Everyone can count and count to show you the figures from RM1 - RM100,000 per month. Buy please bear in mind, your focus should make sure you have the most delicious food among the competitor.

Yes, I am interested.

I do not mind to learn or take up cooking or being a cook.

I would say landmark or so-called location is very important as a hawker.

Here are some of my homework just for knowledge reference:

Making Won-Ton Noodle Soup:
http://www.5min.com/Video/Making-Won-Ton-N...e-Soup-91041421

Wonton Noodle Soup
http://www.cooking.com/Recipes-and-More/re...recipe-204.aspx

Making Hong Kong-Style Wonton Noodle Soup
http://appetiteforchina.com/recipes/making...ton-noodle-soup

This post has been edited by draggy: Jul 7 2010, 11:51 PM

I've just pm you.

Alot of people wanted to skip steps and go "direct" to profit and refuse to see the real big picture. If they wanted pure motivation ,they should've gone to their friends and family members who can offer them those in an even sincere manner.


A typical route of a successful busines-person:

1) wanted a better life
2) cultivate interest (in the trade FIRST, NOT the $$$$)
3) start business, learn as you go, fueled BY INTEREST
4) sacrifice personal time, life, well-being.
5) success (aka consistent and sustainable income from efforts)

The middle part might takes years and decades.
I bet not many of the youths these days wanted to follow the time consuming steps above. Alot of them wanted to follow these :

1) wanted a better life
2) cultivate interest , motivated by $$$$
3) start business, learn as you go, fueled BY prospect of earn $$$
4) success ! (dream on!)

Then problem is... when $$$ takes a front-stage, the ability to think beyond sustaining a business fails. Its always about earning the biggest chunk of $$ in the shortest time. So the "notion" of seeing few hawker stalls driving a merc becomes a blind motivation ,causing them to be oblivious to hundreds more such stalls barely about to sustain everywhere.

Eyes is the biggest deceiver. The thick $$ changed hands by the hawkers which we managed to spot (and drool over), might possibly just be some "income" from other sources rather than his wantan mee business.



For millionaire-wannabe from hawking or any other kind of business, if you put $$$ as the biggest motivation first, you'll doomed to have the same type of penny-pinching clients and customers (aka "waah so expensive ah. and plain tasting somemore") which "stopped" you from going further.

If you don't have passion in preparing the food to be sold, dont expect the $$ to come rolling in easily.

I have been looking into F&B as well.

It's true that F&B/Hawking have good profits even when your food tastes in the level of "Edible". Sales a day would vary from 500 - 5000 for a bahkuttea stall (My uncle). However bare in mind that
1) the preparation before the opening starts a few hours earlier
2) during peak time, you have no time to breath
3) ensuring stall is clean and all material are well kept from pest
in between you still have to manage a lot of things including washing the dishes, collect money, attend to customer complain, etc.

He's from a broke state earning his way to a double storey house and a BMW after years of hardship but soon failed blinded by the money. Gamble, gotten lazy, etc

Youngster nowadays are like that as well. They assume that if they are able to get such profit in the long run, they started to
1) buy luxury stuff
2) get lazy
3) leave everything to the staff (including the money)
at the end the business fail

Important Note
- Cost Caution
- Wastage Coution

The food cost in Malaysia is considered high. Let's take a simple Chicken Rice as sample
Cost of a Drumstick = RM1.80
Cost of Rice (with spices) = RM0.50
Chicken Soup = RM0.20
Chili Sauce = RM0.10

Prices are inclusive of gas, water for precook cleaning, other ingredient, processing, after sales cleaning, etc

Therefore the cost would come up to RM2.60. How much would you sell?
Probable RM4 - RM5 depending on area. So let's assume RM4.50. You earned RM1.90 for each rice sold. This Exclude RENTAL. So assume the rental cost average per plate is RM0.50. Therefore the Net Profit is RM1.40. That's about 31% margin.

However, do remember that you need to sell 2/3 of your food before you could start profit. that's the breakeven point. If you successfully sell 100% therefore you earn 31% Max. if you have 5% wastage, that 5% is cutting from your profit of 31% which left 26%. You do the maths

Proper planning and reality have to kick in. If you ever think that working is harder than being a boss. Think again. Some of the successful ppl tell me stories like

1) "I used to ate rice with soy sauce" - ended up with a banglo and few luxury car

2) "I used to borrow money from loan shark to buy food" - Currently his Share Dividen is above few hundred K

3) "I used to ate rice with water" - Millionaire

4) "I once sold my house and borrow money from all friends and relatives to repay debts on my business" - Earning good money

5) "I slept 4 hours a day during the early stage, almost bankrupt" - Having Euro trip every year for a month with family.

The early stage of a business is a Hell's walkway. The end part is Heaven. Just make sure you dont get lured to the Devil's den.

Finally,
You could find some advise, listen to experience, do the research, come out with a good business plan but the most important thing is to take the risk. Take the 1st step and never forget the effort and hardship that you been thru. Dont Dream the Future, Make the Future. No one plans to fail, they simply fail to plan.

My 2 cent opinion.

A Special advise to Cassidy90
- This serve as a guideline for your option. As to your choice of working or business, it's not about the money. It's about the effort you are willing to put in. Reward comes only after the work. Make sure that you want to do hawkering and not the money. Any work or business could generate money as long as you have the passion for the job.

This post has been edited by Al3x0174: Jul 7 2010, 04:56 PM

Hi Al3x0174

Thank you very much for your advice. I really appreciate it. I've been looking into this since a year plus and I've spent countless time working and learning along the way. Frankly, if I say if it weren't for the money it would be a big lie, and again of course I am ready to take on my new role knowing the consequences that I will face from this transition(from working in the office with no fuss to hawking on the street). I went through all the hardship to learn this trade and what you guys contributed here will have me deeply look into, of course I will not do something blindly. I would like to sincerely thank all those who has contributed a line or two here in this thread.

Al3x0174, good luck to you since you're looking into this trade as well.

I found that there are a couple of interested people looking to start up one and this might be a nice place to look for partners who shared a common interest in food.

Hmmm... maybe we can start a gathering for this event?

Don't think it will work, and you're not telling me you're planning to sell wantan mee? More over it's a recipe taken from the web.

I might be selling wantan noodle but a gathering event is about people gather together at a specify place to exchange ideas and contacts.

This post has been edited by draggy: Jul 7 2010, 11:04 PM

You are welcome
Just to make things a bit clearer. I'm not saying that we are not looking it into money, but the money is a form of reward. Irregardless of working or doing business, money is the reward. Ppl are often blinded by the truth. Look into the "work" and do it well. Rewards will come in as well. I believe that you and I share a comon dilemma where we have a choice.

Option A - Stable flowing income with no fuss but have to work as slave earning peanuts.
Option B - Working as hard but have a better reward by facing uncertainty/risks.

From my opinion, ppl who are successful are either can afford to lose or have nothing to lose. Those stucked in between are always choosing the safe box to be in.

If you have a strong believe in what you do but are afraid of losing the stable income, try doing the business part time.

Let's share another few real stories

1) a married couple open a small stall by the roadside selling herbal tea. It was hardwork as both took turns in overlooking at the business with 1 maid to help around. NOW it's fully handled by 2 maids with them just sending and picking them back up. As for the money, stocks are limited and they could monitor it. sales are off set with the remaining stocks.

2) a boy selling home made jam to neighbours soon rented a factory on certain days to pack his jam and sell to supermarkets. Years later, he owns the factory and selling it nationwide

3) even Warren Buffett sold coca colas in his younger days.

Starting it part time would expose you to the business world and at the same time maintaining your stable income. I personally experience it myself.

I do part time BBQ for small parties but now changed to selling marinates (Found in the Food Section - Support a bit Mooncake Festival coming )

For a party on saturday night, I would have to start purchasing my ingredients on thursday night after work. Mostly I would finish by 10.00pm on the shopping. Then I have to proceed with cleaning the raw foods and pack them to be marinated on the next day.

On Friday night (after work), I would have to marinate the meats, prepares some ingredients such as chopping garlic, onions, pack the meats nicely.

Saturday will start off as early as 6.30am with double checking on the meat, ingredients and final run to purchase anything. Next would be to prepare potatoes as potatoes must be made fresh. Cutting, Trimming, Boiling and prepare them. next is to make the sauces. once you finish 1 sauce, it had to be stored and you need to clean the pots and utensil before moving on to the next sauce. Then I stopped for a simple breakfast and rest... then move on to cleaning and cutting vegetables for salads. Cutting a piece or 2 is simple... try cutting for a bunch of ppl... by yourself... while standing for the whole morning... you cant sit... it lowers the efficiency and you are racing against time. Then proceed to making prebaked pizzas base. When all is done, I get to eat lunch. after lunch would be packing all the tools, utensils, icebox, all other containers into the car... with careful planning. Lucky for me that I'm driving Myvi... Lots of space once you moved down the seat. At my customers place I would set up the fire, prepare the prep table, serve cooked food, BBQ the meats then move on to cleaning up at customers place, packing back and once I reach home, I have to start cleaning my tools and utensils, pots, containers which ended at 2am. Next morning I have to store them back to the cabinets. Between 6am to 2am, that's 20 hours and most of the time I'm standing... my knees are screaming at me (No, I dont have the time to sit even at customers place while waiting for food to cook, I make sure that my customer have some cooked food to be served)

Finally... $
I would earn more spending that hours working at McD
Why I do it?
I would like to know the respond of my customers on my food and love the reaction they gave me. It was like those Stephen Chow movie where the reaction are hyper

Morale of the story
I felt happy doing countless hours earning peanuts for myself than an easy life at the office. It gave me something that money cant buy. It exposes me to the reality where nothing comes easy. I have now improved on my skills and recipe which have reduce the prep works. I'm more confident of doing larger scale of business and hopefully soon progress to starting my own restaurant.


WTS - BBQ Foods <--- My Link. Thanks for your Support

Live the Dream, Shape the Future

This post has been edited by Al3x0174: Jul 7 2010, 11:18 PM

Hi Cassidy90

Being in this hawking trade myself, perhaps I can answer your question more accurately, take one of my stalls for instant which is raking in about RM9k nett(more or less) - taking into consideration that volume is a variable. To be in this business location is the number one factor to consider, believe me or not, if you have a nice spot anything is just going to sell. Of course it must be food that is of reasonable taste.

Long before I started, I have many people pouring cold water on my idea. Just like everyone else I almost abandoned my plan but hey, if it's something that you want to do, do it now. Go and find out for yourself, you can take the opinions and advice from others as a reference but don't be influenced by them. You know how to weigh them. I understand too that many shares the same view that being a hawker = no life(long hours/the heat/etc), well, it depends on how you're going to do it - the food and the system that you're going to put in place. Being a hawker I too can have a short working hours or perhaps working hours of those in the office.

At the end is just about whether can you accept the transition. From an Executive job to a Hawker, from being in an air-conditioned working environment into a hot and sweat working conditions. And from an on par level with the rest of your friends to a much more lower level. But to me, whether you're working as an Engineer, or an Executive, at the end it's all just about making money.

The most importantly is to have everything planned nicely, how much you can make a month whether you're an average or best performing hawker depends on many factors. Some are controllable while some are beyond our control. Good luck!

haha is the joke, well maybe what she mean is that just a normal nothing special, or else just buy ready made thing to sell....this one will reduce the profit.

Hainanese rice require some good skill too, i do cook very often types of food, i even bake.... a lot people know how to cook, but the question is how they cook it, time, and tier own patent ways.

ahpoh

I agree with what you said angelsinlove, I've seen your thread as well. Hope I can get more advice from you. thanks

hawker business is very good ... petrol up 0.10, they also up 0.10 or more ... customer ask just said this up that up so have to up ...

this is just part of the cycle, the cost just keeps on going to the consumers...

totally agree and we consumers cannot do anything, we work and need to eat outside no matter what.

did anyone knows how to start a hawker?

You should read and another thread titled F&B(Share your experience here) by angelsinlove.