Facial bar franchise Face Foundrie has grown to more than 60 locations.
Minneapolis-based facial franchise Face Foundrie had a busy year. As of late September, the company opened 11 new locations, an increase of more than 20 percent so far this year.
Founder and CEO Michele Henry attributed brand growth to its approachable price points. One of its 40-minute facials in downtown Minneapolis costs $79 before optional add-ons. At traditional spas, facials easily can cost hundreds of dollars.
“We also want to be efficient and allow walk-in services, which I think are really unexpected in the category,” Henry said. “We focus just solely on your face. It is very much a productive facial, anywhere between 40 and 50 minutes. Then we also have a lot of customization.”
The brand expanded its services to offer other face-related services, including waxing, lash and brow tinting and microchanneling, among others.
As emerging brands make their way to 100 units, it’s essential to not just grow, but to grow sustainably. Face Foundrie expects to open its 100th store in October 2026, Henry said. At press time it had 64 units, and Henry said another 10 are expected by the end of the year.
Face Foundrie CEO Michele Henry opened the brand’s first facial studio in the Minneapolis metro in 2019.
The cost to open a Face Foundrie location ranges from $334,200 to $670,250. Last year, it opened 17 studios, ending the year with 53. Sales hit $39 million, according to Franchise Times Top 400 data.
Henry started Face Foundrie in 2019 with plans to franchise on March 1, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed those plans to early 2021.
In its first year of franchising, Face Foundrie sold out the state of Minnesota and sold 34 units. Most of the brand’s franchisees were clients first who “understand how important it is to be proactive in the wellness industry—pioneers in the wellness industry,” Henry said.
When it comes to preparing internally to grow so substantially in a few years, Henry said there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.
“I would love to tell you that there’s this amazing trick or tactic, but truly it is continuing to earmark and budget and backfill accordingly,” she said. Building her executive team has helped significantly.
The accounting department works with real estate and development “to understand when we will be awarding units and when we will be opening them,” Henry said. “It really is this group effort and creating this ecosystem of making sure we have a strong infrastructure and really strong support team as we continue to grow.”
Venture X is one of three coworking franchises in Starpoint Brands’ Vast Coworking Group portfolio.
Importance of franchisee relations
Venture X is a coworking franchise with more than 70 locations. Part of the Vast Coworking Group umbrella, the brand anticipates hitting 100 units by the end of 2027. Vast’s other coworking brands are Office Evolution and Intelligent Office, both of which should also have at least 100 locations in 2027, said Vast President Jason Anderson.
Through the addition of Intelligent Office in 2024, Vast supported franchisees to successfully integrate the brand into the Vast portfolio. To ease operator concerns, Vast’s team scheduled franchise advisory board meetings and visited each IO location.
International franchisees are driving unit growth for all three brands. A South African franchisee, Daniel Halfpenny, signed a master franchise deal with Venture X and Intelligent Office in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
Jason Anderson leads Vast Coworking Group.
“We are not hard pressing sales,” Anderson said. Franchisees go through a thorough vetting process before signing a franchise agreement. Prospective operators put down a $9,500 deposit that reserves their territory until they’ve been fully vetted and sign an agreement.
Formed in 2023, Vast is a subsidiary of Starpoint Brands, which is under the United Franchise Group umbrella.
System sales in 2024 totaled $59 million, 45.3 percent increase since 2023, according to Franchise Times Top 400 data. The cost to open a Venture X coworking franchise ranges from $346,500 to $3.38 million, according to its FDD.
The demand for shared office space has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of employees started working remotely more frequently. As large office buildings close, Vast utilizes these spaces to drive franchise sales and add more coworking locations.
“We were lucky to be at the right place at the right time and have the right experience and resources to consolidate all three of the franchising brands within coworking under one umbrella,” Anderson said.
Building the base
Brandon Ciaccio is the interim president of Grasons.
Grasons Estate Sales worked to build a foundation strong enough to support its growth plans. Grasons is a 63-territory franchise that does business liquidation, downsizing and estate sales. The Riverside Company bought the California-based brand in 2023 when it had about 30 units in five states.
“Everyone wants to get into franchising and they want to build these skyscrapers. You want to build to the moon. You want to grow really big,” said Interim President Brandon Ciaccio. “The biggest focus that we approach is making sure that the foundation is set really strong, because without a strong foundation, your building is going to collapse on itself.”
To avoid a potential system collapse, Ciaccio boiled it down to three focus areas: culture, operations and client experience.
Ideally, clients would rate Grasons’ service at a 10 out of 10 every time; the brand can get that rating by supporting its employees and franchisees, he said.
“It’s really about making sure things are as top notch as they can be,” Ciaccio said. Operating procedures are always getting refined, he said, to make the brand stronger. “We are continuously changing and very driven. Every single time we do this, we’re looking at how it could have been done better.”
The cost to open a Grasons franchise ranges from $71,550 to $118,800, according to the brand’s FDD. As reported in Item 19, which lists financial performance information, gross sales for franchised outlets in 2024 ranged from $2,416 to $1.1 million.
System sales last year, according to Franchise Times data, totaled $11 million, which is a 21.1 percent increase year over year.
The support from Riverside had a big impact on growth. In about two years since subsidiary Evive Brands bought it, Grasons doubled its unit count. Riverside’s culture aligns with that of Grasons, Ciaccio said, which has driven sales and territory count. Ciaccio expects the brand to have 100 units in the next two years.
Grasons prides itself on taking care of its customers, and no amount of growth will make the brand lose sight of that.
“That’s always forefront to us. We’re taking care of human beings,” Ciaccio said. “We’re going to have more growth. We’re going to build more skyscrapers, but there’s a lot more humans that need our help and that’s really what energizes us as a company.”