Does anyone here franchise?

[Frontpaw]

I am thinking about maybe doing a kids class in London - like Yogabugs - but am aware that fees (set up and ongoing) can be quite high, so am not sure if it will be worthwhile, as I can only really do part time (so a couple of days a week classes, plus admin eve/weekends).

Has anyone done something similar?

I did a franchise with a web-design company before changing to what I do now. I only wanted part-time and it did not work out. The support & training was minimal to say the least - once they had my money that was really all they were interested in. Plus, when I wanted to leave, after only 8 months, I had to pay half the rest of the monthly fees I had contracted to so cost me another couple of thousand. So if you do go for it, read the small print and make sure you have a way of getting out if you want to.

Interesting. cargat... did the web design franchise start with "A", by any chance? (I looked into this a couple of years ago and was, in the end, put off by the hard sell from this particular company).

One children's franchise I also considered was "Music with Mummy". I attended the classes with ds when he was little and he really enjoyed them - and the franchise fees were very low. Decided against that one on the grounds that my singing is pretty bad, but I think it could be quite good if you can sing. At least you don't stand to lose too much money of the worst comes to the worst.

In the end, with franchises, you have to look at what is being provided for the franchise fee. So, with the web design one, I decided that the upfront cost and monthly fee wasn't worth it for a piece of fairly basic software and a company name who no-one had ever heard of. What would you actually be getting for the franchise fee? I called up a couple of franchisees at random and explained that I was thinking of starting up and asking for some feedback and although they seemed reasonably happy, their stories were nothing like the glowing testimonies I read on the company website.

Try googling the company name + "scam" or "problems" and see if anything comes up.