> If "Selling Hotdogs" sounds like it might make you even 1/10 as much, you're simply not charging enough.

Actually, my side biz is selling food. Unless you propose that I make way over a million dollars a year while contracting (no thanks to that stress)...I think my restaurant does okay. If I sunk the same amount of time in my restaurant that I did for contracting, then I'd definitely make more money with the restaurant than with contracting. I'm fairly confident I can compete with many bay area salaries at those numbers, and I could sink more effort and money into opening more restaurants and.... you see where I'm going with this, right?

My business is fairly small fry anyway. Had I a couple million bucks in the bank, I'd be looking at running restaurants with $40k+/month net profit. (How many engineers make that, before stock options and ignoring the value of the business itself?)

There are a LOT of other ways to make bank and saying being a developer is the only way to do it is incredibly narrow.

Is that 40k a month per restaurant ?

What makes your restaurant so succesful, isn't that industry plagued with 80% shutdown wiyhin 5 years?

> Is that 40k a month per restaurant ?

Yes. While I haven't actually looked at financial statements for those businesses since they were way out of my budget, I'd get the occasional listing with numbers like that. Businesses like http://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/Sushi-Restaur... - nearly $700k in earnings in one year is not bad at all.

It's up for debate how much the owner actually makes and how much of the sales goes unreported to the BOE, IRS, etc., but it's within the realm of possibility.

Alternatively, absentee-own a franchise or series of stores for similar effect: http://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/4-Unit-Five-G...

> What makes your restaurant so succesful, isn't that industry plagued with 80% shutdown wiyhin 5 years?

I can believe the failure rate is that high for brand new restaurants, but that is why you buy already established businesses instead. I also don't think that number is too strange in the context of all brand new businesses. Think of how many startups fail. Imagine if there was a market for buying and selling "matured" startups - that's basically how small business sales work. (Hopefully) all the bad ones will have died out already, the ones the owners are trying to flip as fast as possible before they die are dead obvious, and you'll maybe be left over with a few sustainable businesses to choose from.

I think the only difference between running a restaurant and starting a startup is that there is no restaurant equivalent to winning the jackpot (read: selling your startup for mega bucks) and just keeping the business in the black is the norm (although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure how a lot of startups can even dream to accomplish that...).

As for what makes my restaurant successful? My takeover may have been this year, but it's sat at the same location for decades (older than I am, even) and we have big servings and tasty fries. :D

That's some good points, and I never thought of it in terms of restaurants that have been there longer may not be part of that statistic.

Some caveats though: -Even large billion dollar corporations that have been in business go bankrupt -My perspective has always been that if a profitable restaurant is selling, its because it really isn't that profitable. The usual reasons given for the sale are can't spend the hours or health, but the reality is that if a restaurant is profitable, they could just hire a manager for 40-60k who could manage all aspects of the business, while the owners collect their checks every month. My feeling on why that doesn't happen is because the business isn't doing as well as reported.

That's amazing. Do you have any tips for buying a business? Maybe some books to recommend?