wtf? 20k a month just by selling 'shaobing'. This is just another shitty marketing 'news' for a MMO called "Yuan zheng"[1]
[1]http://yz.q1.com/
Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
61–70 of 169 posts
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#62I really dislike these type of stories. Basically saying "Investor buys lotto ticket; outperforms DJIA by 5 billion percent." Or a more realistic example, the stories that flow when gas prices spike. Like the person with the diesel engine running off waste grease from restaurants.
It's nice this person found a profitable niche but the concept itself doesn't lend itself to even linear growth.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#63The joke at Origin Systems (back in the day) was:
"We train people for well-paying jobs in the computer game industry."
It was funny on several levels... if you didn't work there.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#64The joke at Origin Systems (back in the day) was: "We train people for well-paying jobs in the computer game industry." It was funny on several levels... if you didn't work there.
RIP Origin bros. :(
EDIT: I assume that joke is funny in the same way that you'll find "The Liberated Democratic Free People's Republic of Chernarus"?
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#65This is just the upside of running your own business. Summer food trucks have been a fixture in my city for decades around the state capitol. Some folks make a great living doing it. My favorite was an older couple operating a small hotdog stand... they made a ridiculously delicious meatsauce and basically worked a 35 hour week in the summer in the Northeast, and a similar schedule for a couple of months down South.…
> But... they faced all of the downside risks of small business owners. Rain == slow or no sales. Big vacation weeks for the workforce == slow sales. Get sick? No pay. That said, it's probably still a better gig than being a game programmer. Small business owners should be able to plan ahead for rainy days and the slow season. Squirrels can do it. Humans can too.
Yup! That's why there are more squirrels than humans!
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Landlording can be very profitable in some areas or a huge money pit in some areas. My parents did it for years and barely broke even, or lost a ton of money if you include labor costs. Plus you get people waking you up in the middle of the night when they lock themselves out.
I agree entirely with the fact that real estate it is very hit or miss. But worst case scenario (assuming you have insurance) is you have to sell the house at a depressed price and take a loss on your time. With a restaurant (where 50%+ are out of business in 3 years) you rent the space, lose all the money you spent on rent, and on food and on employees etc. Very easy to lose everything with a restaurant, but you nee…
Assuming you can find a buyer for the house. My parents could absolutely not sell theirs, there was no buyer, because anyone could see there was no money to be made. You need a buyer to sell.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
We commonly say that hackers should save up 3-6 months of floating money, especially if they are in the self-employed or contracting/consulting world. You never know when the next job is, you never know what could happen. I don't see how being a small business operator of something like this is different. The source of income is different, the wisdom is the same. Hopefully they were able to set aside months worth of…
> We commonly say that hackers should save up 3-6 months of floating money It's not hackers, it's adults. This is called an "emergency fund". 3 to 6 months cash that's easy to access in the event of a genuine emergency, including loss of work. Personal Finance 101.
Exactly, and if your monetary stream is inconsistent, then 3-6 months should really be considered insufficient. You're shouldn't be regularly be eating into your emergency fund.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think about tax liens as a passive investment?
Never investigated them. Have a summary link?
Here you go. I'd love to give it a shot, but it does look like more learning is required:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-07/marketplace/sn...
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#69The numbers in the article don't quite add up. Shao bing is cheap food... usually 1.5 or 2 renminbi, maybe 2.5. If they're selling 100 a day, every day, at 2.5元/each, that would be 250元/day and ~7500元/month. 7500元 is only about $1220. So even if the article is only assuming revenue per month (and not profit), they still have to increase their price or sales (or some combination) by 267% to hit the $3,259/month mentio…
Street vendors in Canada can typically sell well over 100 of anything on a nice day, I imagine in China with the greater foot traffic and culture of street food they're selling a lot more.
I read the story as them thinking that when they sold 100 per day when they started was validation that their plan was going to work.
Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary
#70Strangely enough, when I lived in Japan the guy who owned the takoyaki cart near my office surprised me with perfect English and a Californian accent that he had picked up as a game programmer in the USA in the 90s.