Wow. Well, that's a dynamic. We hear in search all the time about a family member staying in the business. This is that...
Acquiring Minds
Buying a $200m Franchisor (Not Units, the Whole System)
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at a whole other level we'll have to hear how it's going of course probably some member if not multiple are going to be listening of the family are going to be listening to this hopefully so um well we'll see what we can get out of you about how that's going but what what an interesting dynamic and so the family retained full or rolled fully 40 that's right so that's that's that's quite a bit…
Yeah, and I think that that was, to a point Zach was referencing before, what was their mindset when this process was evolving? So in our context, it was, okay, we love the opportunity as a franchisee, and we still do. But hey, there's this really compelling opportunity to hopefully add value with the franchisor that'll benefit us down the road.
uh as store owners um uh but then also able to help uh set uh the direction for the the overarching brands from their viewpoint uh they love the business uh zach pointed out they're our biggest franchisees um and they're continuing to open stores uh as we speak um and so they had no real fundamental desire to sell uh I think this is what they would tell you.
What they realize, though, is there's a very different skill set to take a system from zero to 200 stores from 200 to 2000 stores. And so if they have this real entrepreneurial gene, they have an ability to really take a white piece of paper and create something spectacular from it. which is not, I would say, a gene I have in spades.
What we can bring is really this focus on developing processes, managerial capabilities, ultimate execution. And so I would say in terms of a fit, we both had this really long-term horizon in mind, but then from a capability standpoint, it really fit like a hand in a glove.
Yeah. And right. And also their investment in the future is not only that rolled 40%, but also all of these stores. So they're also still benefiting from the enterprise and the improvements that you're going to bring and the growth of the brand and so on as franchisees, as end franchisees as well.
Exactly. I would say one other thing about this industry is that it's a lot of fun. Just from a personal perspective, you know, I like to collect things. You know, I like the treasure hunt kind of dynamic, which is very much, I'd say, a part of our value proposition to customers. So already that's activated something that I find.
uh kind of personally satisfying but then on top of that from an operational perspective thrift is very complicated and a lot of the decisions that are made in thrift stores are very subjective so what is this pair of jeans worth versus that pair of jeans just as one example but there are there's an endless number of subjective decisions that are being made in thrift stores all over the country…
Kind of view this as a set of 100 or 200, even 1,000 puzzles all over a store. And your ability to solve those puzzles in a differentiated way will result in you serving customers better and making more money. That's really the kind of the game that we're playing every day.
And especially in as much as the industry has been so disorganized historically, a lot of these ideas aren't rocket science either. It's like, how about we start doing this? And it's like, yeah, why don't we do that?
Like real retail 101 level stuff. And so it's just a lot of it's a lot of fun also.
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