Tippi Toes Announces New Director of Franchise Growth Joining the Brand

Tippi Toes, a 32-unit children’s dance and enrichment franchise, has an exciting happening at the brand’s corporate level. In June, Tippi Toes hired Maria Fesler as the new Director of Franchise Growth as part of the company’s efforts to continue scaling and offering services to children in places all over the country. 

Fesler is a seasoned veteran in the retail space and brings plenty of experience to the table. She was an instrumental part of growing companies like Gap, The Limited, BevMo and NYX makeup brand. Fesler also worked in private equity prior to this, running a franchise system of over 850 salons and a luxury brand. 

“With this eclectic background that I have with all these different industries, I knew I could successfully jump industries and help Tippi Toes build a foundation in order to scale,” said Fesler. 

Fesler was hired in June after answering a LinkedIn ad for the director of franchise growth position. In researching the brand, Fesler realized she had heard of it before: she remembered Tippi Toes from an episode of Shark Tank many years back. 

“I learned more about them, what their mission is and what the franchise really entails. I met Sarah [Nuse] and Megan [Reilly] and absolutely fell in love with their vision and models of the future and decided this is a really great opportunity where I can help them and really have a lot of fun doing it,” she added. “It's been great so far.”

Her goal currently is to familiarize herself with the franchise model so she can work to improve and streamline processes and stabilize the system to ensure healthy growth in the near future. Fesler has been busy working closely with both Nuse and Reilly, as well as meeting the majority of the system’s franchisees. 

“The goal is to maintain and get consistency with the 32 we have, and then as you layer on, the systems and processes are already there. So it makes it very easy to continue to layer on new franchisees,” said Fesler. “Over time, it should become more standardized and predictable.”

The ultimate goal for Tippi Toes is to have a triple-digit number of territories, and Fesler is prepared to help the brand strategically reach that number. “I want to create a process that can have as many franchisees as Sarah and Megan want to have, and a system built that will support it growing to however large they'd like,” Fesler said. 

The startup costs to open a Tippi Toes Dance Company franchise range from $52,100 to $69,100, including a $35,000 franchise fee. For more information, visit https://www.tippitoesdance.com/franchise/.