Richard Weissman knows the value of a good lesson. In 1980, when his parents opened The Learning Experience, a private preschool in Boca Raton, Fla., he learned about hard work, spending his after-school hours mopping floors and cleaning toilets. In 1987, after co-founding a new learning center franchise concept, Tutor Time, with his parents, he learned about the perils of rapid growth: Success came quickly, too quickly to manage, and by 1999 the Weissmans were no longer running the business.
