Name: Peter J. Castorena

Franchise owned: Minuteman Press in Lancaster, California.

How long have you owned a franchise?

I’ve owned my Minuteman Press Franchise since August of 2006.

Why franchising?

I chose franchising because I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. I wanted to find a franchisor that excelled in their industry, one with a model I could execute. In my research prior to running my own business, I found that many businesses failed due to lack of planning or overinvestment of capital. The cost of a mistake is something I didn’t want to have to factor in – a good franchise should know the ins and outs of their business; it was that experience and help in planning I was looking for.

What were you doing before you became a franchise owner?

I worked for a national retailer (Robinsons May|Meier&Frank) which was in the process of being absorbed into Macy’s. I worked in their corporate office as a buyer. It was very similar to running your own business – I had to purchase goods in a specific category, work with vendors to sell them, and manage the inventory levels. The major difference was I was using someone else’s billion dollar checkbook and I had a multitude of departments to lean on for support (i.e. marketing, HR, IT, MIS).

Why did you choose this particular franchise?

I spent months during the course of my due diligence researching franchisors and working on a few business plans. There were two franchises I had considered moving forward with. Minuteman Press was one of them for a number of reasons.

On first glance, they’re leaders in their industry with multiple locations internationally. They’ve got a proven track record of growth. Working with my regional vice president Dan Byers, I came to find that Minuteman Press was open and honest about how a franchise operated, especially since they encouraged me to visit and speak with existing franchise owners. All of the Minuteman Press business owners I spoke with (in various stages of their business from new, established, and “seasoned”) were open and honest and had not regretted getting into the Minuteman Press Franchise. Couple their experience, happy franchisees, and the amount of support I get on the local and international level from the home office and it was a classic square peg into a square hole scenario – the perfect fit.