Lemonade... more sour than sweet

When I was a kid, my cousins and I would make lemonade and try to sell it to people on the beach.  My Grandmother lives on the beach so we thought we had some prime real estate.  Sure, those other kids could stand on corners and shout at cars passing them but we could walk in the sand, dipping out toes into the water and annoy innocent sun bathers, no competition.  I think my family probably suggested we try to make some money by selling lemonade to get us off their backs for an afternoon and keep us busy so we didn't resort to tackling each other or wreaking havoc in my Grandmother's pristine house.  We used lemonade mix (my Grandmother's), water, a jug (also my Grandmother's), ice and plastic cups (Grammy's).  We charged 50 cents per cup but most beach don't have money with them, let alone a fully stocked wallet, so we frequently just gave it away fro free... not my best business move, in hindsight.  We had fun, made enough money for an ice cream each and gave the adults an afternoon of peace.  However, "real life" lemonade stands are not nearly this simple.  To really start up a small lemonade stand you need to take into account prices of individual items (something I NEVER did as a kid), permitting rules, advertising and how much to charge to make a profit.  There's a lot more to it than just whipping up some lemonade in a kitchen and pestering people for money.  Starting up a business, even something as simple as a lemonade stand, is definitely not as straight forward as one would think and, at first, doesn't have nearly as sweet a payoff as an ice cream cone or cup of lemonade.