I’m Vishal Kumar, and I’m the CEO of Laundrywala Laundry and Dry Clean. We’re a company that’s making India’s unorganized laundry business more organized.
The problem of whether to go out on your own or choose a Franchise Opportunity is an important one to solve. You’re probably at a point where you have to decide whether you want to be an entrepreneur for the first time, expand your business portfolio, or find a chance for your partner. Whatever the reason, you have to make a choice.
In this article, I’ll try to give you an idea of what works best in what situations and how to decide why it makes sense to start your own business instead of a franchise business.
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5 points that favour Own Business over a Franchise Opportunity.
Novelty of Idea: If you come up with an idea or find a product that is unique or new and doesn’t already exist on the market, it won’t have any competitors or Franchise Business choices. Only you can start it up, get the word out, and make it a success. Like when Steve Jobs put I-Pods on the market when there was nothing like them, or when Uber put a cab service on the market when there was nothing like it.
- Differentiated Offering: When you want to sell a better or more unique version of a product or service that is already on the market and take advantage of the niche blue ocean. You have found the right business idea for your business when you are sure that the change you have thought of can’t be easily copied by the other players. Like starting Holidays with a Theme instead of just simple hotel and travel vacation packages. For example, a family trek, a snorkeling course vacation, or a wine taste vacation. This will set you apart from other sites like Makemytrips and give you a niche market to market your services to.
- Vision: This represents your capacity to imagine the full scale of this endeavor. If you want your product or service to be known throughout a state or even the country, and not just in a handful of locations in a single city, then it is in your best interest to launch your own brand and possibly offer Franchisees of the same in the future. Neither KFC nor Big Bazaar nor Walmart nor Starbucks began with a plan to open a single location.
- In depth / Prior Knowledge: Starting a business requires careful consideration of the reasons why you would do better as an entrepreneur than as an employee in the same industry, especially if you have previous professional experience in the subject. You would have thought about how to set yourself apart from your current employer, which is why starting your own business makes more sense. Mr. Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys, began his career in the computer industry at Patni Computers. Before launching his own network, Arnab Goswami was a TV news anchor. Before launching Flipkart, Sachin Bansal worked for Amazon for a short time.
- Self-Belief: The last trait on this list is the most important of the five. To do this, you have to be very honest and practical about what you can do. Do you think you can solve problems well, are you a good leader, can you handle a lot of pressure, and are you willing to put everything you have into this project to make it a success? These questions are important because an entrepreneur’s life is full of difficulties that come up every day and sometimes out of nowhere. When you start your own business, you have to be able to change, deal with stress, and move on, because everything has to be done from scratch. Which is why it’s important to have “Self-Belief” and an honest opinion of yourself before you jump into this.
I had been working a job that was satisfying and rewarding, but I still had this nagging desire deep down to produce something, to find a solution to a problem, to have an effect on people’s lives, and to make a mark on the world. The aforementioned motivation as well as an intense yearning within me pushed me in the path of starting my own business, which resulted in the establishment of Laundrywala Laundry and Dry Clean. In April 2021, Laundrywala began its adventure, and as of the time this article was written in September 2023, the company had already expanded to more than 30 stores, was operating in 20 cities, and was anticipating an even brighter future.
