Once the nasi lemak is decided, there is only one move left.

You are about to open a nasi lemak stall. What is left for you to decide?

Last time we said the trader by the LRT stairs is working with almost nothing. Start with what he cannot change.

The recipe is common knowledge, so the food is a given. The price is what everyone charges, and a nasi lemak bungkus priced at double the going rate will struggle to sell, so that is a given too. There is no brand to build a moat with. Strip those out and one decision is left that matters: where he stands.

In 1929 an economist, Harold Hotelling, worked out what happens next. The textbook version has two food carts on a beach. Each edges toward the other to win a few more customers, and they end up side by side at the middle of the beach, splitting the crowd. Neither can afford to be the one who moves away.

Two sellers is the clean case. We use it to show which way the pull runs. How many stalls end up in a row is a separate question. So the second nasi lemak stall opens at the foot of the stairs, next to the first, because that is where the people are. A quiet street would give it a smaller crowd to itself.