Nov. 13, 2025
Breaking Free: Adam Goldman's Journey from Corporate Constraints to Franchise Freedom
Send us a text In this dynamic episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we are joined by Adam Goldman, an accomplished author and franchising coach, who has dedicated his career to transforming lives through franchise business ownership. Adam shares his personal journey from feeling out of place in corporate America to discovering the incredible potential of franchising. With a wealth of experience, he discusses the ins and outs of franchise ownership, including the financial commitments, ...
In this dynamic episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we are joined by Adam Goldman, an accomplished author and franchising coach, who has dedicated his career to transforming lives through franchise business ownership. Adam shares his personal journey from feeling out of place in corporate America to discovering the incredible potential of franchising. With a wealth of experience, he discusses the ins and outs of franchise ownership, including the financial commitments, time investments, and the key factors that determine a good franchise fit. Listeners will gain valuable insights into the Franchise Visa program, which opens doors for foreign investors seeking to establish a business in the U.S. Adam also elaborates on his book, "The Franchisee Lifestyle," which highlights real-life success stories and the lifestyle benefits of franchising. Join us for an inspiring conversation that empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap into franchise ownership and create a fulfilling life on their own terms.
www.franchisecoach.net
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by author and franchising coach and consultant, Adam Goldman.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Adam has helped hundreds of people change their lives through franchise business ownership. He is also the founder of Franchise Visa. So we're going to be talking to Adam about franchise business ownership and what Franchise Visa is all about.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So, Adam, thank you so much for joining me.
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> Adam Goldman>Curtis, thank you so much for the opportunity.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
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> Adam Goldman>Sounds good. Well, I'm the kind of person that just never fit into corporate America. Right. to give you an example, when other people, after going to, college, they were kind of looking for their first job, I was looking to avoid working for someone else, went to Eastern Europe and, kind of set my path there. And also after I went to business school, right. everyone was looking to get jobs with different consulting companies.
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> Adam Goldman>Deloitte McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group. I never fit into that either. and so when I was looking into different business opportunities, I was a real estate investor, still am. And found that these deals that I was really excited about, were just kind of drying up. After the recession of 2008, I kind of stumbled into franchising and realized that there really is a, benefit in having a great operating procedure. Think Hamburger University for McDonald's. I was introduced to three amazing franchise brands, decided to, make a go of it at an office cleaning master franchise, which I owned for over eight years. Built it up to hundreds of clients in the Houston area. Then I just again, got an unsolicited offer for my company. I'm a success story in franchising. I want my candidates to have that same success that I had and stumbled into franchise, coaching and consulting, where I'm matchmaking, between people that are looking to invest in franchise businesses and really great brands in 75 industries. It's a free service for potential franchisees. It's the franchise brand that pays, me a commission if I make a successful match. And I'm here to really change lives.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, how much money does franchises, make?
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> Adam Goldman>I get asked that all the time. Right. And I'll tell you, ah, the very simple answer. If you're a bad owner, you're going to make no money, you're going to lose a lot of money. Right? But if you're a fantastic operator, my friend owns 35 units of his franchise right here, in Houston. If you're a good operator, the sky's the limit. That's one of the things that I love about my industry in that it's a meritocracy. Good franchisees can make a great living and not only make a great living, but have an amazing lifestyle.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, for somebody looking to get into franchising, how expensive? How expensive is it?
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> Adam Goldman>I'm glad you asked that question. I get asked this question a lot. Right. And so there is a range of franchises, and there's kind of a misconception that you need to spend a lot of money to make a lot of money. So on the high end, McDonald's might be over a million dollars. Right. Let's divide franchises, Curtis, into brick and mortar retail and non brick and mortar businesses. on the lower end of retail or storefront, if you have a fitness studio that's small footprint, that might be a couple hundred thousand dollars. Right. All in. If you're looking at service companies, you mentioned to me that you're from Louisiana. You know about mosquitoes, just as an example. I know mosquitoes very well. I obviously don't like them very much.
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> Adam Goldman>I'm very prone to get bitten. And if you're looking at a non brick and mortar business, that could potentially be as low as about $125,000 all in on the low end, going up from there, there is financing available, so my range is anywhere from 125k and up. And most franchise, prospects are looking or candidates typically need to have at least $50,000 in cash and $180,000 in net worth.
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> Adam Goldman>And they typically, if they don't have that, they either have friends or family members that become financial partners that might help them in this search.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, how much time does a franchise business owner need, need to commit to their business?
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> Adam Goldman>So let's start this out, Curtis, by saying the first thing, the first thing I want to say is that, there are no franchises that are totally absentee. Right. And so what I mean by that is if you don't have no time at all, then go ahead and buy an index fund or buy cryptocurrency or whatever. I'm not, by the way, I'm not suggesting to buy crypto, but buy something that is more absentee as an, but if you have at least five or 10 hours, per week, or maybe 10 to 15, it might be a little bit more at the beginning. I have certain brands that are semi absentee or part Time that you run with managers. Right. what I can also say is that some brands are, requiring you to be an owner operator, meaning you are not allowed to have a job. And maybe your spouse has a job or doesn't have a job and they are willing to be full time in the business to begin with. There's a range, just like anything in life between a spectrum as to how many hours you need to put in.
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> Adam Goldman>But the spectrum requires you to put at least some time initially.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, what identifies a specific franchise, you know, if a person is a fit for a specific franchise.
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> Adam Goldman>So look, I wish I could wave a magic wand and that's, frankly, Curtis, that's, that's how I get paid. Right. I'm here to make good matches and just to kind of let you know this is a nuanced business. Right? So it's not the kind of thing where you can go online to ChatGPT and type in all your, all the things and then it'll tell you, hey, you are a perfect franchise fit for X brand because of what you said or even do a kind of a personality profile. Now I want to mention that things are, there are so many different factors and I'll name a few of them. Number one I can't emphasize enough is cultural fit. Right? So I, mean everyone knows Chick Fil A and they have a certain culture when it comes to the owner that they're looking for and the staff members that they're looking for, you need to fit into that culture. For Chick Fil A as an example, every single brand has their culture. People tend to underestimate how valuable it is to have brothers and sisters in arms that are not your competitors but really are there to kind of make sure you succeed in your home market. So if you have a good relationship with like minded people that are part of that franchise system, that's amazing. Right?
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> Adam Goldman>So culture is one, number two is resources. If you don't really necessarily have much resources, and by the way, that's not an impediment to growing your business. Right. Then I probably shouldn't be giving you a McDonald's that you need to be a multimillionaire to invest in. So that's the second thing that would come to mind, resource availability. And I think the third thing is just kind of your strengths, or weaknesses. Right?
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> Adam Goldman>Meaning are you good at selling? Many, brands require people to have great sales skills, but some brands are better at that that have marketing processes that don't require you to do that. So those are the top three, I would say.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Talk about your company, Franchise Visa, and talk about how what the E2 visa is, what it allows, and how it is a path to US Business ownership.
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> Adam Goldman>Thank you so much, Curtis. So, look, I mean, I own two, businesses, right? The first business is Franchise Coach, and that's specifically geared towards U.S. residents, and citizens and green card holders. The second company that I have, that, that is frankly an amazing, amazing opportunity. It's called Franchise Visa. And I just, I'm so glad that I'm on this podcast to discuss this company because, as someone that lived abroad for seven plus years, I had no idea that people can come to the United States, and actually invest in a business and actually get, not citizenship, but get a visa that way, and also allow, their family to come in and to have work authorization for a spouse and allow kids to go to school. And that's exactly what, ah, franchise Visa does. Right? So as I mentioned, I work with brands in 75 industries. I have brands that are as inexpensive as about $125,000, all in. In order to get this visa, they're typically pretty boring service businesses. Right. your actual country needs to be a E2 treaty country to the United States. A country like Canada or Pakistan or Germany or Holland or the UK Right. Those are a few of the hundred pl, countries that have this authorization for E2 treaty. but interestingly enough, whatever reason, India is not one of those countries. But the idea is you invest in American jobs and an American, business, and then you get into the United States. And look, I have never had one of these things not approved from the consulate.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about why more foreign investors are turning to franchising for structure and support.
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> Adam Goldman>Well, great. I mean, that's, look, we talk about culture, right? If you're looking to start a business in the US and you're not from here, I don't care if you're a native English speaker. I don't care if you're from Canada. Right? There are different nuances with the American culture. With regulations, with accounting, with business systems and processes and payroll. And if you're joining a proven business system, then there's a value with that. But I would say even more important than that, if you're looking to emigrate to the United States, you have some options. You have the golden Visa. That's a million dollars to get in, which is, frankly, not everyone has a million dollars hidden under their mattress. You have something called an EB5, which is a two or three year waiting period, and again, a very, very high investment. Look, you could potentially go to a consulate and say, hey, I'm an IT professional in Canada and I've never actually hired people before, but I'm going to start this amazing IT business in the United States. And here's my, business plan for hiring people, which I've never done. And you're probably not going to get approved. whereas when you come to a consulate and you show them and say, hey, look, this is my franchise brand, these are 50 plus people or 100 plus people that are existing franchisees, many of them are E2 visa, holders. And this is this game plan, it's going to get approved.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Talk about the top franchising opportunities for foreign investors.
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> Adam Goldman>Got it. Okay. So what I would say is this, that as I mentioned, typically these, when you go to a consulate and you are saying, hey, I want to start a franchise, the consulate's asking you and saying, do you have any clients? Have you opened?
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> Adam Goldman>And that for that reason it typically ends up being, not so exciting or boring. Service businesses fit best to this E2 visa. And I'm, not saying it wouldn't work with like, kind of a flashy fitness concept that's brick and mortar, but I found things that are like, kind of basics, right? Like, for instance, home house cleaning or things like painting or flooring, right? Things where you can kind of come to a consulate and say, look, this is the shared office space where I've leased my space. This is my first customer.
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> Adam Goldman>Someone's hired me to clean their house, right?
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> Adam Goldman>Could I please have the Visa? And they always have said yes to me.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, we'll go over the, financing options for E2 franchisees.
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> Adam Goldman>So one of the biggest challenges for E2, frankly, Curtis, is that if you are an E2, visa, applicant or potential franchisee, you are literally saying to the American government, I want to invest my own money, right? And that could be money that's coming from your home equity line of credit in South Africa or in Canada, or it could be a loan that you're getting from, Canada or wherever that might be. But you cannot get any traditional sources of funding in the United States that many of my American citizens get things such as an SBA loan. and so you actually need to pay cash for this franchise brand. And that typically is anywhere. A minimum of about $125,000 to invest.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about your book. Let listeners know what they can expect when they read it, where they can get it from and anything else you want to know and why you decide to write it.
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> Adam Goldman>So I wrote a book called the Franchisee Lifestyle.
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> Adam Goldman>And the reason why I wrote this book is that I found and Curtis, I've been in this industry now for 15 plus years, if you can believe it. And so what I found is that people don't only want to, make a ton of money. Everyone wants to make a ton of money. But they want their big motivation, whether or not it's to emigrate to the United States or to go ahead and to invest in something and to have an exit plan from corporate America, is they're looking to better their life, looking to have, a better lifestyle. My favorite success stories are people that I've placed and it typically ends up being people that they're looking to run away from. Something in corporate America, it's either someone that was working in the Gulf. We know about the Gulf. You being from Louisiana, me being from Texas. Some people are on a rig for like three weeks per month. That's crazy. And they're unable to see their kids go to, softball games or theater or basketball games or football games. And to be able to make good money, to love what you're doing, and to actually have a lifestyle, that's a powerful thing. Inside this book. This has real examples of real people that have changed their life. Another success, story that I want to highlight is one of my favorite candidates lives in Idaho. And he literally was commuting to a dead end job in Oregon for a couple hours each way because he wasn't able to find the right opportunities in his home city of Boise. He was able to find this perfect franchise brand that by the way, is doing well. He's one of the top in the country, but he's also getting great lifestyle. It's a seasonal business. There's a couple months where he can't do anything. And for him that's a feature, not a bug in that he can spend more time with his family and quality time.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to know about.
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> Adam Goldman>So what I'm excited about is Curtis, that, look, I have been on other podcasts before, which is great, but I'm planning a speaking tour. and since COVID right, people have been hesitant even for a couple years after Covid, to kind of get in person and to visit with people. And I think what Covid has taught all of us is that the value of being in person and actually hearing people speak in person is just a powerful thing. And I, don't have any specific dates, that are public yet it's to be announced. But I am excited to actually go out and to go ahead and to be speaking in person, to both people that are, aspiring entrepreneurs. I also do speak typically with executive MBAs. I'm a mentor here locally in Houston, Texas at Rice University.
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> Adam Goldman>And I'm excited about going out and meeting people in person again in speaking engagements and just kind of visiting with people because I think that we, many ways we have an epidemic now. People talk about AI, people talk about tariffs. what we found during COVID is people want to work on their own terms and our epidemic is just kind of a malaise or people that are just fed up with corporate America. And I really believe that in many ways franchising is an antidote to corporate America.
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> Adam Goldman>And frankly, many people are just not made for it.
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> Adam Goldman>And they're great at business, they want to start their own business, but they want to have training wheels when they go ahead and do that. And that's what franchising allows them to do.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, throw out your website so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.
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> Adam Goldman>So website is franchisecoach.net and feel free to look at it. And also I do offer free 15 minute conversations to see if you're a good fit or not.
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> Adam Goldman>As I mentioned, the minimum, required net worth is about $150,000 or $50,000 in cash with you and your potential partners. And I'd love to get to know you and to see if, franchising is a fit and if you are a fit for my free service.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.
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> Adam Goldman>again, I want to just emphasize this again. I am in the business of changing people's lives and I feel very passionate about that. You go to the end of your life, right? And my dad's now 83 years old and you kind of look back, right? And you ask yourself, and even if you're not at 83 or 93 or whatever it is, just you look back and you say, oh my gosh, how much of my time did I spend at work or did I spend with different pursuits related to work or my job or making a living? Then you look back and you said, wait a second here, did I love what I was doing? When we look back at things. I look back, I don't look back at the things that I did. The things that I regret are things that I didn't do. It was that real estate deal that I was too chicken or fearful to do. That now has become, an absolute home run that I didn't invest in. The idea of investing in a franchise is overcoming your fear, in order to take a chance and to do something that you look back at your life and say, wow, that's an amazing thing that I decided to take a risk. Because nothing that anyone does is not without risk and fear. And overcoming that fear, I think is kind of like the secret sauce for living a life well lived.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen. So if you're interested in franchising business ownership, please contact Adam. Check out his book, check out his website, and everything else that he's up to.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. If you know of someone who would like to be a guest, or you yourself would like to be a guest, or if you have any suggestions or feedback for the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, please visit www.craveball337.com. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Adam, thank you for all that you do. And thank you for joining me.
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> Adam Goldman>Thank you so much, Curtis.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.
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