hen today's guests set out to buy a business, they first systematically developed a thesis.

Both with private equity backgrounds, brothers Tyler and Zach Gordon combed through lists of industries, looking for ones with great fundamentals but not yet on Private Equity's radar.

The process led them to a franchise system of thrift stores.

At first Tyler & Zach thought they'd be franchisees, buying a platform of existing units and building from there.

But the subject of today's interview is how our heroes ended up buying not units in the system, but the system itself.

So this is a story, our first, of buying a franchisor, a system with about 200 thrift stores that collectively generated about $200m in sales when Tyler and Zach bought it.

In Acquiring Minds interviews with entrepreneurs who've acquired franchises, we've talked about how to evaluate a franchise system, and of course the franchisor is a key consideration.

What is its value proposition? What are you getting in exchange for those licensing fees? What is the franchisor's relationship to its franchisees?

Well today you'll learn to think about these questions from the perspective of the franchisor.

And this should help if you are interested in buying franchise resales — or, after hearing Tyler and Zach's story, maybe the whole dang system.

You're also going to learn a lot about the thrift industry. It will probably surprise you, as it did the Gordon brothers.

And here they are, Tyler Gordon and Zach Gordon, co-CEOs of BaseCamp Franchising.