Over and done with...

Well, after that high that we experienced the first weekend of October, we were raring to go...
But here's the thing, if the market taught us anything,it taught us that demand for food is volatile and even on a good day, we go up and down and almost always never do too well or too bad-that is if and that is a big if,the food is good.
So in our case,the conclusion we came to was that our food was good-if I can say say so myself.
We had enough number of customers who came back the next week looking for us,and one very very loyal customer, who came back EVERY week.And people were willing to wait-sometimes even ten minutes if we were backed up...partly because we made things fresh for every single order. We missed a couple of weeks and we had other vendors tell us,or even friends tell us," I'm sure there were people looking for you guys at the market today!".So the food being good is critical...but not the be all and end all.We noticed that for the kind of effort we put in, our returns were not proportional. They were not meagre, but they weren't too much either.So effort versus returns was a big question...
And in our not so extensive menu, there were no distinct winner where we could say,"Ok, let's do more of that next week because we have sold more of it three weeks running." So eliminating or increasing a menu item was not possible.Of course we were at the market only for 10 weeks and it might not be a long enough time for any statistical extrapolation...but still, we look for trends and we didn't see much of it...
And we also came to the conclusion that location matters.The size of the market depends on the location and even demographics and a change of venue might make a huge difference.
There, that is my perspective from a very business like perch.
But this market stall was more-it was four friends who got together and decided to make and sell food-and it taught us more about ourselves and each other than it did about the commercial concept of a market stall.
We started off well-intentioned and by the time we opened, we had had major differences and I even had moments of doubt-whether bringing these friends together was even a good idea-we seemed very 'on the same page' as friends but throw a business venture in and it seemed like we were poles apart in what we wanted from it and how we would go about running it-but in the process we also learnt a valuable life lesson-it is all about give and take.How much you are willing to give and how much you are willing to take.To run a business as a partnership,one has to be willing to listen and compromise and stand one's ground and fight the fight-all with the end result of the business succeeding-not personal success-difficult but achievable.Just an example-one of us wanted expensive paper napkins instead of just regular paper napkins and it took some convincing that expensive napkins might look like a few more dollars,but it would affect our margin enough to make a difference...we had one more issue about reusing things to save money which we had to shoot down because of safety issues-so basically someone had to give up what they though was the best way to go about things just so the business would do well, And I had a tough time compromising on some things and  in hindsight, even accepting that my way would have not been the right way to go about things.There were situations that even tested our friendship- but we came through it with  far better understanding of things between us than before.Friends running a business is like asking for trouble-it is make or break time for your business but more importantly,for your friendship. And I am glad to say we came through it ,with some speed bumps, but we made it through. How do we know you ask? We are already planning for next year's market!!
So there locations to be scouted,menus to be tweaked, set up and take down to be checked out....busy busy!!!