Entrepreneur Magazine - May 1996
Brush with Success
There’s nothing new about college students painting the town – but thanks to University Painters, they‘re getting paid for it.
University Painters offers a painting contracting business especially suited to college students: There’s no franchise fee, start-up costs are less than $2,000, the business is seasonal, and franchises are offered on one-year contracts, with the option to renew. “It’s a great opportunity I had in school, and now I can show [other students] how to do it,” says founder Joshua Jablon, 27, who ran his own house-painting business in college and began franchising University Painters in 1991.
“It gives enterprising students a really great opportunity,” says Erik Thompson, 21, a University Painters franchisee and a junior studying finance and marketing at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Thompson’s franchise made $67,000 in sales last summer. After investing in a computer system he’ll use to help with the business this year, Thompson, who managed 12 employees last summer, still had enough money left over to help pay his tuition.
Franchisees are recruited between September and February and go through a training program. They learn how to bid jobs and manage employees, then are set up with credit lines for paint and equipment. University Painters provides payroll services and insurance policies, as well as a strong support network.
As with college itself, Thompson says, “The More you put into [this business], the more you get out of it.”
