Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley
Franchise Secrets: From 0 to 326 Units in 18 Months | Aaron Harper
22 Sep 2025
Join our community of fearless leaders in search of unreasonable outcomes... Want to become a FEARLESS entrepreneur and leader? Go here: https://www.findingpeak.com Listen to Audio version: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanley Stop paying $500/month for 8 different marketing tools. Try GoHighLevel's all-in-one platform free for 14 days → https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevel Passion is a lie. At least, that's what today's guest, franchise mogul Aaron Harper, argues. In this episode of Finding Peak, Aaron dismantles the conventional wisdom that you need to be passionate about your business to succeed. Instead, he reveals a contrarian approach to building a profitable, scalable, and AI-proof business empire. Aaron, the man who took a family-owned power washing business and scaled it to 326 units in 35 states in just 18 months, shares his framework for identifying and acquiring businesses with massive potential. He explains why "boring" businesses are often the most profitable and how to avoid the ego traps that kill most startups. If you've ever dreamed of owning your own business but don't know where to start, this episode is your blueprint. Aaron provides a step-by-step guide for aspiring entrepreneurs, from developing a business acquisition checklist to understanding the real costs and challenges of entrepreneurship. In This Episode, You'll Learn: Why you DON'T need to be passionate about your business to be successful. The 3-step framework for finding and buying a profitable business. How to build an AI-proof business that will thrive in 2025 and beyond. The #1 reason most businesses fail (and how to avoid it). Franchise secrets from a CEO who grew a company to 326 locations in 18 months. Connect with Aaron Harper: Rolling Suds Franchise: https://rollingsudsfranchise.com/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/AaronHarperCEO LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-harper-ceo/ YouTube: @rollingsudspowerwashing Recommended Tools for Growth OpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opus Riverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riverside WhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflow CaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsapp GoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevel Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Full Episode
part that people don't understand about franchising there's the power washing business and then there's the franchise business those are two completely separate businesses they take different skill sets different capital requirements different infrastructure everything is different i don't pretend to know how to own and operate a
power washing business that I've never learned anything about or an HVAC business I've never learned anything about. What I do know is how to create a franchise business that can replicate any other business that has the right systems and processes in it.
Hey, I want you to keep running your great business and your business is so great that I want to put it in every single market across the country and potentially across the world.
Before we get into some of the parts that I really want to examine today, for my audience's information, just give them like the quick Tencent tour, right? We don't have to go back to childhood or anything, but just give them some relevant highlights. And then I want to get into the meat and potatoes here with you.
Sure. So I've been in franchising for years. People often don't know what franchising is, but franchising is this kind of small industry that leads. Small group of people, it seems like, that lead a large industry of franchise brands, not just fast food. That's only about 50% of franchises out there.
I specialize in home and commercial service franchises and have had the opportunity now to help build three home and commercial service franchises to become the largest brand in the world in that respective industry. So A carpet and floor cleaning brand that we helped build to about 3,000 units, 55 countries.
Then a drywall repair brand that I built from 98 units to 323 units nationwide in about two years. And then decided to venture out on my own instead of working for other people and making them a bunch of money. I was like, wait, I can do this on my own. and looked at a bunch of different brands to franchise that were non-franchise that had good bones that I could replicate.
And I met the founders of Rolling Suds in September of 2022, and it was the best business that I looked at. Family business from, you know, started in 1990, focuses on residential and commercial power washing and specifically those services. And I knew I could kind of replicate it in any market. So I raised capital. I acquired the brand in January of 23. We took the brand to market that year.
And since then, we've grown to 326 units operating in 35 states with 115 trucks on the road.
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