u/josueOrico

Was digging into some numbers recently and something stood out.

The average turnover rate in franchise businesses sits around 100-150% annually in hourly roles. That means some networks are replacing their entire workforce every single year.

The cost per hire in that space? Anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000 per employee when you factor in recruiting, onboarding and training.

Now multiply that across 50, 100, 200 units.

The crazy part is most of that turnover isn't because the candidates were bad. It's because the process is broken. Candidates fall through the cracks between units. Good people get rejected at one location while two miles away the same brand is desperate.

Nobody owns the problem because nobody has visibility across the whole network.

Curious if anyone here has built in the HR or franchising space — how do you actually get operators to fix a problem they've normalized?

Was talking to a friend who owns a few franchise locations. He mentioned something that kind of blew my mind.

One of his locations turned down 30+ applicants in a single month. Not bad candidates — just not the right fit for that unit at that time.

His other location two miles away was short-staffed and struggling to find anyone decent that same week.

Those candidates were already screened. Already interested. Already showed up. Nobody passed them along internally. They just disappeared.

Never thought about hiring from that angle before. The problem isn't always finding people — sometimes it's losing people you already found.

That's exactly why I'm building XselectAI — a platform that lets franchise networks screen candidates in one place and automatically connect them across units instead of losing them to the void.

Still early, but the problem feels very real. Has anyone here built for the franchise space before? Would love to hear what you ran into.

I was talking to a friend who owns a few franchises. He mentioned something that surprised me.

One of its locations turned away more than 30 applicants in a single month. They are not bad candidates – they are just not suitable for that unit at that time.

Their other location, two miles away, was short-staffed and struggled to find anyone decent that same week.

These candidates have already been selected. I'm already interested. It has already appeared. No one transmitted them internally. They simply disappeared.

never thought about hiring from this angle before. The problem isn't always finding people – sometimes it's losing people you've already found.

Honestly, this got me thinking about building something to help franchise chains share candidates between units automatically. I'm not sure there's an appetite for that.

Has anyone else seen this problem? Would something like this be useful?

"Tried to get a job at a franchise while back. Applied to 20 different locations of the same brand — got called back by 7 of them.

Every single interview was the same thing. Same questions, same process, same vibe. None of us got hired.

Later, talking to other candidates, we figured out that some of those locations were desperately short-staffed — while others were turning people away that same week.

Same brand. No one talking to each other.

That stuck with me. So I'm building something to fix it — a tool that lets franchise networks share and screen candidates across units instead of each location starting from scratch.

As franchisees — how are you currently handling candidate overflow? Are you just letting good people walk out the door, or is there actually a system in place?"

Tried to get a job at a franchise a while back. Applied to 20 different locations of the same brand — got called back by 7 of them.

Every single interview was the same thing. Same questions, same process, same vibe. None of us got hired.

Later, talking to other candidates, we figured out that some of those locations were desperately short-staffed — while others were turning people away that same week.

Same brand. No one talking to each other.

That stuck with me. So I'm building something to fix it — a tool that lets franchise networks share and screen candidates across units instead of each location starting from scratch.

As franchisees — how are you currently handling candidate overflow? Are you just letting good people walk out the door, or is there actually a system in place?

’ve been thinking about how many smaller franchise businesses struggle with high turnover, slow hiring, and losing good candidates too early. What feels inefficient to me is that many franchise locations still hire independently from each other. So when one location rejects a candidate, that person is often lost completely, even if another nearby location from the same franchise brand is hiring. I also think many smaller franchise operators can’t justify the cost or complexity of enterprise platforms like Workday. That’s one of the reasons why I started building a B2B platform focused on connecting franchise hiring networks and helping locations share qualified candidates instead of losing them. Still early, but I genuinely think there’s a real opportunity to make franchise hiring more connected and efficient.

**Why does it feel like every founder in Canada is on their own?**

I've been talking to founders across different cities and the same thing keeps coming up — nobody really helps each other here.

Not in a malicious way. More like... everyone is so heads-down in their own thing that there's no real culture of opening doors, sharing contacts, or just saying "I went through that, here's what I learned."

In other ecosystems — especially in the US — you see a completely different culture. Founders refer each other to investors, make intros, share learnings openly, build together. There's a mentality that one person's success opens the door for others.

Here in Canada it feels more like parallel lines — everyone moving in the same direction but never actually crossing.

Is this a Canada thing? A culture thing? Or am I just talking to the wrong people?

Curious to hear from others who've been in the trenches here.

I've been working on a SaaS project here in Montreal for a while now, and one thing I keep running into is how weirdly hard it is to meet other founders in Canada.

Like - Canada has an incredible ecosystem. Government support, diverse talent, proximity to the US market, strong universities feeding into tech. The potential is genuinely there.

And yet... finding other people in the trenches feels like a scavenger hunt.

Professional networks are full of people selling you something. Online groups go quiet after a week. Events are either $500 tickets or mixers where everyone hands out cards and disappears.

I'm not looking for a pitch fest. Just real conversations with people who are building something, dealing with the same chaos of early-stage life, trying to figure out growth, fundraising, first customers - whatever stage you're at.