STRIKING A CREATIVE CHORD
Board and Brush started as one DIY craft studio in 2015. Now it’s in 35 states.
Wine, women and slabs of distressed wood are turning Julie Selby’s company into one of the fastest-growing franchising firms in the country.
“There are many days,” said Selby, a 50-year-old freelance financial writer turned owner of a booming little business called Board and Brush Creative Studio Franchising, “where I just sit there and go, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’ ”
What’s happened is this: In 2015 Selby and a
partner — more on that later — opened a small studio in Hartland.
The place was a spot where people — groups of women, mostly — could make rustic-looking decorative signs, attractive enough to display at home, while sipping chardonnay, listening to tunes and generally having a good time.
It was a takeoff on the already popular paint-and-sip concept, but one in which the quality of the finished piece depended less on innate talent than on ability to handle a paintbrush, use a stencil and follow step-by-step instructions.
It struck a chord.
In less than four years, Board and Brush has gone from that single outlet in Hartland and a headquarters at Selby’s dining room table to a 15-employee firm with 165 studios in 35 states. Selby said she has enough signed contracts in hand to take the studio count to more than 200 by the end of 2018.
By way of comparison, Painting with a Twist, a Louisiana-based firm that calls itself “the leading paint-and-sip franchise,” had 55 outlets after four years.
But it’s not just Selby who is taking do-it-yourself crafting parties to the bank. Similar businesses have popped up across the country in the last few years — businesses like AR Workshop Franchising, of Fort Mill, S.C.
That company, it happens, was founded by Maureen Anders, Selby’s former next-door neighbor in Hartland and co-founder of Board and Brush.
They were partners until Anders moved to South Carolina and they had a falling-out over ownership stakes that landed in federal court before being settled in June 2016.
The settlement left Selby and her husband, Curt, as sole owners of Board and Brush. Anders, meanwhile, virtually immediately opened her first AR Workshop.
A little more than two years later, AR Workshop has 94 studios — an initial growth spurt as impressive as Board and Brush’s.
On average, new franchising companies open 1.3 franchised units in their first year, and 4.5 units in their second year, a recent study by industry research firm FRANdata found. Board and Brush and AR Workshop have far eclipsed that pace.
“They’re tapping into a hot trend at this point,” franchising researcher Marko Grünhagen of Eastern Illinois University said of the craft-and-drink studios. “This ‘shabby chic’ decorating in the furniture business — you see it everywhere.”
And self-described non-creatives like Sheri Jopek, a repeat Board and Brush customer, are finding that they don’t have to be Picasso to produce wallworthy décor.
A 48-year-old call center worker from Wind Lake, Jopek is among a group of buddies who saw something on Facebook about Board and Brush in 2016 and decided to try it.
“We went to our first event and we were hooked,” she said.
Since then, they’ve been back five times, most recently this month, and they’re already talking about another visit.
“For those of us who are artistically challenged, you walk in and you make something that is just absolutely amazing,” said Jopek, whose creations include a gift for her father, décor for her kitchen and a dandy looking “Home Sweet Home” sign with intricate tracery that now hangs in her living room.
All of which she has gotten to make while sharing laughs with longtime pals.
The social aspect is important, said Cortney Heimerl, an independent arts organizer in Milwaukee who helped establish the annual Hover Craft
showcase for artists and crafters.
But what’s also attractive about the new studios, she said, is that “you can come away feeling … successful at being creative.”
Said Selby, “We’re building people’s confidence to be DIYers.”
Heimerl recalled visiting a do-ityourself pottery studio on Milwaukee’s east side in the early 2000s and thinking how unusual the idea was. Now, people are flocking to businesses that offer them guidance and materials to create craft items.
That may be a sort of back-to-the-basics reaction to lives that increasingly revolve around electronic devices.
“I think that people get really satisfied when they can actually do something with their hands,” Heimerl said.
Further, she said of studios such as Board and Brush, “the actual signs that they’re creating are really trendy right now.”
Also boosting the growth of Board and Brush as a franchising company is the relatively low cost to open a studio. According to the disclosure document, a franchisee needs $62,000 to $89,000 to begin operations. AR Workshop says its franchisees need $66,000 to $116,000 to get started.
As franchises go, those are relatively modest sums. While some franchise businesses require less investment, many of the most popular franchises cost more.
Opening a Subway sandwich shop, for example, takes $150,000 to $329,000. Orangetheory Fitness says franchisees should have $563,000 to $999,000. Starting a McDonald’s requires $1 million to $2.2 million.
Selby agreed that the relatively low initial cost for franchisees has helped propel the growth of Board and Brush.
With little in the way of marketing effort beyond boosting a few posts on Facebook, she said, Board and Brush has gotten more than 2,000 inquiries about opening studios.
“I have yet to pay a broker or any kind of financial or franchise company a dime,” she said.
But trends fade, Grünhagen said. Impressive as the growth has been, “the question you have to ask is what’s the longevity,” he said.
Ben Litalien, founder of the Virginiabased FranchiseWell consulting firm, raises the same question.
“This is a fairly new niche and we’re seeing evidence that people are enamored of it, but I don’t know that we have good knowledge of its long-term sustainability,” he said.
For now, though, it’s full speed ahead. Selby said she expects Board and Brush to end the year with about 220 studios.
“If we don’t hit that goal, it’ll be because we basically decided not to,” she said.
Anders, in South Carolina, said AR Workshops soon will have 105 locations and is shooting for another 100 or so in 2019.
She said her business would continue to evolve as trends shift, while Selby said Board and Brush will explore new opportunities in the projects it offers.
“We want to keep the customers coming back and interested and entertained,” she said.