How does a local media franchise or licensing model work?
Short answer
Prove the whole system in one market, then repeat it. My plan is to get the website, social and newsletter working in one county and clone it, either as my own brands or as a productized service around $1,000 a month. Operators run their own market; I handle onboarding, Meta ad acquisition and the software.
We're like a local MrBeast. If it works in Williamson County, we can go do it in 200 more locations, and it doesn't matter that we already did it somewhere else. Prove it in one location, then repeat it over and over.
What gets copied from market to market?
The operating system, not the content. Every new city gets the same basic style and structure. Nobody in Knoxville knows Anaheim gets the same memes. What has to be proven first is the outreach, the funnel and the process, so there's something real to replicate.
What does the operator get?
The hardest part of this model, which few people seem to know, is the acquisition strategy: using Meta ads to get subscribers cheaply. In the done-for-you versions we've designed, we handle that and draft the newsletter every week. The local owner writes a short personal editorial, about ten minutes of work.
How do the money models compare?
When a partner and I brainstormed this in 2025, we sketched two shapes. These numbers were explicitly made up as a starting point:
| Model | Who owns it | Our cut |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing play | We run it; client uses it for leads | 50%+ of ad revenue |
| Franchise | Client owns the business | Monthly fee (we floated $3,500) plus 10% to 15% of ad revenue |
The franchise version is a business generating revenue that the owner could sell later. Since then I've talked about a simpler productized version at around $1,000 a month.
Who owns the subscriber list?
The owner gets access, not a free-for-all. You don't own the database, you own access to it. If someone sees 10,000 local readers and starts emailing them every day about how great they are as a realtor, that destroys the business. We allow one non-newsletter send a month, reviewed so it's nothing too crazy.
What do I need before licensing the platform?
- Hands-on onboarding. I set up each new market myself, over the phone.
- A separate backend per operator. Each one writes, edits and approves content for their market only.
- Simple billing. A plain Stripe payment link is fine for the first three to five clients. Fancier payment splitting can wait.
Who are the best franchisees?
People who already sell local ads. Print magazine franchisees are one group I'm watching. In one network you reportedly have to sell about $10,000 in ads in a month before anything prints, and franchisees are unhappy about commission cuts. An all-digital version, with no upfront fee, could appeal to them. I haven't cracked the best go-to-market yet.
The bundle I'd eventually sell a local entrepreneur: Meta ads, newsletter, website, automated social, and possibly a white-label print magazine. They sell the ads.
Answered by TJ Larkin. From coaching calls, strategy calls and product planning sessions in 2025 and 2026. Last updated .