He Refused $860K to Build This Franchise

This is a transcript from Episode 36 of The Franchise Champion Show. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan Regala: My guest today left Hollywood, turned down serious money, and took a bet on a one-truck family power washing business called Rolling Suds. In about 18 months, he scaled it to nearly 300 locations. He's the founder and chairman, and he's here to talk about how he did it and what he believes the franchise industry is getting wrong. Aaron Harper, welcome to the Franchise Champion Show.

Aaron Harper: Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Alan: Awesome. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Take us back to the beginning. What were you doing before franchising?

Aaron: Yeah, so I was working in Hollywood, actually. I wasn't an actor or anything like that, but I worked on the teams of the actors, writers, and directors. I was working with the talent agents and managers to help them get jobs and find jobs. I was basically training to become a talent agent. It's quite a long process. You're doing that for like five to seven years before you get the ability to represent actors and writers. But what I learned is how to deal with really difficult personalities and really high-pressure situations. When you're talking to someone who just recently won an Academy Award and their next job offer is dependent on how quickly you respond and how well you interface, it's very high pressure.

But what I realized is that I liked the idea of Hollywood. I like movies a lot. I'm a big movie buff. But I didn't like a lot of the dog-eat-dog, stab-you-in-the-back kind of culture that makes that industry go round.

People always say that franchising finds you, you don't find franchising. I didn't go to college thinking I'd decide between franchising or Hollywood. I didn't even know what it meant. But I called different friends and asked what they were doing. One of my buddies, Brett, who actually works for me now and introduced you and me together, said, "Hey, you should get into franchise development." I was like, "What's franchise development? I'm not really interested in building McDonald's and Wendy's locations."

He told me that Two Men and a Truck is a franchise, Mr. Rooter is a franchise, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is a franchise, Servpro is a franchise. I knew those brands. I did not know that franchisees ran those locations, and I didn't even know that franchisees were independent business owners.

But I loved the idea of helping people become business owners. That was something I could march behind, regardless of the brand. So I emailed his boss every three weeks for about six months until he hired me. And then, you know, the rest is history.

I worked at a carpet cleaning franchise called Chem-Dry. That company was bought by a company called Belfor. They wanted to build a franchise group, which was at the time a three-brand operation. They built it to 12 brands. I was there through that whole process. I worked on a brand called The Patch Boys, which was a turnaround brand. It needed a lot of help when I got involved, and they bought it in the middle of COVID. I turned that company from a 98-unit system that wasn't really performing, did a full brand refresh, hired a brand president, and grew it by 223 units in about 22 months. All of them opened. They were generally profitable within the first three to six months.

Then they wanted to give me a 13th brand that was just a single location business. And I, like many of the people you probably talk to, was like, "Well, I'm not going to own any of it, right?" They were going to pay me like a million bucks a year. That would have been my on-target earnings. I'm 34, 35 years old, my wife is six months pregnant, and I'm like, but I'm not going to own anything.

I think I relate a lot to the people who want to buy franchises, because a lot of them are leaving a very comfortable, comfortable, comfortable — and I say that with air quotes for those listening on audio — job.

Alan: It was about $860,000 a year, and then if you hit all your goals it would have been just under a million. That's pretty amazing. And that's a good reference point for those in the corporate world making 200, 300K who are like, "Man, it's hard to give up this job to go start from zero owning my own business." Well, it's a lot less than a million.

Aaron: Right. But what I try to tell people is: how long did it take you to get up to $200,000 in salary in your industry? And they're like, "Oh, 12 years or 16 years." And it's like, yeah, it's not going to happen that you buy a new business and don't know anything about it and net $200,000. That's not going to happen in the first year or two. But you are building an asset that you can transact, or pass down to a child, or hire a manager and go open new locations.

What I try to help people understand is there's a difference between salary and enterprise value. That's a shift that every franchise owner needs to make. The quicker they make that shift and understand the difference in value, the faster they're going to be successful and understand what they're marching toward.

If someone says, "I need to replace my $150,000 salary in year one or two," it's like, okay, but now you're a $150,000-a-year employee for a company that you own. That's probably a great general manager and a great salesperson. So do you want an asset that runs without you, or do you want a salary of $150,000 a year? That helps them start to think, oh, I am buying a business, not a job. Okay, great. Now that we're on the same page, let's keep talking.

Alan: That's great. Okay, so you're in the middle of this decision. You've got a great offer on the table and a pregnant wife at the time. Six months pregnant?

Aaron: Yeah. So I go to her and I'm like, "Look, I got this job offer. I've been unhappy for a variety of reasons, which are just related to not being able to pre-invest in infrastructure and support franchisees the way I knew they needed to be supported." And I said, "I'd like to franchise a business. I don't have the business yet. I would need to raise capital, and I'd be investing a large portion of our life savings." What do you think? And she said, "Aaron, I know you're going to take care of us. Go do what you want to do."

So I looked around the country. I let everyone I was talking to know what I was looking for. I looked at HVAC, roofing, plumbing, solar, tree care, insulation, lawn care, line striping, epoxy coatings, and a variety of different independent businesses that were non-franchised, that I could turn into a franchise. And I met the founders of Rolling Suds in September of 2022.

I was then terminated from my previous job in October of 2023, after adding 223 units for them in 22 months. To be fair, I told them what I was going to do because I was honest and wanted to give them enough time to transition deal flow so I wasn't hurting the brokers I was working with. I wanted to give them about three months. But once I was looking for a franchise to become a franchisor, I was probably a liability. It doesn't matter, though, because the boats were burned at that point. It was like, all right, I've got to swim.

So I acquired the brand in January of 2023. I raised capital from industry legends like David Barr and Brad Fishman, who everyone knows in the franchise industry. Very well-known, former chairman of the IFA. Big people who had mentored me over the years. I wanted intellectual capital from people who knew how to do things I hadn't done yet.

We've since grown from a single location power washing business in Pennsylvania that focused largely on commercial pressure washing to 356 territories operating in 37 states, with about 106 franchise owners. And we've become the largest power washing brand in the world. About nine months ago, I stepped into a chairman of the board role. We have a full C-suite of executives that runs the company now.

Alan: Wow. That's crazy. I want to circle back to that transition. But first, tell us a little more about Rolling Suds. Obviously it's power washing, but what does that mean exactly? Who are you helping?

Aaron: So power washing as a whole is a super fragmented industry, like many industries you can buy into through franchising. It's largely made up of mom-and-pop operators. Probably 80-plus percent, maybe 85% or more of the industry, is a solo truck or maybe a two-truck operation that the owner does himself. Ripe for disruption.

Those power washers largely focus on houses, driveways, decks, and that kind of thing. We have focused on much larger jobs. We did the Caesar Superdome before the Super Bowl. We turned it from gray to white on the top of the dome. We do about four airports nationwide. We clean military bases. We do shopping centers. We just gave a bid on 1,500 parking garages nationwide. We do work for Starbucks, Popeyes, Panda Express. These are all companies we do work for.

We are faster, better, stronger, and more efficient than 99% of power washers. We're built from the beginning for larger jobs. Whereas many power washers have to build up over time to afford the right equipment, we're bringing in capitalized operators from the start who aren't interested in a one-truck operation. They're hiring two people to run the truck before they even open, and they're set out to build a sizable business focused on recurring revenue. Jobs that need to be done every night, every week, every month, or every year, depending on the use case.

We have a proprietary power washing method that allows us to do these jobs. We can hit five stories from the ground with our trucks. We carry about 1,000 gallons of liquid on every truck so we can bring our own water. If it's above five stories, we can send out drones to power wash. We're just operating in a completely different playing field than most of the industry, which has allowed us to really penetrate the commercial market nationwide quickly.

We've also launched national accounts in the last year and a half, which has dramatically impacted the bottom and top line for franchisees across the country. We have a full team that goes out and wins work on behalf of our franchise owners.

Alan: That's amazing. That's a huge win for franchisees. Everyone is always looking for leads. For a franchisor to create relationships with national accounts like Starbucks and Panda Express, you've already got some business coming your way in most markets. Kudos to you for that.

Aaron: Thank you. I'll say this: national accounts is a significant investment. But my thinking is that even if we break even or lose money, we're able to impact franchisees on a local level and de-risk their business significantly. It's worth it. It's a long-term play.

And part of why I get out and promote this is less about Rolling Suds and more about saying to other franchisors: it costs a lot of money to franchise your business properly. This isn't a fly-by-night thing where you get $100,000, pay for some paperwork, try it on the side, get a few franchisees, and see how it goes. No. If you're building a franchise, you have a responsibility to reinvest whatever you get back into the business to keep growing it. That's what we've done. Three years in and we have a full C-suite running the company because we raised capital, pre-invested in growth, launched national accounts, and allocated resources properly.

There have been multiple cases where a single job from a national account has justified a franchisee's entire investment in Rolling Suds. Everything above and beyond that one job is just gravy.

Alan: That's unbelievable. It's very unusual for that to be possible in any franchise. I love how you introduced the model and the space. A fragmented market, mostly independent operators with a couple of machines, and how difficult it would be to get to a level capable of handling big accounts without the right equipment and capital.

Aaron: I have to give it to the Wendling family, the original founders of Rolling Suds. My only experience with power washing before I franchised the business was a couple of failed attempts after my wife said, "You need to power wash the house." I'd burn a Sunday on a ladder and then be like, why did I do that? That's my driveway every other year. Four hours gone and I'll never get that time back.

We do a 3,000 square foot house in 20 minutes, start to finish. Over 36 years now, they've perfected this process. We can come to a prospective franchise owner and say, you have a service that is objectively better than everyone else's, tried and true and pressure-tested over 36 years. You're buying 36 years of trial and error. That now allows you to do a $500 job in 30 minutes, start to finish. Do ten of those in a day and it starts to add up fast.

Alan: That's so important. Having a way to truly differentiate yourself matters in any business. So what does it look like for someone just getting started? Let's say someone purchases Rolling Suds. What does that first year look like?

Aaron: We have franchisees focused predominantly on being in their community, shaking hands. During business hours, your highest and best use of time is sitting down with the property manager who manages a thousand doors. If you have four meetings with that property manager and after the fourth one they say, "I trust you and I won't ever use anyone else," now you have recurring revenue from homes that need to be cleaned every single year across a thousand different doors.

Compare that to residential work, where you close it once and then have to close it again two years later. If you close the property manager with a thousand doors, now you're cleaning those doors on a recurring basis. So we try to communicate to franchisees: during business hours, until you get up to three trucks, the best use of your time is shaking hands and building those relationships.

What that means is that all of the actual operations, the cleaning, is handled by a general manager in training. That person rises up to a full general manager within the first year, and then the business gets to the second truck. This business really starts to make sense with multiple trucks.

With one truck, you're just stabilizing costs. You're not going to make huge margins on one truck because of fixed expenses. But every truck you add, you get margin expansion. Three, four, five, six, ten trucks, you can build a very sizable business.

Alan: That's great. How many trucks can you have in one territory?

Aaron: You can have as many trucks as you want. Our territories are about a quarter million people, roughly. And we require a minimum of two territories because we're only looking for multi-unit owners. We don't sign up single-unit owners. This allows franchise owners to come in and build a sizable company. With half a million to 750,000 people, that's a lot of structures that need to be cleaned, which comes out to roughly 80,000 to 100,000 households and somewhere between 4,000 and 12,000 business addresses.

We have a franchisee in Florida who does 26 overpasses for the state of Florida. They have two trucks that do that one job at night, with a night manager running it. And those same trucks run full time during the day. That's maximum utilization out of your largest asset.

Alan: So the owner is largely focused on building relationships and generating leads, and you bring on a GM in training from day one?

Aaron: Yes. The lead technician is working to become a GM. We call them a GMT, because it's someone who doesn't just want to remain a technician. They want to lead and manage. But we don't want to hire a GM who doesn't know how to run the truck, because they'll have to let go of technicians eventually and if they can't train them, they'll be in bad shape.

At training, the owner comes in the first two days and we teach them how to do the work. The next few days, the GMT comes in, and we oversee the owner teaching the GMT the work. It's a train-the-trainer model, which allows franchise owners to have more control without having to be out there doing the work themselves.

Alan: Makes sense. And as time goes on and the accounts are coming in, what does that look like for the owner over time?

Aaron: For the first three trucks or so, we want the owner out there building enough revenue and profit to support those trucks. No one comes into our business wanting only three trucks. They're investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and they want a business that reaches a profit number that makes sense for that investment.

Once they have enough dropping to the bottom line, they can invest in a commercial sales team. That team then takes over a lot of the relationship-building, and the owner steps into more of an account management role for the major accounts. A big relationship, like that Florida overpass contract, is always going to be the owner interfacing with the client. But the sales person is out closing three, four, five, ten, or fifteen thousand dollar commercial jobs.

Initially we want the owner not to be dependent on a sales team, because these sales cycles are often six to twelve to eighteen months depending on the type of work. That Superdome job took nine months of meetings with the mayor, the city council, GCs, bidding the work, and follow-up. There's no salesperson who would have been able to win that work other than the owners of that business.

We're helping people understand that this is not a job. The goal is to get the business to an EBITDA number that makes sense to reinvest into, and then keep growing to five to ten-plus trucks by going deeper in those territories and building out the sales team.

Alan: I love that you guys have a plan for growth from the very beginning. Not even selling a single territory. You want people who want to build a big business, so you start with two territories, and here's what this looks like as you scale. Because you want to grow in scale, and you're going to help them along the way.

Aaron: Exactly. And knowing who you want as franchisees is just as important. We've turned away over a hundred people who had the cash and wanted to buy but weren't right for us. Part of the benefit of raising capital and putting the right systems in place is that you don't need franchise fees in the early days to grow the company. You can be selective. We're not perfect in who we choose, but we've turned away far more people than any brand I've been involved with before. We were very intentional from the beginning about who we're looking for, who we're not looking for, what kind of business we want to build, what kind of culture. We've been quite ruthless about who we allow in.

Alan: I've seen younger, emerging brands that don't have that same capitalization. They bring in whoever is willing to pay, and a couple of years later they're trying to clean house because the people they thought would be good fits are just floating along, treating it more like a job.

Aaron: Exactly. So let's talk about the transition. How did you decide to hire a CEO and step back from running the day-to-day?

Alan: Yeah, walk us through that.

Aaron: I think an important part of business is knowing what you're good at and what you enjoy, because those are usually the same things. And also knowing where your deficiencies lie, and then finding people for whom those deficiencies are actually their strengths. Then building a vision big enough for them to fit their own life goals within it and recruiting those people to come grow the company with you.

This works at every level. At the franchisor level where I'm chairman of the board. At the franchisee level when they're trying to hire a great general manager who will motivate technicians to show up every day with a smile.

You're constantly selling and recruiting. That's a primary job of business owners. Personally, I was never going to be the guy to take us from 300 units to 600 units. The person and skill sets necessary to go from zero to 300 franchise units is a very different human than the one who goes from 300 to 600. I knew that from the beginning. So I started recruiting for these roles in 2024 because by 2025, those people needed to be in place, with teams beneath them that trusted their leader and were all rowing in the right direction.

I knew where we were going to be. I knew we'd be at 600 units by a certain date. So we had to work backwards. How do we support franchisees properly at that scale? It's about pre-investing, over-investing before you need it.

Alan: That's a really insightful mindset. I think most franchise organizations struggle with that, especially without the experience to have foresight into what's coming next.

Aaron: I have a great team. They make me look good. They're the ones who run the business day to day. I try to provide resources and get out of the way. And I get to do things like this, talking to you, which are things I'm good at and that I love.

What I've learned personally is that the more days I can string together where I'm spending most of my time doing things I'm good at and that I love, the better my life will be. Every business owner, in order to grow a company, has to do a lot of things they hate and that drain them. That's why a lot of people don't make it. You've got to get through things that are inherently hard, that are uncertain, where you don't know what's going to happen. That's business. But ideally the business gets to a point where it's sizable enough to hire great people to take those draining things off your plate.

So I try to focus as much of my time as possible on the things that give me enrichment. I find that I'm a happier person and more present with my wife and kids, which is really important to me.

Alan: That's great. I think something that's missing in a lot of people's lives is the idea that you can design your life. You get to choose. Decisions we make each and every day are impacting how we live. A lot of people go into business ownership because they want control of their financial life and time freedom. And owning a business makes that possible. But you still have to design your life once you have the business, because if you haven't been intentional about it, you can get stuck doing things you shouldn't be doing. Things that aren't fulfilling. You get wiped out energetically and never find time to hire people or build the leverage you need.

Aaron: We had a franchisee, he was franchisee number four, one of our top franchise owners, and also the president of our FAC. He called me one day, really frustrated about employees, had just fired someone. He's a hard-charging sales guy. Great at sitting down with a property manager and building trust. And I said, "Nick, it's two in the afternoon on a Wednesday and you're sitting here freaking out about an employee issue. Just hire a general manager. Pay him $65,000 a year. Then wake up every morning and go try to find one job that covers the cost of that manager annually. That's it. Sit on a golf course with a property manager one time, get into a recurring job that covers the GM's salary."

It clicked for him. He hired the guy. Seven months later he had three trucks. It was just that understanding of, oh, this isn't the highest and best use of my time. You've sold businesses before. This is $19-an-hour labor. Hire someone who's great at it and enjoys it so you can go win more jobs. And his business just took off as soon as he did that.

Alan: Exactly. And it's a mindset shift. It comes down to what you believe. It's like people who spend money on advertising. You're looking at it as, "I can't afford that, it's too much," versus, "This is an investment. What's my return?" As long as the return gives you profit or at least breaks even, it should be fine. You apply that same thinking to the people working for you. How can I bring this person on so I can focus on the high-leverage things I'm good at and enjoy?

Aaron: Yes. So good.

Alan: You know, you've mentioned a bit about what you're doing these days. What is your day-to-day like as chairman?

Aaron: That's funny. People ask me that and I'm like, it depends. When I stepped into the chairman role, instead of doing what many business owners would do, which is immediately move on to the next thing, I decided to do something really hard that was more of a personal accomplishment than a business one. I decided this past July that I was going to train to do an Ironman in 2026. I'm doing a half Ironman in six weeks, which will be my first. And then a full Ironman in November in Panama City, Florida. That's 2.4 miles of swimming, a 112-mile bike, and then a full marathon.

Alan: Just any one of those things sounds miserable. And to do all three back to back is crazy.

Aaron: That time on the bike, two and a half hours yesterday, gives you a lot of time to reflect and think. I believe life comes in seasons if you let it. A lot of entrepreneurs stay in a grinding season for too long, to the point where they've ground themselves down into a bloody nub. The time on the bike or the trainer lets you reflect. So I write a lot.

And instead of making three to five really big decisions per quarter like a CEO typically does, I make one to three really big decisions per year that set the direction for the executives. Last year it was national accounts. I said I don't care what resources we need to move around, we're doing this. We took that team from one person to five. I made the call. Now we allocate resources toward it.

I go to a lot of broker conferences. I have great relationships in the broker community. I was just on a cruise with the Fransor folks. My wife's least favorite trip of the year. She says, "You're going on a cruise without me?" I'm like, "I mean, you can come, but I'll be working until midnight every night." She says, "Yeah, yeah, you're just going to go hang out with your friends." She's not wrong.

I create content. I work on things the business needs in the background. I just built a franchise development dashboard. I spend a lot of time in AI, optimizing processes and procedures. I built an AI assistant named Sybil that checks my email and Teams every hour and surfaces what matters. She booked my flight for next week over the weekend.

Alan: That sounds like fun. And I can appreciate being intentional about where you spend your time. At the beginning of any business, there's a grind period. But at a certain point, being able to step back and take a bigger picture view, design your way out of the day-to-day, that's something special.

Aaron: And I spend a lot of time with my kids. We've got a five-year-old who just had his birthday, a three-year-old daughter, and a nine-month-old boy. My wife stays home with the kids full time. I don't work on weekends if I can help it. I usually don't work past 5:30 or 6. I try to be consistently present.

I think there can be as much growth in the moments when you pause as there can be in the moments when you're grinding. People talk about working on the business instead of in the business. In the moments when your calendar is empty, you can work on the entrepreneur instead of in the entrepreneur. Work on yourself. Writing really helps with that. I've written a lot of content online, and a lot of it is just a moment of self-reflection.

I try to be very intentional with what I'm doing and why. If someone else can do it better than me, I probably shouldn't be the one doing it.

Alan: All right. Last question. For those out there contemplating leaving the corporate world in pursuit of business ownership, looking at franchising as a vehicle, what advice do you have for them?

Aaron: Don't wait.

I think a lot of people are waiting for this perfect moment when the clouds are going to part, the light's going to shine down, the bush is going to burn, the seas are going to part, and then it's like, now I should start a business.

People maybe don't understand the opportunity cost of not starting. They're just looking at what if it fails? The reality is, most people leaving a corporate career making $200,000 are highly marketable. If they're making $200,000 at Oracle as a VP of sales, they could probably go to Microsoft and make $200,000. So let's say they take $300,000 out of their savings and maybe do $100,000 in home equity. What's the worst that's going to happen? They lose $300,000 and then go get another job making $200,000. Playing it out all the way to worst-case scenario actually minimizes the fear. Because your ego and fear tell you you're going to be living under a bridge eating out of a plastic bag. But it's not the case. Most people who are leaving a significantly successful career could always go back to it.

Waiting for this perfect business or perfect opportunity has a real opportunity cost. You miss out on a territory for a hot brand. Or you spend 18 to 24 months searching for an HVAC business with a fax machine that you just need to modernize, that nets $500,000, and you're trying to buy it for a million with 90% SBA debt financing and a dollar down. I'm sorry, but you're searching for a needle in a haystack. I would also love to find a unicorn, personally. But I'm not going to bet my life on it.

There's an intersection between the certainty, quote unquote, of having a job and the uncertainty of starting a business. People try to bridge that gap by finding an existing business or a franchise, and they want the perfect thing. Perfect is the enemy of good. Just start.

And frankly, if your job involves mindless button pressing at all, it'll be replaced in the next six to twelve to eighteen months. Those functions will be replaced for any smart business owner. This idea of having a safety job as a computer analyst at Oracle, it's like, no, eight months from now there will be no computer analysts at Oracle. There will be bots. There's not significant job growth happening right now, and the reason is that jobs are being cut and replaced by very sophisticated AI that can work 24/7, doesn't need days off, doesn't get sick, doesn't work eight hours a day.

It's not as safe as it used to be. I say that because usually people run away from fear more than they run toward opportunity. There needs to be a little bit of healthy fear around missing out on something great because you're trying to find perfect.

Alan: Well said. I run across a lot of people searching for that needle in the haystack, and the months and years go by. Especially if you've been laid off, your savings just keep dwindling. How long do you wait?

Aaron: I love finding people who are fully committed, though. We're working with a guy right now who left his job and is a full-time searcher. I'm like, yes, dude. You're in it to win it. You've left your job to literally just search for a business. That's perfect. We have territory where you're at. You're all in. All you have to do is find the right opportunity. That's so much better than the person who says, "I can't leave my job, I need $175,000 a year in salary, I'm going to hire an $80,000 manager who will build my $2.5 million business that nets $375,000." No. That's not going to happen. You've got to go all in. Like literally, you've got to go all in.

Alan: Thank you so much, Aaron. I appreciate you being on the show and sharing your words of wisdom. And congratulations on being a Franchise Champion.

Aaron: Thank you so much.