Wisconsin

Aaron Bakken brings 25 years of real-world entrepreneurial experience to franchise buyers who want guidance grounded in reality—not theory. Over the course of his career, he has owned 13 companies, including 7 franchise businesses, and spent five years as the Vice President of Franchise Development for a national family entertainment brand. He has built, scaled, acquired, turned around, and exited businesses across multiple sectors, giving him unusually broad visibility into what makes a franchise succeed—or fail.

His first company earned a spot on San Francisco’s Fastest Growing Companies List three years in a row, and he has experienced both successful exits and the hard-earned lessons that come from ventures that didn’t go as planned. Aaron’s consulting approach is shaped by those experiences: he helps clients build grounded expectations, avoid common pitfalls, and make decisions based on data, operational realities, and alignment with their personal strengths.

With deep expertise in family entertainment, recreation, spas, boutique hotels, resorts, travel and tourism, food and beverage, and environmental products and services, Aaron understands how different business models perform under real operational pressures. His background in P&L management, revenue growth strategy, and operational optimization enables him to quickly assess how a franchise aligns with a client’s goals, risk tolerance, financial profile, and lifestyle needs.

Above all, Aaron believes franchise buyers deserve guidance from someone who has been there—who has signed the leases, hired the staff, managed the crises, celebrated the wins, and recovered from the losses. His mission is to help clients select franchises where they can thrive, build equity, and avoid preventable missteps.