Fabulous Female Franchise Founders

Mary Rogers likes to start things and she likes to see children learn. In 1984, she started Computer Explorers, a brand created to teach kids how to work with the newly arriving wave of personal computers.

In the life of a franchise sales professional, never a day should go by when we do not learn (or relearn) a selling skill. We are the tip of the spear when it comes to representing our brand to future franchise owners.

If you had LeBron James on your team, you'd feel pretty good about your chances of winning--big. And that's exactly what Blaze "Fast-Fire'd" Pizza intends to do.

Millennials. You are likely tired of reading about them but you can't stop, because with 60 million Americans in this generation, they're too big to ignore.

Let's start with what's an Acai berry. Looking like a cross between a grape and a blueberry, the açaí (ah-sigh-EE) berry is a small, reddish-purple fruit harvested from palm trees that grow around the Amazon River Basin.

How is social media changing and evolving, and how is your brand adapting and getting results?

Heidi Ganahl says she has always been an entrepreneur and dog lover. "My husband and I were characterized by two things: we thought up crazy, wild ideas and we loved taking care of our two dogs," she says of their life in the early 1990s.

The process of hiring, training, and retaining qualified individuals for sales and development is a necessary company practice that should not be taken lightly.

Renée Israel loves the smell and taste of fresh, kettle-cooked popcorn. When she and her husband Rob spotted mom-and-pop kettle corn makers at a farmers market in Boulder, Colo., in the early 2000s, it got them thinking. How could they bring fresh-popped flavored popcorn to a wider audience?

Sharon DiMinico had a "Eureka" moment following the birth of her second child in 1987. She recognized something was missing for the parents and children in her local community.

Shelly Sun, co-founder of BrightStar Care, never planned to start a company. But in 2001, she and her husband, J.D. Sun, were struggling to find quality in-home care for his grandmother and discovered they weren't alone.