Surv

Surv is a home services franchise designed to become a trusted, ongoing resource for homeowners who need help maintaining, improving, organizing, and caring for their homes. Rather than specializing in one narrow service category, Surv provides a broad range of non-licensed home maintenance and improvement services, allowing franchise owners to build long-term relationships with customers and generate multiple service opportunities from the same household.

The concept was originally built around helping seniors remain safely and comfortably in their homes as they age, but the model has expanded to serve a much broader customer base that includes busy professionals, families, affluent homeowners, and others who would rather hire someone to handle their home maintenance and improvement projects than spend their own time doing them.

Surv operates as part of Cornerstone Franchise Brands and is a sister company to FirstLight Home Care. The relationship between the two brands was developed around a complementary concept: FirstLight helps take care of the individual, while Surv helps take care of the home. This provides Surv with a natural connection to the growing aging-in-place market while still allowing franchisees to pursue the much larger general homeowner market.

A Broad Home Services Platform

Surv is designed to address the numerous smaller projects that homeowners routinely need completed but that often fall below the scope of traditional licensed contractors.

Services can include:

• General home repairs and improvements

• Exterior cleaning and maintenance

• Pressure washing

• Yard cleanup

• Tree and bush trimming

• Gutter cleaning

• Deck repair and refinishing

• Moving assistance

• Organizing and decluttering

• Odd jobs and general upkeep

• Seasonal home maintenance

• Aging-in-place modifications and improvements

• Home watch services as the offering expands

Newer franchisees typically begin with relatively straightforward services such as exterior cleaning, pressure washing, trimming, cleanup, and other lower-complexity projects. As the business develops its workforce, capabilities, and customer relationships, franchisees can move into higher-value projects such as deck repair and refinishing. According to Surv leadership, deck-related work has developed into one of the company's largest dollar-producing service categories.

The model intentionally focuses primarily on work that does not require specialized trade licensing. Surv generally stays away from categories such as electrical, plumbing, roofing, and other projects requiring specialized licensing, insurance, equipment, or technical expertise. Franchisees are encouraged to establish relationships with qualified local contractors who can handle projects outside Surv's scope, creating opportunities for reciprocal referrals.

The Whole-Home Assessment

A central component of the Surv model is its whole-home assessment.

Instead of approaching the homeowner solely around the project that generated the original call, Surv can evaluate the broader needs of the property and identify additional maintenance and improvement opportunities. Different assessments can be used depending on the homeowner, including assessments specifically focused on aging in place and broader whole-home assessments for families and professionals.

Items identified during the assessment can be prioritized similarly to a vehicle inspection, with immediate needs distinguished from projects that can be completed later. Surv can then build an annualized maintenance plan around the home, including the seasonality of different projects.

This creates a model built around customer relationships rather than one-time transactions. Surv leadership reported that approximately 60% of its business was coming from repeat customers at the time of the discussion, with the average customer completing approximately five to six transactions annually. Projects can also be bundled together when appropriate.

The result is a home services model in which acquiring one customer can potentially create multiple revenue opportunities throughout the year rather than requiring the franchisee to continually acquire a new customer for every job.

Aging-in-Place Market

Aging in place remains an important part of Surv's identity and market strategy.

Franchise owners are required to become Certified Aging-in-Place Specialists (CAPS), a designation associated with the National Association of Home Builders. The training helps owners understand the physical and environmental challenges people encounter as they age and how changes to the home can improve safety and accessibility.

These modifications do not necessarily involve major remodeling projects. Solutions can include relatively simple changes such as improving visual contrast, reducing trip hazards, decluttering areas of the home, and identifying other environmental issues that could increase the risk of falls.

This allows Surv to serve homeowners who want to remain in their homes longer while also developing referral relationships with organizations and professionals serving older adults.

Multiple Customer Segments

Although aging in place helped shape the concept, Surv is not exclusively a senior-focused business.

The franchise targets several customer segments, including:

• Seniors who want to remain safely in their homes

• Adult children helping maintain their parents' homes

• Busy professionals

• Dual-income households

• Families with limited time for home maintenance

• Affluent homeowners who prefer to outsource household projects

• Homeowners who are physically unable or simply do not want to perform maintenance themselves

• Light commercial customers where appropriate

Surv positions itself within the growing "Do-It-For-Me" segment of the home services market—the population of consumers who increasingly choose to outsource home improvement, maintenance, repair, and upkeep rather than perform the work themselves.

The franchisor currently estimates Surv's addressable portion of the market at approximately $60 billion, encompassing categories such as handyman services, yard work, junk removal, and related home services.

Relationship-Based Revenue Model

Surv's business model is built around becoming the homeowner's trusted resource for ongoing projects.

A customer may initially hire Surv for something relatively simple, such as pressure washing a driveway or cleaning up a yard. After Surv establishes trust, that same homeowner may be comfortable hiring the company for increasingly significant projects.

This relationship-based approach is designed to increase both customer retention and the lifetime value of each customer.

At the time of the discussion, Surv reported an average ticket of approximately $811 during Q3, with many locations already reaching approximately $1,000 average tickets. Leadership indicated that customers were using Surv approximately four to six times per year, creating the potential for substantially greater annual revenue per customer than the value of an individual service call.

Surv does not rely on a traditional membership model. Instead, the assessment and maintenance-planning process is designed to create an ongoing pipeline of work by identifying what needs to be completed now and what should be addressed later.

Lean, Home-Based Startup

Surv can initially be operated as a home-based business, helping reduce the fixed overhead associated with launching the franchise.

During the early stages, owners can operate from a home office and garage. As the operation grows and accumulates more equipment, the franchisee may transition into a storage facility or eventually an industrial or warehouse space. Surv leadership indicated that some larger operators have already begun making that transition.

The current 2026 FDD estimates the total initial investment at approximately $111,825 to $160,650. The initial franchise fee is $50,000. Surv lists minimum financial qualifications of $75,000 in liquidity and $150,000 in net worth. The ongoing royalty is 7% of gross revenue.

Franchise Owner Role

Surv is designed primarily for an engaged owner/operator rather than a passive investor.

The franchise owner does not need to come from the construction, handyman, or home improvement industries. Instead, the owner is responsible for developing the business, recruiting and managing employees, building community relationships, generating local business, managing financial performance, and creating a strong customer-service culture.

The franchisor specifically identifies leadership ability, people-management skills, community involvement, and a desire to build a flexible business as characteristics of its ideal franchisee. Previous home-services experience is not required.

As the business grows, the owner's role can increasingly shift toward leadership, management, business development, and team building rather than personally completing service work.

Training and Support

Surv franchisees receive training and ongoing support through Surv and the broader Cornerstone Franchise Brands organization.

Initial support includes a structured six-week onboarding process followed by Surv School, an immersive four-day in-person training program. Owners continue working with dedicated business coaching resources after launch, including strategic planning, regular check-ins, and peer-to-peer coaching.

Ongoing support includes:

• Business coaching

• Onsite support visits

• Telephone coaching

• Operational analysis

• Monthly franchise-owner town halls

• National conferences

• Marketing support

• Sales support

• Human resources resources

• Finance and accounting support

• Legal resources

• Technology support

• Vendor relationships

• Technician training

Surv's shared-services structure through Cornerstone Franchise Brands allows an emerging franchise system to access infrastructure that would typically be associated with a significantly larger franchise organization.

Technology and Back-Office Systems

Surv provides franchisees with an integrated technology and operating platform.

SurvConnect serves as the franchise intranet and resource center, helping manage communication, information, vendor resources, and components of the customer experience.

SurvLinked, powered by Housecall Pro, provides job-management functionality and tracks information including jobs, revenue, and labor associated with individual projects.

Back-office accounting support includes assistance establishing QuickBooks, a Surv-specific chart of accounts, credit-card processing, and payroll systems.

The franchise also provides a learning management system containing video-based training resources for technicians.

Cornerstone Franchise Brands

Surv is backed by Cornerstone Franchise Brands, giving the company access to established franchising infrastructure while Surv itself remains an emerging brand.

Cornerstone's portfolio also includes FirstLight Home Care, a mature home-care franchise with more than 250 locations.

Surv leadership described the organization as well capitalized and having the infrastructure, experience, and personnel necessary to support significant franchise growth. At the time of the October 2026 discussion, leadership reported 17 Surv locations and indicated that the brand was growing rapidly.

The combination gives Surv the characteristics of an emerging franchise—available territories and a relatively young system—while providing access to the shared resources of an established franchise organization.

Scalable Home Services Model

The Surv model is designed to scale through a combination of customer acquisition, repeat business, service expansion, employee development, and larger territories.

Rather than depending on a single highly specialized service, Surv can capture numerous projects from the same homeowner. The whole-home assessment helps identify future work, while the breadth of the service offering allows the franchisee to continue serving that customer as different needs arise throughout the year.

Seasonality can also be balanced across service categories. Outdoor projects such as cleanup, trimming, pressure washing, and exterior maintenance can be emphasized during warmer months, while interior projects, organization, repairs, and other indoor services can provide work during colder periods, depending on the geography of the territory.

As the franchise develops, the business can add technicians, vehicles, equipment, management infrastructure, and higher-value services while maintaining its focus on non-licensed home maintenance and improvement work.

Surv combines the broad demand of the home services industry with a relationship-driven approach centered on becoming a homeowner's ongoing resource for maintaining the home. Its service range, whole-home assessment process, aging-in-place specialization, repeat-customer strategy, home-based startup model, and support from Cornerstone Franchise Brands create a platform designed to capture multiple home-service needs through a single local business.