FirstLight Home Care Franchise Review (2024)
FirstLight Home Care Franchise Background
FirstLight Home Care is a leading home care company, providing compassionate in-home care, senior care and respite care to any adult in need. Whether it is illness, injury, dementia, or just challenges that come with old age, FirstLight can help. Their caregivers take on the tasks that can seem overwhelming, such as cooking, laundry, cleaning and running errands. They provide help for the customer’s loved ones, as well as hope, comfort, companionship and compassion.
They provide senior services, services for those with disabilities, recovery and rehabilitation services, veteran services and services for busy moms.
Management Team
FirstLight Home Care has been in the industry for 8 years, with over 140 individual owners, more than 200 franchise units across the U.S.
The FirstLight leadership team ensures that the promise of delivering their culture of care to each and every individual. Their team has a lot of experience, vision, and commitment to service.
Jeff Bevis is President and CEO of FirstLight Home Care. With more than 30 years of experience in franchising, Jeff displays a successful track record of accelerating growth in a variety of franchise concepts. His expertise includes senior management leadership, as well as the development of a major senior care franchise brand within in a four-year span. Jeff has earned the Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) designation, meeting rigorous requirements from the franchising industry. He has a trademark reputation for building strong, trusting relationships with franchisees and enabling strong unit economics at the franchise level to build system success.
Franchise Healthcare Services Industry Analysis
Franchise Strengths
- Established player in the Home Care industry
- High margin, recurring revenue business where most costs are only incurred during home visits
- Wide range of potential clients
- Known for high-quality, unique approach to client care where they get to understand the client on as personal level as possible in order to deliver a more personalized service
Franchise Weaknesses
- Reputation-heavy industry, which means that bad experiences with other franchise operators can significantly impact the system
- Success dependent on finding competent staff and home care providers
Healthcare Services Industry Franchise Opportunities
- Very large market, with over $88 billion in revenue a year that has grown an average of over 4% per year since 2011
- Over 96% of the population over the age of 75 have a chronic disease
- As hospitalization costs have increased and aging consumers have embraced the home healthcare trend, many new firms have entered the industry in the past five years, signaling opportunity
- There’s an expectation that technology will continue to allow for improved service in the industry
Threats in the Healthcare Services Industry Franchise Market
- Profitability can be negatively impacted by close location of like competitors
- Potential for government to implement more oversight and regulations within the homecare industry
How Much is a First Light Home Care Franchise?
First Light Home Care Franchise cost ranges from $110,881 to $167,876 according to the 2019 FDD.
| Cost Types | Amount (in USD) | When Due | To Whom Payment is to Be Made | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low | High | |||
| Franchise Fee | $48.000 | $48.000 | Upon signing FA | Franchisor |
| Travel and Training Expenses | 2.125 | 4.042 | Upon signing FA | Franchisor |
| Business Premises | 0 | 4.800 | As Incurred | Suppliers |
| Start-Up Supplies and Inventory | 300 | 900 | As Incurred | Suppliers of Transportation, Food and Lodging |
| Employment Screening | 256 | 384 | As Incurred | Suppliers |
| Equipment, Signage, Graphics | 250 | 2.450 | Before Opening | Other Suppliers, including Landlord, Utilities |
| Advertising, Marketing and Promotions | 4.000 | 6.000 | Before Opening | Suppliers |
| Grand Opening Marketing | 1.500 | 3.000 | Before Opening | Suppliers |
| Other Paid Expenses | 7.850 | 9.850 | Before Opening | Suppliers |
| Business Permits, Licenses and Fees | 0 | 7.000 | During First 90 Days of Opening | Suppliers |
| Insurance as required | 6.000 | 12.000 | Starting in 2nd Month after Opening | Suppliers |
| Computer Equipment | 2.600 | 4.450 | As Incurred | Suppliers |
| Additional Funds (3 to 6 Monts) | 38.000 | 65.000 | As Incurred | Suppliers |
| Total | $110,881 | $167,876 | ||
| Royalty | Local Ad-Fund | Nat’l Ad-Fund |
|---|---|---|
| 5% | $1.500 | 1% |
How Much does a First Light Home Care Franchise make?
FDD Disclosure: “The tables do not include data regarding 34 FirstLight Home Care businesses that have been operating for 12 months or longer.We did not include these businesses in this Item 19 because these businesses were atypical and experienced unusual individual circumstances that impacted their performance or lead to a temporary suspension of services”.
These circumstances include the following: 6 FirstLight Home Care businesses experienced significant delays in obtaining state licensure; 7 FirstLight Home Care individual operated businesses who experienced serious medical issues (such as cancer or a major surgery); 2 FirstLight Home Care individual operated businesses who dissolved their management team (for instance, through divorce) within the first year of operations; and 19 FirstLight Home Care businesses which did not follow the required 2 full-time person model.
There were a total of 118 FirstLight Home Care businesses in operation for these periods as of December 31, 2017, and which had been in operation for a minimum of 12 months as of the issuance date of this Disclosure Document.
The Item 19 Businesses consist of 84 of the franchised FirstLight Home Care businesses that were in operation during the entire Reporting Period and do not include the 34 locations which were atypical due to personal circumstances (described in the paragraph above).
Conclusion
We have not audited the figures below, although we believe them to be reliable. No FirstLight Home Care business closed during the same time period surveyed after being open less than 12 months. FDD Disclosure: “For purposes of the charts below, Net Revenue means that revenue for the calendar year 2017, on which a franchisee pays royalty fees (which is referred to as Gross Revenue in the Franchise Agreement).
This is the total amount of money the franchisee and its owners receive for all goods and services rendered in connection with the Marks, and all other income of any kind derived directly or indirectly in connection with the operation of the Item 19 Business. The term “Hours Per Week” in the charts below refers to the number of hours provided to (and billed to) clients each week.
