Boaz Keeda, the founder of Fibonacci Coffee, developed his franchise model to be a low-risk, family-friendly, flexible small business with low entry costs. It operates on what’s called a ‘turnkey’ model. But what does that mean? Let’s find out…
What is a turnkey system?
“It’s like a car,” says Boaz. “A lot of people don’t know necessarily how a car works, but most people do know how to drive a car. You get in, turn the key and it goes! And that’s what we mean by turnkey.”
It’s all a way of saying that Fibonacci provides the hard work around the systems that make running an everyday business easier. After you’ve trained in how to use it, you can just turn the key and get moving.
Training is vital, of course, just like you need to learn to drive a car, or you won’t get the results you want.
The advantage of a franchise is that it sidesteps costly mistakes for business novices. Someone else has already done the groundwork to discover which processes work, lowering the risk for people new to the industry. The system can support great results while reducing risk and wastage.
What brought Boaz Keeda to the business?
Boaz, as founder and creator of Fibonacci, was motivated by a desire to expand his existing independent coffee business. He’d built it from scratch, learning from his mistakes along the way.
“If we made a bad coffee, it was a $3.50 mistake, and if we chose the wrong location, that was a bigger mistake and took longer to correct and cost a lot more.”
He ended up building several coffee shops to sell, training the new owners, who brought their own enthusiasm and made a great success of the venture.
Some new owners, however, didn’t learn from the training, which was based on Boaz’s experiences, and their businesses slowly failed.
“That was really sad for me, as somebody who’s worked really hard to build a business.”
He would have been happy to help, but people often didn’t think to ask. “It made me realise the benefits of having a partner in business – somebody who has a vested interest in helping you succeed.”
What makes Fibonacci different as a franchise?
Boaz began to investigate how to build a system so that people could leverage on his expertise, and that resulted in ‘The Fibonacci Way’.
“We come from the perspective of making a partnership,” says Boaz. “We always want a win-win situation.”
That means a combination of the benefits of a franchise system – of having a central operation, a predictable outcome, somebody there in business with you so you’re in business for yourself but not by yourself – but without the major costs of things like percentage royalty fees that a lot of existing franchise systems have. Franchise percentage royalty fees can translate into tens of thousands of dollars.
“That’s giving away a lot of your profits,” says Boaz, “When I looked at it as an operator, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. You end up working for the franchise owner and not yourself. It didn’t make sense to me. We wanted to be different.”
One of the great advantages of a franchise is the strong buying power held by a group of businesses.
“We use that buying power to pass on savings to a franchisee. We can access products at a better price, so the franchise can buy them at a better price. You can make more profit on the product, and we make a living on the way.”
“So my job is to help our franchisees make more money, and therefore make us more money. We help them sell those products. I can focus on helping them with training and marketing, and then the more they sell, the more we both make. It’s a win-win situation.”
What makes Fibonacci appealing as a franchise?
The heart of the Fibonacci Way is its collaborative approach to the franchiser-franchisee partnership. Many franchises are very stringent with their processes and product mixes. Boaz comes from an independent background and wanted a more flexible system.
“I’ve found that people want to express their personality. They don’t want to be a cookie cutter business. So every shop has the Fibonacci theming, but we can design each one differently within that. Every owner has some influence on the final look.”
Naturally, Fibonacci has core products, because customers expect and want some consistency with the brand. But there’s room for owners to express their own personality and that of their location.
“As a partner, you can introduce a product or range of products that you think would cater to your local demographic. We can help you analyse that and put a training system around it, so you can deliver the product in an effective, efficient and profitable way – creating more uniqueness for your shop.”
There’s even the opportunity to share great and successful product with the rest of the group. In effect, it means every store has partners out there trying to find another way to improve everyone’s business.
“We don’t know everything,” says Boaz of the head office, “So the more people that join the group, the more shops we have telling us what customers want, testing different product ranges and marketing strategies. If something works one place, we can try it the corporate shop, and then we can share it with everybody. The whole group can benefit from everyone else’s experiences. Everybody wins!”
What does life look like for someone running a Fibonacci coffee store?
“It comes down to the level of ambition that people have,” says Boaz. “It can get you a nice paying job and some options and flexibility in your life. For some people, it’s the opportunity to become a real community leader, to connect with people, from offering employment to supporting charities – while creating wealth for themselves.”
If you are interested in owning your own coffee shop, click here to get more information about how you can own a Fibonacci Coffee shop.