Some franchise partnerships are built on paper. This one was built on trust that started five years before the business ever existed.
Connor and Vicki Castleman are a mother-son team, multi-unit Gameday Men's Health franchisees running three locations across Northwest Phoenix. But their story didn't start with a franchise brochure, it started with a Zoom call in the spring of 2020, a canceled internship and a Franchise Fastlane co-founder who unmuted his mic at exactly the right moment.
On this episode of "The Sidekick Life," Ryan and Tyler sat down with Connor and Vicki to unpack how a mother's 12 years in senior care and a son's crash course in franchise development collided into a fast-growing, multi-unit men's health business.
Connor's path to franchise ownership started with a decision most 21-year-olds never have to make: a full-time offer from Gallup, one of the most respected employers in Omaha, versus an internship-turned-job offer from Ryan's company, Franchise Fastlane.
"I heard Fastlane might be considering this. What do you think?" Connor recalls Ryan asking, after Gallup's internship program was paused during COVID.
Ryan's advice stuck with him: take the safe, high-paying route and live a great life on someone else's terms or take less money up front in exchange for proximity to entrepreneurs who could fast-track his own path to ownership.
Connor ended up choosing Fastlane, and looking back, he says it wasn't really a hard call.
"I was already interested in your business, and the rest is history," Connor said.
Vicki's route to entrepreneurship was its own reinvention. At 40, she walked away from a career in credit cards, joking that she wanted to stop "perpetuating world debt," and landed at Home Instead's global headquarters in Omaha. Twelve years later, she and her husband bought their own Home Instead senior care franchise in Sun City, Arizona.
Then selling that business is what opened the door to Gameday. Vicki calls the timing "a divine intervention." While she was mid-due-diligence on the sale of her Home Instead franchise and her old company announced layoffs in the very market she'd come from.
"I just said, I can't do this anymore,” Vicki said. “I think it's a sign. I just got off of this due diligence call, Connor, let's go do Gameday if we can.”
Connor had been pitching his parents on franchise concepts for years. Everything from window cleaning to flooring, but Gameday Men's Health was different. As a lifelong athlete with a personal interest in health and wellness, he connected with the model immediately. What sealed it was the demand he was seeing from the inside at Fastlane.
"I'm not the smartest person in the room, but there's other smart people in the room who are intrigued by this business model," Connor said. "And that tells me that there could be an opportunity here."
For Vicki, the pull was personal. With a husband on testosterone therapy and two adult sons of her own, she saw firsthand how often men deprioritize their own health.
"I'm surrounded by men every day in my own personal life,” Vicki said. “There really is a story here that I could kind of see in my own house that was just going to get multiplied over and over.”
Vicki had already run a business with a spouse, and she knew she didn't want to recreate that dynamic. Going into Gameday, she and her husband were intentional, he'd stay involved as an owner but firmly in the background, while she led day-to-day operations.
"I knew from our time at Home Instead I needed to feel like I can be a leader there because that's my strength, and I can't really be held back," Vicki said.
Bringing Connor in, she added, felt different in the best way, a partner who brought fresh energy, technology skills and entrepreneurial instinct without the friction she'd experienced before. ANd that intentionality was tested early. The Castlemans initially brought in a third, outside partner with a medical background, believing it would strengthen the business. By October 2024, they'd parted ways.
"We kind of misunderstood or misrepresented that in our planning ... it turns out we really didn't benefit from that knowledge like we needed," Vicki said.
A reminder that not every partnership, even a well-intentioned one, is the right fit.
The Castlemans didn't ease into multi-unit ownership. Location one opened in Northwest Phoenix in May 2024. Location two followed just four months later when a lease opportunity presented itself sooner than expected.
The model came with real overhead. Between an initial consultation, lab work and a provider conversation, a single new patient visit takes at least an hour, which puts a hard ceiling on how fast revenue can ramp.
"Our goal was just how can we do the right thing every single day for like a thousand days straight until we built up enough momentum to cover our expenses," Connor said.
That patience was tested. Vicki admits the slower-than-expected climb to profitability frustrated her, even with a successful track record behind her.
"I was like, is it something I'm doing wrong,” Vicki said. “Why can't I get this business model to work for me?"
It was Connor, she says, who kept the team focused on the fundamentals: add roughly 25 new patients a month, every month, and let the math compound. Two years in, both locations are profitable, running roughly 400 and 380 active patients respectively, and the two clinics now push each other to outperform month over month.
For a clinical business, staffing stability isn't a nice-to-have, it's existential. Lose a licensed provider and the doors effectively close until the role is refilled. Vicki's original clinician and both of her first medical assistants are still with the company today.
"I don't think you can ever do too much for your people,” Vicki said. “I don't think you can underestimate the power of caring about them.”
She credits her 12 years in senior care for embedding that philosophy long before Gameday. That same care extends to patients. Vicki says the emotional payoff of men's health work surprised her.
"They stick their head in my office,” Vicki said. “I just think it's so cool ... we just have built this great rapport with our customer base, which is so fun.”
Part of what's made the ramp-up manageable is the built-in community of other Gameday owners in the Phoenix market. The Castlemans recently hosted a local owners meeting to keep that camaraderie going.
"We all have a mutual respect and work relatively well together …” Vicki said. “That inner circle of just being in Phoenix has been super helpful to us because we can rely on our neighbor to help us answer questions."
When asked what they'd tell their younger selves, Connor and Vicki landed in nearly the same place: don't rush the learning and don't underestimate relationships.
"I made probably 500 or 600 phone calls a month and spoke with a variety of different business owners,” Connor said. “The amount of stuff I learned from other educated people has really helped me in my career today."
"Relationship before task," Vicki said describing the philosophy she's carried across two very different franchise brands. "I don't think you can ever go wrong if you do that."
It's proof that the fundamentals of building a business, patience, people and proximity to those who've already done it, travel with you no matter which brand is on the sign.
If Connor and Vicki's story has you thinking about what a family business, or your next chapter in franchise ownership, could look like, we've got what you're looking for.
"The Sidekick Life" is packed with conversations just like this one, real talk, expert guests and practical insights for entrepreneurs at every stage of the journey.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and stream new episodes every other week on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and never miss the conversation that might just change everything.