Have you considered selling franchises to foreign investors? Or maybe you didn’t know that working with foreign investors was even an option. Our guest today is Patrick Findaro, who is an expert at helping match foreign investors with U.S. franchise opportunities.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Make sure that the person is not buying your franchise to just get a visa.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at:
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
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- Connect with our guest on social:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/franchise-for-sale-patrick/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/visa-franchise-llc/
- https://www.facebook.com/visafranchise/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Patrick is the Co-Founder of Visa Franchise, the trusted provider of U.S. immigration solutions for entrepreneurs and professionals. Patrick oversees product, sales, marketing, and strategic relationships for Visa Franchise. Over three million professionals/investors have watched YouTube videos, listened to podcast episodes, and read articles produced by Patrick and his team. Patrick started his career at JPMorgan’s New York City headquarters, helping to manage a $2 billion credit portfolio. He later worked in private equity and information services before co-founding Visa Franchise in 2015 and Vetted Biz (franchise intelligence hub) in 2019 with his brother, Jack. Patrick graduated from Colby College with a concentration in International Economic Policy. Through extensive study and business experience in Brazil, Argentina, and France, he has achieved various degrees of fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open, I’m wondering, have you considered selling franchises to foreign investors? Or maybe you might even be wondering, I didn’t even know we could sell franchises or sell to outside foreign investors, international folks that want to come to the US. Well, our guest today is Patrick Findaro, who’s an expert at helping match foreign investors with US franchise attorneys. Now, Patrick is the co-founder of Visa Franchise, the trusted provider of US immigration solutions for entrepreneurs and professionals. Patrick oversees product sales, marketing and strategic relationships for Visa Franchise. Over 3 million professionals and investors have watched his YouTube videos, listened to his podcast episodes and read articles that he and his team have produced.
(01:04):
And I could say, I’m a subscriber, I follow. Patrick have followed him for many years. His content’s great. He does a really, really nice job. That’s part of the reason we wanted to have him on the show to talk about what he’s doing here. Where he started his career at JPMorgan and he managed a $2 billion credit portfolio. He later worked with private equity and information services before co-founding Visa Franchise in 2015 and Vetted Biz, which is a franchise intelligence hub in 2019 with his brother. And a fun fact about Patrick is that he’s fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. So you’re going to love this interview. It’s really insightful. So let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Patrick Findaro (01:46):
My name is Patrick Findaro, co-founder at Visa Franchise and Vetted Biz.
Dr. Tom DuFore (01:51):
We’ve had the opportunity of knowing each other for several years here being both in the franchise world. A key thing that I’d love to talk through today with you is this idea about foreign investment visas and franchise investors coming in and buying franchises through this whole program. And so in the franchise world and people I speak with, franchisors, they’re always interested in this topic, but the information’s hard to gather and get a grasp around. I’d love for you to maybe just give us a little overview about what this looks like for foreign investors to start investing into franchises, maybe just from a high level there.
Patrick Findaro (02:32):
Definitely, Tom. So to give perspective, we just crunched the numbers for the government fiscal year 2024, and there were 54,000 E-2 investor visas issued. Of those, roughly a quarter or to investors and three quarters would be like a general manager at Siemens or some of these big Japanese companies that are bringing executives across. But you have at least 10,000 people that are moving to the US, investing in businesses, and franchises every year might be 500, 100 of them.
(03:05):
So there are a lot of people moving to the US, investing in franchises. And just at a high level, it’s usually a minimum investment of $80,000. They got to be actively involved in the business because coming to the US on the E-2 Visa to run this business. And it’s been a popular vehicle. The earliest treaty was with the UK since the early 1800s. So whether it’s Trump in power or whatever president, it’s difficult to change these treaties around. So it’s a consistent stable solution. And franchise wars, if it’s similar with US domestic candidates, if it’s a right fit and the candidate’s properly vetted and validated and there’s that right connection, it can be a really prosperous relationship.
Dr. Tom DuFore (03:56):
How do you wind up doing this? How do you end up in this space?
Patrick Findaro (04:01):
So I graduated from college, worked in finance at JPMorgan, and then moved down to Miami where I was for 13 years, mostly for lifestyle purposes. I got a job in consulting down there, but I wanted to be in Miami. I liked the city. I thought it was a cool vibe, better quality of life than New York City. Moved down there and then one of the early employees from the consulting firm started a private equity fund with his buddy from Harvard Business School and the limited partners in the fund were foreign nationals seeking investor visas. And the money was lent to different licensees of hotels like the Four Seasons or franchisees of brands like Dunkin Donuts.
(04:42):
So that’s how I entered into this franchise visa world. And then my brother Jack worked for the parent company at Restaurant Brands International and we were living together in our apartment in what, 2014. And 2015, I discovered that there were a lot of people that wanted to have a more active investment, a smaller threshold. We were working mostly with the EB-5 Visa, which is now 800,000. It was 500K for direct permanent residents. And we discovered an edge and my brother and I joined forces and launched Visa Franchise to help these guys make the right decision in terms of what to invest their money in as well as get a visa in the process.
Dr. Tom DuFore (05:26):
You mentioned this EB-5 Visa. I have some familiarity with the EB-5 and an E-2 Visa, but I’d love for you to just give an overview. What are they, what’s the difference between them? How do they work?
Patrick Findaro (05:37):
So E-2 Visa, you have to have a treaty of commerce and navigation. I mentioned the UK has been around for over 200 years. They’re about 80 countries, all of Western Europe, much of Latin America, notably not on the list are the BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China. So the E-2 Visa, it’s a great fit for someone wants to move to the US in the next, say three to six months. They’re able to move here, but it doesn’t give a permanent residency, it doesn’t give a green card, so a green card, there’s all different types of ways to get a green card, whether it’s through marriage, special abilities, talent or investment. So then investment green card is the EB-5 Visa, which is an $800,000 investment. You got to create 10 jobs. And these jobs, it can be done through pooled vehicle, which is about 95% of the time where all these limited partners go into a fund and then money is lent out to develop a hotel or some type of real estate project that it’s usually real estate related where it substitutes mezzanine debt or sometimes senior secured.
(06:41):
And then you also have entrepreneurs that want to take ownership and own 100% of a project, or it could be less, and they’re going to create 10 direct jobs. And it could be a franchise business, so it could be a education business, healthcare related, food, anything that’s going to create 10 direct jobs, W-2 jobs, it needs to be 35 hours or more a week. It’s easier when it’s a new business. If you’re taking over an existing business, it’s possible, but it gets a little harder and the immigration risk can go up when it’s in an existing business.
(07:17):
So basically EB-5, 800K, E-2, more accessible, starting at $80,000. So significantly different numbers, different profiles of clients where a lot of Indian nationals, for example, there’s delays for all the employment based Visa categories besides EB-5 if you invest in certain areas of the country and target employment areas. And they’re able to get work and travel authorization in six months, they can get a green card, usually one to one and a half years and have a direct path to citizenship. Where if you were born in India, there’s very few opportunities to be able to have a clear path to citizenship right now besides the EB-5 program. So depending on where you’re born for employment based green card categories, depending on what passport you have for non-immigrant categories like the E-2 visa, there’s going to be different options available.
Dr. Tom DuFore (08:12):
How do you help someone go through this process of trying to achieve the American dream that sees an opportunity? How do you help them sort this out?
Patrick Findaro (08:24):
Definitely, yeah. So we have five or so modules. One is buy a franchise, so owner operator, we help you select the franchise, set up the business, tax ID, business bank account, business plan. We have our own in-house attorney. We also bring in filing attorneys. Everything A to Z we handle. So that could be a good fit, but maybe after six weeks, franchising is not for you and you want to do your own independent startup. Then we also have a solution, start a business where we do pretty much everything needed for the E-2 Visa, or whatever visa category can be eligible through that investment like the EB-5 and some other ones like the L-1 Visa can be applicable. And then we have the green card by investment solution where we help them with that. As well as we help with certain talent categories. So we basically have crafted, and we act as, a wealth manager referred us a client recently said, “You’re like the general contractor.” So we do some things in-house and then at times we bring in the experts to get the job done.
Dr. Tom DuFore (09:31):
That makes sense, certainly where it may not be like a general contractor, they may not need some specialist all the time, but sometimes they’ve got to have a sub that they would go to to help out in various areas.
Patrick Findaro (09:42):
[inaudible 00:09:42].
Dr. Tom DuFore (09:42):
One of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is are you doing this primarily for foreign investors coming into the United States? Do you do this for other countries where people are maybe going from the US to other parts of the world? How does that work?
Patrick Findaro (09:59):
Yeah, good question, Tom. We’ve been approached many times in the past, basically do it for countries like the Canada and the UK. But the US market’s just so big. Year-over-year growth for the E-2 visa category, it keeps going up where it’s, well, the last couple of years, 54,000, and then before that it was 40,000. So there’s tremendous growth just with the US market. And then we have really good knowledge of the operating environment in the US for starting these businesses, selecting these businesses. So if we were going to do another market, we’d probably have to partner with someone that really understood the local landscape, whether it be in Europe or Latin America,
Dr. Tom DuFore (10:46):
So focused here on foreign investment into the US?
Patrick Findaro (10:52):
[inaudible 00:10:52]. I didn’t mention, and we didn’t talk about this before, but we have groups that also help not just with foreigners investing in businesses from abroad, but also staffing. So whether it’s a home care franchise that is looking to hire caregivers or a restaurant business, we are in this ecosystem of immigration as well as tied to franchising where there’s investors that come in as generally owner-operators, but there’s also tremendous opportunity to bring talent from abroad. And I think with Trump now in power for the next four years, a lot of these businesses are going to have to get smarter and there could be a crunch on the labor. And I think some of these avenues for sponsoring folks from abroad to work in the business can make sense for franchisees.
Dr. Tom DuFore (11:47):
Yeah, very, very interesting. And how have you seen this E-2 visa changing things or impacting?
Patrick Findaro (11:55):
Well, Canada blew up. There were 6,800 issuances in Canada where years back it might be 3,000. So there’s just so many Canadians that want to move down south and whether it’s for social, political, economical reasons, they’re moving to the US and we’ve had an explosion of clients from Canada, probably 100% year-over-year helping Canadians move to the US, specifically through a franchise investment. So there’s always a certain market, whether it’s for political, again, economic, social issues that people are moving to the US. Right now it’s Canada, but there’s also a lot of interest from Israel and Eastern Europe, as you can imagine. So there’s always just where there’s instability, it’s sadly good for our business. And there’s more people moving stateside.
Dr. Tom DuFore (12:43):
That’s actually what I was going to ask is where you’re seeing trends of people moving or being interested in? And that would make sense where things are unstable. It’s unclear what the future holds here, I might as well take a shot in America where I can have a shot at that American dream idea.
Patrick Findaro (13:01):
And then a lot of our clients from countries such as Chile where there’s relatively high quality of life, or even the UK, they want to come to the US for 3, 5, 7 years and give their kids an experience and spend some time working in the US and the spouse gets work authorization. So it’s more of an experience, a long cultural exchange for the family. So we’ve had quite a few of those.
Dr. Tom DuFore (13:25):
A foreign exchange program through entrepreneurship, through this kind of thing.
Patrick Findaro (13:30):
Yes, and our job is to make sure it’s not too costly and it’s actually profitable. Or at least get them set up in a franchise investment, or it could be their own independent startup that they can thrive in.
Dr. Tom DuFore (13:43):
You mentioned some trends of where you see investors coming from, the countries that they’re investing from. Are you seeing any trends in terms of the types of franchises or industries that they’re interested in?
Patrick Findaro (13:56):
Yeah, so I mean when we first started the business, and I interviewed a client the other day, he invested in a retail type business, food, and he had an extremely fast payback, less than two years, incredible turnaround. I had another client invested in a barber shop. He is now up to 15 units. So when we first started, there was a lot of brick and mortar type businesses where there was a physical presence, where now eight out of 10, nine out of 10, it’s service-based businesses. Our clients like the idea that you can open faster, break even faster, invest less capital, asset-light businesses. So anything service, especially where the franchisor has a call center and the franchisee can really focus just on sales, developing the team, client service, as oftentimes they don’t have relationships already and they’re going to lean harder on the franchise, or at least in the first couple of years, to get up to speed.
Dr. Tom DuFore (14:57):
When you’re working with these investors as they’re coming through, in addition to pointing them in the right direction, advising them, are you helping them build out some financial models and cashflow projections? Are you supporting them with that or guiding them through that and finding the right investment?
Patrick Findaro (15:13):
Really good question. So what we do is we give them access to our sister company website, Vetted Biz, where we’ve mined data on, I think 3,500 franchises where we’ve mined data at least on one FTD they have. So at least 60% of those have Item 19. And for some of them we have data going back eight, nine years in terms of openings, closures, unit level economics pulled from Item 19. And then we have about, I think 250 financial models at Vetted Biz on an industry basis as well as for some franchises. So what we advocate our Visa Franchise clients, okay, get a proforma, understand the financials, then go validate with five franchisees, maybe talk to a couple of franchisees that exited the system so you get a really good idea of what it’s going to look like in terms of, the key milestones I see is how long does it take to open? How long does it take to break even? And then how long does it take to make $5,000? And if it takes 18 months to hit $5,000, maybe there’s better opportunities out there.
Dr. Tom DuFore (16:22):
You mentioned you have these various programs. As people are coming in, do they always end up buying a franchise? If they do an investment visa, can they start their own?
Patrick Findaro (16:30):
Oh yeah, for sure. To date, we’ve had I think 170 clients and maybe half of them have gone the franchise path. Other ones are doing consulting, e-commerce, marketing, all over the place. I like the franchise side, but it’s also pretty cool for us to look at these businesses. Some of them are expanding from Canada, expanding from the UK, and we are here to help no matter what. So if someone has an amazing idea or better yet, they’re already making money in the US selling services or products, probably makes sense to do your own independent startup. But if you don’t have a good idea, if you don’t have experience in the US, if you’re looking for something that’s more stable, like I’ve started multiple businesses one two months to break even the other one, three years to break even. So I think franchising, if you want that stability, if you want clear projections, makes a lot of sense.
(17:36):
But I really like that we’re going back two years, we just worked with people that wanted to buy a franchise, but now we’ve been able to help. If you’re a talent individual or an investor, we can help you move to the US and we’re all set up. And if franchising is the right vehicle, like it is for many of our clients, happy to help you with that. We can at least explore it. But if not, we can look at another avenue. And a lot of times in the first six weeks of the engagement, clients switch around.
Dr. Tom DuFore (18:06):
We help entrepreneurs franchise their business. And so a lot of folks that may tune in are maybe emerging franchise brands, emerging franchisors. This might be their first time hearing about a service like yours or working with foreign investors. So what advice might you give to an emerging franchise brand to have success with foreign investment candidates?
Patrick Findaro (18:29):
I would say they’re going to be really driven to make it work, and most of them are already entrepreneurs, so it’s going to be different than a lot of the American candidates you talk to or franchisees that you have come in that come from corporate America. Where most of our clients, from Latin America especially, they already have businesses, they’re willing to take risks, they’ve managed P&Ls, many of them have grown up within family businesses. We have two clients that recently interviewed, one 30-units system, another one 500 plus unit system, or one’s in the top 1%, one’s in the top 3% of franchisees. So there’s a big potential with these foreign nationals, especially because they come with great business acumen generally of running successful businesses in their home country. But you need to work with us or another company in this space that really understands the E-2 process because it could be great and can be really smooth and they can move here in three to six months, or they could get denied and you have to reapply and there’s an issue with the escrow agreement and it’s 18 months, and then you never want to have another foreign national come on the E-2 visa program.
(19:51):
So I think it’s good to work with a professional. And any emerging franchisors listening, we don’t charge for our services. If you already have someone going through the process, they want to move from abroad, we’re happy to help them. They pay our fee and that includes the attorney fee, the filing attorney, we pay them out of the engagement. But really understanding the process, validating the candidate and making sure they’re not just doing this for the E-2 visa. So that’s a big lesson I’ve learned over the last nine years where if someone’s doing this just to get a visa, causes so much tension, so many problems, it’s toxic to the franchisee culture. You have someone that doesn’t want to be in the system, just wants the visa. So I would advocate people that they really vet the E-2 visa candidate and make sure that they’re a good cultural fit and they’re going to really run and grow this business.
Dr. Tom DuFore (20:51):
Patrick, how can someone, if they’re interested in learning more, getting connected with you, what’s the best place for them to do that?
Patrick Findaro (20:58):
Just email me at Patrick@VisaFranchise.com, visit our website, VisaFranchise.com. We also have a YouTube channel. We produce a ton of content on all different types of investor visas as well as franchise-related content. But yeah, shoot me an email, especially if you’re emerging franchisor, I’m happy to have a call with you and see how we can help or at least steer you in the right direction and give you some information about the programs that might be available to you.
Dr. Tom DuFore (21:25):
Your content’s great. I’m a subscriber of your content. You’ve got stuff coming all the time. I think it’s wonderful. So I love your contribution as well just to the franchise community at large.
Patrick Findaro (21:36):
Oh, thanks Tom, appreciate it.
Dr. Tom DuFore (21:37):
Well, this is a great time in the show, Patrick, we’re going to make a transition. We ask every guest the same four questions before they go, and the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Patrick Findaro (21:48):
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’ve had many misses. But I think going earlier in my career, I did internships. They were always for a month or two, and I don’t think you have enough time to really understand what you’re good at or what you think you can thrive in. But my first job out of college was at JPMorgan, and I worked in a very analytical role as a credit analyst, really large loan portfolio. I think it was like 2 billion in total outstanding with hundreds of loan facilities, very intense environment, working 7:45 to 7:00 most days, oftentimes staying until 10:00. That’s not my strong suit. I more gravitate towards sales, marketing, product development even. But just purely analytical role, underwriting loans, dealing with all different types of stakeholders wasn’t me. It’s not what I was good at. I didn’t like it.
(22:44):
So I would say that was a miss, and I stayed in that for almost two years. So that was something that, looking back, was at the right move? I did learn from it. I figured I was definitely better with marketing and sales and gravitating to that at the young age of 23, so that would be a miss. And then we scaled our company post-COVID to 48 employees, and it was, I think in 18 months, maybe six to 48, something like that. It was nuts. So that was just growing way too fast. And then we scaled down back to high teams, and now we’re at a nice 25, and we’re still hiring two employees. But be careful not to scale too fast. It can really hurt the culture too when you have to lay people off. And there are many months that we were in the red because we wanted to keep everyone, but it does hurt the culture a lot. So just be mindful of that. I think that was a big lesson that I learned.
Dr. Tom DuFore (23:50):
Thanks for sharing both of those there. Well, let’s talk about the other side. Let’s talk about a make or a highlight.
Patrick Findaro (23:57):
I think a highlight is I’ve been blessed to really know what I’m good at and what I really like. From an early age, it was working at small companies, really gravitating to marketing, sales, identifying product market fit fast. So a large part of that is developing the product, the solution that you’re going to sell. So I’m 36 now, and I was able to learn at age 23 that that’s what I wanted to do, and I went from JPMorgan to a 60% company to a 5% company to me and my brother. So I was able to scale down, learn from these businesses with smaller structures to eventually start my own business.
Dr. Tom DuFore (24:44):
That clarity is really truly a gift. So many people and even adults, 40, 50, 60 years old are still trying to figure out what do I want to do? What do I want to be when I grow up?
Patrick Findaro (24:55):
Definitely,
Dr. Tom DuFore (24:56):
Yeah, so I think that’s wonderful. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier that you’ve used to grow yourself personally, professionally, or any of the organizations you’ve run.
Patrick Findaro (25:06):
Definitely. I read at least an hour a day, and it’s a mix of, I usually read three books at the same time, psychology/business, a book on religion, and then it could be fiction or a biography. So I’m always reading. And then also just habits. I think waking up before my kids wake up, meditating, praying, fasting once a week and just having certain habits. Sometimes I’ll forget those habits on a Saturday, but I think it’s good and it’s really helped me grow professionally as well as personally.
Dr. Tom DuFore (25:45):
Wonderful. Well, the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?
Patrick Findaro (25:50):
I would say that you have a fulfilled life. So there’s a lot that go into that, a mix of… I think when you look at and envy someone where it’s like Elon Musk or some other public figure, it has to be, would you live their life? And we see the business success, but so many people have three divorces and they have kids that don’t talk to them. And I think success is having a fulfilled life professionally, personally, with your family, socially, spiritually. So being fulfilled in these different aspects of your life.
Dr. Tom DuFore (26:30):
Patrick, as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Patrick Findaro (26:36):
No. No, I’m a big fan of your modus operandi and how you go about talking to emerging franchisee perspective clients that are looking to franchise and being super direct and appreciate all that you do as well in the franchising space. And look forward to hopefully helping some of these emerging franchise brands better understand the different ways that they can benefit from US immigration, whether it’s on the investment side or it’s on setting up programs for sponsoring employees for their corporate locations or setting up programs for their franchise locations that franchisees can benefit from these foreign nationals entering the US. I’m here, people can email me at Patrick@VisaFranchise.com, and happy to connect.
Dr. Tom DuFore (27:25):
Patrick, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when Patrick talked about 54,000 investment investors that came into the USA last year. I thought that was a pretty big number. I wasn’t expecting it to be that high. Takeaway number two is when he talked about the minimums for the EB-5 and the E-2 visa, that 80 countries around the world have E-2 visa treaties and agreements in place, and it starts at an $80,000 minimum, but it does not include a green card. And the EB-5 can lead to a green card if it creates 10 full-time jobs, has an $800,000 minimum investment, and it sounds like some other details that are part of that. Takeaway number three is what he has seen in franchise trends specifically for foreign investors coming through. One in particular that he’s found that about eight out of 10 of these foreign investors are coming in and purchasing service-related businesses, especially if you’re a franchisor that has a call center.
(28:34):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win is when Patrick talked about his advice for emerging brands, and specifically as it pertains to bringing in foreign investors into your franchise system. I thought this was some great advice and just piecing together some things that he said throughout the interview as well. I think the key takeaway is to make sure that the person that you’re considering that’s looking at joining your system as a foreign investor is not just doing this to secure a visa. That they actually want to be a part of your system, that they see the opportunity. I also think it’s important to note that if you’re going to be bringing a foreign international investor into your system, Patrick had mentioned this idea of having a call center, and I think what we can pull from that is what services or things can you do with your franchise system to be prepared for and be ready to fully support a foreign investor? How can you help make easy for them to say yes or to want to join your system? I thought that was a great takeaway.
(29:47):
And so that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone are ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at BigSkyFranchiseTeam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.
