My Three Cats

My Three Cats started with a specific customer need. Cat owners wanted someone they trusted to maintain their cat’s routine at home while they were away. The business developed that service in Warrington before offering it to other operators. My Three Cats says Warrington sales grew from £20,000 to more than £100,000 over four years. That is evidence of customer demand and turnover at the original hub. The published figures do not establish how much of that turnover became profit.

Preston and South Ribble provides an early example of the model attracting customers outside Warrington. Andrea Hardman reported 40 clients and nearly 70 cats on the books within five months of opening. That is encouraging for a repeat-visit service. Its financial performance will depend on how often those customers book, the price and length of visits, and how much travel the operator needs between them. The franchise enquiry form also asks applicants how they will cover their living costs while building a client base.

• Proven and profitable core model · 2.5/5. Warrington has an established customer base and reported six-figure sales. Multiple franchised areas are trading. The public figures substantiate demand and revenue, with limited visibility of profit.
• Ability to operate without daily founder involvement · 5/5. Eloise Wright manages the Warrington sitters, clients and enquiries, giving Wendy Thomson Melling time to run the franchise business. Local franchise partners operate their own service territories.
• Ideal franchisee profile · 3/3. The offer specifies practical experience with cats and a willingness to work independently. Its first operators show how a veterinary nurse, retail manager, former customer or family team can apply their experience to the model.
• Realistic franchisee earning potential · 2/4. Published customer prices, early client acquisition and the lack of a retail premises requirement support a route to revenue. Franchise fees, operating margins and owner earnings remain unverified.
• Market differentiation · 3/3. Feline-only care, visits at home, a meet-and-greet and updates during the booking give customers a clear reason to choose the service.

My Three Cats has made the customer experience repeatable across territories. The Warrington and Bury service pages describe a consistent process for meeting a new client, collecting care information, agreeing secure access and recording emergency and veterinary contacts. Those details are central to the offer. A customer is trusting a sitter with their cat and access to their home, so the quality of the service depends on how consistently each territory follows those procedures.

The Sidcup and Orpington case adds detail about what a new partner receives. It describes specialist feline training, booking software, GPS-tracked updates and secure client communication. EWiF confirms a structured launch and ongoing support. There is less public detail about the complete internal operations manual or how much of a new territory launch the central team can deliver without the founder’s direct involvement.

• Documented operating playbook · 2.5/5. Published service procedures, customer terms and working booking systems show that important parts of the operation are documented. The complete franchisee operations manual and its coverage could not be verified.
• Structured onboarding and training · 4/4. EWiF describes a structured launch, and the Sidcup case gives specific examples of feline behaviour, anatomy and first-aid training alongside the operating systems.
• Consistent delivery of the brand experience · 4/4. The same intake, access, care and communication principles appear in local customer material. The brand’s vetting, training and insurance standards give customers a consistent basis for choosing a sitter.
• Central access to operating systems · 3/3. The published franchise case describes shared software for bookings, GPS-tracked visit updates and secure customer communication. Those are the core tools a mobile operator needs to deliver and record the service.
• Launch without constant founder support · 2/4. The Warrington team and structured training support new operators, and several local owners have launched. The evidence establishes practical support, while the degree of founder involvement in each launch remains unclear.

My Three Cats explains the opportunity in terms a candidate can act on. The prospect can see what the service involves, what they would operate locally and the kind of experience the brand looks for. The offer speaks to people considering a career change or more flexible work. It gives them examples of owners who have made the move, including Lucy Ellis in Sidcup and Orpington and Andrea Hardman in Preston and South Ribble.

The recruitment page offers a brochure and discovery call. The brochure form asks about location, timing, funding and income during the start-up period, giving the team information to qualify the enquiry before progressing. The public launch also reached the right audience. The first partner heard the founder speak at The Cat Show Live, and the brand returned the following year with its five franchise partners.

• Clear franchise proposition · 5/5. A candidate can understand the specialist local business they would run, the protected territory and the training, systems and support available.
• Messaging for the right candidates · 4/4. The offer addresses people with practical cat experience who want to work independently and build a local business. The operator stories show what the transition can look like.
• Clear enquiry journey · 4/4. The franchise page gives candidates two clear entry points through the brochure and a discovery call. Territory and funding questions help move the discussion from general interest to a specific opportunity.
• Discovery before acceptance · 4/4. The detailed initial form, discovery call and territory mapping give the brand a basis for assessing the applicant and local opportunity. Trade reporting on Blackpool also identifies relevant care and fostering experience as part of the selection.
• Go-to-market plan · 3/3. The launch combined a specialist industry event, the Cats Deserve More campaign and direct candidate conversations. The brand returned to the same event with franchisees and continued recruitment through its own site and case studies.

My Three Cats expanded from the Warrington hub into five franchised territories in its first year. The founder reported signing three franchisees within six months of the public launch. The first cohort includes neighbouring North West markets and a South East territory. Wendy Thomson Melling has also described deliberately giving the first cohort time to establish itself before adding more owners. The brand subsequently invited applications for a second intake.

The evidence establishes that the franchise can recruit and open territories. A smaller first cohort also gives the central team time to see what changes once an operator begins serving customers. The recruitment question is how reliably that process can be repeated. The public record gives an identifiable source for the first franchisee, but does not show qualified monthly enquiries, candidate quality by channel or conversion from enquiry to agreement.

• Consistent monthly franchise enquiries · 0/5. Event interest and signed partners are documented. There is no published monthly enquiry series across the UK recruitment channels.
• Enquiry sources and lead quality tracking · 2/4. The founder links the initial enquiry forms and first franchise agreement to The Cat Show Live. That gives a documented source-to-outcome example, with no published evidence of systematic quality comparison across channels.
• Enquiry-to-franchisee conversion tracking · 0/4. Three early signings and five first-year franchise partners are reported. A corresponding enquiry denominator or conversion report is unpublished.
• Clear plan for expansion locations · 1.5/3. My Three Cats describes mapping territories with local data and sequencing the next intake. Priority markets and the order in which the brand intends to enter them are unpublished.
• Recruitment beyond the founder · 2/4. The live enquiry form, discovery booking route and support team make recruitment accessible beyond personal referrals. Public reporting still places Wendy Thomson Melling at the centre of recruitment and expansion decisions.

Local visibility matters because cat owners are choosing both a service and a person they will trust inside their home. Blackpool and Bury have dedicated branded sites. Preston has a published local web address and social channels, and Sidcup and Orpington has a local Nextdoor listing alongside the brand’s operator case study. South Wigan has local coverage identifying the operator and the service area. The evidence is strongest where a customer can move directly from finding a local operator to making an enquiry.

My Three Cats describes supporting Lucy Ellis with local search and digital marketing. The original Warrington business identifies Google reviews and word of mouth as sources of growth, while Preston’s early client numbers show demand developing under a new owner. The public record has less detail on what happens after a local enquiry comes in, particularly how consistently individual territories measure conversion, repeat bookings and acquisition by source.

• Local customer enquiry support · 5/5. Local search and digital marketing support are described in a franchise case. Branded territory sites and local press coverage give operators practical routes to reach cat owners.
• Local online presence · 2/4. Several operators have distinct online customer entry points. A dedicated, maintained customer page or profile could not be independently verified for every territory.
• Local marketing plan after launch · 2/4. Local search, social channels, community events and press are visible in practice. The public evidence does not establish a common post-launch plan with a timetable and responsibilities for every operator.
• Location-level enquiry and performance tracking · 1.5/3. The Bury enquiry form asks where customers heard about the business. Booking software and published local client figures support partial credit, while a consistent territory-level view of enquiries and conversions is unpublished.
• Customers beyond personal relationships · 4/4. Local web enquiries, reviews, community visibility and local press give operators routes to cat owners outside their own networks. Preston’s reported client base shows a new territory attracting demand within its first months.