Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2: And today we're talking outside of the box passive income
Speaker 2: ideas with mister passive.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, who doesn't want automatic recurring deposits Joel,
Speaker 1: just showing up in their savings accounts? I would love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with minimal effort, that's the dream. Well, so that last
Speaker 1: part I mentioned, the effort that is required. I think
Speaker 1: that is the part that a lot of folks get wrong. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was recently talking with a very smart friend and
Speaker 1: we got to talking about rental properties and he said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet it's nice to have that passive income streaming in.
Speaker 1: Not a let him know it wasn't, you know, I
Speaker 1: purely hands off activity. But we are not mainly going
Speaker 1: to talk about real estate today. We're actually going to
Speaker 1: talk about vending machines and what it takes to be
Speaker 1: a vending preneur. And the guy that basically invented that term,
Speaker 1: Mike Hoffman, that is who we are speaking with today
Speaker 1: and online. He's more commonly known as mister Passive, and
Speaker 1: I don't know of anyone who knows more about vending
Speaker 1: machines than he does. You know what it takes to
Speaker 1: succeed when it comes to vending machines. So Mike should
Speaker 1: should we call you Mike or should we call you
Speaker 1: mister passive during our conversation everyday, Mike's Mike. Okay, Mike,
Speaker 1: mister p thank you for joining the podcast today.
Speaker 3: Matt Joel, thank you for having me. This is great.
Speaker 2: You wear like a gold chain with a big pea
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Efforts, I get the reference now, I'm a brandy coach.
Speaker 1: Just turn to me for that. Uh, Mike.
Speaker 2: As you know, Matt and I we like to drink
Speaker 2: craft beer. But you know we're spending a lot of
Speaker 2: money on high quality craft beer from time to time.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean that we're not investing and thinking
Speaker 2: about our financial future simultaneously. Do you have something like that, Hey,
Speaker 2: you're being smart, you're investing in all sorts of things
Speaker 2: to grow your net worth, but hey, you're willing to
Speaker 2: splurge on what in the here and now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So for me, I have two kids under three,
Speaker 3: so we always splurge on kind of a daycare slash
Speaker 3: date night once a week. So every week we have
Speaker 3: a date night where you know, you're basically factoring in
Speaker 3: the cost of dinner plus the cost of daycare, and
Speaker 3: it's been you know, I just having a wife that
Speaker 3: understands entrepreneurial kind of grind and being on the same wavelength.
Speaker 3: I'm a huge believer and kind of that time.
Speaker 1: Together very nice. It's so important. That's something. Okay, you
Speaker 1: want to hear a little life little hack that Joel
Speaker 1: and I have implemented.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: This is something we started over ten years ago. Is
Speaker 1: that we both had our first kids around the same time,
Speaker 1: and so we implemented a date night swap. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, ten years like, had we invested that money
Speaker 1: that we didn't stand on a babysitter, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: would be a quasi impressive number. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you got a friend who's willing, who's got kids
Speaker 2: similar age, and you put your kid to bed and
Speaker 2: then you you know, swap off seven seven thirty and
Speaker 2: then you go out to dinner with your your your
Speaker 2: significant other, that could be I.
Speaker 1: Could save money the next week you're on the closs.
Speaker 1: I just gotta be willing to put that time in.
Speaker 1: I guess just think about it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that, Okay, I was wondering what the
Speaker 3: swamp was. I was like, are the husband's swapping Dade?
Speaker 1: Yeah, glad you explained it. Yeah, exactly what's going to
Speaker 1: go over watch his kids and vice versa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really does cut down on the babysitting costs.
Speaker 1: But add up into minera though you don't think with
Speaker 1: the girls getting older. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Mike.
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, time with your partner like that, that's incredibly important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: while we're talking, I guess about our personal lives a
Speaker 1: little bit. You were a strength and conditioning coach. How
Speaker 1: did you go from something like that that's I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's not an area like when you're talking about personal
Speaker 1: finance and you're talking about entrepreneurship, you don't typically hear
Speaker 1: about dudes that also used to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the gym. But how did you transition from
Speaker 1: that to becoming mister passive?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I actually used to live in the Bay
Speaker 3: and the Silicon Valley and Mendo Park there and was
Speaker 3: a strength conditioning coach for a think of it as
Speaker 3: like a lab where we worked with high level athletes
Speaker 3: from Stanford and cow but we also developed a lot
Speaker 3: of software to predict injury risk that teams in our
Speaker 3: military would use. So I would travel a lot to
Speaker 3: these professional and college teams and even down by you
Speaker 3: in the South Southeast. But long story short, traveling a
Speaker 3: lot requires you to be in an airport a lot,
Speaker 3: which if anyone's ever been in an airport, including Atlanta's,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of venue machines. So I still
Speaker 3: remember to this day. I was in a layover in Denver,
Speaker 3: flying back west from the East Coast, and our flight
Speaker 3: got delayed at eleven PM. They're like, oh, the pilot's
Speaker 3: gone over as hours for the day. You're gonna have
Speaker 3: to stay in the airport overnight. So I went up
Speaker 3: to this venue machine and I was like, One, there's
Speaker 3: crappy options in here, and I'm a healthy guy at
Speaker 3: least I hope to be. And then two, this water
Speaker 3: i'm paying for. I know I'm paying two bucks, but
Speaker 3: I know it cost ten cents at costco and someone
Speaker 3: is making whatever that is, five hundred percent margins off
Speaker 3: of me while they're sleeping and I'm currently in an airport.
Speaker 3: So I actually went down this rabbit hole of venue.
Speaker 3: And I had a couple rentals back in the Midwest
Speaker 3: from when I used to live there, But so I
Speaker 3: had real estate and things like that, So I always
Speaker 3: kind of had the entrepreneurial mindset. But that's how I
Speaker 3: got into vending was during that layover in Denver.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you started with real estate. Talk about that?
Speaker 2: Was that essentially this goal? Did you kind of have this?
Speaker 2: It sounds like it maybe the vending machine was like
Speaker 2: an aha moment, but also not an epiphany because you'd
Speaker 2: also already thought about kind of passive income and the
Speaker 2: role that it could play in your life, and that
Speaker 2: started with real estate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So I actually my first I guess,
Speaker 3: if you want to call it, outside of my W
Speaker 3: two income stream was a rental. I was coaching as
Speaker 3: a strength conditioning coach in Saint Louis at the time,
Speaker 3: and I got a seventy thousand dollars house at the
Speaker 3: And all I knew about real estate was you typically
Speaker 3: have to put twenty percent down, and this is right
Speaker 3: around twenty twelve. You have to put twenty percent down,
Speaker 3: and you want to you want to get the one
Speaker 3: percent rule. And that's all I knew. I wasn't like
Speaker 3: a bigger pockets guy or read a bunch of these books.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, seventy thousand dollars house the neighborhood
Speaker 3: oz Inc Had rentals listed on Craigslist for about nine
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty bucks. So I bought the house. I
Speaker 3: hired a property management firm. We listed it for I
Speaker 3: think nine to twenty five and I knew I was
Speaker 3: I was doing more than the one percent, so I
Speaker 3: knew I could afford to pay the mortgage and make
Speaker 3: a little bit of money off of it. So that
Speaker 3: was actually probably five years before I got into vending.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I guess while we're talking about that first house,
Speaker 1: I think I saw that you used your emergency fund
Speaker 1: to purchase that house. A. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: But that's absolutely correct, Okay, B Do.
Speaker 1: You feel that that was a risky move? Like if someone,
Speaker 1: if you had a friend who came to you today,
Speaker 1: was just like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this, I
Speaker 1: guess what would you say to them?
Speaker 3: So definitely a risky move, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: I think back in whatever that was twenty twelve, the
Speaker 3: market was in a completely different place and it just
Speaker 3: hadn't been going up and up into the right for
Speaker 3: this long. So if I was in those shoes. Today,
Speaker 3: I'd probably say there are other things you can do
Speaker 3: with that money to be a little bit more smart.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind too, the other risky part of this
Speaker 3: why I had to tap into an emergency fund is
Speaker 3: as a strength conditioning coach, I was the lowest on
Speaker 3: the totem pool at that university. So I was literally
Speaker 3: making twelve hundred dollars a month, like that was my
Speaker 3: W two paycheck every month. So I had to dip
Speaker 3: in an emergency fund because you think about or seventy
Speaker 3: thousand dollars house, I had to put fourteen grand down
Speaker 3: at twenty percent.
Speaker 2: So this felt like to you, like the real estate investing,
Speaker 2: did this feel like an necessity? Was it one of
Speaker 2: those things like, Hey, if I'm going to continue to
Speaker 2: do this job that I love, the only way to
Speaker 2: make ends meet is if I find income somewhere else.
Speaker 2: And then did you have this ultimate goal in the
Speaker 2: back of your mind after you saw the success of
Speaker 2: the first rental property, like, oh man, I want to
Speaker 2: quit my day job and continue to ramp this up.
Speaker 2: Or is it just kind of like no, this is
Speaker 2: this is supplemental income so I can continue to do
Speaker 2: the job and the career that I'm interested in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at that time, it was more supplemental, just because look,
Speaker 3: we were renting it out for nine to twenty five.
Speaker 3: After expenses and mortgage and escrow and all that, we
Speaker 3: were probably making three hundred bucks a month, and I
Speaker 3: couldn't keep affording to stack more rentals because it's not
Speaker 3: like I just had another emergency fund that tap into
Speaker 3: for my next rentals. So it was more of a
Speaker 3: that's an extra three hundred bucks a month type of thing.
Speaker 3: But when I got going down the vending route later on,
Speaker 3: that's when I really realized, oh, wow, I can stack
Speaker 3: vending locations way easier than real estate properties and even
Speaker 3: buy these machines with no money down, and like you, like,
Speaker 3: you could just use leverage financially a lot more simpler
Speaker 3: than what's real estate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a bit more, a bit more feasible. So
Speaker 1: we're yeah, we're talking about passive income. But before we
Speaker 1: kind of dive into the specifics, do you think that
Speaker 1: the concept just gets over hyped by folks who are
Speaker 1: out there trying to sell a course or trying to
Speaker 1: get you to buy their product, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: Like you always hear about passive income. But I'll you
Speaker 1: know a lot of times there is. Sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: part time job, sometimes it's you maybe even just selling
Speaker 1: your time. But yeah, I'm curious to get your thoughts
Speaker 1: there as somebody who's there in the space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's interesting. The thing so mister passive came about,
Speaker 3: I wasn't really like, I wasn't in these courses. I
Speaker 3: wasn't reading all these like oh, make money on YouTube
Speaker 3: or faceless YouTube or all the different things that are
Speaker 3: out there now. So I wasn't really in the know
Speaker 3: of that hype. But now I'm really starting to see it,
Speaker 3: and I just come back to you can make whether
Speaker 3: it's vending our real estate, you can make it as
Speaker 3: passive as you want to, granted all the upfront effort,
Speaker 3: it's just you're going to let go of control. And
Speaker 3: I see this all the time with our operators in
Speaker 3: our community. Is you got those that will have a
Speaker 3: day job and they'll go stock forty machines, and then
Speaker 3: you got people like me where I quantify the value
Speaker 3: of my time and like, I am totally fine with
Speaker 3: finding an operator and letting them take control of some
Speaker 3: of those tasks that I don't think are worth my time,
Speaker 3: and I will cut into my margins happily to make
Speaker 3: it as passive as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean the same thing in real estate when
Speaker 2: you hire property manager versus self management, and you're exactly
Speaker 2: you're paying to unload the hassle and the time suck
Speaker 2: and the potential frustrations of that gig. But you yeah,
Speaker 2: you minimize profitability. And you also there are other troubles
Speaker 2: you might run into with that strategy too, which we
Speaker 2: want to get into. I'm curious too though, before we
Speaker 2: get into it, we want to talk a ton about,
Speaker 2: you know, vending machines in particular. How does like traditional
Speaker 2: investing in retirement accounts in the stock market, which is
Speaker 2: incredibly passive as well, but it obviously takes time to
Speaker 2: build up a nest egg, how does that factor into
Speaker 2: your passive income masterplan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a huge part of it. I mean
Speaker 3: we have we've kind of set up a system or
Speaker 3: I guess a pie, so to speak, and split up
Speaker 3: the pie in different sectors. You know, I look at
Speaker 3: it as like a passive income Disneyland, you know, vendings
Speaker 3: and the cash flow Kingdom. We got the the stock market,
Speaker 3: and long term kingdom over here, and there's just different
Speaker 3: you know, the real estate kingdom with our We have
Speaker 3: an airbnb in Florida that we bought sight unseen. So
Speaker 3: there's just there's different pieces of the pie and we
Speaker 3: try to keep it as balanced as possible. You know.
Speaker 3: The thing with vending compared to like our our index
Speaker 3: funds and things like that, is it's actually a lot
Speaker 3: more stable these days. I mean, you guys probably follow
Speaker 3: the market a lot more close closely than me. But
Speaker 3: it's been an interesting ride since the election in November,
Speaker 3: and and each day I'm like, wow, I'm way up,
Speaker 3: and then by the end of the day, I'm like
Speaker 3: way down or y versa. And it's like, holy caligator, because.
Speaker 2: You said you think we might pay more attention, but
Speaker 2: not really. It's pretty passive on that too, so I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not really looking all that much, which is
Speaker 2: some of the benefits, I guess of being kind of
Speaker 2: a long term passive investor.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, so I think all of it's important.
Speaker 3: It's it's all it's just like you know what we
Speaker 3: were talking about earlier, Like even with exercise and diet,
Speaker 3: it's everything has a place in moderation right now. There's
Speaker 3: no doubt there's a revolution with AI and and people
Speaker 3: love to use that buzzword, but I look at it
Speaker 3: as what are the industries that are going through massive
Speaker 3: disruption are ready, and then how do we make those
Speaker 3: things passive? So the reason like I'm so bullish on
Speaker 3: vending and not to like plug vending, but venning is
Speaker 3: going through a massive disruption right now. Like if you
Speaker 3: guys go into the like when you fly to Vegas,
Speaker 3: when you land in the Vegas airport and you go
Speaker 3: down the escalator where it says welcome to Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: There's literally a seven to eleven store at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the escalator that is employeeless, and you walk in,
Speaker 3: the gate opens to the store with your credit card,
Speaker 3: and you walk out, Like the AI sensors literally track
Speaker 3: everything you grab and like, to me, that's unattended retail.
Speaker 3: That's technically vending. But like people think of vending as
Speaker 3: like the machine with a lego set in at the
Speaker 3: O'Hare airport. And so the reason I'm so bullish on
Speaker 3: vending is because not because it's a new concept, it's
Speaker 3: like it's going through a massive disruption with unattended retail
Speaker 3: with AI everything around it, and I think that could
Speaker 3: be for anything. I mean, I come back to like
Speaker 3: some of these Airbnb tools and things that now you
Speaker 3: can like we bought our house sight unseen in Florida,
Speaker 3: but we backdoored the comp comps of it by reaching
Speaker 3: out to the neighborhood properties that are on Airbnb and
Speaker 3: got in with the PM and we knew W two
Speaker 3: within ten percent or sorry W nine, like revenue wise,
Speaker 3: what it was going to do as a rental by
Speaker 3: just and now with AI, you like that would be
Speaker 3: so much more streamlined.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so let's get all the way into vending
Speaker 2: machine talk. You talk about real estate and hey, I
Speaker 2: want to buy that next property, but I don't have
Speaker 2: twenty percent to put down on it. It's going to take
Speaker 2: me a heck of a long time to get going
Speaker 2: in that space and to really ramp up my real
Speaker 2: estate investments. So and then you have this, you know,
Speaker 2: airport moment where you're like, somebody else is sleeping right
Speaker 2: now and they're making money off me. Is was that
Speaker 2: kind of part of the push into ventding machines saying listen,
Speaker 2: the capital that's needed is minimal and this is something
Speaker 2: that can scale, Like what are the benefits of vending,
Speaker 2: you know, running and owning vending machines as opposed to
Speaker 2: other ways of trying to pursue passive income.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so at the time, all I had and was
Speaker 3: the real estate properties, which required twenty percent down. I
Speaker 3: also bought some miners for bitcoin at the time, I
Speaker 3: think it was like twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 3: those required a little bit of a significant investment of
Speaker 3: the miners and the facility and stuff. So I was
Speaker 3: testing out a little bit of different things. But when
Speaker 3: I bought the or when I was in that airport
Speaker 3: and I saw that machine with that water, at the time,
Speaker 3: I didn't know that you could buy those machines with
Speaker 3: minimal money down. I also didn't know how consistent the
Speaker 3: cash flow would be. The other thing that really played
Speaker 3: a factor at the time was I hated looking in
Speaker 3: those machines and seeing the types of products that were
Speaker 3: sold in those machines. Like if you look at when
Speaker 3: I got into this before COVID to now like now
Speaker 3: you literally these smart machines. They are just smart coolers
Speaker 3: with a lock on the door and a point of sale,
Speaker 3: so you could it's just shelf space, so you could
Speaker 3: put in theory. I mean, we have people that will
Speaker 3: put packs of eggs in there, they'll put keifer in there,
Speaker 3: they'll put olive oil in there.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of like a hippie vending machine.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but like it's like a corner store machine.
Speaker 1: I guess a Brussel Sprats and my vending machine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you think about it. I mean, honestly, like
Speaker 3: we have tampons, we have day quill, niquil, Like Walgreens
Speaker 3: just announced they're closing twelve hundred stores. Well, what do
Speaker 3: people willing to pay for for convenience? And so it's
Speaker 3: just kind of like this perfect storm of the industry
Speaker 3: alongside technology disruption.
Speaker 2: It certainly only makes a vending machine possibilities sound well, extremely.
Speaker 1: Well, specifically to what you consider these smart coolers essentially,
Speaker 1: which is what you like, I've seen you post a
Speaker 1: picture of this up on X But like with one
Speaker 1: of those, like, how much are we talking about being
Speaker 1: able to make from a single well placed quote unquote
Speaker 1: vending machine that's actually kind of looks like a mini
Speaker 1: fridge that's.
Speaker 3: Sensors and and all this other other sort.
Speaker 1: Of stuff like that's that's what folks appetite here as
Speaker 1: we are talking about vending machines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we we had an old school machine with
Speaker 3: the kind of the motors and the you had to
Speaker 3: enter a C four on the on the little code
Speaker 3: and then snickers would spiral down and then shoot down
Speaker 3: into the chute and you had to grab it. So
Speaker 3: we replaced one of those with a smart machine, same
Speaker 3: exact location as an apartment complex. We went from doing
Speaker 3: twelve hundred dollars a month in revenue to twenty five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars a month in revenue really in one month,
Speaker 3: and it's purely off of when you open that so
Speaker 3: you have to the doors are locked on these smart machines.
Speaker 3: You have to put a credit card or tap your
Speaker 3: phone to unlock the door. It authorizes that you actually
Speaker 3: have money in your account, it's not just a gift card.
Speaker 3: And then whatever you grab once that door is unlocked,
Speaker 3: the AI cameras track it. So you build out a
Speaker 3: planogram that's like, oh, the case of eggs is in
Speaker 3: the bottom right corner, the laundry detergent pods are in
Speaker 3: the bottom left corner. So once that door's open, people
Speaker 3: will just grab multiple things because you don't have to
Speaker 3: re enter on a machine a code. So watch something inspired. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're reducing friction exactly.
Speaker 1: Are going to try the keyfer Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like your friend told me about it, time to
Speaker 2: hop on it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but think about it, like people go to
Speaker 3: a machine thinking they're going to get a water or
Speaker 3: a bag of chips or snickers, and now that the
Speaker 3: door's open, they'll just grab three different things and walk
Speaker 3: away and it just charges your cart. Man.
Speaker 2: It just makes me think of the advice I would
Speaker 2: give to people using the vending machine, though, would be
Speaker 2: to not use them, just because of how expensive it
Speaker 2: is and how hey, you could go buy a case
Speaker 2: of water at Costco for the same price you're getting
Speaker 2: one water from the vending machine. But I guess on
Speaker 2: the other side, you can capitalize on the fact that
Speaker 2: people like vending machines and they like convenient.
Speaker 1: Or if you just don't have the ability to you know,
Speaker 1: like let's say the car broke down, but you're there
Speaker 1: at the apartment complex and you're like, dang it, I
Speaker 1: really need some eggs. I'm willing to pay a slightly
Speaker 1: higher premium in order to have that now, because guess what,
Speaker 1: it's time to feed the kids, time to cook breakfast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Mike, we've got plenty more questions to get to.
Speaker 1: We're gonna ask all about vending machines, what it takes
Speaker 1: to be a vending preneur. We'll get to all of
Speaker 1: that right after this. Okay, we're back from the break.
Speaker 2: We're still talking with Mike, mister passive about investing for
Speaker 2: it to get passive income, and specifically we're talking about
Speaker 2: vending machines. And it is this is a fascinating subject, Mike,
Speaker 2: because I think most people listening, myself included, before I
Speaker 2: started to dive into this, I am thinking about the
Speaker 2: old school Snickers machine, and I am thinking about the
Speaker 2: fact that like, who uses those anymore? But you're right,
Speaker 2: like you can get legos. I mean, there's a million
Speaker 2: things you can get. The vending machines are made in
Speaker 2: all sorts of different shapes and sizes and varieties. Now,
Speaker 2: can you talk to me maybe about what other kinds
Speaker 2: of ending machines exist? And also you mentioned the you know,
Speaker 2: increase in revenue from getting that nicer smart machine, the
Speaker 2: cooler version. Yeah, how much those machines cost.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's all kinds. There's kind of the what
Speaker 3: we would call smart machines, like we're talking about here
Speaker 3: with the coolers that are locked and the point of
Speaker 3: sale on the door. And then there's the open market.
Speaker 3: So if you think of everyone stayed at a Marriott
Speaker 3: or a Hilton where there's a little market connected to
Speaker 3: the check in desk, and theory you can build out
Speaker 3: those are just shelves and you can just build those.
Speaker 3: We do a lot of open milk markets at like
Speaker 3: office buildings and throw a camera on there, and you
Speaker 3: really don't have to worry about theft because you can
Speaker 3: throw a sign on the market that says you'll be
Speaker 3: to or have hr to it, you'll be terminated if
Speaker 3: you get caught stealing. So in those scenarios where you're
Speaker 3: really not worried about theft, that you're not worried about
Speaker 3: the drunk Kig coming home at two A and rating
Speaker 3: the open market, there's those options, And then you know,
Speaker 3: I'm a huge believer in these smart machines just because
Speaker 3: the flexibility in the shelf space. You can do if
Speaker 3: it fits on the shelf, it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker 3: dayquill or if it's a twelve ounce celsius, you can
Speaker 3: do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Okay, So what makes in your opinion, like, what
Speaker 1: makes the best location for one of these vending machines
Speaker 1: or one of these smart coolers.
Speaker 3: The simplest way I would say it is if it
Speaker 3: has a full parking lot, it would it would do great.
Speaker 3: So if there's people there exactly so, so backing up,
Speaker 3: think of it this way. You got two types. You
Speaker 3: got high employees, so a business with a lot of employees,
Speaker 3: and then you got high foot traffic. So think of
Speaker 3: like a YMCA, think of an urgent care of that
Speaker 3: hospital and apartment complex. Any of those type of places
Speaker 3: that have high foot traffic or high employee counts would
Speaker 3: both crush it with machines.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about maybe early Another early vending machine example
Speaker 2: would be red Box, right, and red Box dominated and
Speaker 2: now their I source in front of every store possible,
Speaker 2: Like nobody is literally going is going down to the
Speaker 2: CBS or to Kroger to rend a DVD to watch
Speaker 2: that night. So is that like an example of an
Speaker 2: opportunity maybe for vending machine entrepreneurs to say, listen, I
Speaker 2: want to take the spot that the Red Box occupies
Speaker 2: or has occupied in all these locations, and I want
Speaker 2: to like offer something much better for the retailer and
Speaker 2: for consumers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if we're going to go that far.
Speaker 3: I think the reason the Red Box is the is
Speaker 3: the I soore is because it's not being used, so
Speaker 3: it's been sitting there because DVDs are no longer. I
Speaker 3: would take it a step further, and you think about
Speaker 3: that convenience store you go into where you go to
Speaker 3: the back corner and it's got all the fridges and
Speaker 3: it's got a diet coke cooler and a Pepsi cooler.
Speaker 3: Those coolers are made by the same company that makes
Speaker 3: the smart coolers, And so I would go to it
Speaker 3: where I would challenge you that, like by twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 3: that convenience store where the Red Box is outside, when
Speaker 3: you walk in, there's either going to be point of
Speaker 3: sales on every door of those coolers so you don't
Speaker 3: have to go to the front register and wait in line,
Speaker 3: or there's gonna be AI cameras so when you walk
Speaker 3: in you put your credit card in that that AI
Speaker 3: tracks you through the shelves and what you grab when
Speaker 3: you walk out. So it's Almos, it's going to be employeless.
Speaker 3: I mean that's where we're going that Vegas. Uh uh
Speaker 3: just walk out technology by Amazon with for the seven
Speaker 3: to eleven it within the next two years, Hudson bookstores
Speaker 3: and airports will have no employees. I am very confident
Speaker 3: in that. Okay, We'll just think of like at the
Speaker 3: grocery store, the self checkout, Like people now there's bigger
Speaker 3: lines at self checkout because they don't want to talk
Speaker 3: to anyone. They just want to go grab their stuff
Speaker 3: and leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna have to turn off the podcast I'm
Speaker 2: listening to in order to talk to the which I'm
Speaker 2: you know, I'm fine with because I'm a I'm a
Speaker 2: chatty guy, but still I get that, Mike.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Joel asking about the red box locations got
Speaker 1: me thinking because on one hand, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's smart because there's already maybe the infrastructure needed in
Speaker 1: order to run a vending machine or a smart cooler
Speaker 1: because there used to be something here. How remote can
Speaker 1: you go with these machines? Like, I guess what is
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that's needed? Obviously, I'm guessing you need some
Speaker 1: sort of electrical hookup, but like, do you need Wi
Speaker 1: Fi as well in order to be able to communicate
Speaker 1: with the payment service.
Speaker 3: No, so yeah, you just need one ten bowl so
Speaker 3: just normal outlet and a lot of these outlets you
Speaker 3: just like to have two outlets. You just need the
Speaker 3: one and run a searge cord to be protective. And
Speaker 3: then we like we actually prefer not to be connected
Speaker 3: to Wi Fi just because like if Wi Fi goes
Speaker 3: down and let's say it's a location that doesn't have
Speaker 3: strong Wi Fi anyway, So we do these routers on
Speaker 3: the machines on the back of the machine that connects
Speaker 3: to two different cell towers. So we'll typically do like
Speaker 3: Verizon and AT and T. In case one of the
Speaker 3: cell towers goes down, it automatically kicks over to.
Speaker 2: The other one using five G instead of WiFi exactly. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, interesting, Okay, what about let's say you find
Speaker 2: a primo location and you're like, boom, this is my
Speaker 2: ticket to riches.
Speaker 1: Got all the foot traffic, it's got all the employees.
Speaker 2: You'll stick this vending machine in here, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: crush and I'm gonna make money while I'm sleeping, well,
Speaker 2: do you have to typically pay for that space? Do
Speaker 2: you have to pay a commission to a landlord or
Speaker 2: something like that. How do you go about once you've
Speaker 2: identified places that a vending machine would make sense in
Speaker 2: your opinion? Or I don't know, maybe can you cannibalize
Speaker 2: somebody else's business too and say go to a the
Speaker 2: landlord and say, hey, these crummy vending machines. I could
Speaker 2: do something way better than that for you, Like, how
Speaker 2: are you identifying opportunities and do you have to pay
Speaker 2: for those opportunities?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you'd actually be surprised. We probably have half
Speaker 3: of our locations don't have a revenue share and they
Speaker 3: or we don't have to pay rent. In fact, a
Speaker 3: lot of these places view it as an amenity for
Speaker 3: their employees or their residence at depending on what type
Speaker 3: of location. I see both sides of it. Like you know, clearly,
Speaker 3: if you don't have to rent space through a revenue share,
Speaker 3: your margins are going to be a little bit better.
Speaker 3: But the reason I don't mind paying a revenue share
Speaker 3: pain rent is because when they have skin in the
Speaker 3: game to help you promote the machine to their employees
Speaker 3: or their residents, they're going to be a lot more motivated.
Speaker 3: So if they do get a revenue share from you
Speaker 3: or a rent check based on profits or something, they're
Speaker 3: going to want to help market it for you, whether
Speaker 3: that's promos, whether that's like employee the month credit to
Speaker 3: the market downstairs or whatever. So I actually don't mind
Speaker 3: that at all.
Speaker 1: So when you do when there is a rev share,
Speaker 1: typically what's that split?
Speaker 3: Does it very?
Speaker 1: I guess depending on the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And you can also parlay it. We do
Speaker 3: a lot of parlaying where it's like, okay, if it's
Speaker 3: above five property, if we know they have a bunch
Speaker 3: of sister properties in the area, or a bunch of
Speaker 3: sister businesses, or let's say it's a YMCA chain and
Speaker 3: we want to get the whole whole region, will parlay
Speaker 3: and say, oh, it's let's say it's three percent up
Speaker 3: to five properties, and then then it jumps up to
Speaker 3: eight percent.
Speaker 1: Okay. My mind keeps going to these smart coolers. Ever see, like,
Speaker 1: ever since seeing the picture of it that you posted online,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like thinking through different spots, like where
Speaker 1: we live.
Speaker 3: It looks like sticking, it looks like a bookshelf, doesn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it actually like I get why property owners and
Speaker 1: quote unquote landlords might even want to promote it because
Speaker 1: they do look classy. It's not like like the old
Speaker 1: school vending machines where it's this giant thing that actually
Speaker 1: looks like a giant can of coke or something with
Speaker 1: the colors and people are hitting on it trying to
Speaker 1: get a free coke out of it. It's it's a
Speaker 1: different type of vending machine. And even saying vending machine
Speaker 1: isn't I feel like it's not quite fair, but like
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 2: Using old school terminology for something it's changed.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the difference between like these old
Speaker 1: school machines and the new ones. Did you say how
Speaker 1: much these new machines cost?
Speaker 3: Oh, so that one would be you're putting me on
Speaker 3: the spot. I think they're around like eight or nine grand.
Speaker 1: Eight or nine grand.
Speaker 3: If you're in our community, I'll just give a little
Speaker 3: plug here. I think you get fifteen percent off. So
Speaker 3: I think our community pays around seven or something.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, Okay, So I assume that that's a significant
Speaker 1: investment over kind of like the old school style of
Speaker 1: vending machine. Do you feel like that it's worth it
Speaker 1: to get some of these newer machines. And you've documented
Speaker 1: how folks are able to pretty much overnight double their
Speaker 1: double their revenue on that machine. Is it worth it
Speaker 1: to go ahead and just splurge for this nicer machine
Speaker 1: if somebody's wanting to get into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would recommend that. One. It helps your sales
Speaker 3: pitch on the front end because you're not leading with
Speaker 3: like an iore traditional machine. But two, I mean we
Speaker 3: do this all the time where you know, if it's
Speaker 3: as so so location, we'll test it out with a
Speaker 3: traditional machine, And a traditional machine is still fifty five
Speaker 3: hundred or six grand, so you're still unless you buy
Speaker 3: it used off Craigslist like I did for my first
Speaker 3: one and then it broke four months later. But you know,
Speaker 3: you're still if you're going to spend six grand for
Speaker 3: a new new, quote unquote old school looking machine, you
Speaker 3: might as well just splurge and get a Because for us,
Speaker 3: when we switched out the traditional machine with the smart machine,
Speaker 3: I mean that's an extra twelve hundred bucks a month.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you've talked too about how financing those machines,
Speaker 2: just paying for them over time can allow someone to
Speaker 2: get in to kind of get reap some profits. Instead
Speaker 2: of feeling like they've got to save up the full
Speaker 2: price of the machine ahead of time, you're able to
Speaker 2: move a little bit quicker and kind of prove out
Speaker 2: the methodology of that passive income attempt right exactly.
Speaker 3: And you don't even have to really get caught up
Speaker 3: on the interest rates at the time, like, oh, rates
Speaker 3: aren't coming down type of thing, because on a seven
Speaker 3: thousand dollars machine, if you finance it that let's say
Speaker 3: fifteen percent. The difference between fifteen ten percent and eight
Speaker 3: percent on a machine, or even five percent on a
Speaker 3: machine is only like seven to eight dollars a month,
Speaker 3: because it's only on a six thousand dollars loan or
Speaker 3: whatever it is, depending on your money down. So for us,
Speaker 3: we always prefer to finance and then pay them off
Speaker 3: in a year. That's kind of how our model is.
Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to stomach than yeah, going all
Speaker 1: in on real estate. Okay, before the break, you mentioned
Speaker 1: your sort of epiphany moment when you sort of realize
Speaker 1: that wait a minute, vitting machines. It was a bottle
Speaker 1: of water. And I think you even said something about
Speaker 1: somebody buying that at Costco? Is that typically what you
Speaker 1: do when it comes to supplying or stocking some of
Speaker 1: these different vitting machines. Where are you getting the stuff
Speaker 1: to stick in there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's where I started. We live in a
Speaker 3: town that has Costco but doesn't have SAM, so we
Speaker 3: went down the Costco train. I actually am releasing this
Speaker 3: month a platform that I've negotiated direct pricing with folks
Speaker 3: like Coke and Pepsi and all these brands because the
Speaker 3: problem with Costco as you're missing out on rebates, and
Speaker 3: a lot of these brands want you to buy their
Speaker 3: products so they'll give you significant rebates, and so Costco.
Speaker 3: If you're getting started and you want to try to
Speaker 3: build a out yourself, absolutely you just go wherever it's cheapest.
Speaker 3: I mean even Walmart supercenters have good prices on salads.
Speaker 3: But the problem about going there is you know you
Speaker 3: got a six day shelf life. So I mean, we
Speaker 3: have folks that'll go to all kinds of places based
Speaker 3: on what they have access.
Speaker 2: To, So talk about getting that route started. Let's say
Speaker 2: you have a couple of machines. You have to kind
Speaker 2: of monitor inventory, be purchasing new inventory showing up to
Speaker 2: restock the vending machine, especially early on, like before you
Speaker 2: hired staff to kind of help do some of those
Speaker 2: things for you, What was that like and what's it
Speaker 2: like to manage a handful of bending machines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So for me, and you'll hear this a lot
Speaker 3: with people in our community, is it's actually kind of
Speaker 3: therapeutic to stalk a machine. Like you were saying earlier, Literally,
Speaker 3: you have your pods in, you're listening to a podcast,
Speaker 3: you're listening to music, You're in your own little element.
Speaker 3: If you have a family, you're just kind of you know,
Speaker 3: it's an excuse to kind of go off on your own.
Speaker 3: And the great thing with this is you can stalk
Speaker 3: on your time. So if you're a like with our
Speaker 3: operators that we hire, I always say, if you're a
Speaker 3: morning early riser, ghost stalk in the morning, if you're
Speaker 3: a night owl, ghost stock at night. It just needs
Speaker 3: to be consistent. And so for when you get going,
Speaker 3: you get into a battle rhythm. So when I got
Speaker 3: started with my first couple of machines, and I didn't
Speaker 3: really feel comfortable making it passive yet because I didn't
Speaker 3: even know what I was delegating because I was literally
Speaker 3: learning this as I went. I would order product once
Speaker 3: a week from costco dot com. They had free two
Speaker 3: day delivery above seventy five bucks, which you're clearly going
Speaker 3: to hit that when you order product. We didn't have
Speaker 3: a garage at our house, so I bought a little
Speaker 3: landscaping shed from Costco, a little like four by six
Speaker 3: landscaping shed. I put it right inside the fence to
Speaker 3: our yard, right next to the driveway, and when these
Speaker 3: boxes came in from Costco, I would just throw the
Speaker 3: product in that landscaping shed. And then you're tracking everything
Speaker 3: from your phone, so I could log in right now
Speaker 3: and track of all, you know, sixty machines. I could
Speaker 3: see what's selling, what's not, what we need to restock
Speaker 3: it with, And so I would. When I was getting started,
Speaker 3: I would whenever I go out to hit balls or
Speaker 3: go out to the gym. Usually at the time with
Speaker 3: two machines, you're spending about an hour a week. So
Speaker 3: I would block off, let's say Fridays, because going into
Speaker 3: the weekend with apartments, you want those baby stocks. So
Speaker 3: I would look at my phone, say, okay, I need
Speaker 3: eight snickers, ten diet cokes and I throw throw the
Speaker 3: inventory in a bucket, and I had one bucket per machine,
Speaker 3: and I throw in the back of my car. And
Speaker 3: when I was heading out to run errands, I would
Speaker 3: literally go buy the machines with my pods in and
Speaker 3: do the stalking. And that's kind of how it was
Speaker 3: set up.
Speaker 2: Did keeping track of the inventory and like what was
Speaker 2: selling and what wasn't did that help you make some
Speaker 2: changes and identify maybe snacks that weren't selling so hot,
Speaker 2: and say, wait a second, people don't like the orange
Speaker 2: fans to drink, they want the purple fans to drink
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. Did that kind of help you
Speaker 2: make changes? Like, oh, wait, coke zero instead of regular coke.
Speaker 2: Turns out folks don't like the keyfer Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, and you start to I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: a huge believer in doubling down on what's selling the whole,
Speaker 3: like pricing psychology stuff I didn't know what I didn't know,
Speaker 3: Like I didn't know why PEPSI will put a monster
Speaker 3: next to a cheaper spinoff energy drink on purpose because
Speaker 3: people will just pay more for the Monster because they
Speaker 3: think it's a nicer product, because it's listed for a
Speaker 3: higher price, Like I didn't know any of that stuff.
Speaker 3: So for me, I was like fascinated, Like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: we're selling smart waters, but we're not smelling selling any Gatorades,
Speaker 3: let's pull the Gatorades and now let's add perier water,
Speaker 3: let's add desawny water. Like double down on the category
Speaker 3: that's working. So if you're selling a ton of Celsius
Speaker 3: and Alani, pull the rock star in the monster and
Speaker 3: double down on quote unquote the newer, modern, healthier energy
Speaker 3: drinks because that's probably like a college kid type property.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have two apartment complexes. This will blow
Speaker 3: your mind. We have two apartment complexes. They both have
Speaker 3: a smart machine and each one one of them is
Speaker 3: for college kids that go to Oregon. The other one
Speaker 3: is for the crowd that's like fifty to sixty five
Speaker 3: years old that will just rent their whole life. The
Speaker 3: one machine for the college kids literally has products in
Speaker 3: it I didn't even know existed. Like I didn't even
Speaker 3: know what these wrap snacks were. I didn't know what
Speaker 3: these like Skittles gummies were, Like.
Speaker 1: The kids, Oh my god, Dune.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then the other apartment complex literally will sell
Speaker 3: thirty diet cokes in two days.
Speaker 2: You gotta know your clients.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, he's crazy. That's so funny.
Speaker 3: Exactly, you double down on what works so like to me,
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, should we And the great thing with
Speaker 3: these smart machines, it's like, well, shoot, should we put
Speaker 3: a six pack of diet coke in here? You can?
Speaker 1: That's so crazy. Okay, So, like you mentioned multiple, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got these two different apartment complexes. How many machines
Speaker 1: overall do you have? Like I guess I'm curious as
Speaker 1: to how big you can get? Do you You just exhaled?
Speaker 1: Do you even know how many machines you have?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well I just got to know ifcation. We have
Speaker 3: seven that just shipped today, So I think we're up
Speaker 3: to sixty machines. Okay, we do. We do have two routes.
Speaker 3: I bought a route out of state and run that
Speaker 3: remotely or have have an operator that runs that remotely.
Speaker 3: I spent about an hour a week on that route
Speaker 3: just helping like close more locations, Like that's the only
Speaker 3: thing that's not passive that route for me. And then
Speaker 3: we have the route here in Oregon as well, which
Speaker 3: we have seven machines shipping. We just had four come
Speaker 3: last week, so we're kind of at that point now
Speaker 3: where we know what works. Were also not the new
Speaker 3: kid on the block anymore, so there's a lot of
Speaker 3: referrals and stuff, and like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 3: people are now seeing these smart machines out there, so
Speaker 3: they want that.
Speaker 2: So you have people now working for you to help
Speaker 2: make this passive so that you can, you know, work
Speaker 2: your day job, make a lot of supplemental income from
Speaker 2: the vending machines, but also not have to put a
Speaker 2: whole whole lot of time and effort into it, except
Speaker 2: for maybe like the business building aspect of it, which
Speaker 2: sounds like you're more interested in how important are like
Speaker 2: systems and people to growing your passive income and making
Speaker 2: these vending machines become more like a lucrative, you know,
Speaker 2: side hustle instead of like a massive part time or
Speaker 2: full time job with big headaches.
Speaker 3: You know, I think that you just hit the nail
Speaker 3: on the head. That is the number one bottleneck I
Speaker 3: see with our ventingpreneurs is they want to do everything,
Speaker 3: and I think it's like the classic just I want
Speaker 3: to do it. I'm the only one that knows how
Speaker 3: to do it, mindset or just honestly being scared ask
Speaker 3: for help. I mean, we've all been there before, and
Speaker 3: so I think that's for me personally. I spend an
Speaker 3: hour a week on our vending route, and honestly, it's
Speaker 3: literally I have a half hour blocked out on Fridays
Speaker 3: to any properties that are close to signing a contract
Speaker 3: with US. I follow up with those like high leverage,
Speaker 3: you know, because as you add locations really parlays the revenue.
Speaker 3: But then also a half hour to check in with
Speaker 3: our gms of each route. But I see in our
Speaker 3: community all the time, guys, I blows my mind. They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I don't want to hire that twenty dollars an hour
Speaker 3: stalker because now instead of my profit margins being fifty
Speaker 3: percent or forty percent, And I'm like, yeah, but what
Speaker 3: if you were doing twenty grand instead of ten random month?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it's like short sighted to yeah, yeah, to
Speaker 2: avoid growing the thing because there's only so much one
Speaker 2: person can do. But if you bring other people in,
Speaker 2: as long as you're a savvy manager and you're looking
Speaker 2: towards other opportunities, it's like the sky's a limit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and with these type of kind of these type
Speaker 3: of people you're hiring, you literally have a lot of
Speaker 3: flexibility with finding good talent, you trust, because if they
Speaker 3: have a morning job, they can do it in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: If they have a night job, they can do it
Speaker 3: in the morning. If it's Monday versus Tuesday, I don't care,
Speaker 3: it just needs to be done one of those days
Speaker 3: every week. Like, there's so much flexibility to find good
Speaker 3: talent because it's like DoorDash er uber. These workers can
Speaker 3: literally that's where I found a lot of our best
Speaker 3: talent initially was on Craigslist gigs, not even Craigslist jobs,
Speaker 3: but gigs because these people probably already have day jobs
Speaker 3: and so they're responsible, they have kids, they need supplementary
Speaker 3: income or else they wouldn't even be on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I don't want to cover ground that we've
Speaker 1: already covered. But you mentioned earlier something else you said
Speaker 1: was like you mentioned salads. But then the downside there
Speaker 1: is like it's got a shelf life of maybe only
Speaker 1: six six days. Like what are the craziest things that
Speaker 1: folks in your network that they're selling on there or
Speaker 1: stuff that you've seen I guess I think about here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, there's like a pizza vending machine that made
Speaker 1: the news at some point last year. Obviously this that
Speaker 1: goes beyond what we're talking about here, but like I guess,
Speaker 1: in your machines, what's like, what are some of the
Speaker 1: more kind of out there items that you were selling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the pizza vending machine is definitely a fun
Speaker 3: one to watch. You also got the Lego machine at O'Hare.
Speaker 3: Always cracks me up because there's not a Lego set
Speaker 3: in there for less than seventy five bucks. But if
Speaker 3: you think about flying with your kids across the country
Speaker 3: for six hours, like I would pay seventy five bucks
Speaker 3: for a Lego.
Speaker 1: So branding play for Lego, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely yeah. So I think for us, it's it's
Speaker 3: really kind of diving into some of these niche convenience items.
Speaker 3: Like we have one of our entrepreneurs in the Dallas area.
Speaker 3: His wife's actually a beaued a Titian or something, and
Speaker 3: they have one of these smart machines on college campus
Speaker 3: and they'll sell shampoo for like thirty like high end
Speaker 3: shampoo for like thirty five dollars. Gee, and that machine
Speaker 3: that smart machine that we were talking about earlier that
Speaker 3: looks like a bookshelf. They have those one machine doing
Speaker 3: over five grand, multiple one of the like multiple machines
Speaker 3: doing over five grand a month each.
Speaker 4: That's crazy, And is that way? Is that profit or revenue?
Speaker 4: So no, no revenue. So they're probably like he literally
Speaker 4: has five machines around this college campus that is doing
Speaker 4: over twenty grand a month. He's he's doing and he
Speaker 4: has a day job. He's a high school teacher. He's
Speaker 4: doing over ten grand a month. And I think he
Speaker 4: just finally hired an operator because I was on him
Speaker 4: forever about like, dude, just give up some margin. You
Speaker 4: might now instead of ten grand in profit, you might
Speaker 4: do eight grand in profit.
Speaker 2: But it's okay, yeah, yeah, for really, it just means
Speaker 2: you can Expand we've got just a few more questions
Speaker 2: to get to with you, Mike, specifically finishing up on
Speaker 2: the vending machine stuff on kind of entrepreneurship in that way,
Speaker 2: and also just a couple of questions. I'm curious about
Speaker 2: that airbnb you mentioned too. I want to dig into that.
Speaker 2: We'll give to a few more questions with Mike. Right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: We are back for the break talking with Mike aka
Speaker 1: mister Passive about vending machines, and my eyes have certainly
Speaker 1: been open to this entire industry. If it kind of
Speaker 1: feels like the scales of following up, yeah, a certain extent,
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna kind of, like, I guess, flip the
Speaker 1: whole vending machine thing on its head because this is
Speaker 1: totally unrelated. Mike. I heard you say one time something
Speaker 1: about the power of being relationally driven. I think this
Speaker 1: is a separate conversation that you're having. But like you
Speaker 1: mentioned how a thank you note, how that helped you
Speaker 1: to land a job one time. I'm sorry to shift
Speaker 1: gear so suddenly, but like maybe the power of networking.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too, I guess, given the conversation we're
Speaker 1: having about vending machines, But yeah, talk about that.
Speaker 2: Highly relational too. I would think getting getting your vending
Speaker 2: machines in the right place.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean even dropping off gift baskets of
Speaker 3: items that you put in your machines to the front
Speaker 3: desk of a property you're trying to close. Or I'm
Speaker 3: a huge old school I'm also Midwest values like trust
Speaker 3: is number one thing to me, So I actually when
Speaker 3: I was moving from Saint Louis to Silicon Valley and
Speaker 3: Menlo Park. The reason I got the job over two
Speaker 3: others in a highly competitive human performance professional athlete kind
Speaker 3: of environment was because of a thank you note I
Speaker 3: wrote after my job interview and to like, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's how I was raised it
Speaker 3: with my parents or whatever, but I'm huge into the
Speaker 3: soft skills and and that's the number one thing, especially today,
Speaker 3: people are so when I guess, lazy when it comes
Speaker 3: to things like that. And so how do you stand
Speaker 3: out doing the simple things?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Simple.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's this complicated thing to stand out, but.
Speaker 1: But like actually doing the leg wars like like like
Speaker 1: we like, gosh, you even you saying it. It's like,
Speaker 1: that's not it's not rocket science to take a gift
Speaker 1: basket of the items you're looking to sell to get
Speaker 1: them on board, and all of a sudden they're like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: why not? But like, who is willing to take that
Speaker 1: last little five percent to in this case close the deals?
Speaker 2: Like twelve bucks in a little bit of thought goes
Speaker 2: a long way. Yeah, right, I could net you thousands
Speaker 2: and you guys nail.
Speaker 3: It on the head, Like I was at the National
Speaker 3: Vending Conference and I'm not you know, I didn't grow
Speaker 3: up studying the industry of vending. So I was like,
Speaker 3: but I went this year to this conference, first time
Speaker 3: I've been there. Crazy, Like, there are ninety five percent
Speaker 3: of the machine companies are from China. You think of
Speaker 3: every single snack you've ever had, ranging from beef jerky
Speaker 3: to crackers to Alli pop, poppy, Celsius, Pepsi, Mars Wrigley.
Speaker 3: There's over five hundred vendors there. I probably met with
Speaker 3: two hundred of them. I gave out my business card.
Speaker 3: Guess how many of those two hundred actually sent me
Speaker 3: a follow up after that conference?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 3: One? Okay, wow, one person, and guess who's getting my business.
Speaker 2: That one guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Makes sense.
Speaker 1: Man, a beef jerky vending machine, by the way, sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: Well, but even like something simple like that, I'm like
Speaker 3: the power and a follow up. We have all bought
Speaker 3: from humans, Like I've bought my car from a sales
Speaker 3: rep that wouldn't leave me alone.
Speaker 1: It's ironic, though, I guess. At the same time, like,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about the power of human connection. But
Speaker 1: we're talking about vending machines. Yeah, right, which is like
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite, not to like crap all over
Speaker 1: vending machines. Do you ever think about that? Just the
Speaker 1: fact that I don't know if you read this is
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago now. Derek Thompson's piece over at
Speaker 1: The Atlantic. He's a front of the show, he's been
Speaker 1: on before, but he kind of talks about how we're
Speaker 1: the anti social, like we're living in the anti social century,
Speaker 1: and like vening machines, they kind of do that, like
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of anti social behavior that they promote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts again, I'm not looking to drag
Speaker 1: vening machines through the mud or anything, but do you
Speaker 1: ever think about that?
Speaker 3: I haven't looked at it from that broad lens. I
Speaker 3: mean what you just mentioned regarding Derek, I think it
Speaker 3: ties directly into all of us at the grocery store.
Speaker 3: Like we go to self checkout so we can still
Speaker 3: have our podcast on there. We don't want the front
Speaker 3: desk lady to our front us sorry, the register lady
Speaker 3: to complain about whatever, so we just want to stay
Speaker 3: in our lane. So I definitely think a piece of that,
Speaker 3: but like people aren't going to a vending machine. It's
Speaker 3: not like you're skipping out on a party to go
Speaker 3: to a veny. Like to me, it's your pain for convenience,
Speaker 3: We're not I mean sure, like, yeah, humans are expensive
Speaker 3: and all of that, but like even the Hudson bookstore example,
Speaker 3: you're still gonna have employees around there to stalk the
Speaker 3: shelves until we really get into robots. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know, I mean, it definitely plays a part. It's
Speaker 3: an interesting thought, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fair defense.
Speaker 2: I think what they said about ATMs, But like, ultimately,
Speaker 2: lots of these technological you know, innovations actually accelerate a
Speaker 2: lot of more relational, more highly productive jobs. So instead
Speaker 2: of the opposite, right, killing jobs, they kill some kinds
Speaker 2: of jobs, but oftentimes there's room for bigger and better jobs.
Speaker 2: I'm curious too, Mike, you mentioned buying the Airbnb in
Speaker 2: Florida sight unseen. That is one of those things that
Speaker 2: scares me a little bit, like just kind of like
Speaker 2: buying real estate without ever laying eyes on it.
Speaker 1: It sounds like.
Speaker 2: Relationships were kind of at least a part of how
Speaker 2: that deal came about.
Speaker 1: As well. How how did you buy.
Speaker 2: A property without ever looking at it and how'd they
Speaker 2: work out for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've done that twice now. One time was
Speaker 3: a little less risky back in Saint Louis. It's kind
Speaker 3: of where we had another one, and after we moved
Speaker 3: away from Saint Louis, I knew the neighborhood, but yes
Speaker 3: I did. I did a kind of a backdoor development
Speaker 3: here in Oregon where we did a home in an adu,
Speaker 3: but we fenced off the adu as almost like when
Speaker 3: you drive up to the lot, it looked like separate
Speaker 3: homes on separate lots type of thing. And then had
Speaker 3: two tenants and we got a pretty significant off market
Speaker 3: offer for that. And I was on a on a
Speaker 3: ten thirty one and I had read something on X
Speaker 3: around people loving and it was kind of during COVID
Speaker 3: people loving a vacation to Florida because it's driving distance
Speaker 3: from Atlanta and everywhere in the South blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And it was also right outside of Tampa, so I
Speaker 3: knew there's a military base there, there's there's all kinds
Speaker 3: of business there, YadA YadA. And so what I did
Speaker 3: is I ran some comps, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: four bedrooms with a pools is gonna do well. And
Speaker 3: so I went to Airbnb. I literally reached out to
Speaker 3: the hosts that had the highest ratings and most ratings
Speaker 3: in Clearwater, where our rental was, and I just reached
Speaker 3: out to her and said, hey, we're in the market
Speaker 3: for a home or looking at a rental, you would
Speaker 3: you hop on a call? And she was actually a host,
Speaker 3: she was a property manager. So not only was she
Speaker 3: she shared their revenue for the year before to confirm
Speaker 3: the comps I was looking at, but then she was
Speaker 3: like also had a realer license, and so she's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: I can also help you find a home that aligns
Speaker 3: with our home that we were discussing on Airbnb. So
Speaker 3: that's actually how we bought the home side unseen and
Speaker 3: it's done over six figures every year.
Speaker 1: Very cool. That's so you got man, Yeah you got
Speaker 1: that monthly cash flow. But I'm assuming you've seen some
Speaker 1: appreciation there at this properties as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we've also dealt with hurricanes too, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of money to cover your insurance costs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean we were doing very well
Speaker 3: and we have some gains and equity tucked away there.
Speaker 3: I think now that we're having kids out in Oregon
Speaker 3: that are younger and want to kind of getting to
Speaker 3: Florida's getting harder and harder to because we also wanted
Speaker 3: to visit, so we might look at more of a
Speaker 3: central Oregon Parlay ten thirty one back closer. That's a
Speaker 3: drive away instead of a flight away. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I would do it all over again if I could.
Speaker 1: Nice awesome, Well, Mike, we really appreciate you sharing your
Speaker 1: story with us. Just maybe I feel like you are
Speaker 1: kind of changing the tune a little bit when it
Speaker 1: comes to what it looks like to be a vendingpreneur.
Speaker 1: But where can folks learn more about you? It's not
Speaker 1: a class, but the program that you offer and what
Speaker 1: it is that you're up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, Joel, thanks for having me. This shows huge
Speaker 3: fans of it and just appreciate everything you guys have
Speaker 3: been doing. But yeah, folks want to reach out. Ventingpreneurs
Speaker 3: is our website around the vending stuff if they're just
Speaker 3: interested on some of the passive income and just general
Speaker 3: following more frequent content. X is a pretty place I'm
Speaker 3: really active and you know I always share things on
Speaker 3: there as being a former coach, I'm huge on on
Speaker 3: helping other people along the way and trying to prevent,
Speaker 3: like if they can skip the pothole that I went through,
Speaker 3: even better.
Speaker 1: Love it. Mike, thanks so much, man.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, guys, appreciate you well.
Speaker 1: All right, Joel, I gotta say the I'm laughing to
Speaker 1: myself because when you think of vending machines, you don't
Speaker 1: think through what we talked about today, right, Like you
Speaker 1: don't think three machines that sell high in shampoo that
Speaker 1: bougie college students are buying on a nice campus. You
Speaker 1: never crossed my mind. You don't think about organic eggs. Shoot,
Speaker 1: you could even put like home home raised chicken eggs.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the license licensing looks like there,
Speaker 1: but I guess I'm just highlighting the fact that this
Speaker 1: is it took a different turn than maybe I think
Speaker 1: we were initially expecting when we had some initial emails
Speaker 1: with Mike.
Speaker 2: The mister passive these as your grandpa's vending machines, No,
Speaker 2: I think is kind of what you're getting at.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're they're very different and I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think they could be much more appealing, especially to a
Speaker 1: lot of our listeners who might be looking into branching
Speaker 1: out from whatever it is that they're currently doing. But
Speaker 1: I'll let you go first that what was your big
Speaker 1: takeaway from our convo today? One?
Speaker 2: For some reason, it's just bringing up a thought. I
Speaker 2: have a friend who bought a like you don't even
Speaker 2: have to just go straight vending machine, just like Mike
Speaker 2: is mentioning, I had a friend who had a photo
Speaker 2: booth that she stuck in a record store. That's right,
Speaker 2: an old coworker of yours. Yeah, And she would make
Speaker 2: good money every month. And it was a similar sort
Speaker 2: of thing where you go restock the film. You had
Speaker 2: to make sure that the machine was working properly. But
Speaker 2: because people are going there to buy an album or
Speaker 2: something they'd like sitting there with their loved one, they're
Speaker 2: seeking another and take some pics and guess what she
Speaker 2: made good money from. You know, a little effort on
Speaker 2: the front end, but not a whole lot of ongoing effort.
Speaker 1: All the customers are like, we're already doing the analog
Speaker 1: thing anyway as well take a film photo exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that it really does fit with
Speaker 2: the medium, and so it's that kind of thing though,
Speaker 2: like thinking outside the box. I remember when she did that,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, it's a little risky. You
Speaker 2: can buy this machine that's coming from you know, a
Speaker 2: thousands of miles away across the ocean, and it worked
Speaker 2: out for And so I think similarly with what Mike's
Speaker 2: talking about is you have to be willing to take
Speaker 2: a little bit of a risk, but the reward can
Speaker 2: be meaningful and it can you know, add a lot
Speaker 2: of income to your life with some effort, but hopefully
Speaker 2: over time, less effort than what a traditional job would require,
Speaker 2: and you might be able to scale it into something bigger.
Speaker 2: So totally, I also love the fact that he didn't
Speaker 2: go all in on one thing. He's still diversified when
Speaker 2: it comes to real estate and investing in the market,
Speaker 2: pursuing you know, a day job, and then also this
Speaker 2: job on the side. I mean, I think that makes
Speaker 2: sense too, that you're not just like totally sold out
Speaker 2: to one thing.
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the reasons,
Speaker 1: so my big takeaway is how I guess attainable or approachable.
Speaker 1: This might be because of how little money down it
Speaker 1: takes to get one of these machines. So he talked
Speaker 1: about that, which was like interesting because when you're talking
Speaker 1: about a six thousand dollars machine as opposed to a
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand dollars home, Yeah, you know, financing well,
Speaker 1: it plays a smaller role in the overall equation. But
Speaker 1: then just as he was talking through the consistent cash
Speaker 1: flow that they're able to generate off of these machines
Speaker 1: as well, it got me thinking, and I'm it's hard
Speaker 1: to turn your mind off once you start imagining yourself
Speaker 1: in that situation. I start thinking through locations and all that.
Speaker 1: But I think it's kind of fun, honestly it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is a I don't know, hopefully folks
Speaker 1: found this to be a helpful conversation because a lot
Speaker 1: of times curiosities, Joel, they take us to things that
Speaker 1: we're more interested in. And maybe that's sabbaticals and thinking
Speaker 1: through like identity and some of these other things. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks out there as well who
Speaker 1: are looking to generate some additional income, and I think
Speaker 1: this is totally a way for a lot of folks
Speaker 1: to consider doing that.
Speaker 2: Don't count me out on that either. I'm always up
Speaker 2: for like a creative waye to make some extra money.
Speaker 2: Find our how to money craft beer vending machine at
Speaker 2: a location near you.
Speaker 1: Send. Do they have that where you have to hold
Speaker 1: your id up first? Only the finest beers? Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't know. We didn't ask about that.
Speaker 2: Imagine how much you'd have to pay for one of
Speaker 2: the craft beers that wesel selling.
Speaker 1: It would be a lot.
Speaker 2: A cantillon would be like thirty eight dollars or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: But that would be your job, just flying around the
Speaker 1: world sourcing these amazing beers directly from the breweries. Sounds
Speaker 1: like fun to me. You're on first name basis with
Speaker 1: all the come on I'm in that kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like sounds like a dream. Joe, off to twist my arm.
Speaker 1: On that note, Let's get to the beer that you
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it during this episode, which was a
Speaker 1: ghost prime by Parish out of Louisiana. But yeah, what
Speaker 1: were your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 2: This one would definitely be able to make it into
Speaker 2: the how of Money Vending Machine, the crafty vending machine.
Speaker 2: It was it was sweet, it was smooth.
Speaker 1: I was hoping for a little more bite from it.
Speaker 2: Just thinking, oh, I mean, this one was going to
Speaker 2: bring even more complexity because it's a really good beer,
Speaker 2: Like it's this an expensive ipa right.
Speaker 1: Here, Matt.
Speaker 2: But you know, while it lacked a little bit of
Speaker 2: that bite, it still had a ton of like like
Speaker 2: significant hop concentrate vibes going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me, it almost had like it had this edge.
Speaker 1: So it's funny, like, yeah, I don't know if bite
Speaker 1: in your language means edge in my language, but it
Speaker 1: did have almost like this sort of juniper like pininess
Speaker 1: to it that I was able to decipher and wrangle
Speaker 1: to the forefront of my taste buds. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: But yeah, super hazy to me. Drink a little bit
Speaker 1: drier as well, didn't It wasn't like overly, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't like sticky sweet or anything like that. And it's
Speaker 1: called Ghost Prime because I assumed this is just a
Speaker 1: doubled up version of Ghost in the Machine, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was based on that recipe. But regardless, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you and I got to enjoy this one during the
Speaker 1: episode today while we talked with mister Passive. We'll make
Speaker 1: sure to link to his community and where it is
Speaker 1: you can learn more about vending machines if you, after
Speaker 1: hearing this episode, are interested in perhaps becoming a vendingpreneur.
Speaker 1: All that's up on the website at howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 1: But buddy, that's going to be it. So until next time,
Speaker 1: best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,