California Software Engineer Enters Third Business Venture With Paris Baguette in Morgan Hill

After working as a software engineer for nearly two decades, Eric Ha has experienced the corporate world as well as business ownership, both within and beyond the franchise model. When he and his wife successfully exited their most recent venture, they quickly realized they would want to take something else on.

With food and beverage in mind, the pair honed in on Paris Baguette after experiencing the bakery cafés within their own community. Ha described the draw of the cafés as something somewhat primitive. After reviewing the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), the two were confident in their decision.

1851 Franchise: Frame your personal story for us. What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?

Ha: I graduated with a computer science degree, so my full-time job has been in software engineering for nearly 20 years. After I got married to my wife, who I met while on a volunteer trip in Vietnam, her schooling did not carry over to the American market. She could either go through schooling all over again or we could just start a business.

We didn’t have much family depending on us at that point, so we thought we would go for it. We first tried a franchise concept called Great Clips. We did that for about seven years and had three locations, then someone bigger than us acquired us. The next thing we did wasn’t exactly a franchise; it was Amazon DSP. We did that for about a year and a half, and had about 100 employees. Again, someone bigger than us acquired us. That was about a year and a half ago. 

When we started thinking about getting into another business, we wanted to try something that we could be proud of and something that the kids would be excited to bring friends to hang out in. The bakery would be something cool.

We wanted that pride of ownership. All of the Paris Baguette locations I’ve ever seen have a formidable presence. It’s very eye-catching. I thought that’d be pretty cool. We had been thinking about trying food and beverage for a while, and the look and feel of the stores kind of sealed the deal.

1851: What was your perception of franchising prior to becoming a franchisee, and what do you want people to know about franchising now that you are in it?

Ha: Everything that I heard was positive. The one negative thing that I had heard was that the franchisor takes too much of your profits, but the brand presence and systems in place are the trade-off. That was why we started franchising in the first place. Whatever royalties or advertising funds you’re paying will totally pay themselves off with the brand recognition.

It’s a great experience. Win or lose, if the business is successful or not, going through the experience alone is so valuable. Even if you go with an “out there” concept, seeing how the professionals do it, that almost gives you a cheat sheet. You understand how things should work and how things best operate, and you have that information forever.

I believe that independent businesses are more likely than a franchise, of the same type, to fail. The support we get from corporate is great.

1851: What made you pick this brand? What excites you most about this company?

Ha: In addition to the strength of the brand and having something my kids can be proud of, we felt that the food and beverage is in the Critical Services industry, which was important to us, after recently living through the shutdowns at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

1851: What do you hope to achieve with your business? What are your plans for growth? 

Ha: The long-term plan is that I want to offer myself a job. However, it's tough & risky for a single store to replace a Bay Area corporate salary. I’ve always wanted to have something of my own; there’s a lot of fulfillment in having your own business.

I’d like to have a few locations that are far enough apart that we can address multiple markets. Then once those grow, I can step away from software and spend more time in the cafés and with my family. 

1851: What is the one thing about your story you want us to know?

Ha: My goal in life right now is to expose my kids to as much as possible. They’ve seen my engineering side and a few different business concepts already. Now they’re going to see this.

My kids’ eyes are much more open. My hope is that I can take them out of their Protected Life bubble and expose them to more of the real world - like the beauty of things with camping, hiking, road trips, or how the world really works, by giving them a peek behind the scenes of businesses. I only have a few more years of being able to curate these experiences for them before they develop a mind of their own & become fully independent. I hope these memories I'm planting into their heads now help grow them into the best possible versions of themselves.

1851: What advice do you have for other people thinking about becoming a franchise owner?

Ha: Something to understand is that, at least at every company I’ve started or worked within, the biggest and most difficult thing to figure out is that leading and making things happen does not necessarily come down to who can speak the loudest. It’s being able to listen to and understand other people. Connecting with people on a personal level is how you make things happen.

The scary thing is that of all of these fancy business degrees you can get, not many of them teach you how to connect with people. It’s learnable, and there’s an extra amount of enjoyment, efficiency and productivity that you can get out of everyone if you can make that happen.

ABOUT PARIS BAGUETTE: 

Paris Baguette is a bakery café franchise with more than 4,000 units across the globe. The brand first franchised in the U.S. in 2015 and has since established nearly 150 locations in markets across the country, making it one of the premier franchise opportunities in its category. Paris Baguette’s primary mission, executed every day by its expert staff of bakers, cakers and baristas, is to share moments of joy with customers and help customers share moments of joy with their friends and family by providing world-class cakes, pastries, coffees, breads and other French-inspired bakery café fare. For more information, please visit parisbaguette.com/franchising/.