Candy Vending: Small Investment, Quick Payoff (Part 1 of 3)

If you are someone that wants to get the ball rolling as an entrepreneur like I was and you don’t have a lot of cash stored up to do start-up, I suggest starting up your own Vending Business. The amount of money you can make in the vending business is unlimited. You only need to check the machines once a month, and each machine can easily make you $15-20 a month or even more. At one point, I was making $700 a month doing 7 hours of hard work 2 days a month. That’s equivalent to $8,400 a year just for working hard 24 days a year!

The Vending Business is perfect to do on the side if you have a full time job, or if you are running a separate business because checking the machines is flexible and you can do it on your own time. I have broken everything down into a step-by-step process of exactly what you need to get yourself started. Once you understand these basics, it is possible to turn this business into your main source of income if you so choose.

There are many different areas of vending that you can be successful (Candy, Beverages, Toys, etc.). The one that I am going to focus on is the cheapest and fastest way to break into the Vending Business, which involves Candy and Gumball Quarter Machines.

There’s just six simple things that you need to know to get yourself started:

1.    Buy USED Machines
2.    Make or Buy Labels
3.    Talk to Local Businesses
4.    Alternative Option: Hire A Locating Business
5.    Best Candy Choices
6.    Form an LLC

I am going to cover the first two steps in this blog post. Please subscribe to my blog and the next steps will be added later this week.

1) Buy Used Machines

This is the most important factor in having a successful Vending Machine Company. Used vending machines are much cheaper than buying new, and the goal when you are starting up is to overcome the cost of the machines and start turning a profit. This took me less than 4 months. If you buy new, it might take a year or more before the machines were paid off.

The best place to find used machines is Craigslist. All you have to do is type in ‘Vending Machines’ or ‘Candy Machines’ and you’ll get 10 to 20 results. The key here is to look through the results and find a good deal. After about a week of looking when I first started, I was able to get 10 nice machines for $40 each.

What to look for

Triple Head Candy Machine

The machines that I look for are called double head or triple head machines. They can dispense 2 or 3 different types of candy, which can double or triple your selling power with one machine.

How to get a great deal

There are a number people selling their machines because they came into the business the wrong way. They spent way too much money on their equipment  (some as much as $300 per machine! Ouch). They became discouraged because they weren’t seeing a return quick enough. Instead of admitting their mistake and pushing through the toughest part, they chose to give up. While this is unfortunate for them, this is an advantage for us. Most of these individuals are so frustrated that they just want to get the machines off their hands at any price. They are almost giving them away. This means that you have some leverage and can talk people listing their machines for $60-80 down to somewhere in the $35-50 price range. I would not recommend paying any more than $60 for a machine. Just keep looking around on Craigslist and making calls and soon you will find a deal.

2) Buy Or Make Labels

Making labels is easy. You can just find pictures of the candy online, print them out, and tape them to the front of the machine. For a more professional look, you can buy the stickers online at any website. Just repeat this process with all your machines and then they will be ready to go.

This is enough information for you to get your feet wet in the Candy Vending Business. Keep checking back and subscribe to my blog as I will continue providing helpful information and answering any questions.

In Part 2, you will learn How to Talk to Local Businesses and What Places Make the Most Cash

Thanks and have fun!

Don’t Be Cynical

“All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism. It’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
-Conan O’Brien

Generation-Y Sucks – Jason Calacanis (This Week In Startups)

If you haven’t heard of This Week in Startups yet, you’re missing out. Jason Calacanis) has one of the best and most inspirational podcasts for anyone looking to start up a company. He is a well-known blogger that started up and eventually sold Weblogs, Inc. for $30 million. He has most recently founded Mahalo.com, a human-based search engine.

His message in one of his recent podcasts (shown above at 3:50) calls out Generation-Y, anyone born in the mid 80’s and beyond (which includes myself), saying that we as a whole are lazy and expect everything to be handed to us. He says that 20% have it right, but 80% are just going through the motions and don’t have that drive. We are the 20%. We’re able to take the blinders that were put on us off and turn this country around. It’s about being a true entrepreneur. It’s about creating value for society. Let’s work hard and not sit back and wait for things to get handed to us. Let’s be invaluable.

Steve Jobs: Stay Hungry. Stay… Foolish?

I really can’t think of a better way to get some motivation or inspiration than by listening to Steve Jobs’ Stanford speech. If you haven’t ever seen the video, I strongly urge you to watch it. His message is right on point. While Jobs may not be the greatest public speaker on the planet (see 8:11), he is without a doubt an extremely wise person with great advice.

His whole speech is filled with nuggets. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” Don’t let society hold you down. Don’t become mediocre like everyone else. We can achieve so much more in life when we don’t look to be told what to do and we accomplish our own goals, however unrealistic our peers may believe them to be.

My favorite part of the whole speech starts at (9:05):

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Steve Jobs would be considered a typical failure in 2010 if he was out ‘starting a company’ right now instead of going to school. And the doubter’s suspicions would have been confirmed when he was fired from his own company. “That’s the problem. Now he doesn’t have a degree. Nobody is going to hire him,” they might say.

Steve didn’t listen to them. Neither should we. After being labeled a ‘failure’ in the eyes of many he is faced with two options. He could just give up and fall back in line with the crowd, or he could do the exact opposite. He chose the latter. Jobs instead takes his ‘defeat’ and considers it to be a learning experience. Through his experience and hard work ethic, he forms a new company, Pixar Studios, and turns it into one of the most successful companies in the film industry. His company is later sold to Disney, and he is finally recognized as the success he always knew he was.

Everyone’s path to success is like a ball we have to roll up a hill. It takes some pushing and struggling to get to the top, and as we get closer, we can feel gravity kicking in and everything starts to get heavier. But we need to keep fighting through and eventually all that pushing will send us over the top and it all starts to roll downhill.

If you feel on the verge of greatness but you sense people trying to tug you back down, don’t listen. Stay focused and keep pushing. You’ll soon be on the top and it will all be worth it.

As Steve Jobs says: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

Diving Into Ice Cold Water

Moving to Tampa this past week from Ohio has set me on a new path and I want to use this blog to share my excitement, profound realizations, anxiousness, highs, lows, and every other thrill I encounter along the way. I’m jumping into a new entrepreneurial endeavor with a rapidly growing IT Company and I’m not sure what to expect, but it’s definitely going to be a ride to remember.

Some of my friends have called me crazy because I’m not following the ‘path’ that society has set out and conditioned us to follow. Some might say I’m wild. I call it curious. Some might say I’m reckless, but I have goals. I might be unconventional, but I don’t see any yellow brick roads to follow. All these ‘paths’ look the down the same dull, grey roads filled with potholes. Let’s pave a new one.

This blog will highlight 5 main areas:

• Challenging and Improving Yourself
• Being a Starter and a Doer
• Inspiration and Motivation
• Encouraging Critical Thinking
• Having fun

This blog will carry a dash of my philosophies and conclusions I’ve come to (after extensive research and anecdotal evidence) about the world during my 24 years on this planet. Everything I talk about on this blog is up for debate. I love intelligent conversation and any challenge of opinion is encouraged. This blog is also a humorous one. Too many people in this world take life way too seriously. Screw that.

This blog is for those like myself those looking for something better than the status quo. This is for the creative thinkers and problem solvers that want to understand what is really going on in the world and want to push hard enough to leave their own dent in society. We want to make an impact.

This blog is myself calling out to find others that share the same interests, beliefs, and philosophies on life as me. I’m hoping to make a couple new friends along the way. I want to share with you what I’ve learned so far on my 24-year journey and I want to hear about your experiences as well.