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Good Morning Wolf Pack,

Today's newsletter highlights The NOW Massage, a boutique wellness franchise that is turning affordable luxury massage into a recurring revenue machine with strong unit economics coast to coast.

Enjoy!

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Target revenue of $804k–$931k annually with a payback period of 1.5–2.5 years and full operational support from day one.

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FRANCHISE OF THE WEEK

The NOW Massage

Fast Facts

Background

• HQ: Los Angeles, CA

• Founded in 2015, franchising since 2019

• The NOW Massage is a boutique massage studio franchise offering customizable massage services, wellness enhancements, and retail products in an elevated, nature-inspired setting designed to make high-quality self-care accessible at an affordable price point.

Location Trends

Franchise Fees

• Royalty: 6% of gross sales (flag for Krokit verification — some sources show 7%)

• Marketing Fund: 2% of gross sales

• Franchise Fee: $60,000

Financial Overview

• The below table discloses information on franchised The NOW Massage locations that were open and operating for the full 2023 calendar year.

The Wolf's Take

The NOW Massage caught my eye in 2022, and now I’m revisiting it because the unit economics here are hard to argue with, in my opinion.

You're looking at $476K-$813K total investment producing an average of $1,367,376 in gross revenue per location, which is rare for a boutique wellness concept.

The membership model is what makes it work: recurring monthly revenue smooths out the volatility you typically see in service businesses and gives operators predictable cash flow from day one.

The brand is intentionally selective about franchisee growth. They have 190+ licenses sold but only 85+ boutiques open, which tells you they're prioritizing quality over speed. That's actually a good sign for unit economics long-term.

The two things I'd probe, though: first, the labor piece. Massage therapist recruitment and retention are the operational wildcards in this category, and they can make or break your margins.

Second, the royalty structure differs slightly across FDD vintages, so make sure you're reading the current document.

Overall, this is a brand worth a look for anyone building a wellness portfolio.

Resources

• The NOW Massage Franchise Development Site

• Inside The NOW Massage's Framework For Scaling To 100 Locations This Year — Beauty Independent

SMB TWEET OF THE WEEK

4 Hour Flow State - Tim Denning

I was working in a flow state at the time I read this tweet from Tim Denning, so it felt like the right one today.

Phones demand endless attention from you, and I highly recommend getting an app that blocks phone usage for set periods of time so you can jump into a flow state without getting distracted.

(I use an app called Forest for this)

WOLF BITES

• Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to launch its own prediction market 🤔

• Congress passes the largest housing affordability bill in decades 🏠

• SpaceX shares erase $600 billion in market value over three days 📉

• Microsoft Teams is rolling out a new feature that tracks where employees are working via Wi-Fi 👀

• GPTZero, the AI detection startup with 19 million users, has been acquired by Superhuman 🤝

• Illinois has recorded 196 tornadoes in 2026, more than any other state since 2015 🌪️

• Rats and mice are mutating and becoming resistant to poison 🐀

That’s it for this edition of The Wolf Report. Feel free to reply with any questions or feedback. Thanks and see you next week!

— The Wolf