Tech Spotlight: How Oakscale Is Using Tech to Change the Future of Franchising

Founded in April of 2017, Oakscale is a tech-driven franchise development company incubated by technology-and-digital-marketing company Metric Collective and led by CEO Joshua Kovacs. In October 2019, the fledgling company received a major boost when it raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round led by angel investors Brett Barna, Timothy Tully, Pen King Jr. and Robert Huntington with participation from Horsman Holdings and Liveris Family Office, as well as other investors. Kovacs spoke with 1851 about how and why Oakscale was founded, how it works and what it means for the future of franchising. 

1851 Franchise: Tell us a little bit about your background.

Joshua Kovacs: At 26, I’m probably one of the younger executives in the franchise space. My jump into franchising started back in high school when my engineering teacher Dori Roberts developed Engineering for Kids, a supplemental education franchise that teaches fundamentals of engineering to students ages 4 to 14. 

I was an instructor at her initial location, and I saw that I was on the ground floor of something pretty big. I really learned the pros and cons of franchising, and I got to be part of the team that took it from one location to more than 130. I learned firsthand how powerful the franchise model is at scaling businesses.

Engineering for Kids became one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 brands. From there, I decided to explore franchising a little further. I attended Georgetown University to earn a certificate in Franchise Management, and shortly after that, I began working for FranSmart, the world’s largest franchise development company focused on restaurants. I joined just as The Halal Guys was taking off, and I really cut my teeth there on their franchise sales team.

1851: What was the inspiration for founding Oakscale?

Kovacs: I realized the franchise industry, for all its benefits, is a very sleepy industry. Many of the people who work in franchising are of an older generation, and some of the most widely-used strategies can be quite antiquated. 

I stumbled across a Forbes article talking about franchising and technology. Of course, it piqued my interest. I began to consider digital marketing as a stronger way to reach a franchising audience. 

Metric Collective, a large tech company in NYC that owns FranchiseHelp.com as well as FranFunnel and Metric Digital, was mentioned in the article. I couldn’t believe I was reading the words franchise and technology in the same piece, and I wanted to learn more about what Metric Collective was doing. I traveled to New York to visit the office and got to see that they were solving issues that franchisors didn't even realize needed to be solved yet. On the other hand, I noticed that out of all of the incredible, intelligent people on this team, none of them had ever actually sold a franchise themselves. I left Virginia and moved to New York to start Oakscale. 

1851: In a nutshell, what does Oakscale do?

Kovacs: We call ourselves a tech-enabled franchise development agency. I’ve taken data and best practices from Metric Collective to work with emerging franchisors anywhere between just starting out and having 50 to 100 units. Many franchisors are good at support or have developed a solid product but don’t know how to execute on the franchise development side — that’s where we come in. 

Our thesis is that most franchisors know their business model, but when it comes to scaling a business, the skill sets aren’t often aligned. Franchisors are most successful when they’re able to focus on their core business model. 

1851: How does Oakscale differentiate itself from other franchise development companies?

Kovacs: When we look at franchise development, we see that many companies are following the same basic business model. The industry is still focused on shows and broker networks but very few have really figured out how to generate leads and scale via digital marketing. We’ve developed a mature tech stack to communicate with leads the way they want to be communicated with, through text messages, and allows us to reach a broad audience across a variety of channels to find the perfect franchisees. 

We’re always thinking of different ways of increasing the visibility of franchise brands. The gold standard right now is a discovery day, where candidates fly out to meet with the franchisor. We want to bring discovery days as close as possible to people without having to make that jump. We have to give people more than just a brochure and let them see the team in action. 

There are a lot of initiatives that we have seen in the franchise space to lure in Millennials and the next generation of franchise buyers. The people who are buying franchises are communicating in a more tech-focused way. People want more transparency and want to get as much information as they can online, and that’s where Oakscale comes in, to meet those needs through technology and digital marketing.