Outgrowing the franchise model
Plus: a management client turned investor, capital raising tradeoffs, and how Fund I learnings are shaping Fund II
The franchise model in outdoor hospitality was built for a different era of ownership. This week I realized just how much the industry has outgrown it — and what that means for operators trying to scale.
Also this week: the Florida deal got more expensive, a management client raised their hand to invest alongside us, and why Fund II might not look like what we originally expected.
THIS WEEK’S POSITION
The electricians came back on the Florida property. The quotes confirmed what we were worried about — several hundred thousand dollars to bring the electrical infrastructure to where it needs to be. That changes the math on the deal. We’re in conversations with the seller to bridge the gap, but we’re not going to force it. If the numbers don’t work, the numbers don’t work.
Missouri is grinding through PSA negotiations. Nothing new to report there.
On the CapEx side, we made a decision I’m pretty interested to watch play out. We’ve been leasing a fleet of boats at one of our properties — pontoons, kayaks, that kind of thing. Last season’s gross revenue made the math on leasing versus owning pretty clear. We’re buying our own fleet this year.
Ancillary revenue is one of the most underutilized levers in outdoor hospitality. Most operators focus on site revenue — nightly rates, occupancy — and leave thousands on the table with activities, rentals, and add-ons. This is one of those cases where the data made the decision easy.
If you’re an accredited investor curious about how we evaluate deals like these — infrastructure risk, CapEx math, and all, sign up for our investor portal.
IN THE HANGAR
The fractional CFO model is proving out.
We brought on a fractional CFO a few weeks ago, and in that short window we’ve saved around 20 to 30 hours a week for our finance team. Processes that were manual are now automated. Reporting that used to take half a day pulls from the system in minutes. The value isn’t just the person — it’s the model. You get senior-level capability without the full-time cost, which matters when you’re at the stage where you need the expertise but can’t justify the headcount yet.
The key is fit. We talked to several candidates before landing on the right one. At our scale, you need someone who’s comfortable with complexity across multiple entities — not just a single-company finance leader. That filtering process matters as much as the decision to go fractional in the first place.
On the third-party management side, we’re growing — and the pattern is interesting. We’re finding that adding value on the first property or two is quickly turning into more engagements with the portfolio owners. Prove it on one park, earn the next. That’s the growth model we want.
We’re finding the way we approach contracts seems to be different from most of the industry.
A lot of management companies default to long contracts with big buyouts. That feels like an indicator they’re not confident in their abilities to add value. If the only reason an owner stays with you is because it costs too much to leave, that’s not a management relationship — it’s a hostage situation.
Our approach is the opposite. We prefer both parties be able to walk away with reasonable notice. The relationship has to work on merit, not on contract terms.
If you’re looking for a management partner who earns the relationship — not one who locks you in — set up a talk with Matt from our team (he’ll catch me up on the details and loop me in).
ON THE RADAR
Fund II is on the horizon — and Fund I taught us a few things about how to approach it.
Now that Fund I is fully deployed, one honest takeaway: deployment was lumpier than we expected. Big chunks of capital going out, then dry periods. We probably thought there’d be more deals to deploy into than there were. That’s shaping how we think about Fund II — pacing, pipeline development, and making sure we’re not sitting on dry powder longer than we want to.
We're also evaluating opportunities to play on the debt side of the capital stack — not just equity. It's a different risk profile and a different return, but it opens up deal structures we haven't had access to before.
An interesting development on the capital side: one of our third-party management clients has raised their hand to invest alongside us. That’s not something we planned for, but it makes sense when you think about it. They’ve seen how we operate from the inside — our systems, our reporting, our approach. The trust was already built.
It’s a reminder that the management business and the investment business aren’t separate tracks. They feed each other in ways we’re still discovering.
That’s also opening up a broader conversation about capital raising strategy. There’s a real tradeoff between raising larger commitments from institutional partners — more efficient, fewer relationships to manage, but you give up more control and flexibility — versus building a base of high-net-worth investors at smaller check sizes, where you retain more control and probably get slightly better economics, but the raise is a grind.
We’re working through where we want to land on that spectrum. Both paths have real trade-offs, and the answer probably isn’t all one or the other.
What we’re seeing in the market right now is raising as many questions as answers about how Fund II should look. We’re not ready to share the full picture yet, but it may not look like what we originally expected. More to come.
Lessons like these are what we’re building RVU around — the real playbook from inside the operation. Join the waitlist.
THE DEBRIEF
The franchise model in outdoor hospitality was built for operators who need guardrails. Single-park owners learning as they go. Newer investment groups entering the space and scaling into a portfolio. And in that context, it works. The brand brings booking visibility. The system provides structure around operations, marketing, branding — resources that let you narrow your focus and not get lost in the weeds.
The rigidity is a feature, not a bug, when you don’t know what you don’t know. But here’s what we’re seeing: operators outgrow it faster than the model expects.
We operate under a major franchise brand at some of our properties, and the system isn’t built for operators at our scale. They try to fit us into the same box as a first-time owner with a single park. We bring resources — marketing, revenue management, operational systems, staffing infrastructure — that go beyond what the franchise provides. But the model doesn’t accommodate that. In some cases, it feels like they’ve taken functions away from us that we do better internally.
We’re not the only ones feeling this. We’re seeing other investment groups who entered the space through a franchise — used it to learn the industry, build a portfolio — and are now bumping up against the same walls. The model helped them get started, but it’s holding them back from running their properties the way they want to.
The emergence of multi-park operators at scale is breaking a system that wasn’t designed for them. At the end of the day, this is part of a bigger shift. The infrastructure — franchises, management companies, lending products — was all built for a fragmented, mom-and-pop industry. Operators are professionalizing faster than the ecosystem around them. That gap is creating both friction and opportunity.
If you’re operating under a franchise, I’m curious — are you feeling the same tension? Hit reply and tell me.
From the trenches,
Bob