Good Morning Wolf Pack,

Today's newsletter highlights Zoom Drain, a Philadelphia-born plumbing specialist that turned one unglamorous, everyone-needs-it service into a fast-growing franchise with recession-resistant demand.

Enjoy!

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FRANCHISE OF THE WEEK

Zoom Drain

Fast Facts

Background

• HQ: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Founded in 2010, franchising since 2014

• Zoom Drain specializes exclusively in drain and wastewater services for residential and commercial customers, positioning itself as a branded specialist alternative to general plumbers

Location Trends

Franchise Fees

• Royalty: 6% of gross sales (or $1,000 per territory per month after year one, whichever is greater)

• Brand Fund: 2% of gross sales

• Franchise Fee: $49,500

Financial Overview

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

The Wolf's Take

Zoom Drain built a business around a problem nobody wants to think about, and to me, that's exactly why it works.

Every home and building has drains and sewers, so demand never really turns off, and a $49,500 franchise fee with a 6% royalty is a pretty approachable entry point for a home services concept.

What I like most is the specialization angle. Instead of competing as a generalist plumber, Zoom Drain owns "everything below the drain," which lets franchisees build a reputation as the go-to expert instead of just another truck on the road.

Reported revenue per location varies more across sources than I'd like, but the model itself is recession-resistant, offers 24/7 emergency service, and has a niche with almost no direct branded competition, so it's a pretty good foundation nonetheless.

If the revenue holds up on the higher end of what's being reported, this is a prime example of a boring business built the right way.

Resources

• Zoom Drain Franchise Opportunities

• Zoom Drain Franchise Review 2026 — Franchise Chatte

SMB TWEET OF THE WEEK

Rejection - Gary Vaynerchuk

This tweet from Gary Vaynerchuk is such underrated advice and a necessary shift in perspective on how rejection should be viewed.

In so many areas of life, you’ll hear “no” a lot more than “yes,” and this is the exact mental muscle you have to build when you’re working on an idea that takes time.

WOLF BITES

• Enigma raises $71M to make controlling robots as easy as adjusting the volume 🤖

• Apple will now let you lease your next iPhone or Mac instead of buying it 📱

• NASA's Swift Observatory black hole ripping apart a star 30,000 light-years away 🕳️

• Forbes unveils its 2026 Next Billion-Dollar Startups list 🚀

• A brutal heat dome is testing 70 million Americans across the South and West 🌡️

• The Federal Reserve is expected to keep rates unchanged, despite high prices 🤑

• Man who won $167M in the lottery is arrested for the fourth time since his big win 😲

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