First thing you need to do is contact McDonald's to find out if they have any interest in opening franchises in Mongolia.

Total Investment: $506,000-$1,600,000
Initial Franchise Fee: $45,000
Royalty Fee: 12.5%+

You have to buy a McDonald's franchise. In order to qualify for a conventional franchise you have to have $175,000 (not borrowed). Your total costs to open the restaurant, however, will be anywhere from $430,000 to $750,000 which goes to paying for the building, equipment, etc. Forty percent of this cost has to be from your own (non-borrowed) funds. You'll pay an initial franchise fee of $45,000 directly to McDonald's. The other costs go to suppliers, so this is the only upfront fee you pay to McDonald's. Then, you'll go through a rigorous nine-month training period where you'll learn about the McDonald's way of doing things — things like their standards for quality, service, value, formulas and specifications for menu items, their method of operation, and inventory control techniques. You'll have to agree to operate the restaurant from a single location, usually for 20 years, following their guidelines for decor, signage, layout and everything else that makes McDonald's McDonald's.

Once you've completed training and are ready to go, McDonalds will offer you a location they've already developed. The exterior of the building will be complete, but you will have to take care of interior additions such as kitchen equipment, seating and landscaping. You'll get constant support from a McDonald's Field Consultant, who can advise you on details and will visit regularly. You'll pay McDonald's a monthly fee of 4 percent of your sales, and either a flat base rent or a percentage rent of at least 8.5 percent of your sales. How much money you make depends on many things, including the location and its popularity, the efficiency of your operating costs, and your ability to manage and control the business.

You could contact McDonalds in Chicago, I think. My brother in law was a manager at McDonalds in Los Angeles many years ago, and they wanted him to be the first employee in China because he was a Chinese speaker. He declined but one of his friends went… I remember hearing about the hassles getting started in China that our friend went through… The biggest challenge is that McDonalds wants to make sure there is a very high degree of quality control for all their ingredients, and Mongolia might not be big enough of a market to support all the supply chain investment. In China, I believe they started their own beef and cheese and potato production so that they would know the quality of the end product.

If you want to be a franchisee, I think that you will have to pass a very difficult screening process, besides needing *lots* of money. My suggestion is you think about starting an American style burger place, but not McDs. I would love to see that in UB, and if I can help you, I would be happy to….