When people think about business ownership, they usually focus on money, time, and risk. What almost no one thinks about early is how isolating it can feel.

Not lonely in a dramatic way, just quiet. You’re making the calls. Decisions stack up. Questions pop up when no one else is around. You start wondering if what you’re feeling is normal, if you're doing things right, or if everyone else somehow knows something you don’t.

The isolation in business ownership surprises a lot of people. I see versions of this all the time. I caught up with one of my candidates severals months after she launched her business. Let’s call her Sarah.

Sarah was capable, thoughtful, she didn’t rush into ownership but she also didn’t expect it to be easy. She’d spent years being the person others leaned on, so she assumed she’d handle the pressure just fine. And she mostly did.

But a few months in, something felt heavier than she expected. Not regret, just the weight of carrying every decision on her own. Friends and family listened, but they didn’t really get it. They weren’t running this business. They didn’t know the systems or the tradeoffs. That’s when doubt started to creep in, not because she was failing, but because she felt alone in it.

Sarah had invested in a franchise, so support from the corporate team was there. Training helped, resources helped but what changed things was when she started connecting with other franchisees. People running the same business in different markets. Same systems. Same challenges.

They weren’t competitors. They were just doing the same work and facing th same challenges Sarah was.

She asked a question she’d been sitting on for weeks and got honest answers quickly. Not polished advice. Real responses. Someone shared a mistake they’d made early on. Someone else talked through what worked. Another simply said, yeah, that part is hard at first.

That moment mattered. Nothing dramatic shifted and the work didn’t disappear. But she felt steadier. When a tough week came up, she knew who to reach out to. When doubt showed up, it didn’t spiral the same way because she had a community of people she could lean on for support. Sarah felt relief and gratitude that she no longer felt so alone in her journey. She realized she had a team of people she could reach out to for help, suggestions and ideas... similar how she used to reach out to trusted colleagues for help or thought partnership in her previous roles before leaving corporate.

If you’re considering business ownership, especially for the first time, community deserves more weight than it usually gets. Not as a bonus, but as part of how you evaluate your options. When you're engaging a franchise in the discovery process ask them what they put in place to connect franchisees with each other and to build a community between the franchise owners. When you do validation calls with their current franchisee's ask them questions around how easy it is to reach out to other franchisees in that franchise system to ask for advice or feedback on ideas. Answers to these questions will tell you a lot about that franchisors success in helping owners reduce the risk of feeling alone and isolated in business ownership.

You can be independent and still want support. You can be capable and still want a sounding board. Wanting people who understand your day to day doesn’t mean you’re unsure. It means you’re realistic. Ownership doesn’t have to mean isolation. A lot of people quietly wonder if they’re cut out for doing this alone, even if they don’t say it out loud. If that thought has crossed your mind, you’re not the only one.

Community won’t solve everything, but it can change how the experience feels. And for many people, that difference matters more than they expect.

If you're thinking of exploring business ownership through franchising feel free to book an intro call with me here.