Larry Chiang’s version of a franchise has nothing to do with paying franchise fees or signing a corporate agreement. It means taking a concept that already works in one city and running it again in the next one, almost unchanged. He points to Tao, the nightclub brand that opens essentially the same format city to city, as one model of this.
He points to CSI too, a show that reran the same successful format in a new city each time instead of inventing a new premise. The lesson for a single person, not a media company, is that your second city does not need a new idea, it needs the same idea again. What changes from city to city is small: local venue, local names, local dates, while the format, the reason it worked, stays the same.
This saves you the hardest part of any new venture, proving the concept, since city one already did that proving for you. Larry’s claim is that copying your own proven format is underrated compared to chasing a completely new idea for every new market, though that is his opinion on strategy, not a guarantee.
The risk is assuming every city behaves like the first one, so test lightly before committing the same budget you spent to prove it originally. A sequel still needs real local relationships, the venue, the local partners, the first few guests who trust you enough to show up.
Keep a simple written playbook from your first city, the parts that worked and the parts you would change, before you launch the second one. Pick the concept that already worked once for you and ask which second city deserves the exact same sequel.
Details: Watch Larry explain the sequel model
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