Outside of the Box Passive Income Ideas w/ Mr. Passive #938

Summary

How to Money Podcast Summary: "Outside of the Box Passive Income Ideas w/ Mr. Passive #938"

Release Date: January 29, 2025
Host: Joel and Matt
Guest: Mike Hoffman (aka Mr. Passive)

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In episode #938 of the "How to Money" podcast, hosts Joel and Matt delve into unconventional passive income strategies with special guest Mike Hoffman, widely known as Mr. Passive. The conversation centers around vending machines as a lucrative avenue for generating passive income, contrasting it with more traditional methods like real estate and stock market investments.

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2. Guest Introduction: Mike Hoffman (Mr. Passive)

Mike Hoffman brings a unique perspective to the podcast, transitioning from a career as a strength and conditioning coach to becoming a successful vending machine entrepreneur. His journey underscores the potential of diversifying income streams beyond conventional job roles.

Matt [03:06]: "We are actually going to talk about vending machines and what it takes to be a vendingpreneur and the guy that basically invented that term, Mike Hoffman."

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3. Understanding Passive Income: Real Estate vs. Vending Machines

The hosts and Mike explore the concept of passive income, emphasizing that it doesn't equate to zero effort. Initial setup and ongoing management play crucial roles in the sustainability and profitability of passive income ventures.

Matt [02:10]: "Who doesn't want automatic recurring deposits, Joel, just showing up in their savings account?"

Mike [11:15]: "You can make it as passive as you want to. Granted, all the upfront effort. It's just, you're gonna let go of control."

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4. Mike's Journey in Real Estate

Mike shares his initial foray into real estate, purchasing a $70,000 house in 2012 to generate supplemental income. Despite limited knowledge and financial resources, his investment yielded modest returns, laying the groundwork for his later ventures.

Mike [07:08]: "I bought the house, hired a property management firm, and listed it for $925. I knew I was doing more than the 1%, so I could afford the mortgage and make a little money off it."

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5. Transition to Vending Machines

A pivotal moment occurred during a delayed flight, where Mike questioned the high profit margins of traditional vending machines. This led him to explore modern, technologically advanced vending solutions, recognizing their scalability and lower entry barriers compared to real estate.

Mike [07:08]: "I hate looking in those machines and seeing the types of products that were sold. Then I went down the rabbit hole of vending."

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6. Technological Advancements in Vending Machines

The conversation highlights the evolution of vending machines into smart, AI-driven units capable of tracking inventory, managing cashless transactions, and offering a diverse range of products, from everyday essentials to niche items.

Mike [16:09]: "Vending is going through a massive disruption with unattended retail, with AI, everything around it."

Joel [18:02]: "We have tampons, we have Dayquil, Nyquil. Like Walgreens just announced they're closing 1,200 stores."

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7. Operational Strategies: Location, Supply, Inventory

Selecting optimal locations is crucial for maximizing vending machine revenue. High foot traffic areas such as apartment complexes, gyms, and offices are ideal. Additionally, sourcing products affordably from suppliers like Costco and leveraging bulk purchasing strategies enhance profitability.

Mike [27:58]: "High foot traffic or high employee counts would both crush it with machines."

Matt [37:20]: "After seeing what you’re doing, I’m already thinking through locations and all that. It’s kind of fun."

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8. Managing and Scaling the Business

Mike emphasizes the importance of data-driven inventory management and the benefits of delegating tasks by hiring operators. This approach allows for scalability, enabling entrepreneurs to manage multiple machines with minimal hands-on involvement.

Mike [45:34]: "The number one bottleneck I see is they want to do everything. Hire operators to scale efficiently."

Joel [38:36]: "Managing a handful of vending machines feels like a therapeutic routine."

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9. Diversification of Income Streams

Beyond vending machines, Mike advocates for a balanced financial portfolio that includes real estate and stock market investments. This diversification mitigates risks and ensures steady cash flow from multiple sources.

Mike [12:59]: "Vending's in the cash flow kingdom. We got the stock market and long-term kingdom here."

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10. Challenges and Considerations

The discussion addresses potential challenges such as initial investment risks, technological dependencies, product shelf life, and the necessity of consistent monitoring to maintain profitability.

Matt [41:03]: "Folks don't like the kefir."

Mike [07:25]: "It was a risky move. I used my emergency fund, but the market was favorable at the time."

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11. Success Stories and Examples

Mike shares success stories from his network, including vending machines generating over $20,000 monthly through effective management and strategic product placement.

Mike [47:57]: "He has five machines around a college campus doing over $20k a month."

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12. Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode concludes with key takeaways emphasizing the accessibility, scalability, and profitability of modern vending machines as a passive income source. Mike encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to embrace technological advancements and leverage relationships to enhance their vending businesses.

Joel [65:18]: "Find our how to money craft beer vending machine at a location near you soon."

Matt [65:29]: "This is totally a way for a lot of folks to consider generating some additional income."

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Notable Quotes

1. Matt [02:10]: "Who doesn't want automatic recurring deposits, Joel, just showing up in their savings account?"
2. Mike [11:15]: "You can make it as passive as you want to. Granted, all the upfront effort. It's just, you're gonna let go of control."
3. Mike [07:08]: "I hate looking in those machines and seeing the types of products that were sold. Then I went down the rabbit hole of vending."
4. Mike [16:09]: "Vending is going through a massive disruption with unattended retail, with AI, everything around it."
5. Mike [45:34]: "The number one bottleneck I see is they want to do everything. Hire operators to scale efficiently."
6. Mike [47:57]: "He has five machines around a college campus doing over $20k a month."
7. Joel [65:18]: "Find our how to money craft beer vending machine at a location near you soon."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of "How to Money" effectively demystifies the vending machine business as a viable passive income strategy. Through Mike Hoffman's insights, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the industry’s potential, operational nuances, and the importance of leveraging technology and relationships to optimize profitability. Whether you're a seasoned investor or a newcomer seeking additional income streams, the discussion offers valuable takeaways on building and scaling a successful vending machine enterprise.

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Learn More

For listeners interested in exploring vending machines as a passive income source, Mike Hoffman recommends visiting Vendingpreneurs and following him on Twitter @MikePassive. Additionally, resources and further content can be found on the "How to Money" website at howtomoney.com.

Transcript

[Joel]

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[Joel]

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[Joel]

Welcome to How2Money. I'm Joel. I'm Matt and today we're talking outside of the box passive income ideas with Mr. Pass.

[Matt]

That's right. Yeah. Who doesn't want automatic recurring deposits, Joel just showing up in their savings account?

[Joel]

I would love that.

[Matt]

Yeah, with minimal effort. That's the dream. Well, so the last part I mentioned, the effort that is required. I think that is the part that a lot of folks get wrong. Actually I was recently talking with a very smart friend and we got to talking about rental properties and he said oh yeah, I bet it's nice to have that passive income streaming in. And I had to let him know it wasn't, you know, a purely hands off activity. But we are not mainly going to talk about real estate today. We're actually going to talk about vending machines and what it takes to be a vendingpreneur and the guy that basically invented that term, Mike Hoffman. That is who we are speaking with today. And online, he's more commonly known as Mr. Passive. And I don't know of anyone who knows more about vending machines than he does. You know what it takes to succeed when it comes to vending machines, Mike? Should we call you Mike or should we call you Mr. Passive during our conversation today?

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, Mike's fine.

[Matt]

Mike. Okay, Mike. Mr. P, thank you for joining the podcast today.

[Mike Hoffman]

Matt. Joel, thank you for having me. This is great.

[Joel]

You should wear like a gold chain with a big P on it. I don't know, just a P For branding efforts.

[Matt]

I get the reference now.

[Joel]

I'm a branding coach. Just turn to me for that, Mike. As you know, Matt and I, we like to drink craft beer, but you know, we're spending a lot of money on high quality craft beer from time to time. But it doesn't mean that we're not investing and thinking about our financial futures simultaneously. Do you have something like that? Hey, you're being smart. You're investing in all sorts of things for. To grow your net worth. But hey, you're willing to splurge on what in the here and now?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. So for me, I have two kids under three, so we always splurge on kind of a daycare slash date night once a week. So every, every week we have a date night where, you know, you're basically factoring in the cost of dinner plus the cost of daycare. And it's been, you know, I just having a wife that understands entrepreneurial kind of grind and being on the same wavelength, I'm a huge believer in and kind of that time together.

[Matt]

Very nice. It's so important. That's something. Okay, you want to hear a little life, a little hack that Joel and I have implemented?

[Mike Hoffman]

Absolutely.

[Matt]

This is something we started over 10 years ago, is that we both had our first kids around the same time. And so we implemented a date night swap. And I don't know, 10 years, like, had we invested that money that we didn't spend on a babysitter, I'm sure it would be a quasi impressive number.

[Joel]

Yeah. If you got a friend who's willing, who's got kids similar age, and you put your kid to bed and then you swap off 7, 7:30, and then you go out to dinner with your significant other, that could be. That could save money.

[Matt]

And the next week you're on the clock.

[Joel]

That's right.

[Matt]

You just got to be willing to put that time in, I guess just Think about it.

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, I like that. Okay. I was wondering what the swap was. I was like, are the husband swapping D?

[Matt]

Yeah. I'm glad you explained it.

[Joel]

I go over, watch his kids and vice versa. And it really does cut down on the babysitting costs. That really do add up.

[Matt]

End of an era though, you know, with the girls getting older.

[Joel]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Thanks for sharing that, Mike. Yeah. Time with your partner like that, that's incredibly important.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah.

[Matt]

While we're talking, I guess about our personal lives a little bit. You were a strength and conditioning coach. How did you go from something like that? That's. I don't know. That's not an area. Like when you're talking about personal finance, when you're talking about entrepreneurship, you don't typically hear about dudes that also used to spend a lot of time in the gym. But how did you transition from that to becoming Mr. Passive?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so I actually used to live in the bay in Silicon Valley in Menlo park there and was a strength conditioning coach for a. Think of it as like a lab where we worked with high level athletes from Stanford and Cal. But we also developed a lot of software to predict injury risk that teams in our military would use. So I would travel a lot to these professional and college teams and even down by you in the south Southeast. But long story short, traveling a lot requires you to be in an airport a lot. Which if anyone's ever been in an airport, including Atlanta's, there are a lot of vending machines. So I still remember to this day, I was in a layover in Denver flying back west from the east coast and our flight got delayed at 11pm they're like, oh, the pilot's gone over his hours for the day. You're gonna have to stay in the the airport overnight. So I went up to this vending machine and I was like, one, there's crappy options in here and I'm a. I'm a healthy guy, at least I hope to be. And then two, this water I'm paying for, I know I'm paying two bucks, but I know it costs 10 cents at Costco and someone is making whatever that is, 500% margins off of me while they're sleeping. And I'm currently in an air actually went down this rabbit hole of vending. And I had a couple rentals back in the Midwest from when I used to live there, but so I had real estate and things like that. So I always kind of had the entrepreneurial mindset, but that's how I got into Vending was during that layover in Denver.

[Joel]

So, yeah, you started with real estate. Talk. Talk about that. Was that essentially this goal? Did you kind of have this. It sounds like maybe the vending machine was like an aha moment, but also not an epiphany because you'd also already thought about kind of passive income and the role that it could play in. And that started with real estate.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, that's right. So I actually. My first, I guess, if you want to call it outside of my W2 income stream, was a rental. I was coaching as a strength conditioning coach in St. Louis at the time, and I got a $70,000 house at the. And all I knew about real estate was you typically have to put 20% down. And this is right around 2012. You have to put 20% down, and you want to. You want to get the 1% rule. And that's all I knew. I didn't. I wasn't like a bigger pockets guy or read a bunch of these books. I was like, okay, $70,000 house. The neighborhood it was in had rentals listed on Craigslist for about 950 bucks. So I bought the house. I hired a property management firm. We listed it for, I think, 925. And I knew I was doing more than the 1%, so I knew I could afford to pay the mortgage and make a little bit of money off of it. So that was actually probably five years before I got into vending.

[Matt]

Okay. So I guess while we're talking about that first house, I think I saw that you used your emergency fund to purchase that house. A, is that correct?

[Mike Hoffman]

But that's absolutely correct.

[Matt]

Okay. B, do you feel that that was a risky move? Like, if someone. If you had a friend who came to you today and was just like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this, I guess, what would you say to them?

[Mike Hoffman]

So definitely a risky move. There's no doubt about it. I think back in. Whatever that was, 2012, the market was in a completely different place, and it just hadn't been going up and up and to the right for. For this long. So if I was in those shoes today, I'd probably say there are other things you can do with that money to be a little bit more smart. Keep in mind, too, the other risky part of this, why I had to tap into an emergency fund, is as a strength conditioning coach, I was the lowest on the totem pole at that university. So I was literally making $1,200 a month. Like, that was my W2 paycheck. Every month. So I had to dip in an emergency fund because you think about 20,000 or $70,000 house, I had to put 14 grand down at 20%.

[Joel]

So this felt like to you like the real estate investing. Did this feel like a necessity? Was it one of those things like, hey, if I'm going to continue to do this job that I love, the only way I'm able to make ends meet is if I find income somewhere else? And then did you have this ultimate goal in the back of your mind after you saw the success of the first rental property? Like, oh man, I want to quit my day job and continue to ramp this up? Or is it just kind of like, no, this is, this is supplemental income so I can continue to do the job and the career that I'm interested in.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, at that time it was more supplemental just because, look, we were renting it out for 925 after expenses and mortgage and escrow and all that. We were probably making 300 bucks a month. And I couldn't keep affording to stack more rentals because it's not like I just had another emergency fund to tap into for my next rental. So it was more of a that's an extra 300 bucks a month type of thing. But when I got going down the vending route later on, that's when I really realized, oh, wow, I can stack vending locations way easier than real estate properties and even buy these machines with no money down. And like, it's like you could just use leverage financially. A lot more simpler than with real estate.

[Matt]

Yeah, it's a bit more. A bit more feasible. So, yeah, we're talking about passive income. But before we kind of dive into the specifics, do you think that the concept just gets overhyped by folks who are out there trying to sell a course or trying to get you to buy their product, that kind of thing. Like, you always hear about passive income, but I'll, you know, a lot of times there is. Sometimes it's a part time job, sometimes it's you maybe even just selling your time. But yeah, I'm curious to get your thoughts there as somebody who's there in the space.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so it's interesting the thing. So Mr. Passive came about. I wasn't really like, I wasn't in these courses. I wasn't reading all these like, oh, make money on YouTube or faceless YouTube or all the different things that are out there now. So I wasn't really in the know of, of that hype. But now I'm really starting to see it. And I just come back to, you can make. Whether it's vending or real estate, you can make it as passive as you want to. Granted all the upfront effort. It's just, you're gonna let go of control. And I see this all the time with our operators in our community is you got those that will have a day job and they'll go stock 40 machines, and then you got people like me where I quantify the value of my time and like, I am totally fine with finding an operator and letting them take control of some of those tasks that I don't think are worth my time. And I will cut into my margins happily to make it as passive as possible.

[Joel]

Yeah, I mean, same thing in real estate when you hire a property manager versus self management. And you're exactly. You're paying to unload the hassle and the time suck and the potential frustrations of that gig. But you, yeah, you minimize profitability. And you also. There are other troubles you might run into with that strategy too, which we want to get into. I'm curious too, though. Before we get into it, we want to talk a ton about, you know, vending machines in particular. How does, like, traditional investing in retirement accounts in the stock market, which is incredibly passive as well, but it obviously takes time to build up a nest egg. How does that factor into your passive income master plan?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, it's. It's a huge part of it. I mean, we have, we've kind of set up a system or I guess a pie, so to speak, and split up the pie in different sectors. You know, I look at it as like a passive income Disneyland. You know, vending's in the cash flow kingdom. We got the, the stock market and long term kingdom over here. And there's just different, you know, the real estate kingdom with our. We have an Airbnb and Florida that we bought sight unseen. So there's just, there's different pieces of the pie and we try to keep it as balanced as possible. You know, the thing with vending compared to like our, our index funds and things like that, is it's actually a lot more stable these days. I mean, you guys probably follow the market a lot more close closely than me, but it's been an interesting ride since the election in November. And, and each day I'm like, wow, I'm. I'm way up. And then by the end of the day, I'm like, way down or vice versa. And it's like, holy cow, look at your.

[Matt]

Because.

[Joel]

You said you think we Might pay more attention, but not really because we're pretty passive. We try not to on that too. So I'm not, I'm not really looking all that much. Which is some of the benefits, I guess, of being kind of a long term passive investor.

[Mike Hoffman]

Exactly. Yep, yep. So I think all of it's important. It's, it's all, it's just like, you know, what we were talking about earlier, like, even with exercise and diet, it's, everything has a place in moderation right now. There's no doubt there's a revolution with AI and, and people love to use that buzzword. But I, I look at it as, what are the industries that are going through massive disruption already? And then how do we make those things passive? So the reason, like, I'm so bullish on, on vending and, and not to like plug vending, but vending is going through a massive disruption right now. Like if you guys go into the, like when you fly to Vegas, when you land in the Vegas airport and you go down the escalator where it says welcome to Las Vegas, there's literally a 711 store at the bottom of the escalator that is employee less. And you walk in, you, the gate opens to the store with your credit card and you're, you're, you, you walk out. Like, the AI sensors literally track everything you grab. And like, to me, that's unattended retail. That's technically vending. But like, people think of vending as like the machine with a LEGO set in it at the O'Hare airport. And so the reason I'm so bullish on vending is because, not because it's the new concept. It's like it's going through a massive disruption with unattended retail, with AI, everything around it. And I think that could be for anything. I mean, I come back to like some of these Airbnb tools and things that now you can like, we bought our house sight unseen in Florida, but we backdoored the comp comps of it by reaching out to the neighborhood properties that are on Airbnb and got in with the PM and we knew W2 within 10 or sorry, W9, like revenue wise, what it was going to do as a rental. And now with AI, that would be so much more streamlined.

[Joel]

Yeah. Okay, so let's get all the way into vending machine talk. We talk about real estate and hey, I want to buy that next property, but I don't have 20% to put down on it. It's going to take me a heck Of a long time to get going in that space and to really ramp up my real estate investments. And then you have this airport moment where you're like somebody else is sleeping right now and they're making money off me. Was that kind of part of the push into vending machines? Was saying, listen, the capital that's needed is minimal, and this is something that can scale. Like, what are the benefits of vending? You know, running and owning vending machines as opposed to other ways of trying to pursue passive income.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. So at the time, all I had was in was the real estate properties, which required 20 down. I also bought some miners for bitcoin. At bitcoin at the time, I think it was like 2018 or 2019. And those required a little bit of a significant investment of. Of the miners in the facility and stuff. So I was testing out a little bit of different things. But when I bought the or when I was in that airport and I saw that machine with that water, at the time, I didn't know that you could buy those machines with minimal money down. I also didn't know how consistent the cash flow would be. The other thing that really played a factor at the time was I hated looking in those machines and seeing the types of products that were sold in those machines. Like, if you look at when I got into this before, COVID to now. Like now you literally, these smart machines are just smart coolers with a lock on the door and a point of sale. So you. It's just shelf space. So you could put in theory, I mean, we have people that will put packs of eggs in there, they'll put kefir in there, they'll put olive oil in there. It's just a lot.

[Joel]

Sounds like a hippie vending machine.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, yeah, but like, it's like a corner store machine.

[Joel]

I get some brussels sprouts in my vending machine.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, but you think about it, I mean, honestly, like, we have tampons, we have dayquil, nyquil. Like Walgreens just announced they're closing 1200 stores. Well, what do people willing to pay for for convenience? And so it's just kind of like this perfect storm of the industry alongside technology disruption.

[Joel]

Gosh, it certainly makes the vending machine possibilities sound extreme.

[Matt]

Well, specifically when you consider the smart coolers, essentially, which is what you call them. Like I've seen you post a picture of this up on x. But like, with one of those, how much are we talking about being able to make from a single well placed quote unquote vending machine? That's actually kind of looks like a mini fridge that's got sensors and all this other sort of stuff. Like let's, let's wet folks appetite here as we are talking about vending machines.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. So we, we had an old school machine with the kind of the, the motors and the. You had to enter a C4 on the, on the little code, and then Snickers would spiral down and then shoot down into the chute and you had to grab it. So we replaced one of those with a smart machine. Same exact location as an apartment complex. We went from doing $1200 a month in revenue to $2500 a month in revenue, really, in one month. And, and it's purely off of when you open that. So you have to. The doors are locked on these smart machines. You have to put a credit card or tap your phone to unlock the door. It authorizes that you actually have money in your account. It's not just a gift card. And then whatever you grab, once that door is unlocked, the AI cameras track it. So you build out a planogram that's like, oh, the, the case of eggs is in the bottom right corner. Or the laundry detergent pods are in the bottom left corner. So once that door is open, people will just grab multiple things because you don't have to re. Enter on a machine a code. Make it so easy to watch something spiral. Yeah, you're reducing friction.

[Matt]

In fact, I am going to try the kefir.

[Joel]

Yeah.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah.

[Joel]

You're like, my friend told me about it. Time to hop on it.

[Mike Hoffman]

But, yeah, but think about it. Like people go to a machine thinking they're gonna get a water or a bag of chips or Snickers, and now that the door's open, they'll just grab three different things and walk away. And it just charges your card.

[Joel]

Man, it just makes me think of the advice I would give to people using the vending machines though, would be to not use them just because of how expensive it is and how, hey, you could go buy a case of water at Costco for the same price. You're getting one water from the vending machine. But I guess on the other side, you can capitalize on the fact that people like vending machines and they like convenience.

[Matt]

Or if you just don't have the ability to, you know, like, let's say the car broke down, but you're there at the apartment complex and you're like, dang it, I really need some eggs. I'm willing to pay a slightly higher premium in order to have that now because guess what? It's time to feed the kids. Time to cook breakfast. But Mike, we've got plenty more questions to get to. We're going to ask all about vending machines, what it takes to be a vendingpreneur. We'll get to all of that right after this Debt payoff is the number one financial goal that Americans have for 2025. I love seeing that. Because debt, especially consumer debt, it can be such a bummer. It not only puts you in a precarious financial situation, the stress that it creates, it can be overwhelming. It impacts every other aspect of your life. That's why Navy Federal Credit Union is here to help you. They have all the financial tools and resources you need to dominate debt right now. They offer a 0% intro APR on credit card balance transfers for 12 months.

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[Matt]

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[Joel]

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[Matt]

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[Matt]

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[Joel]

Okay, we're back from the break. We're still Talking with Mike, Mr. Passive about investing to get passive income. And specifically we're talking about vending machines. And it is, this is a fascinating subject, Mike, because I think most people listening, myself included, before I started to dive into this, I am thinking about the old school Snickers machine and I am thinking about the fact that like who uses those anymore? But you're right, like you can get Legos. I mean there's a million things you can get. Vending machines are made in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and varieties. Now can you talk to me maybe about what other kinds of vending machines exist? And also you mentioned the, you know, increase in revenue from getting that nicer smart machine, the cooler version.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah.

[Joel]

How much do those machines cost?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. So there's all kinds. There's kind of the what we would call smart machines like we're talking about here with the coolers that are locked and the point of sale on the door and then there's the open market. So if you think of everyone stayed at a Marriott or a Hilton where there's a little market connected to the check in desk, in theory you can build out those are just shelves and you can just build those. We do a lot of open markets at like office buildings and throw a camera on there. And you really don't have to worry about theft because you can throw a sign on the market that says you'll be or have HR do it, you'll be terminated if you get caught stealing. So in those scenarios where you're really not worried about theft, you're not worried about the drunk kid coming home at 2am and raiding the open market, there's those options. And then I'm a huge believer in these smart machines just because the flexibility in the shelf space you can do if it fits on the shelf, it doesn't matter if it's Dayquil or if it's a 12 ounce Celsius. You can do whatever you want.

[Matt]

Interesting. Okay, so what makes, in your opinion, like what makes the best location for one of these vending machines or one of these smart coolers?

[Mike Hoffman]

The simplest way I would say it is if it has a full parking lot, it would do great.

[Matt]

So if there's people there.

[Mike Hoffman]

Exactly. So backing up. Think of it this way. You got two types. You got high employees. So a business with a lot of employees and then you got high foot traffic. So think of like a ymca. Think of an urgent care of that hospital, an apartment complex. Any of those type of places that have high foot traffic or high employee counts would both crush it with machines.

[Joel]

I'm thinking about maybe early. Another early vending machine example would be Redbox. Right. And Redbox dominated and now their eyesores in front of every store possible. Like nobody is going down to the CVS or to Kroger to rent a DVD to watch that night. Is that like an example of an opportunity maybe for vending machine entrepreneurs to say, listen, I want to take the spot that the red box occupies or has occupied in all these locations and I want to offer something much better for the retailer and for consumers?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, I don't know if we're going to go that far. I think the reason the red box is the idea soar is because it's not being used. So it's been sitting there because DVDs are no longer. I would take it a step further and you think about that convenience store you go into where you go to the back corner and it's got all the fridges and it's got a Diet Coke cooler and a Pepsi cooler. Those coolers are made by the same company that makes the smart coolers. And so I would go to it where I would challenge you that like by 2028, that convenience store where the red box is outside when you walk in, there's either going to be point of sales on every door of those coolers so you don't have to go to the front register and wait in line or there's going to be AI cameras. So when you walk in, you put your credit card in that that AI tracks you through the shelves and what you grab when you walk out. So it's all. It's going to be employee list. I mean that's where we're going that Vegas just walk out. Technology By Amazon with for the 711 within the next two years, Hudson bookstores and airports will have no employees. I am very confident in that. Okay, well, just think of like at the grocery store, the self checkout. Like people, now there's bigger lines at self checkout because they don't want to talk to anyone. They just want to go grab their stuff and leave.

[Joel]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to turn off the podcast I'm listening to in order to talk to the. Which I'm, you know, I'm fine with because I'm a. I'm a chatty guy.

[Matt]

But still, I get that, Mike. Okay, so Joel, asking about the red box locations got me thinking, because on one hand I was like, oh, yeah, that's smart. Because there's already maybe the infrastructure needed in order to run a vending machine or a smart cooler, because there used to be something here. How remote can you go with these machines? Like, I guess, what is the infrastructure that's needed? Obviously, I'm guessing you need some sort of electrical hookup. But, like, do you need WI fi as well in order to be able to communicate with the payment servers?

[Mike Hoffman]

No. So, yeah, you just need 110 volt. So just normal outlet. And a lot of these outlets. You just like that have two outlets. You just need the one and run a surge cord to be protective. And then we, like, we actually prefer not to be connected to WI fi just because, like, if WI fi goes down and let's say it's a location that doesn't have strong WI fi anyway, so we do these routers on the machines on the back of the machine that connects to two different cell towers. So we'll typically do like Verizon and AT&T. In case one of the cell towers goes down, it automatically kicks over to the other one.

[Joel]

So using 5G instead of Wi fi.

[Mike Hoffman]

Exactly. Yep.

[Joel]

Okay. All right, Interesting. Okay, what about, let's say you find a primo location and you're like, boom, this is my ticket to riches.

[Matt]

It's got all the foot traffic, it's got all the employees.

[Joel]

Stick this vending machine in here, and I'm going to crush and I'm going to make money while I'm sleeping. Well, do you have to typically pay for that space? Do you have to pay a commission to a landlord or something like that? How do you go about getting, once you've identified places that a vending machine would make sense in your opinion, or I don't know, maybe can you cannibalize somebody else's business too and say, go to the landlord and say, hey, these crummy vending machines, I could do something way better than that for you. Like, how are you identifying opportunities and do you have to pay for those opportunities?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so you'd actually be surprised. We probably have half of our locations don't have a revenue share and they. Or we don't have to pay rent. In fact, a lot of these places view it as an amenity for their employees or their residents or depending on what type of location. I see both sides of it. Like, you know, clearly if you don't have to rent space through a revenue share, your margins are going to be a little bit better. But the reason I don't mind paying a revenue share or paying rent is because when they have skin in the game to help you promote the, the, the machine to their employees or their residents, they're going to be a lot more motivated. So if they do get a revenue share from you or a rent check based on profits or something, they're going to want to help market it for you, whether that's promos, whether that's like employee of the month credit to the market downstairs or whatever. So I actually don't mind that at all.

[Matt]

So when you do, when there is a rev share, typically, what's that split? Does it just vary, I guess, depending on the property owner?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. And you can also parlay it. We do a lot of parlaying where it's like, okay, if it's a above five property, if we know they have a bunch of sister properties in the area or a bunch of sister businesses, or let's say it's a YMCA chain and we want to get the whole, whole region. We'll parlay and say, oh, it's rev. Let's say it's 3% up to five properties and then it jumps up to 8%.

[Matt]

Okay. My mind keeps going to these smart coolers. Ever since seeing the picture of it that you posted online, I'm kind of like thinking through different spots, like where we live.

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, it looks like a.

[Matt]

Where am I When it's thicker.

[Mike Hoffman]

Looks like a bookshelf, doesn't it?

[Matt]

Yeah, it actually, like, I get why property owners and quote unquote, landlords might even want to promote it because they do look classy. It's not like the old school vending machines where it's this giant thing that actually looks like a giant can of Coke or something with the colors and people are hitting on it, trying to get a free Coke out of it. It's It's a different type of vending machine. And even saying vending machine isn't, I feel like it's not quite fair, but.

[Joel]

Like it's like using old school terminology for something that's changed.

[Matt]

So we're talking about the difference between like these old school machines and the new ones. Did you say how much these new machines cost?

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, so that one would be your putting me on the spot. I think they're around like eight or nine grand.

[Matt]

Eight or nine grand?

[Mike Hoffman]

If you're, if you're in our community, I'll just give you give a little plug here. I think you get 15% off. So I think our community pays around 7 or something.

[Matt]

Oh, nice. Okay, so I assume that that's a significant investment over kind of like the old school style vending machine. Do you feel like that it's worth it to get some of these newer machines and you've documented how folks are able to pretty much overnight double their, double their revenue on that machine. Is it worth it to go ahead and just splurge for this nicer machine if somebody's wanting to get into it?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, I would recommend that. One, it helps your sales pitch on the front end because you're not leading with like an eyesore traditional machine. But two, I mean we do this all the time where you know, if it's a so, so location, we'll test it out with a traditional machine. And a traditional machine is still 5506 grand. So you're still, unless you buy it used off Craigslist like I did for my first one at and then it broke four months later. But you know, you're still, if you're going to spend six grand for a new quote unquote old school looking machine, you might as well just splurge and get a. Because for us, when we switched out the traditional machine with the smart machine, I mean that's an extra 1200 bucks a month.

[Joel]

And yeah, you've talked too about how financing those machines just, you know, paying, paying for them over time can allow someone to get in to kind of get, reap some profits instead of feeling like they've got to save up the full price of the machine ahead of time. You're able to move a little bit quicker and kind of prove out the methodology of, of that passive income attempt. Right?

[Mike Hoffman]

Exactly. And you don't even have to really get caught up on the, the interest rates at the time, like oh, rates aren't coming down type of thing. Because on a $7,000 machine, if you finance it at, let's say, 15%. The difference between 15% and 8% on a machine or even 5% on a machine is only like seven to eight dollars a month because it's only on a $6,000 loan or whatever it is, depending on your money down. So for us, we always prefer to finance and then pay them off in a year. That's kind of how our model is.

[Matt]

It's a lot easier to stomach than. Yeah, going all in on real estate. Okay, before the break, you mentioned your sort of epiphany moment when you sort of realized that, wait a minute, vending machines. It was a bottle of water. And I think you even said something about somebody buying that at Costco. Is that typically what you do when it comes to supplying or stocking some of these different vending machines? Where are you getting the stuff to stick in there?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so that's where I started. We live in a town that has Costco but doesn't have Sam. So we, we went down the Costco train. I actually am releasing this month a, a platform that I've negotiated direct pricing with folks like Coke and Pepsi and all these brands, because the problem with Costco as you're missing out on rebate, and a lot of these brands want you to buy their products so they'll give you significant rebates. And so Costco, if you're getting started and you want to try to build a route yourself, absolutely. You just go wherever it's cheapest. I mean, even Walmart super centers have good prices on salads. But the problem about going there is, you know, you got a six day shelf life. So I mean, we have folks that will go to all kinds of places based on what they have access to.

[Joel]

So talk about getting that route started. Let's say you, you have a couple machines, you have to kind of monitor inventory, be, be purchasing new inventory, showing up to restock the vending machine, especially early on, like before you hired staff to kind of help do some of those things for you. What was that like? And what's it like to manage a handful of vending machines?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so for me, and you'll hear this a lot with people in our community, is it's actually kind of therapeutic to stock a machine. Like you were saying earlier, literally, you have your pods in, you're listening to a podcast, you're listening to music, you're, you're in your own little element. If you have a family, you're just kind of, you know, it's an excuse to, to kind of Go off on your own. And the great thing with this is you can stock on your time. So if you're like with our operators that we hire, I always say if you're a morning early riser, go stalk in the morning. If you're a night owl, go stalk at night. It just needs to be consistent. And so for when you get going, you get into a battle rhythm. So when I got started with my first couple machines and I didn't really feel comfortable making it passive yet because I didn't even know what I was delegating because I was literally learning this as I went. I would order product once a week from Costco.com. they had free two day delivery above 75 bucks, which you're clearly going to hit that when you order product. We didn't have a garage at our house, so I bought a little landscaping shed from Costco, a little like 4x6 landscaping shed. I put it right inside the fence to our yard, right next to the driveway. And when these boxes came in from Costco, I would just throw the product in that landscaping shed. And then you're tracking everything from your phone. So I could log in right now and track of all, you know, 60 machines. I could see what's selling, what's not, what we need to restock it with. And so I would, when I was getting started, I would, whenever I go out to hit balls or go out to the gym, usually at the time with two machines, you're spending about an hour a week. So I would block off, let's say Fridays because going into the weekend with apartments, you want those babies stocked. So I would look at my phone, say, okay, I need to 8 Snickers, 10 Diet Cokes. And I throw the inventory in a bucket. And I had one bucket per machine and I throw in the back of my car. And when I was heading out to run errands, I would literally go by the machines with my pods in and, and do the stocking. And that's kind of how it was set up.

[Joel]

Did, did keeping track of the inventory and like what was selling and what wasn't, did that help you make some changes and identify maybe snacks that weren't selling so hot? And say, wait a second, people don't like the, the orange fan to drink, they want the purple fantasy or whatever it is. Did that kind of help you make changes like, oh wait, Coke Zero instead of regular Coke.

[Matt]

Turns out folks don't like the kefir.

[Mike Hoffman]

No, absolutely. And you start to, I mean, I'm a huge believer in Doubling down on. On what's selling. The whole, like, pricing psychology stuff. I didn't know what. I didn't know. Like, I didn't know why Pepsi will put a Monster next to a cheaper spin off energy drink on purpose. Because people will just pay more for the monster because they think it's a nicer product because it's listed for a higher price. Like, I didn't know any of that stuff. So for me, I was, like, fascinated. Like, okay, if we're selling smart waters, but we're not smelling selling any Gatorades, let's pull the Gatorades. And now let's add Perrier water. Let's add Dasani water. Like, double down on the category. That's working. So if you're selling a ton of Celsius and Alani, pull the rock star and the Monster and double down on, quote unquote, the newer, modern, healthier energy drinks. Because that's probably like a college kid type property. I mean, we have two apartment complexes. This will blow your mind. We have two apartment complexes. They both have a smart machine. And each one, one of them is for college kids that go to Oregon. The other one is for the crowd that's like 50 to 65 years old that will just rent their whole life. The one machine for the college kids literally has products in it I didn't even know existed. Like, I didn't even know what these wrap snacks were. I didn't know what these, like, Skittles gummies were.

[Joel]

Like, kids these days, Mike.

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, my God. Yeah. And then the other apartment complex, literally, we'll sell 30 Diet Cokes in two days.

[Joel]

You got to know your clientele.

[Mike Hoffman]

And I'm like, well, that's crazy.

[Matt]

That's so funny.

[Mike Hoffman]

Exactly. You double down on what works. So like, to me, I'm like, wait, should we. And the great thing with these smart machines, it's like, well, shoot. Should we put a six pack of Diet Coke in here? You can. That's so crazy.

[Matt]

Okay, so like, you mentioned multiple. You know, you've got these two different apartment complexes. How many machines overall do you have? Like, I guess I'm curious as to how big you can get. Do you. You just exhaled. Do you even know how many machines you have?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, well, I just got a notification. We have seven that just shipped today. So I think we're up to. To 60 machines. Okay, we do. We do have two routes. I bought a route out of state and run that remotely or have. Have an operator that runs that remotely. I spend about an hour a week on that route, just helping like close more locations. Like that's the only thing that's not passive about that route for me. And then we have the route here in Oregon as well, which we have seven machines shipping. We just had four come last week. So we're kind of at that point now where we know what works. We're also not the new kid on the block anymore, so there's a lot of referrals and stuff. And like we were talking about earlier, people are now seeing these smart machines out there, so they want that.

[Joel]

So you have people now working for you to help make this passive so that you can work your day job, make a lot of supplemental income from the vending machines, but also not have to put a whole lot of time and effort into it, except for maybe the business building aspect of it, which sounds like you're more interested in how important are systems and people to growing your passive income and making these vending machines become more like a lucrative, you know, side hustle instead of like a massive part time or full time job with big headaches.

[Mike Hoffman]

You know, I think that you just hit the nail on the head. That is the number one bottleneck I see with our vendingpreneurs is they want to do everything. And I think it's like the classic just I want to, I want to do it, I'm the only one that knows how to do it mindset or just honestly being scared to ask for help. I mean, we've all been there before. And so I think that's, for me personally, I spend an hour a week on our vending route and honestly, it's literally I have a half hour blocked out on Fridays to any, any properties that are close to signing a contract with us. I follow up with those, like high leverage, you know, because as you add locations, it really parlays the revenue. But then also a half hour to check in with our GMs of, of each route. But I see in our community all the time, guys, it blows my mind. They're like, oh, well, I don't want to hire that $20 an hour stalker because now instead of my profit margins being 50%, they're 40%. And I'm like, yeah, but what if you were doing 20 grand a month instead of 10 grand a month?

[Joel]

Yeah, yeah. It's like shortsighted. Yeah, yeah. To avoid growing the thing because there's only so much one person can do. But if you bring other people in, as long as you're a, a savvy manager and you're looking towards other opportunities. It's like the sky's the limit.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. And with these type of, kind of, these type of people you're hiring, you literally have a lot of flexibility with finding good talent. You trust. Because if they have a morning job, they can do it in the afternoon. If they have a night job, they can do it in the morning. If it's Monday versus Tuesday, I don't care. It just needs to be done one of those days every week. Like, there's so much flexibility to find good talent because it's like doordash or Uber. These workers can literally. That's where I found a lot of our best talent initially was on craigslist gigs. Not even craigslist jobs, but gigs. Because these people probably already have day jobs. And so they're responsible. They have kids, they need supplementary income or else they wouldn't even be on there.

[Joel]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Okay. I don't want to cover ground that we've already covered, but you mentioned earlier, something else you said was like you mentioned salads. But then the downside there is like, it's got a shelf life of maybe only six, six days. Like, what are the craziest things that folks in your network that they're selling on there or stuff that you've seen? I guess I think about here in Atlanta, there's like a pizza vending machine that made the news at some point last year. Obviously this, that goes beyond what we're talking about here, but like, I guess in your machines, what's like, what are some of the more kind of out there items that you're selling?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. So the pizza vending machine is definitely a fun one to, to watch. You also got the, the lego machine at O'Hare always cracks me up because there's not a LEGO set in there for less than 75 bucks. But if you think about flying with your kids across the country for six hours, like, I would pay 75 bucks for a LEGO set.

[Joel]

So also branding play for lego, I'm sure.

[Mike Hoffman]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I think for us it's. It's really kind of diving into some of these niche convenience items. Like we have one of our vendingpreneurs in the Dallas area. His wife's actually a beautician or something, and she. They have one of these smart machines on college campus and they'll sell shampoo for like 30, like high end shampoo for like $35.

[Matt]

Jeez.

[Mike Hoffman]

And that machine, that smart machine that we were talking about earlier, that looks like a bookshelf, they have those One machine doing over five grand. Multiple. One, one of the like multiple machines doing over five grand a month each.

[Matt]

That's crazy.

[Joel]

Is that, wait, is that profit or revenue?

[Mike Hoffman]

So no revenue. So they're probably like. He literally has five machines around this college campus that is doing over 20 grand a month. He's doing. And he has a day job, he's a high school teacher. He's doing over ten grand a month. And I think he just finally hired an operator because I was on him forever about like, dude, just give up some margin. You might now instead of ten grand in profit, you might do eight grand in profit. But it's okay.

[Joel]

Yeah, yeah. For real. It just means you can expand. We've got just a few more questions to get to with you, Mike. Specifically finishing up on the vending machine stuff on kind of entrepreneurship in that way. And also just a couple of questions. I'm curious about that Airbnb you mentioned too. I want to dig into that. We'll get to a few more questions with Mike right after this.

[Matt]

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[Matt]

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[Joel]

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[Matt]

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[Joel]

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[Matt]

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Right? Yeah, I just met you today, but we're going to have a ton of guests from the colliding worlds of hockey, entertainment and pop culture and you know what, tons of back and forth on all things NHL.

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[Joel]

Or wherever you go to find your podcast.

[Matt]

We are back for the break Talking with Mike, aka Mr. Passive, about vending machines. And my eyes have certainly been open to this entire industry.

[Joel]

It kind of feels like the scales have fallen off.

[Matt]

Yeah, a certain extent. But I want to kind of like, I guess flip the whole vending machine thing on its head because this is totally unrelated. Mike, I heard you say one time something about the power of being relationally driven. I think this is a separate conversation that you were having. But like, you mentioned how a thank you note, how that helped you to land a job one time. I'm sorry to shift gears so suddenly, but, like, maybe the power of networking. And it's interesting too, I guess, given the conversation we're having about vending machines. But yeah, talk about that.

[Joel]

Highly relational too, I would think. Getting, Getting your vending machines in the right places.

[Mike Hoffman]

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, even dropping off gift baskets of items that you put in your machines to the front desk of a property you're trying to close or. I'm a huge old school. I'm also Midwest valued. Like, trust is number one thing to me. So I actually, when I was moving from St. Louis to Silicon Valley and Menlo park, the reason I got the job over two others in a highly competitive human performance, professional athlete kind of environment was because of a thank you note I wrote after my job interview and to like, you know, I don't know if it's how I was raised, it was my parents or whatever, but I'm huge into the soft skills and, and that's the number one thing, especially today. People are so. When. I guess lazy when it comes to things like that. So how do you stand out doing the simple things.

[Joel]

Yeah, that's a good point. Simple. It's not like it's this complicated thing to stand out, but, but like actually doing the legwork.

[Matt]

Like, like, like we, like. Gosh, you even you saying it, it's like, that's not soup. It's not rocket science to take a gift basket of the items you're looking to sell to get them on board. And all of a Sudden they're like, okay, yeah, why not? But like, who is willing to take that last little 5% to, in this case, close the deal?

[Joel]

It's like 12 bucks. And a little bit of thought goes a long way, right? And can net you thousands.

[Mike Hoffman]

And you guys nail it on the head. Like, I was at the national vending conference and, and I'm not, you know, I didn't grow up studying the industry of vending. So I was like. But I went this year to this conference, first time I've been there. Crazy. Like, there are 95% of the machine companies are from China. You think of every single snack you've ever had, ranging from beef jerky to crackers to Olipop, Poppy, Celsius, Pepsi, Mars, Wrigley, Every. There's over 500 vendors there. I probably met with 200 of them. I gave out my business card. Guess how many of those 200 actually sent me a follow up after that conference.

[Joel]

Three.

[Mike Hoffman]

One.

[Joel]

Okay, wow.

[Mike Hoffman]

One person. And guess who's getting my business?

[Joel]

That one guy. Yeah. Makes sense, man. A beef jerky vending machine, by the way, sounds amazing.

[Mike Hoffman]

Well, but, but even like something simple like that, I'm like, the power and a follow up we have all bought from humans. Like, I bought my car from a sales rep that wouldn't leave me alone.

[Matt]

It's ironic though, I guess at the same time, like, so we're talking about the power of human connection, but we're talking about vending machines, right? Which is like kind of the opposite. Not to like crap all over vending machines. Do you ever think about that? Just the fact that I don't know if you read this is a few weeks ago now. Derek Thompson's piece over at the Atlantic. He's a friend of the show, he's been on before, but he kind of talks about how we're the antisocial. Like we're living in the antisocial century. And like vending machines, they kind of do that. Like there's a certain amount of antisocial behavior that they promote. Yeah. What are your thoughts again? I'm not, not looking to drag vending machines through the mud or anything, but do you ever think about that?

[Mike Hoffman]

I haven't looked at it from that broad lens. I mean, what you just mentioned regarding Derek, I think it ties directly into all of us at the grocery store. Like we go to self checkout so we can still have our podcast on or we don't want the front desk lady to our front desk. Sorry, the register lady to complain about whatever so we just want to stay in our lane. So I definitely think a piece of that. But like, people aren't going to a vending machine. It's not like you're skipping out on a party to go to a venue. Like, to me it's, you're paying for convenience. You're. We're not. I mean, sure, like, yeah, humans are expensive and, and all of that, but like, even the Hudson Bookstore example, you're still going to have employees around there to stock the shelves until we really get into robots. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it definitely plays a part. It's an interesting thought. For sure.

[Matt]

That's a fair defense, I think what.

[Joel]

They said about ATMs. But it like, ultimately lots of these technological innovations actually accelerate a lot of more relational, more highly productive jobs. So instead of the opposite, right, killing jobs, they kill some kinds of jobs. But oftentimes there's room for bigger and better jobs. I'm curious too, Mike. You mentioned buying the Airbnb in Florida sight unseen. That is one of those things that scares me a little bit. Like just kind of like buying real estate without ever laying eyes on it. It sounds like relationships were kind of at least a part of how that deal came about as well. How, how did you buy a property without ever looking at it? And how'd that work out for you?

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, so I've done that twice now. One time was a little less risky back in St. Louis, so it's kind of where we had another one. And after we moved away from St. Louis. So I knew the neighborhood, but yes, I did. I did a kind of a backdoor development here in Oregon where we did a home and an adu, but we fenced off. The ADU is almost like when you drive up to the lot, it looked like separate homes on separate lots type of thing. And had two tenants and we got a pretty significant off market offer for that. And I was on a, on a 1031 and I had read something on X around people loving. And it was kind of during COVID people loving the vacation to Florida because it's driving distance from Atlanta and, and everywhere in the south, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was also right outside of Tampa, so I knew there's a military base there, there's, there's all kinds of businesses there, yada yada. And so what I did is I, I ran some comps. I was like, okay, four bedrooms with a pool is, is, is gonna do well. And so I, I went to Airbnb. I literally Reached out to the hosts that had the highest ratings and most ratings in. In Clearwater, where our rental was. And I just reached out to her and I said, hey, we're in the market for a home or looking at a rental. Can you. Would you hop on a call? And she was actually a host. She was a property manager. So not only was she. She shared their revenue for the year before to confirm the comps I was looking at. But then she was like, also had a realtor license. And so she's like, oh, well, I can also help you find a home that aligns with our home that we were discussing on Airbnb. So that's actually how we bought the. The home site unseen. And it's done over six figures every year.

[Matt]

Very cool. That's. So you got, man. Yeah. You got that monthly cash flow, but I'm assuming you've seen some appreciation there at this properties as well.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah, but we've also dealt with hurricanes too. So you're also.

[Matt]

Yeah. A lot of money to cover your insurance costs.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we. We're doing very well and. And we have some. Some gains and equity tucked away there. I think now that we're having kids out in Oregon that are younger and. And want to kind of getting to Florida is getting harder and harder to. Because we also wanted to visit. So we might look at more of a Central Oregon parlay. 10:31 back closer. That's a drive away instead of a flight away. But I mean, I would do it all over again if I could.

[Matt]

Nice. Awesome. Well, Mike, we really appreciate you sharing your story with us. Just maybe I feel like you are kind of changing the tune a little bit when it comes to what it looks like to be a vendingpreneur. But where can folks learn more about you? It's not a class, but the program that you offer and what it is that you're up to.

[Mike Hoffman]

Yeah. Matt and Joel, thanks for having me. This shows huge fans of it and just appreciate everything you guys have been doing. But yeah, folks want to reach out. Vendingpreneurs is our website around the vending stuff. If they're just interested on some of the passive income and just general following more frequent content. X is a pretty place. I'm really active and you know, I always share things on there. As being a former coach, I'm huge on helping other people along the way and trying to prevent like if they can skip the pothole that I went through, even better.

[Joel]

Love it. Mike, thanks so much, man. We really appreciate you Joining us.

[Mike Hoffman]

Thank you, guys. Appreciate you.

[Matt]

Well, all right, Joel. I gotta say I'm laughing to myself because when you think of vending machines, you don't think through what we talked about today. Right. Like you don't think three machines that sell high end shampoo that bougie college students are buying on a nice campus?

[Joel]

Never. Never crossed my mind.

[Matt]

You don't think about organic eggs. Shoot. You can even put like home, home raised chicken eggs. You could. I don't know what the license licensing looks like there, but I guess I'm just highlighting the fact that this is. It took a different turn than maybe I think we were initially expecting when we had some initial emails with Mike. These are Mr. Mr. Passive.

[Joel]

These ain't your grandpa's vending machines. No, I think is kind of what you.

[Matt]

Yes, they're very different and I don't know, I think they could be much more appealing, especially to a lot of our listeners who might be looking into branching out from whatever it is that they're currently doing. But I'll let you go first. What was your big takeaway from our convo today?

[Joel]

1. For some reason, it's just bringing up a thought. I have a friend who bought a, like, you don't even have to just go straight vending machine, just like Mike is mentioning. I had a friend who had a photo booth that she stuck in a record store.

[Matt]

That's right, an old coworker of yours.

[Joel]

Yeah. And she would make good money every month. And it was a similar sort of thing where you go restock the film. You had to make sure that the machine was working properly. But because people are going there to buy an album or something, they'd like sit in there with their loved one, they're sleeping with another and take some pics. And guess what? She made good money from a little effort on the front end, but not a whole lot of ongoing effort.

[Matt]

All the customers are like, we're already doing the analog thing anyway. May as well take a film photo. Exactly.

[Joel]

I mean, I think it truly does.

[Matt]

Fit with the medium.

[Joel]

And so it's that kind of thing, though, like thinking outside the box. I remember when she did that and I was like, oh, that's a little risky. You're gonna buy this machine that's coming from, you know, thousands of miles away across the ocean. And it worked out for her. And so I think similarly with what Mike's talking about is you have to be willing to take a little bit of a risk, but the reward can be meaningful and it can, you Know, add a lot of income to your life with some effort, but hopefully over time, less effort than what a traditional job would require, and you might be able to scale it into something bigger. So totally. I also love the fact that he didn't go all in on one thing. He still diversified when it comes to real estate, investing in the market, pursuing, you know, a day job and then also this job on the side. I mean, I think that makes sense too, that you're not just like totally sold out to one thing.

[Matt]

Totally. Yeah. Well. And I think one of the reasons. So my big takeaway is how, I guess attainable or approachable. This might be because of how little money down it takes to get one of these machines. So he talked about that, which was like, interesting because when you're talking about a $6,000 machine as opposed to a $400,000 home. Yeah. You know, financing, well, it plays a smaller role in the overall equation. But then just as he was talking through the consistent cash flow that they're able to generate off of these machines as well, it. I don't know, it got me thinking and I'm already. It's hard to turn your mind off once you start imagining yourself in that situation, thinking through locations and all that. But I think it's kind of fun, honestly.

[Joel]

It is. Yeah.

[Matt]

I think this is. I don't know. Hopefully folks found this to be a helpful conversation because a lot of times our curiosities, Joel, they take us to things that we're more interested in, and maybe that's sabbaticals and thinking through like identity and some of these other things. But there's a lot of folks out there as well who are looking to generate some additional income. And I think this is totally a way for a lot of folks to consider doing that.

[Joel]

Don't count me out on that either. I'm always up for like a creative way to make some extra money. Find our how to money craft beer vending machine at a location near you soon. Do they have that where you have to hold your ID up first?

[Matt]

Only the finest beers?

[Joel]

Yes.

[Matt]

I don't know. We didn't ask about that.

[Joel]

Imagine how much you'd have to pay for one of the craft beers that we sell on our vending machines.

[Matt]

It would be a lot.

[Joel]

A Cantillon would be like $38 or something like that.

[Matt]

But that would be your job, just flying around the world, sourcing these amazing beers directly from the breweries.

[Joel]

Sounds like fun to me.

[Matt]

You're on first name basis with all the.

[Joel]

Come on I'm in.

[Matt]

That kind of sounds like, sounds like a dream job.

[Joel]

You don't have to twist my arm.

[Matt]

On that note, let's get to the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode, which was a Ghost prime by Parrish out of Louisiana. But yeah, what were your thoughts on this one?

[Joel]

This one would definitely be able to make it into the how to money vending machine. The craft beer vending machine. It was, it was sweet, it was smooth. I was hoping for a little more bite from it, just thinking, oh, and this one was going to bring even more complexity because it's a, a really good beer. Like it's an expensive IPA right here, Matt. But you know, while it lacked a little bit of that bite, it still had a ton of like, like significant hop concentrate vibes going on.

[Matt]

Yeah. To me it almost had like, it had this edge. So it's funny. Like, yeah, I don't know if bite in your language means edge in my language, but it did have almost like this sort of juniper like pineiness to it that I was able to decipher and wrangle to the forefront of my taste buds. Yeah, I guess. But yeah, super hazy to me. Drink a little bit drier as well. It wasn't like overly, it wasn't like sticky sweet or anything like that. And it's called Ghost prime because I assume this is just a doubled up version of Ghost in the Machine. Or maybe it was based on that recipe. But regardless, I'm glad you and I got to enjoy this one. During the episode today, while we talked with Mr. Passive, we'll make sure to link to his community and where it is. You can learn more about vending machines if you, after hearing this episode, are interested in perhaps becoming a vendingpreneur. All that's up on the [e-mail] but buddy, that's going to be it. So until next time, Best friends out. Best friends out.

[Joel]

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Do you want to understand an invisible force that's shaping your life? Do you want to experience the frontiers of what makes us human? On tech stuff, we travel from the mines of Congo to the surface of Mars, from conversations with Nobel Prize winners to the depths of TikTok to ask burning questions about technology, from high tech to low culture, and everywhere in between. Join us Listen to tech stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.