DIY Franchising: The Platform for Scaling SMBs

Over the past decade, platform and SaaS companies have emerged that enable a wide range of businesses to “plug and play” rather than create from scratch.

Although franchise consultants and associations abound, Gregory Ugwi took a page from companies like LegalZoom and offers small businesses a wide range of easy-to-access professional help when they are moving from online or single-unit brick-and-mortar businesses into a franchise model.

Ugwi’s company is called Wefranch. With the help of Growth Lead Mariyam Shamshidova, they are disrupting the established franchise growth model through a software-driven approach that Ugwi believes is ten times less expensive and less error-prone.

One of Wefranch‘s clients is a woman-owned charcuterie company called Bite by Bite & Co. Wefranch provides brands like this with a custom franchise landing page and a self-serve Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) editor. But one of the unique aspects of this model is that the platform also gives prospective franchisors and franchisees access to humans (subject matter experts) who can help them along their franchise journey. So, it combines the best of platforms like LegalZoom with a business matchmaking service.

Ugwi has a strong background in the franchise arena but has also delved into analytics throughout his academic and professional careers at Princeton University and Goldman Sachs. His quantitative experience is invaluable to prospective franchisors and franchisees, who often make significant financial decisions and must accurately project their investment and earning potential.

A rating system on the Wefranch site allows prospective investors to peruse reviews of different franchises before making their decisions. Moreover, prospective franchisees can research digitized and easy-to-download financial documents for key insights about a business.

Although some businesses listed on the Wefranch site are well-established and popular franchises, one of the “sweet spots” for this platform is businesses like Bite by Bite & Co.

Franchising can be overwhelming to SMBs with limited experience in the space, but Wefranch simplifies the entire process for brands like that by allowing them and international concepts to test the franchise market and adapt their concept based on prospective franchisees’ feedback. 

Opening one location (especially if a business has been exclusively online before that) is challenging enough. The prospect of growing to multiple locations (MULO) may be daunting. 

Although Wefranch can’t remove the day-to-day management challenges of overseeing several (or several hundred) locations, it makes some of those early steps much faster, less expensive, and more self-directed. 

Says Ugwi,

“Many entrepreneurs who’ve crafted unique concepts have traditionally faced a high barrier to entering the franchise market. A software-driven approach to launching and scaling franchises is unlocking the potential of these hand-crafted small businesses to become durable enterprises.”