I'm not shorting the stock.
Just trying to help people make an educated decision. As an insider within the industry, I am familiar with this industry (yogurt, ice-cream, snacks). I also have experience in understanding and working with groups like Compas Group, Aramark, Levy, SMG, Chartwells, Savor, etc. Here's the problem for a potential unsuspecting franchisee or them.
Most of the companies work on a contractual basis: 1-3-5 year contracts are typical. After that, the contracts go up for bid for another group to snake each others business. In order for a franchisee to make a business decision with these types of agreements, there would have to be a renewal clause. These don't exist, hence the master agreement is only 3-5 years. If they are out, then you are potentially out. So you wouldn't risk spending $50k if you knew that they could be outbid buy their competitor in a few years. If a franchisee is lucky to land a deal with one of these big conglomerates, many use a percentage basis. Those percentages can be very high and take a huge chunk of the business.
You could try and bid with the University directly, however, for many bidding is done through state government websites. Basically, they post that a location is available and you then bid on how far you want to fall on the sword to get the deal. Many small businesses fall into the trap thinking that "Hey this is a university and I'm going to make a killing". Depending on the University, students are very price conscious. Most schools also have their own internal payment currency which would have to be integrated into the system.
If there is clear data supporting the actual sales of the units, then I'm in. I can only, however, base the data on the test market locations which don't use the same machine. I will also tell you that I was involved in a franchise that had a decent model. Midway through they decideded to rebrad, remodel, and change things. They never ran test markets under the new concept, however, sold franchisees that the NEW concept would be better. Needless to say, they all closed. Not saying that this will happen with this concept, however, there are some similarities on the wall.
AI
