Have you ever traveled somewhere and thought to yourself, “If there was a good fast food place right here, they would make soooo much money”. Whenever I go travelling, I think about this. There are so many places in the world that haven’t been properly introduced to fast food type restaurants. Last summer, I was traveling in Pakistan, and I saw the weirdest thing. KFC and Hardee’s were super popular spots for people to go and get food. Sure, there was a McDonald’s there too, but McDonald’s are everywhere. However, those two specific places got me thinking.
Why were these fast food restaurants famous out of all the possible fast food restaurants that could have been famous there? What made these two fast food restaurants so special. That is when it hit me. They had no competition. These fast food restaurants have practically no competition. In the entirety of Pakistan, there are only 70 McDonald’s. Pakistan has a population of 220 million currently, so that is about 3 million people for every McDonald’s there. There is also about 60 KFC’s and even less for Hardee's. Even though KFC and Hardee’s are not as popular in America, they were one of the first to open, so they did not have any competition which helped them excel.
This brings me to my business idea, as you might already have guessed. If you want to really make some good money, opening a fast-food chain or any good restaurant, for that matter, in a foreign country is the way to go. There are a lot of areas in the world that are beginning to develop into a consumer economy, and if you can manage to open a decent fast-food chain over there, you can easily make a profit. All you need to do is get some management experience in a fast food chain, and then, you can take a loan, if you need to, and open the restaurant.
The thing about this business idea, though, is that you must be willing to travel. You for sure have to leave the United States, and you won’t be travelling to commercially developed continents (i.e Europe and Australia). You would most likely be going to Asia or Africa, since those continents have the most demand for commercial development, which you can provide with your fast food chain.
One complaint to this idea could be that there is a reason that there are not more fast food restaurants in places like these. The locals probably do not like eating outside food, as they would prefer their local cuisine. However, that's the fun thing about opening your own fast food restaurant in foreign lands, you can have the normal menu from outside, and you can add local cuisines of the area to make it special to the country that you open the restaurant in. I went to McDonald’s, and half of their menu contains items that you would not find in America.
Personally, this idea wondering if there was Taco Bell was in Pakistan because I did not see any when I went there. However, I researched it, and there is only four in all of Pakistan. So, if I were to do this idea if I became a businessman, I would go over there, and I would expand the Taco Bell franchise. However, you do not need to choose Pakistan as you can open it wherever you are comfortable with. The hardest part is just being able to open it in a good area, but once you manage to do that, you can relax easy as the restaurant will make money itself.