The year behind every number
A figure without a year is a rumor with better manners. Why every number on Franopolis carries its reporting period — and why we would rather say "old" than quietly refresh it.
Every figure on Franopolis carries two facts: what it measures, and the year it measures it in.
The second fact is the easy one to lose. A fee printed in one year quietly becomes "the fee" in every conversation that follows, and an investment range published three years ago gets repeated as if it described today. Franchise systems are not photographs. Costs move, models change, and a number that was accurate when it was written can drift far from the business it describes.
Numbers age
An investment range is not a permanent property of a brand. It is a snapshot: what the franchisor reported, for that reporting period, under those assumptions. When we show an investment, we show it the way it was reported — with the year attached, not folded into an average or silently rolled forward.
That year is not decoration. It is the difference between "this is what it costs" and "this is what it cost then." Research that blurs that line stops being research.
What we do instead
- Show the year on the figure itself. Not in a footnote three scrolls down — on the number.
- Show change, not blend. When two reporting years exist, we show what changed between them rather than averaging across them.
- Let old numbers look old. A dated figure is labeled dated. We do not refresh it with our own estimate, because an estimate that looks official is worse than an honest gap.
What we will never do
Fill a missing number with an average borrowed from other brands. A gap is labeled a gap. If we don't know, we say so — that is the entire product.