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Nova for Franchises — Sell the System, Not Just the Manual
For franchise owners & franchisors

Sell the system.
Not just the manual.

Stop handing franchisees a static document and hoping for the best. Give them a living system that guides their teams, adapts to reality, and ensures your brand promise scales with every new location.

30-minute call, no slide deck  ·  Free plan available  ·  200+ teams over 8 years

Built for franchises whose service is delivered by people Healthcare & clinics Psychology & mental health Education & tutoring Fitness & wellness Professional services Childcare & early years Home & property services
Nova · Recurring processes
Process Department Cadence Collaboration
Client Onboarding → HandoffDevelopment · OpeningsPer unitDSAssignees View process
HiringHR · ManagementOn hookJEMCross-functional View process
Team OnboardingHR · ManagementOn hookDSAssignees View process
Weekly habitsEvery teamWeeklyJAMCross-functional
Client Onboarding → HandoffDS
Development · OpeningsPer unit
Assignees View
HiringJEM
HR · ManagementOn hook
Cross-functional View
Team OnboardingDS
HR · ManagementOn hook
Assignees View
Weekly habitsJAM
Every teamWeekly
Cross-functional

Teams running on Nova

70%
Faster new hire onboarding

New team members learn your way of working inside the work itself, instead of from a manual they read once.

3x
Faster location rollout

Every function runs the opening inside one process, so a new location gets live without the usual back and forth.

90%
Process consistency across locations

The same process runs everywhere, so quality doesn't depend on who happens to be on shift that day.

50%
Less time on coordination

Chasing, status-checking and re-explaining stop being the job. That time goes back into the business.

Meet Nova AI: Your 24/7 Head of Franchise Operations

AI is everywhere in your network — but only in individual tabs. Everyone has ChatGPT open, each person is a bit faster, and the network isn't. Individual AI doesn't compound into company AI on its own.

Nova is the operating layer where it does. It coordinates head office, your field team, your franchisees and your AI coworkers — setting the processes and the rails that guide execution across development, openings, training and standards. Describe what needs to happen and Nova AI drafts the whole process in seconds: every step, every owner, every deadline. Then your team shapes it as the work teaches them something new.

Here's what it actually does:

Hi, I’m Nova AI

Training and onboarding that sticks

Standardise how new team members learn your methodology. Every new hire at every location gets the same training experience — embedded in the actual work, not separate from it.

Process implementation across locations

Your proven processes become living templates every location follows. No reinventing the wheel at each new opening. Update once, deploy everywhere.

Brand and know-how transfer

Your brand standards and your expertise get transferred and maintained across every opening. The know-how that makes the business work, protected and replicated consistently.

Keeps a log of every decision

What head office approved, what the franchisee agreed, by whom and when. When an exception resurfaces two years later, you open the log instead of arguing from memory.

Quality consistency at every location

The same quality and customer experience wherever someone walks in. Your reputation grows with every new location instead of being diluted by it.

1x 8x

Team capacity growth

Build and grow teams across locations without losing control. Serve more customers at the same level of excellence. Scale your people, not your problems.

Visibility across locations

See what's happening across every location in real time. Track progress, spot issues early, and celebrate wins together. No more waiting for monthly reports.

Stop being the escalation path

Approval gates sit where the risk is — brand standards, spend, anything with your name over the door. The rest moves without you.

How Nova makes every opening predictable.

The process gets built here — and run here, with the franchisee in it.

This is what you get

A unit opening — live, on one canvas.

The same process holds your team, your franchisee and Nova AI. Tab through what head office and the franchisee each see.

Nova · Northgate 214 — Onboarding to opening
Pinned Meetings & rituals
Active
Progress tracking
Every 3 mo · day 28
Active
Opening retro
Monthly · day 11
Active
Franchisee pulse (survey)
Every 3 mo · day 24
Step 01 Franchisee discovery
1Work sessions
Active
Franchisee questionnaire
Aug 26 · Franchisee
Due this week
Brand & market review
Aug 28 · 1d
Due this week
Competitor scan
Aug 28 · 2d
Step 02 ✍️ Team & approach
2Work sessions
Active
Team discussion
Approach & team
Not started
Ways of working
Comms & cadence
Not started
Creative direction
7Ps Marketing Mix
Step 03 Plan & approval
3Work sessions
Not started
Build & produce
Custom
Not started
Franchisee approval
Scope & budget
Not started
Timeline & owners
Whiteboard
Step 04 🧩 Deliver
4Work sessions
Not started
Session / Task
Not started
Session / Task
Not started
Session / Task
42%
+
Log an update
Win  ·  Conclusion  ·  Deliverable  ·  Blocker  ·  Date  ·  Note  ·  Critical
TypeUpdateDateWhereWho
Conclusion In the retrospective the team agreed to enforce a feature freeze three weeks prior to launch and build a permanent QA device lab to eliminate hardware dependencies on future releases. Aug 28, 6:44 PM Team retro EEmma
Conclusion SWOT synthesis: strong 1.2M daily active user base and low battery consumption, offset by a 14% onboarding drop-off. Live-ops seasonal events are the biggest growth opportunity. Aug 28, 6:43 PM SWOT Analysis EEmma
Marketing initiative
People & ownership
Work itemLeadsCollaborators
Competitor scan Due this week
Aug 28 – Aug 30
EEmma MMaria (Marketing…) AAna (PM)
SWOT Analysis Due this week
Aug 28 – Aug 29
EEmma DDavid (Strategy) AAna (PM)
Audience & Value Active
Start: Aug 26
EEmma MMaria Nova AIAI + Add
The Offer Active
Start: Aug 26
+ Add lead DDavid (Strategy) Nova AIAI
Ritual / HabitAssigneesCompletionWhen
Progress tracking: Execution rhythm M D 1 session
Every 3 months on day 28
Next: Aug 28, 2026
Opening retro M A 2 sessions
Monthly on day 11
Next: Sep 11, 2026
Franchisee pulse (survey) E M A 2 sessions
Every 3 months on day 24
Next: Nov 24, 2026
2 ✨ Highlight key features & differentiators — standout capabilities and functional details.

Indicate the 3–5 most compelling features that set this product apart from alternatives. List each on a separate sticky note and vote 👍 on the most impactful ones.

Mark complete for me Mark closed for all
5 answers
RRo
Add a note…
Nova AI
Sub-15-min multi-appliance cooking — consistent texture across air fryers, ovens, stovetops. View more
DDavid
This is the wow factor for us. Lead with it in the deck — no competitor is even close.
Nova AI
Fermented umami base — proprietary formulation delivering rich savory depth, juicy bite. View more
SSarah
Price parity is the one that removes the biggest reason people don't try plant-based. Huge.
Nova AI
Clean-label high-density protein — complete satiety, minimal ingredients. View more
Nova AI
Cross-cuisine versatility — flexible centerpiece across diverse recipes. View more
Session · 3 of 5
🚀 Plan your next 30 days for the launch

Now that you've laid the foundation, define your plan for the next 30 days. 🥇 Which actions would you implement first?

TaskAssignedDue
Clarify your positioning 🎯
MMaria Sep 2
📣 Share personal founder story to build trust
+ Add End date…
👥 Define your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
DDavid Sep 8
✍️ Collect early testimonials & reviews
+ Add End date…
🌐 Prepare a killer landing page
AAna Sep 12
💌 Build a launch email list
+ Add End date…
Quarterly Plan · 90-Day Goals
90-Day Plan
Quarterly Theme / Focus
One phrase that captures the quarter's push.
Critical Number · The #1 Metric
The single measure that matters most this quarter.
Quarterly Rocks 3–6 Priorities
Priority (What)KPI / MeasurableWho (Accountable)
1e.g. Launch self-serve onboarding80% of new users activateA. Rivera
2   
3   
1 The project is well organised, responsibilities are clear and I have what I need to do my best work.
👉 1 - Strongly disagree to Strongly agree - 5  |  Category: Clarity
1
2
13
104
45
View participant scores (25)
2 I feel productive, motivated and I have enough time and resources to deliver things on time.
👉 1 - Strongly disagree to Strongly agree - 5  |  Category: Time management
1
32
63
84
35
View participant scores (25)
Competitive Analysis · Whiteboard
Branding
Tone, tag lines, site
Playful, direct copy · lots of green
Emoji-heavy · founder-led
Corporate blue · tag: "operations, simplified"
Value Prop
How they solve the pain
"Do less to get more" — automation-first👍
All-in-one dashboards
AI copilots (still vague)
Content
Blog, PR, social, YT
Weekly newsletter · 15k subs
LinkedIn thought leadership
Price
& promotions
$99 / seat / mo
Free tier · 3 users👍
Annual: 20% off
Aa

Brand & market review

Internal
External
Helpful
Harmful

Strengths

Internal advantages you can build on.

Weaknesses

Internal gaps to improve or protect.

Opportunities

External openings you can capture.

Threats

External risks to prepare for.

1 🏢 Tell us about your company — what you do, who you serve, and where you want to be in 12 months.

Describe the business in your own words, so the whole team works from the same picture: who they are, what they're trying to get done, and what usually gets in their way.

E
start typing…
B I Aa Normal Save
2 👥 Who is on your side of the opening — who decides, who reviews, and who we should never have to chase?
E
start typing…
B I Aa Normal Save
3 💬 How do you prefer to work with head office — meetings, async reviews, or a mix?

Tell us your preferred rhythm and channels, and we will set the process around it: Our [company] helps [what we do] who want [who we serve] by offering [where we want to be].

1 🎯 What does success look like for this unit in 90 days?

Name the single outcome that would make this project worth it — in their language, focused on their desires and pain points, not your features. Use the frame: [your team] + [reach the outcome][without the usual friction].

E
start typing…
B I Aa Normal Save
2 ⚠️ What has gone wrong at other openings before? Tell us what to avoid.
E
Add a note…
1 📊 Check unit status

Select the option that best describes where this unit stands right now.

Add a note…
2 🎯 Detail priorities & deliverablesEmma (PM)

Based on the status you selected, clearly articulate your top 1–3 priorities for the upcoming period.

taskassigneddueremove all
Requirements gathering and proposal
E Aug 31, 2026
Market evaluation and pricing considerations
M Aug 31, 2026
Choose a design solution (create mockups and gather feedback)
D Aug 30, 2026
Risks, cost, opportunity analysis (design perspective)
Share proposal for approval (get approval)
1 ❤️😌 What went well?

What should we continue doing because it's currently working well? What practices are contributing to progress, keeping the team motivated, and moving in the right direction? 👇 Add one suggestion per sticky note.

2 answers
E Emma
Add a note…
M Maria (Marketing lead)
Our team was working really well together.
❤️ 2 +
A Ana (PM)
We have less meetings and we are now working async a lot more. I feel like I can get a lot more done and think about the strategy much better.
View more
🔥 1 +
2 👎🥺 What didn't go well?

What slowed us down, blocked progress, or drained energy? Name the friction points so we can fix them.

1Living processes

Every unit runs on your best process. Not on whoever opened it.

Who does what, by when, and where the franchisee comes in. Improve it once and the next unit opens on the better version.

2Ownership

Nothing lands on your desk because nobody knew it was theirs.

Every session, submission and sign-off has a lead and a next step. Your team moves without asking, and franchisees hit their dates because their part has one.

3Async meetings

Get 20–60% of your calendar back.

Your team and your franchisees review, confirm and sign off async. The calls that survive are the ones worth having — the rest goes back to running the units.

4Cross-department

What the franchisee signed up for is what they actually get.

Every handoff between development, construction, training and field ops is a step with an owner and a date. No more discovering the gap two weeks before opening and absorbing it.

5Franchisee sign-offs & decisions

Stop chasing units. Stop repeating yourself in six channels.

Franchisees confirm from their own branded agenda, on their own time. Every decision is logged with a name and a date — so when an exception gets reopened next year, you point at the record instead of relitigating it.

6Onboarding & ramp

Your fiftieth unit opens as well as your fifth.

Day one a new hire runs the same process everyone else does, instead of shadowing your best operator for a quarter. Up to speed 40–80% faster, at the same standard.

7AI as a teammate

Add capacity without adding head office.

Nova AI holds real steps: local market scans, the first draft of an opening plan, the prep before a decision. No prompting — it works from what the team already decided, then hands off to whoever is next.

8Rhythms & cadences

The discipline holds without you enforcing it.

Field visits, business reviews, P&L check-ins and advisory council meetings just happen, on schedule. No one has to remember to book them.

Run the network, not the units.
Here's what actually changes.

When the process carries the coordination your leadership team does by hand, the ordinary week looks different.

Without Nova Area With Nova
What the franchisee was promised and what the opening plan says are two different documents. The field team finds out in week three.
Clarity
The handoff is a step with an owner and a date. Scope, decisions and constraints travel with it.
"I thought your team was handling that." Ownership assumed, never confirmed.
Accountability
Every session, deliverable and approval has a lead, and every collaborator knows their part. No chasing. No guessing.
"Head office told us we could." Nobody can prove otherwise, so the exception quietly becomes precedent.
Decisions
Every decision logged with context, owner and date — franchisee-side and internal. It holds, and it survives their staff turnover.
Chasing the unit by email, then by phone, then by texting whoever answers. Nine days lost, deadline unmoved.
Approvals
The franchisee opens their branded agenda and confirms async, with a visible due date. Your gates sit where the risk is.
Development, construction, training and marketing each guard their own view of the opening. Misalignment shows up too late to fix cheaply.
Silos
Cross-department work is structured and visible end to end. Less duplication, fewer surprises in week eleven.
AI is something individuals use in a browser tab. None of it accumulates into how the network works.
AI
Nova AI holds steps inside the process, works from the team's decisions, and hands off when done.
Everything escalates to head office. Your field team does admin in the hours meant for coaching unit performance.
Autonomy
The team moves inside clear boundaries, and you get back the work only you can do.
Every wave of new units needs another head-office hire. Revenue grows, margin flattens.
Margin
The process does the coordinating, so volume grows faster than headcount does.
Your operations manual lives in a beautiful PDF. The fiftieth unit still learns by shadowing whoever is free that week.
Culture
The process is the thing the network runs — repeated, structured, and the same in the fiftieth unit as in the first.

What happens when head office stops being the escalation path

"We went from being stuck — with me having to be everywhere and overworking — to I'm working part-time and we opened a new office. What Nova gave me is time back to think, to grow, to achieve."

Alejandra, Co-founder & COO
Creixent

"It made my team proactive. They could start a project, move to next steps, and not wait for me. We also use it to gather feedback from clients async — it's helped us move things faster and given the team confidence to take ownership and initiative."

Derek
Principal / Head of Electrification

See what this looks like on one of your openings.

A 30-minute call with one of our operators. We find where your team is losing the most time coordinating, and show you exactly how Nova closes it — no slide deck.

Questions, answered.

Nova is where the work between head office and the field actually happens. It holds the processes your network runs on — how a unit goes from signature to opening day, how a decision gets made and who gets to make it, how a rollout reaches every location and comes back confirmed — plus the rituals that keep those processes breathing.

Three things make it work. AI drafts the first version in seconds, so nobody has to sit down and document anything. The team shapes it as they go, so it tracks reality instead of going stale in a folder. And everyone the work touches is inside it — the franchisee who confirms, the supplier who delivers a piece, the inspector or landlord whose sign-off gates the next stage.

What Nova is not:

  • Not a task manager. Tasks may exist inside a process, but no project ever slipped because the to-do list was badly sorted. Development tickets stay in Jira.
  • Not a document or wiki tool. Nova has no documents. Deliverables stay where they already live. Nova holds the decisions, inputs and approvals that produce them.
  • Not a meeting tool. It doesn't make meetings better — it removes the reason most of them were scheduled.
  • Not a personal AI assistant. AI in Nova has a role on the team and its work is visible to everyone, not a private tab one person babysits.
  • Not a consulting engagement. No binder, no framework handover. The system keeps running after anyone leaves — including us.

Nova is an AI operating system for franchise networks — an operating layer, not another tool beside the ones you have. Task managers hold what your team produces. Portals hold what head office publishes. Nova holds how your network actually operates: the processes, decisions, handoffs, sign-offs, rituals and habits that turn a signed franchise agreement into an open unit that holds standard.

The part that makes it an operating system rather than a process tool is who runs inside it. Head office, your field team, your franchisees, your suppliers and your AI coworkers all work in the same process, each seeing their own part of it. Most networks keep their existing portal, POS and document tools and add Nova above them.

Your manual tells people what to do. Nova guides them while they do it. But guiding in real time is only part of it.

Nova creates the spaces a team needs to work together: the dependencies between pieces of work, the discussions between team members when something has to be decided, and the team surveys that show how people are actually feeling, so you can set a plan to improve the team's culture and health.

It isn't a document or a checklist. It's where decisions get made, where feedback is given and meetings are had, and where the knowledge and the decisions stay in one place instead of scattering across inboxes and people's heads.

It also connects your team with clients and partners without extra work on your side — client-facing steps and sessions are part of the same process, so bringing someone in doesn't mean building them a separate space.

Yes. Nova supports both standardised processes and local adaptations. You control what's fixed (brand standards, quality requirements) and what's flexible (local schedules, regional variations). This solves the control versus autonomy tension that plagues most franchises.

You can also brand the space with your logo, your website and a short introduction, and control what each franchisee sees in their agenda. Head-office work and franchisee-facing work live in the same process but stay clearly separated — so there are no duplicate copies or parallel folders to keep in step.

Nova fits best where the service is delivered by people rather than by a checklist — knowledge work, professional services, and franchises that want to raise the level of service they give recurring clients.

That distinction matters, because processes in Nova are not only there for compliance or for ticking a list. They guide how teams collaborate, how several experts and departments work on the same case, and how the client is brought straight into the work instead of being updated about it afterwards.

We have franchises in healthcare, psychology and mental health, where a patient sees several different specialists. Every specialist works inside the same process, and the patient has their own visibility into one shared communication session — rather than chasing each professional separately and repeating their story every time.

Beyond that, the industry matters less than the shape of the work: several experts or departments on the same client, a client who has to be inside the work for it to move, and decisions that need to hold months later.

Every other tool gives AI to a person. Nova gives AI a seat in the process — the same kind of seat a colleague has. Five things follow from that:

  • It gets assigned, like anyone else. A role, a scope, the moment it's expected to act, and what it owes when it does. Its turn arrives because the process says it's its turn — not because someone remembered to open a tab.
  • The process is the rail. The process already describes how your network works — the brand standards, the local context, what "done" means here — so nobody re-explains the unit to it every morning.
  • It collaborates in real time. It runs the research nobody had time for, drafts the deliverable, captures what a discussion concluded, pulls the missing input from the right person. Visible to the team, in the moment.
  • Its work carries its name. A document produced by AI shows up as produced by AI. Nobody wonders where it came from, and nobody passes AI output off as their own.
  • A named human owns the final version. The process names who reviews AI's work and who signs it off. That person's version is the one that counts, and the chain is part of the record.

Typical network work: local market scans before a new unit, the first draft of an opening plan, turning a field visit into an action plan, the prep that has to exist before anyone can decide.

It died for two structural reasons, and Nova removes both.

First, one person owned it — usually whoever had the patience — and it was finished the day it was written. In Nova, everyone edits and extends it as the work teaches them something new, so a process is never finished. That's exactly why it never goes stale.

Second, writing it down was a project, and projects nobody enjoys don't get finished. In Nova you say what you're trying to run and AI drafts the process in seconds — the steps, the people, what each owes, and when. The blank page is gone.

And unlike a document, a process in Nova actually runs: it routes the request, asks the right person for the right input, and records what was decided. A page can be read once and forgotten. A process that runs can't be.

Use the OKRs & Cadence process for company and department objectives. It includes a whiteboard that guides your leadership team through the discussion — what you are aiming at, what the key results are, and who owns each one — and then sets the cadence that keeps track of progress, so the objectives don't dissolve thirty days later.

Open the OKRs & Cadence process →

If you work in quarterly priorities or rocks, there's a separate template for that: it turns a quarter's ambition into a handful of priorities, each with a measurable target and one owner, plus the who-what-when list and the meeting rhythm that keep them on track.

Open the Quarterly Rocks template →

Try for free and reach our team to get support to start. Plans start at $25 US per month per team member, with volume discounts for larger franchise networks.

Full pricing is at app.novatools.org/pricing. We also have enterprise packages and support, plus a set of packages that include training, support, and the platform — some of which are available at novatools.org/our-services.

We recommend talking to one of our experts, as we can adapt our packages and support based on your complexity. From fractured systems to siloed teams, we identify what's not working, build operational infrastructure that scales, and lead the execution to make it real. We don't just advise — we implement.

Talk to an expert →

4.3 on G2
4.9 on Google
200+ teams trust Nova

Every quarter you wait, the same openings slip and the same standards drift.
That ends now.

Book a 30-minute call with one of our operators. We map Nova to one cross-functional process you already care about — no rollout, no slide deck — and you keep it whether or not you go further.

30-minute call · No slide deck · Free plan available · No credit card

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