.
And then the business has to be assembled — made so that it has everything needed to work without you. For a service network that is four layers.
- Standards. How an order is taken, what is promised to the client, what to do in a disputed situation. Not “be polite”, but concrete steps, the same at any location.
- Training. A standard that isn't in the training doesn't exist. A new employee at a partner's has never seen me or the regulations — they learn from the training system or from the person on the next shift. So you need courses by role, a knowledge check and certification.
- Services. Order intake, the client base, the club, messaging, the cash register, pay, inventory. A partner shouldn't have to assemble this themselves from a dozen programs — they should come and get working tools.
- Accounting. The location's money, profit for the month, royalties on each location's terms — transparent for both sides.
Only when a business is digitized, calculated and assembled can it honestly be packaged as a franchise. And then what is sold is not a promise of income, but a way of working: standards, training, services, accounting, a brand and the location's economics calculated from actual figures. No promises of how much a partner will earn — because that depends on the place, the market and on them. The SneakNFresh trademark belongs to Behruz Kim LLC, and the network's franchises are sold by it too. A step-by-step breakdown is in the article how to turn a business into a franchise.
what we are building
Knopka grew out of this rebuilding. We didn't sit down to write a “product for the market”. We needed to put together our own network, and it turned out that ready-made tools cover pieces, but not the whole: orders in one program, money in another, training in a third, and employee access in somebody's notebook.
That is how four products appeared. CRM — orders, clients, the club and messaging. ERP — location money, technician pay, inventory and royalties. LMS — courses, certification and certificates. ID — one sign-in for an employee and their own role at their own location. Development is led by the Creastra studio, which we build Knopka with, and every decision is tested by live shifts at the network's locations.
I don't think Knopka is magic. A system won't build the business for you. It makes it visible, and then people do the work. But without visibility, people simply have no chance: they manage what they can't see and answer for what they can't check. Everything we built for SneakNFresh is now available to other businesses too — those who want to put their network in order or go from a working location to a franchise.
what a business should look like
If I boil everything said down to a few points, I get this list. It isn't theory — it is what I arrived at, first as a partner and then as a network owner.
- Visible. Every action leaves a trace, and the numbers can be seen without calling anyone.
- Calculated. The location's economics are known not “roughly” but for every month, and the financial model is checked against the facts.
- Honest in its promises. A partner hears before signing the same thing they get after.
- Repeatable. What works at one location can be reproduced at another — without heroics.
- Teaching. A new person becomes part of the team through a training system, not through luck with a mentor.
- Built for the long run. Decisions are made with years in mind, not the coming month.
- Working for people. Not only owners earn from the business, but partners and employees too.
The last point is the main one for me. The best part of this work is not the product and not a pretty chart. The best part is seeing people who earn from what we built. A partner whose location has reached its own economics. A technician who came with no experience, went through training and grew. An administrator who has clear pay, not “we'll agree on something”.
That is why it matters so much to me that everything is done at the highest level. When you build a business for others, you are responsible for what they will earn on. Crooked accounting is a partner who doesn't understand why there is less money than in the report. A bad course is a technician who loses clients. An empty sales promise is a person who put in their money and was left alone. I was that person myself. So I know the price.
If you recognized your business in this text — the one that “works as it is”, but depends on you — send a request at the bottom of the page. We'll start with a conversation about what you already have. More on the page digitizing and packaging a business as a franchise.
Behruz Kim, owner of the SneakNFresh network
frequently asked questions
were you a franchise partner yourself?
Yes. In 2023 I signed a partner agreement, and later bought out the SneakNFresh trademark and rebuilt the network. So I look at a franchise from both sides — the partner's and the head office's.
why don't franchises see the financial model through?
Most often it isn't that the model doesn't work. It isn't checked against the facts: there are no numbers that can be trusted, or no people who can and want to work with them. Digitization provides the first, training and transparent rules provide the second.
do you help package someone else's business as a franchise?
Yes. We'll digitize the business in the CRM, ERP and LMS, help calculate the economics and package it as a franchise, based on SneakNFresh's experience. We make no promises about timelines or income: we start with a conversation about your business.
