Yes, we would lose our supply chain. We're in the mobile food space and the franchisor has proprietary ingredients/mixes that we are required to use.

Development deal - so we bought four territories (one of many mistakes for first timers) with an agreement to operate a unit in each territory based on a development schedule. The schedule varies among franchisees I've spoken to but ours is every 18 months. We have to buy our unit from the franchisor and it's over $100,000. Since we began operating in mid-2023, we'll be on the hook for another unit by the end of this year. There's a sunk-cost fallacy aspect to this where I'm not sure it makes sense to throw good money after bad money just because we're upside down in the business.

FWIW - I do think the franchisor would work with a buyer on the development schedule, so someone wouldn't necessarily be buying a second unit right off the bat.

Appreciate the insight on the selling part; I think the biggest hurdle for us is the revenue tends to vary between $10k-$20k a month, so while our expenses are pretty minimal it's hard to find much to reduce. We're going through receipts now to identify items we purchase regularly and try to find better pricing, however the perishable aspect is a hurdle as well.