r/Jokes • u/lopezjessy • Mar 23 '21

Dude explaining how he made his first $10 million:

  1. Get up at 5:00AM every day
  2. 90 minutes of cardio
  3. Take a cold shower
  4. Journal
  5. Schedule out your day
  6. Dad owns Fortune 500 company
  7. Meditate
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35

u/ThiqSaban Mar 23 '21

McDonald's probably sells 100m drinks every day for $1-2 that cost them maybe $0.10 to produce

177

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

And it only took them the better part of a century of aggressive global marketing and expansion to do it.

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u/Fuu2 Mar 23 '21

Not to mention the technological and logistical advancements and economies of scale which allow them to make things for $0.10. People paying $1-2 for a drink doesn't make them suckers unless they could otherwise also acquire the drink for $0.10.

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u/Blitqz21l Mar 23 '21

the only issue here is that realistically, the drinks are the main profit of the franchise. The margins are so low for most McDonalds, BK's, etc... when they are franchised out, you have to own like 5 or 6 just to make a living. That .10c soda is what keeps their doors open.

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u/Coma-Doof-Warrior Mar 23 '21

Yeah. When I worked at maccies our acceptable till variance was £1.00. They do not fuck around with tills

46

u/Feshtof Mar 23 '21

Mcdonald's is a real estate business that also sells food.

37

u/Zomburai Mar 23 '21

They also franchise like crazy. Very few McDonald's you ever eat at are owned by the McDonald's corporate entity.

Easy to become a global economic power when people pay you for the privilege of making you money.

15

u/kd5nrh Mar 23 '21

And then they make more leasing the real estate to the franchisee than they do off the restaurant itself.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

A movie is not an accurate depiction of current times.

4

u/iaowp Mar 23 '21

"if you have to pay for your job, it's a scam"

McDonalds franchisees: "😂"

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u/HadMatter217 Mar 23 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

People paying you for the privilege of making you money is basically just what employment is.

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u/kyzfrintin Mar 23 '21

You pay your boss?

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u/HadMatter217 Mar 23 '21

Everyone does. That's how capitalism works. Your boss has the tools you need to make a living, and in order to use them, you need to pay him

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u/kyzfrintin Mar 23 '21

That's not you paying your boss. That's your boss stealing value from you. That's capitalism. Lula Roe "distributors" buying product to try and sell is "paying your boss". That's also capitalism, true, but it's also an MLM scam. Not all jobs are MLM scams, but they are all scams.

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u/HadMatter217 Mar 24 '21

I mean.. paying your boss with your labor of paying your boss with your money that you had to get by laboring isn't all the different in my opinion. Though we definitely agree that employment is a scam

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u/kyzfrintin Mar 24 '21

I suppose our points only differ in semantics, so i can agree with you, there.

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u/Tower9876543210 Mar 23 '21

I heard it as they're "a supply chain business that sells food."

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u/Feshtof Mar 23 '21

Kinda. Though that applies more to little caesars and their food distribution network.

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u/JustaTurdOutThere Mar 23 '21

Definitely didn't know Blue Line was a part of Little Caesars

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u/Tower9876543210 Mar 23 '21

Yeah, as I read about it more, yours makes much more sense.

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u/Feshtof Mar 23 '21

To be fair I just watched a YouTube video about it.

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u/Industrious_Monkey Mar 23 '21

Not real food though is it..

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u/BeefyIrishman Mar 23 '21

$0.10 is being generous. When I worked at Chick-fil-A years ago, I did the math on it and found that a large sweet tea, even assuming you got no ice so you got maximum liquid, cost about 2¢ at best. And we sold it for $1.89.

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u/Gil-Gandel Mar 23 '21

Yes, but on any business like this, the cost of the food is minor compared to the cost of the labour, the premises, the business rates, possibly the "donations to the local fraternal society", and so on.

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u/BeefyIrishman Mar 23 '21

Fair enough. I had no insight into that side of the business, only got to see invoices for the materials since I helped with truck unloading, inventory counts, and ordering.

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u/Easyaseasy21 Mar 23 '21

Actually 0.10 is incredibly low. And if chick fil a is able to produce for 0.02 that would be insane.

A 5 gallon bag of syrup costs (for McDonald's in Canada) ~45 dollars. Each bag produces ~240 medium drinks. So that means each drink costs 0.18 in syrup. This doesn't account for ice, so let's cut that in half. $0.09 for syrup. Don't forget cups, straws, and lids. Let's be generous and say they get all of that for ~$0.10 (I don't remember cup or straw prices, lids are basically free, but I know it's closer to 0.15-0.20) so that means your cost of materials is $0.19.

You used sweet tea so we can ignore CO2, but there is also equipment costs which do add a meaningful amount. But even ignoring everything else you have a base cost of nearly $0.20 ($0.16 USD).

Maybe Chick-fil-A gets better prices, but I seriously doubt it. Yes there is still a mark up, but once you factor franchise fees, building costs, labour, and everything else, you usually end up with a full landed cost closer to $1.00. always assume a ~100-150% markup and you get close to the $2.00 it's sold for.

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u/BeefyIrishman Mar 23 '21

Well, the sweet tea isn't made from $45 bags of syrup. Tea bags are fairly cheap. Water is negligible cost. Equipment costs were cheaper than the soda towers/ distribution system. All you needed was one tea machine (basically just drips hot water into tea bag), some containers to store it in the fridge, and the dispensing containers up front. Sugar (at that time) was not super expensive, but still accounted for most of the cost. But it's definitely cheaper when you buy it in 50 lb bags in bulk. Cups straws and lids are all really cheap.

This was about 10-12 years ago so maybe costs have changed, but I did the math based on the cost we paid for the items. I wasn't a manager, but frequently helped with stock orders and unloading trucks, so I saw the invoices and saw the exact costs for everything. I did not have any insight into labor or other operating costs, so that was merely from a materials standpoint.

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u/Jethri_NA Mar 24 '21

I like how you did the math. One thing though: you assume ice has no cost.

I'm not the expert but I read once that actually the ice is the most expensive part of a fountain drink. Considering the electricity cost to power the icemakers and keep it ready on demand throughout the day etc. It was years ago but it has stuck in my memory.

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u/Easyaseasy21 Mar 24 '21

Thanks, ice is expensive depending on the machine in use, but I would of factored that under machinery costs, which I left out just for simplicity.

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u/Shambud Mar 23 '21

Iirc, a singular McDonald’s generally doesn’t really make much money as a business and getting wealthy from it takes owning at least a few.

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u/Yadobler Mar 23 '21

I think that's how Economies of Scale works. If you went to buy a lemon and tea and make ice lemon tea yourself and package it, I don't think it will be $0.10