I realize the conversation here is a little old. I am the CEO and co-founder of Pinot's Palette, fastest growing paint and sip chain in the nation. I wanted to comment for anyone out there reading and making some of these same decisions. As a pioneer in the industry in 2009 and having "gone it alone" and also helping over 80 locations get open, I have some unique experience on this topic. Of course I am pro-franchise b/c Pinot's Palette is a franchise system, but I think it would help understand what else you get with franchise systems (I can only really vouch for Pinot's Palette) that you will not if you were to start your own. I agree with the many posts on this chain that brand names are not the biggest piece of value (at least in 2009) and there is not a huge value in that capacity. However I would argue that a large system has valuable resources that will allow you to build that brand locally much much faster. If you have never built out a retail business, believe me there is a tremendous amount to know in site selection, floor plan layout, lease negotiations, financing, general contractors, permitting, insurance, taxes, build out, supplies and inventory, hiring... the list goes on and on. I'm sure you can imagine that the knowledge that comes with doing this 50+ times in 29 states can help you save a tremendous amount of time and money.

On the marketing and branding topic. We are able to partner with many large name brands with exposes the nation to our brand. For example, in January 2014 we did a national social media partnership with TBS Cougar Town. We have an on-going partnership with Match.com as well as Whole Foods to name a few. How did we get these? We have locations in 80% of the top 20 markets. Size is not the only factor here, big brands as these want to know where your locations are. Pinot's Palette is in New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Tampa, San Diego, New Jersey, Dallas, Memphis, etc.... This helps marketing partners reach all major markets and creates a win-win for both of our brands. Not something you will achieve as one location. Does this drive revenue to our franchise partners? Of course it does.

Another one of the biggest things to plague us as we opened our own second and third location in the Houston area was the operational time to manage the business. With my background in software development, we created our own proprietary software system that makes the day-to-day a breeze. The tedious tasks of refunds, reschedule, adding classes, gift certificates, private party deposits, customer emails, payroll, etc... added up to 20 to 30 hours of work per week. Over the past 5 years we have built software to automate these tasks and allow our franchise partners to focus on the important things, customers and marketing.