Nearly 800,000 franchised business owners delivered products and services in 2022, with a year-over-year growth rate of roughly 2%, according to the International Franchise Association’s “2023 Franchising Economic Outlook.” One veteran who joined those ranks is Jesse Gunstream, who served nearly seven years in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Gunstream, who was a legal and administrative NCOIC with the 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, began transitioning out of the military in August 2018. He said he’s grateful for the time he spent in the corporate world, but found that becoming a LIME Painting franchise owner with his wife, Rachel, has been better suited to life.
For Gunstream, exiting the service personified the saying, “A person wearing too many hats doesn’t look good in any of them.”
Initially, he was working full-time for AT&T while still in the reserves. At the same time, he traveled regularly to Austin, Texas, from the Texas Hill Country for Master of Business Administration courses while raising two children with Rachel.
“Something had to give,” he said. “I ended my military service, and completion of my MBA landed me at Amazon, running a building through the operations supply chain.”
He started with Amazon in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, just days before mask requirements went into effect. He stayed on with Amazon for about two years, and then began looking into doing something on his own.
The Gunstreams became LIME Painting franchise owners in 2022 after considering four franchise models — two painting companies, one pest control/mosquito abatement company; and a junk hauling company.
“It came down to the two painting companies,” he said. “We were very deliberate about wanting to work in home services … and landed on LIME just [because of the] quality of the corporate team and the values that they align with that we felt were very important to us.”
The onboarding process, according to Gunstream, was “very detailed” and structured.
“I think the military is just suited very well for that,” he said. “If you’re good at operating within an existing structure, I think the franchise system is great for former service members or retirees.”
In their position, the Gunstreams work “cross departmentally” with subcontractors, general contractors and other tradespeople, much in the same way he did during his time in the reserves.
The biggest challenge, according to Gunstream, has been managing a large geographical area, though it was intentional to not work in a metropolitan area.
Texas was expected to have the most franchise growth in 2023, according to the IFA’s outlook report.
While there’s “a lot of seasonality” around the painting industry, Gunstream said about 90% of their work last year was exterior and in January alone, they completed about $60,000 worth of interior work.
Nearly 35% of franchisors saw an increase in employment, and more than half expected “total franchised business employment to increase,” according to the IFA’s “Identifying and Addressing Today’s Labor Trends in Franchising: A 2023 Study on Labor Trends in Franchising.”
The ability to “live in a schedule” has been a key element from Gunstream’s military service that has helped him as a franchise owner.
“I think it’s easy as a small business owner to be lackadaisical and not proactive,” he said. “But if you’re used to operating in structure, you can hold yourself accountable.”
Franchise establishments were projected to increase by nearly 15,000 units in 2023, according to IFA’s report.
The best part about being a franchise owner is that he’s no longer missing events and other obligations related to his children.
His advice for other service members — retired, transitioning or otherwise — is to do their own research on entrepreneurship. While Gunstream said the TAP program is great for transitioning into employment, there are “a lot of unknowns” about small business ownership and entrepreneurship.
