Kenny Rose, a Coronado High School grad, has spent a decade helping individuals navigate the world of franchise investment.
The 33-year-old recently founded Chicago-based FranShares allowing anyone access to the world of franchise investing for as little as $500.
And he said his idea is the first of its kind, and it’s gaining traction.
Rose said almost 42,000 investors are on the waitlist and over 200 million deals have come inbound to FranShares.
Unlocking an untouched industry
In March, Teriyaki Madness, a chain of restaurants in at least 36 states, entered into a $12 million partnership with FranShares, which already has partnerships with more than 500 franchise brands across the country.
FranShares, backed by Chicago Ventures, opens the door to an entirely new asset class for retail investors by unlocking franchising as a form of alternative investing.
The industry of franchise investing was previously untouched by most investors, since historically, a $100,000 minimum investment was required.
With FranShares, anyone can invest in franchises to generate passive income with just $500, Rose says.
Rose says his franchising expertise has reached an audience of over 500 million people, and he’s a contributing writer for Forbes magazine. He’s also made several appearances on financial podcasts. He has also been featured in Business Insider, ABC, TheHustle and American Express.
An entrepreneur from the beginning
But Rose, who graduated from Coronado High in 2008, said he’s always had an entrepreneurial mindset.
Rose said he moved to Coronado his junior year of high school, and he recalls working at the candy shop in the Hotel del Coronado and enjoying his walk to work from his home a few short blocks away.
His father, Artie Rose, an entrepreneur through and through, decided to move to Coronado from Colorado to build Solar Alliance of San Diego (eventually Solar Alliance of America) from the ground up.
“He’s very much a ‘you develop into your surroundings’ person,” Rose said. “If you go put yourself into an impossible situation, you’ll sink or swim. He started that solar company from scratch there.”
Following his father’s footsteps
Tracking closely behind his father’s footsteps, Rose said he always knew he would be an entrepreneur—and his family knew as well.
For his first year at San Diego State University, Rose commuted from his home in Coronado to classes every day.
During his junior year, he got an internship at Merrill Lynch, but the road to getting that internship had a minor setback.
Rose said the advisor whom he was working for got fired, and Rose was sure he lost his “in” with the company.
Taking matters into his own hands
So instead of waiting, he said he took matters into his own hands.
I went in at 6 a.m. and I just kicked open the door for the biggest corner office and I was like, ‘Hi my name is Kenny Rose, and I’m your next intern.'”
Kenny Rose on securing an internship at Merrill Lynch.
“I went in at 6 a.m. and I just kicked open the door for the biggest corner office and I was like, ‘Hi my name is Kenny Rose, and I’m your next intern,’” Rose said.
Today Rose is still trailblazing his own paths and kicking down doors.
But what’s unique about his entrepreneurial start-up endeavor with FranShares is that it was a door that didn’t even exist prior to him opening it, he said.
Entering the world of Franchising
He said an internship at Merrill Lynch led to a job working for them in San Francisco, which led to an urge to see what was out there beyond the world of financial advising.
Rose ended up unlocking the world of franchise brokerage.
He said the first thing he learned was that there is a franchise for everything, not just the major fast food businesses like McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A and Subway that people assume when they hear the word franchise.
“I was like, wow, this is a trillion dollar industry that I didn’t know that much about, and I assume most people don’t know that much about,” Rose said. “So, I always like being a big fish in a little pond.”
He helped coach people and advise them on what sort of franchise brands to invest in, all the while becoming an expert in the niche area.
Starting FranShares
That led him to his next big idea: investing in franchises like one would with stocks.
I realized, why can’t you invest in franchises like you can stocks?”
-Kenny Rose.
“Most people know what franchises are, even though they don’t know that much about it, they understand it,” Rose said. “But they don’t have six or seven figures of cash laying around and they don’t have the time to go manage it, and they don’t have the skillset to. So I realized, why can’t you invest in franchises like you can stocks?”
Which is exactly what FranShares allows people to do.
The company aims to generate passive income for anyone through franchise investing with as little as $500.
Money stays in the community
Rose said that with franchise investing, the money also stays in a community, because the investments are going right back into the small businesses in a neighborhood.
A common misconception is that small businesses are not franchises, but Rose said most people would be shocked by what qualifies as a franchise.
While the company is cutting-edge in its design, it did not come to fruition overnight.
“People love overnight success, but they don’t realize its years in the making, including the fundraising part,” Rose said.
Backed by Chicago Ventures
FranShares got a pre-seed raise of $1.42 million led by Chicago Ventures, a seed stage venture capital firm that has previously backed companies like M1 Finance, Sunbit, Cameo and Project44.
Brandon Sellers, the vice president of marketing for FranShares, was Rose’s first employee.
He said he saw the development of the company from when he started in November 2021.
“It just makes a lot of sense. It’s a business model that has done really well and you see how successful it has been for a lot of very wealthy individuals,” Sellers said. “So, I think that this should definitely be something that everyone is able to do.”
His support of the idea of franchise investing is equaled by his support of Rose as the CEO and founder.
“I could just tell how much he cared about the idea, but also I could tell how much he really cared about the people and the mission of it,” Sellers said. “He’s really the only person [who] could really do something like FranShares and do it justice.”
