Written for the leaders, owners and professionals of the 11 million businesses with between $50,000 and $50 million in revenue.

We are a polarized nation, a land of divisions and rancor, so it will take bold new ideas to bring everybody to the table and rediscover shared tastes — for example, by eating at IHOP and Applebee’s at the very same time.

Dine Brands, which owns both chains, will combine them under one roof to draw customers back. (Applebee’s Q3 sales were down by 6% and IHOP’s by 2%.) The first amalgamation eatery in the U.S. will appear near San Antonio, Texas, in early 2025. In fact, Dine Brands has already tested the experiment internationally and seen up to double the revenue.

Just imagine the cross-regional appeal of New York Cheesecake Pancakes slathered in Bourbon Street Chicken & Shrimp, then check out our guide to 5 Reasons Your Business Should Have Strategic Partnerships.

StretchLab: Fitness franchise has flexible model

Philyra: AI goes scent-ient, designing perfume

Kmart: Where did the superstore go wrong?

(Source: StretchLab)

Building a company from the ground up is a difficult process. Forging a new market can especially be a stretch.

StretchLab, which has grown to 900-plus global locations since opening in Los Angeles in 2015, specializes in “assisted stretching.” Unlike yoga studios, StretchLab appointments are all one-on-one; unlike physical therapy clinics, it’s for general nonprescription wellness.

StretchLab president Verdine Baker told b. how its franchise model and use of digital advertising helped to grow the company.

b: What got you interested in working with StretchLab?

Baker: I played soccer in high school and in college, and certainly had been stretched by athletic trainers and professionals. So it was just kind of that initial intrigue of, “Oh yeah, I’m familiar with this.” Also knowing that there’s not a whole lot of independent stretching studios around … the world.

b: How did your background at Crunch Fitness serve you in this role?

Baker: A lot of the skill sets and … systems that I’ve learned or implemented “big box,” I’ve brought over to that boutique fitness setting. Not all of them work [for both], right? But a lot of the community-building tools, building a member base, building engagement — those things translate across whether you need 5,000 members or you need 300 people. …

What’s unique for us as a brand — and, really, as a vertical — is that it is something that’s new. … [It] needs to be an education process that comes along with our branding and marketing message. … You have to have people achieving real results … to validate it.

b: Why do you think the franchise model works for StretchLab?

Baker: It’s that nice in-between. The true entrepreneur … get[s] to make all the rules, but you also assume all the liabilities, right? On the other side of the spectrum, as an employee, you don’t have any liabilities but you don’t get to make any other rules or dictate your environment. 

Franchising, in general, meets that world in-between where you … bring that entrepreneurial mindset — because you have to execute, you have to do what you need to do as a business owner — but you’re not spawning everything from yourself. You have systems and processes.

b: To what degree does location determine a franchise’s success? 

Baker: It’s a factor, but I don’t think it’s the only determinant factor. We have studios not in the most prime locations that outperform studios that are in the most prime locations. … We welcome other health and wellness modalities that could be our neighbors for some cross-pollination and partnerships — and also [for] the eyeballs that are getting into our studios. We find that most of our members are also doing something else.

b: If a franchisee needs to prioritize physical advertising versus digital advertising, how important is each for getting discovered?

Baker: We have to do both. Our franchisees are required to spend on [their own] digital advertising in addition to the digital advertising that we do on the national level. However, digital advertising only works as good as your organic efforts are going to be. … We’re looking at total leads, and then we’re looking at their mix between digital and organic. That helps us guide our support to those studios and how to improve on those different channels.

This interview has been edited for length. Read the full Q&A at business.com.

Restaurants have unique point-of-sale (POS) needs, from turning tables quickly to connecting front and back of house. Restaurateurs also need powerful reporting capabilities to help them manage inventory, reduce waste and analyze sales to make strategic menu changes.

Enter Toast, a powerful POS system designed specifically for restaurants, cafes, bars, food trucks, and food-service businesses of all kinds. Waitstaff can navigate Toast’s user-friendly software easily on the dining room floor, and itsstress-tested hardware can stand up to high heat and spills in a kitchen environment.

New restaurant on a budget? No problem! Toast offers a Starter Kit that includes one hardware terminal at no cost and no interest, so you can get started now and pay later. See why more than 112,000 restaurants trust Toast with everything from POS to payroll.

(Source: Shutterstock)

We can see AI artwork. We can hear AI music. And now we can even smell AI creations.

Devising the next Acqua di Giò might seem like a uniquely human endeavor — because computers don’t have noses. However, Philyra, developed in partnership with IBM and Symrise, uses machine learning to imagine and optimize pleasant scents.

Drawing from a massive library of “3.5 million legacy formulas and … 2,000 raw materials in 20 dimensions,” Philyra’s synthetic snout can suggest ingredient tweaks and even analyze consumer and geographic data (like which neighborhoods prefer Le Labo over Byrdie) to determine the target demo.

Meanwhile, Osmo — founded by a Google research scientist with a doctorate in olfactory neuroscience from Harvard — already has $60 million in funding to formulate your next morning spritz. That should be enough to hire an A-list movie star for the ad campaign … or deepfake them, anyway.

(Source: Shutterstock)

After nearly a century in business and 2,000 major store closures, the last Kmart — located in Bridgehampton, New York — ceased operations on October 20.

While younger generations might scratch their heads at why older people are making such a big deal about this, Kmart (which predated Walmart) was a retail behemoth in its ’90s heyday. It represented simpler times when walking through a store — as opposed to browsing online — was a central part of many families’ shopping routines. Whereas Target and Walmart learned to compete with Amazon, Kmart’s failure to innovate alongside e-commerce rivals led to its eventual end. 

Whether you hear it referenced in an Eminem song (like, three of them) or your next watch of Rain Man, Kmart’s impact will live on in our cultural fabric and in the sweet memories of hunting for Blue Light Special deals.

Written by Tess Barker, Steven Blum, and Ali Saleh.