thedanlorenz

08/04/2026

Three hot chicken brands. Same category. Same year.

Ask each one what a store makes.

One shows you a full P&L.

One shows you a single number.

One shows you nothing at all. Legal. Their choice (Item 19).

The one that shows you nothing is the one everybody wants.

Which one is it? That's the read. Part 1 of 4.

https://www.thezorzeereport.com/subscribe?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=founding&utm_content=issue11_launch

08/03/2026

Who this isn't for:

Anyone who wants to write a check and stay out of it. You're in homes, at kitchen tables.

Anyone who wants their name on a building. There's no storefront.

Anyone who needs a hundred franchisees first. Company's decades old, franchising is new. Fair reason to pass.

Who it is for:

Good with people in their own homes. Runs the system instead of rewriting it. Building something, not buying a job.

Around $350K net worth, $100K liquid.

Small group. On purpose.

If that's you, reply with your city and I'll tell you what's open.

08/02/2026

Most people pick a franchise by industry. That's backwards, and it's why so many of them end up in something that doesn't fit how they want to work.

The industry is the last thing that matters. What matters is the shape of your week and where the risk sits.

So here's a business described the way I think it should be described. No category name, on purpose.

No storefront, so no showroom, no build out, and no personal guarantee on ten years of retail rent. No install crew on payroll at launch, because that work is subcontracted until volume justifies hiring. And your phone gets answered by a sales center that takes the calls, follows up, and books appointments onto your calendar.

Big-ticket sale, made in the customer's home, one visit, one decision maker. The same customer can buy more than once on that visit because the company handles more of the property than its competitors do.

In business since 2000. First year franchising. About $350,000 net worth, $100,000 liquid.

You'll notice I still haven't told you what it sells. If you're interested anyway, that's the point.

Reply with your market and I'll tell you what's open.

07/23/2026

In case you missed yesterday's issue on F45, here's the detail that stuck with readers.

Across the three boutique fitness filings I read this month, one had no litigation disclosed at all, one had a single arbitration from 2017, and F45's ran to nine matters.

Volume by itself isn't damning. Bigger systems draw more disputes, and F45 has denied the allegations with nothing proven in court. But several of those matters come from franchisees making the same kind of claim about how the franchise was sold to them, and that's worth understanding before you talk to anyone.

The full read is in yesterday's issue. Free to read when you subscribe:

The 5 signals that decide it, on one brand every Tuesday. Free. No commissions, no franchisor money.

07/21/2026

Today's issue closes out the boutique fitness series with the biggest of the three brands: F45.

Here's what its 2026 filing shows.

The royalty is the greater of 7% of sales or a fixed monthly minimum. Once sales drop below a certain line, the minimum takes over and the share coming off the top climbs the further you fall.

The franchisor terminated 54 franchise agreements last year while opening 26. The litigation section runs nine matters deep.

F45 is a real brand with real programming, and plenty of operators do well with it. But its structure puts more of the fixed cost on the operator's side of the table than either of the other two, and the filing shows what happened to the operators who couldn't carry it.

Part 4 of 4. Free, no franchisor money, just the numbers.

Subscribe and read it:

The 5 signals that decide it, on one brand every Tuesday. Free. No commissions, no franchisor money.

07/14/2026

The newcomer in the boutique fitness series is Sweat440, and it does something the bigger brands won't.

It prints a full profit-and-loss for every studio, top to bottom.

The top group keeps 31 cents on every dollar. The bottom group loses six figures (Item 19). Same brand, same year.

Most franchises show you sales and stop.

Sweat440 shows you exactly what a winning studio keeps and what a losing one costs, so you can tell which one you'd be before you sign.

Today's Zorzee Report reads the whole filing. Part 3 of 4. Free, no franchisor money.

Subscribe and read it:

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07/08/2026

In case you missed yesterday: the boutique HIIT series named Orangetheory.

Here's what stuck with readers.

There's one number in Orangetheory's filing that no competitor will show you, and it's the difference between a studio that thrives and one that closes.

What it is, and where it leaves a buyer, is in yesterday's issue.

Free to read when you subscribe:

Every franchise hands you a 300-page legal document before you sign. The Zorzee Report reads it like an investor, not like a consumer. One sub-industry each month, one specific brand each Tuesday, across the 5 signals every operator should read before they commit. No commissions. No franchisor reven...

06/30/2026

The boutique fitness boom is real.

So is the studio two doors down that just went dark.

Last year, two of the three biggest names in boutique HIIT shrank their US studio count, 118 locations gone between them, while the category kept getting sold as a sure thing.

And yet the best studios at one of those same brands averaged $1.2M in sales (Item 19). Both true at the same time.

Same brand, same playbook, same year. One studio rings up $1.2M. The next one closes.

The reason is not the brand or luck. It is sitting in a filing most investors never open.

Today's Zorzee Report breaks down the whole category from the 2026 FDDs.

Part 1 of 4. Free, no franchisor money, just the numbers.

Subscribe and read it:

Every franchise hands you a 300-page legal document before you sign. The Zorzee Report reads it like an investor, not like a consumer. One sub-industry each month, one specific brand each Tuesday, across the 5 signals every operator should read before they commit. No commissions. No franchisor reven...

06/26/2026

The aging population won't pay you a dime.

Every home care pitch opens with the tailwind: 12,000 Americans turn 65 every day, a $155.9 billion market growing 8% a year.

All true.

But the tailwind creates the conditions for revenue. It doesn't deliver it.

Demographics don't write checks. Referral networks do.

The discharge planners, physicians, and elder care attorneys who send families to an agency they trust, and that trust is earned over your first 12 to 24 months of showing up.

So the tailwind is real, and so is the work.

Both are true.

I break down what one franchise's FDD actually says every Tuesday in The Zorzee Report.

Independent analysis, no franchisor money. Free:

https://thezorzeereport.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=home-care&utm_content=aging-population

06/24/2026

Here is something I learned reading three home care franchise filings this month.

The numbers that scare investors out of a deal are usually the ones that would have protected them.

A licensing wall that takes a year to clear also keeps your competition from opening next door.

A missing Item 19 forces the homework that saves you from a six-figure mistake.

A labor line everyone accepts at 65 to 75% of revenue is a hiring decision, and one brand runs it at 53.3 percent (Item 19, 2026 FDD).

I closed my four-part home care series with a Pro-only deep-dive that flips every number that made you flinch and shows the second reading, plus the way each one fails if you take it too far.

About 40% of the time the flinch is right, and the issue tells you which is which.

I unlocked it this week. Subscribe free and you get the whole home care series plus the unlocked deep-dive. Open through Sunday.

Read it free here:

Every franchise hands you a 300-page legal document before you sign. The Zorzee Report reads it like an investor, not like a consumer. One sub-industry each month, one specific brand each Tuesday, across the 5 signals every operator should read before they commit. No commissions. No franchisor reven...