Asian Box vs Papa Murphy's

Asian Box is a trap. Eight units, zero franchised, and an FDD already marked DUE means this brand is either stalled or dying. The AUV looks healthy at nearly $2M, but that’s a single-digit-unit vanity metric, not a scalable TAM. With no franchisees in the system, there’s no buyer pool to sell into—just one corporate entity that likely already has its tech stack locked. The investment range is wide and top-heavy, which further chills franchise sales. You’d be chasing a ghost.

Papa Murphy’s wins on the only dimension that matters right now: TAM. Over a thousand units, 95% franchised, gives you a real, addressable base of independent operators making their own software decisions. The FDD is current, so the brand is actively selling franchises, which means fresh blood entering the system with unformed vendor relationships. Yes, unit growth is negative, and that’s the tradeoff—you’re selling into a mature, possibly contracting network rather than a rocket ship. But contraction creates churn pain, and churn pain sells software. A 5% royalty on a lower AUV still leaves room for back-office and scheduling tools if you price for the segment.

The meaningful tradeoff is terrain. Asian Box’s approved-supplier model is technically open, but with no franchisees, it’s irrelevant. Papa Murphy’s approved-supplier model across 965 doors is a real playing field where you can land and expand. The budget per unit is tighter, but the volume of at-bats more than compensates. You don’t need a whale; you need a school of fish.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s is the only viable target—sell into the churn, ignore the vanity AUV.