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

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

Specify the location as well. You got to calculate the total cost.

One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison

If your location is at KL, no point for me to intro a place in Klang. even if it is cheaper by a bit, the cost of transports exceed the savings . Sorry for making it too short




In fact you need at least 2 people if you want to sell that volume. 1 chopping chicken, 1 prepare rice and 1 serving and cleaning. However sales does not only confined to lunch peak. I knew a guy who sell lunch at 1 place and dinner at another.

Fact and Figures are there. Just need to figure it out in detail. Furthermore, I'm in finance industries. As to partnership, it would be hard to be in such partnership, this industry depend on skills heavily. Human's greed is the worst thing that can ever be controlled. Unless you have strong human management skills or have deep knowledge in the industry. I would advise not to be a sleeping partner. In most cases, once the "Partner" started to see profit, normally they would end the partnership and start on their own. Unless you are willing to be an angel investor. (Nothing wrong with this but you dont earn the long term profit. Short and high is good enough)

Money is source of Greed. Greed is a Sin in every Human.

A special facts for all F&B newbie, 90% of F&B business fails within a year. (Dun shoot me. I got this from some Factbook and it takes data globally)

I'm open for discussion. If you have interest after reading the above, we could work something out. or just a simple discussion without involving any business is fine with me as well. I love exchange of thoughts.