108 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / January-February 2018
IT’S A WEEKDAY morning
and Howard Mierau’s
2-and-a-half-year-old
granddaughter is paddling in
a heated pool at the Goldfish
Swim School franchise in
Needham, Mass. The
blond-haired, blue-eyed
toddler, clad in a baby-blue
swimsuit, spends two or
more mornings a week here
learning water safety and
swimming techniques, while
her grandfather watches
from the tiki-themed viewing
area. And when they’re not
at Goldfish, they’re at
another franchise, Gymboree
Play & Music.
This all looks quite
different from when Mierau
raised his own daughter
decades ago. Back then, his
wife stayed home while he
worked as a computer
programmer. But that
daughter grew up, got
married, and had a child of
her own—and because she
and her husband work
full-time and wanted to make
sure their daughter is fully
occupied and looked after,
Mierau began commuting
from his home in Tampa to
help out. “[Her parents] want
her to be happy, they want her
to be healthy, and, yeah, they
want her to be exposed to
other kids,” Mierau says.
Which is where the
franchises come in.
Franchisors have always
tried to find and respond to
unmet market needs—say,
the urge to grab a quick meal
when you’re on the road. But
these days, some of the
greatest unmet needs are
coming from a growing
population called the
sandwich generation.
Defined by Pew Research as
people with kids under 18
and parents over 65, and who
increasingly work full-time,
this generation represents an
unprecedented social and
demographic shift that is
driving growth across the
economy—and, by extension,
the franchising landscape.
The shift is easily visible on
our Franchise 500 list.
Parents of young children are
turning to franchises like
Goldfish Swim School (#55),
Primrose Schools (#27),
Kumon Math & Reading
Centers (#20), School of Rock
(#163), and trampoline park
Sky Zone (#81) for children’s
enrichment and entertain-
ment, while at the same time
relying on companies like
Right at Home (#49) and
Nurse Next Door (#50) to
care for their aging parents.
Behind this growth are
several intertwined demo-
graphic trends. The average
age at which women have a
first child is the highest on
record, the Centers for
Disease Control reports, with
more of them waiting until
their late 30s or early 40s to
start families. And nearly half
of couples both work full-
time, up from fewer than a
third in 1970, according to
the Census Bureau, driving
businesses that give children
something to do on the
weekdays and after school,
when kids once stayed home
and played. (Franchises also
help parents cut down their
children’s screen time—and
their guilt about it.)
Older moms and dads are
further removed from their
own schooling than their
parents were, too—which, in
a hypercompetitive age, can
be a source of anxiety. “They
look at their kids’ homework
today, and the methodology
for getting to the answer is
completely different,” says
Frank Milner, the president
of Tutor Doctor. “There’s just
this drive to give our kids
every advantage we possibly
can, to give them the best
shot at success in life.”
The franchised elder-care
industry is seeing a similar
explosion in growth. Some
10,000 Americans are
turning 65 every day, Pew
estimates—a trend known as
“the silver tsunami”—creat-
ing a vast market of more
Franchisors have
always tried to respond
to unmet needs. And
some of the greatest
unmet needs are coming
from people with aging
parents, young children,
and full-time jobs.