A street full of the same shop

There is a street in Downtown Cairo where shop after shop sells phone covers, chargers and screen protectors. Anyone starting a business is tempted to avoid a place like that. Why stand beside dozens of people selling the same thing, when a quieter district would make you the only one?

Because nobody in the quieter district is out looking for a charger.

The crowded street has the customers. They come knowing what they want and roughly what it should cost. Nobody has to be taught what a screen protector does. They arrive with a problem and the intention to pay for it to go away. They tell their cousins which end of the street to go to. And every neighbouring shop is a free lesson, in display, in pricing, in what moves.

An empty market looks like an opening. Often it is empty for a reason.

The crowd guarantees nothing, of course. One more shop that looks exactly like the others simply disappears into the row. To work there you need something a customer would bother to describe to a friend: a repair done while they wait, a seller who is honest about the cheap cable, a counter people remember for a reason.

And you need to still be there next year and the year after, long enough for that description to travel.

With something worth mentioning and the patience to stay, the busiest street in the city may be the right address after all.