Was running a street stall profitable? That naturally depended on the circumstances. In the very early days, when things had just opened up, anything you did made money, and plenty of it. But what about afterward? Once the market stabilized, making money became very difficult. Heath once had a former classmate who suddenly told him while at work that he couldn't stand another day at that lousy job. Curious, Heath thought his classmate's family might have received several apartments as compensation for demolition. Someone with that kind of windfall really could stop working and just collect rent. Only later did he learn that the man hadn't received any apartments at all. He had watched some short videos and decided running a stall must be very profitable, then planned to quit that very day and throw his resignation letter in his boss's face. Fortunately, Heath talked him down. He suggested that his classmate try it out in the evenings first, and only consider quitting if it really made good money. After some hesitation, his classmate agreed.
And then? After sticking with it for over a week, he sold the equipment he had bought and obediently went back to being a wage worker.
What exactly was the reason? Naturally, it was because he simply couldn't keep going. Heath's classmate had watched short videos where people bragged about how profitable selling grilled sausages was, and he believed them. Then he went to buy a sausage grill, only to discover that they cost several hundred, or even close to a thousand. After gritting his teeth and buying one, he still had to buy ingredients, a cart, and so on. At the time, Heath's classmate told him that all those odds and ends had cost him three or four thousand.
After that, he drove out