There are good and bad aspects to franchises.
Some of the Good: Better name recognition, help from franchisor, and a plan that has worked in the past.
Some of the Bad: fees, can't necessarily do what you want.
If you are a "real" entrepreneur, you'll probably feel constrained by what the franchise allows you to do. You might think of a great advertising idea, but then you have to run that idea by the franchisor, who may or may not approve it. You might not be able to expand when you want. If you wanted to sell your franchise down the road, you'll have to get approval from the franchisor. If you go under, you might still owe ongoing franchise fees. Read the UFOC carefully.
I don't know. You might be getting in over your head. For example, if you don't know anything about hair cutting, you might still be able to do that hair cutting franchise by following their plan. But jumping into a business you don't know might not be a great idea.
In our case, we bought an up-and-running franchise that we intended for DW to run part-time (with a full-time manager) and to bring in some decent cash. It completely bombed, and was the most miserable two years of our lives. At least we managed to sell it, albeit $175,000 less than we paid for it. And we learned that DW hates the pressure involved in running a small company (and there will almost certainly be lots of work and lots of pressure).
Really try to figure out whether you're cut out to do hiring, firing, payroll, accounting, marketing, managing, HR, etc. Even on a small scale, those things can be hard to deal with.
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