Three Ways to Own a Business: Which One Is Right for You?

Key Takeaways

• All three paths — startup, acquisition and franchise — can create cash flow, equity and tax advantages.
• Entrepreneurship is a blank canvas with no playbook; assumptions can be expensive.
• Buying an established business means betting on past performance under someone else's ownership.
• A franchise lets you buy down the learning curve with a proven, scalable model.
• The right path is the one aligned with your experience, resources, goals and appetite for risk.

Option #1: Start a Business from Scratch

Entrepreneurship is the ultimate blank canvas. You have an idea. You see something that doesn’t exist, or something you believe you can do differently or better, and you build it.

There is tremendous freedom in that, but there is also tremendous uncertainty.

When you start from scratch, there is no playbook. You have to figure out what you need, how much it will cost, how long it will take, how to market it, what technology you need, how to price it, how to sell it, how to deliver it, and eventually, how to scale it.

You are making a lot of assumptions, and assumptions can be expensive.

Entrepreneurs need deep pockets, but they also need vision, patience, confidence, and a strong sense of resilience because there will be a lot of trying and failing as you find your way to your wealth.

I know because I’ve lived this. I became an entrepreneur in my mid-20s. I had no clue what I was doing. Luckily, I didn’t have a mortgage, kids, or many responsibilities. I could fly by the seat of my pants, always say yes, travel wherever I needed to go, and work myself to the bone.

And I did. I was successful but at a cost. I moved away from my family. I traveled constantly to meet clients, and for five years, I worked my butt off while still living with feast-or-famine income.

It was lonely. It was hard. It was a lot — all the time, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. I was riding a learning curve that would serve me for the rest of my life, but would I recommend that level of risk to the average person with a mortgage, a family, financial responsibilities, and no prior business experience? Probably not.

Option #2: Buy an Established Business

This one sounds incredibly appealing. Why start from zero when you can buy something that already has customers, employees, revenue, and cash flow?

If you can find a great mom-and-pop business for sale at a reasonable multiple of net earnings and get the owner to stay on for some period of time to teach you the business, it could be a very viable path.

But there are a lot of ifs in that sentence.

First, great businesses for sale can be hard to find. Then you must determine what the business is actually worth and negotiate a price both sides are willing to accept.

Once you buy it, who is going to teach you how to run it? What happens if the team leaves when management changes? What happens if the customers leave? We all know the local business we frequent because of the people. Sometimes when the people leave, our loyalty leaves with them, and you’re making assumptions about the future performance of a business based largely on its past performance under someone else’s ownership. What if those assumptions are wrong? That’s a big gamble with one’s life savings.

I’ve heard it said that buying an established business can take six to 12 months, and that’s if it works out. A tremendous amount of time can be spent searching, evaluating, negotiating, and doing due diligence only to have no deal struck because the owner wants more than you’re willing to pay.

Could buying an established business be a great option? Absolutely, but understand what you’re buying and what you may still have to figure out once the keys are yours.

Option #3: Invest in a Franchise

A franchise is another way to own a business, but the fundamental difference is that you aren’t starting from scratch.

You’re buying down the learning curve by partnering yourself with people who have already figured out how to make money doing what you want to do.

You pay a one-time franchise fee, and you get access to a proven business model, operational procedures, technology, marketing, suppliers, perhaps an established brand, and sometimes even national accounts.

You receive initial training, so you don’t need experience in that industry or an MBA to be successful, and you aren’t out there by yourself. At every turn, you have the franchisor to lean on as well as a network of other franchisees building the same business. Together, you’re building a brand with standards and a consistent customer experience.

Think about Chick-fil-A, Planet Fitness, or Massage Envy.

Before they became great American franchise brands, customers had to learn what those brands represented. People questioned the value of a fast-food chicken sandwich, a $10-month gym, and a membership for massage, but pioneering franchisees opened locations and delivered a similar customer experience based on brand standards. Customers learned what to expect. They came back again and again.

Fast-forward 10, 15, or 20 years, and those brands have tremendous brand equity, and that matters a lot when you eventually go to sell your business because you aren’t simply selling your individual operation. You’re selling a business connected to a brand that people may already know, understand, and trust.

Then There’s Scale

This is one of the things I find especially compelling about franchising. All wealth is created through scale, and franchises are built for scale.

Owners come in to work on, not just in, the business and build repeatable processes with efficiencies that can scale across multiple teams, trucks, territories, or locations.

The entrepreneur has to invent those processes. The person buying an established business has to determine whether the processes they’re inheriting are actually scalable. The franchisee starts with a model that was built to be replicated.

For someone whose goal is to build wealth rather than simply buy themselves a job, that’s an important distinction.

So Why Am I an Entrepreneur Again?

This may be my favorite part of the conversation.

After 24 years as a franchisepreneur, I chose entrepreneurship again, but I didn’t become an entrepreneur again because my goals changed. In fact, I fought the idea, but as the idea continued to bubble up inside me, I knew I was being called to start The Zee Suite® to help franchisees in a new way, a way that no one in the franchising industry was helping them. I couldn’t invest in a franchise to do it because there wasn’t one, so if I wanted to bring this idea to life, I had to build the business from scratch.

As a Franchisepreneur, I had built a substantial multimillion-dollar business. Along the way, I gained experience, knowledge, confidence, and money, so I was in a completely different position than I was as an entrepreneur in my 20s.

I knew how to sell and lead. I understood marketing, money and scale, and most importantly, I trusted myself to figure out what I didn’t know.

I soft launched The Zee Suite® in March 2025 and fully opened November 1, 2025.

Building this startup has been a lot, but it has also been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.

I believe a huge part of why I can enjoy entrepreneurship today, even on the long and challenging days, is because of the years I spent learning business ownership at the highest level inside my franchise. I had earned the experience, knowledge, confidence, and financial ability to take on the risk.

There Is No One Right Way to Own a Business

There are many ways to build wealth through business ownership.

I highly favor franchising for the average person who dreams of owning a business but doesn’t have significant experience, an MBA, or millions of dollars to risk figuring it all out.

The learning curve is reduced. The path is clearer. The support is there, and you have an opportunity to build cash flow you own and control, equity for your future, and ultimately your own definition of wealth, but I also respect the bold confidence of the entrepreneur who throws caution to the wind to chase something only they can build, and if you find the right established business, at the right price, with the right transition plan, buying a business may be your path.

The goal isn’t to choose the path someone else tells you is best. The goal is to understand the advantages, risks, and realities of each, and to choose the one that best aligns with your experience, resources, goals, and appetite for risk.

So, what’s your take? If you wanted to build cash flow you own and control, equity for your future, and enjoy the tax advantages of business ownership, which path feels best to you?

Start from scratch? Buy an established business? Or invest in a franchise?