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- [00:00]
Nick Culoper
We just got back from this family trip and it's always great to unplug and spark some creativity by getting outside of your normal routines. But there's a part of me that doesn't love the house just sitting empty while we're gone. Like, here's an asset that could be making us money, maybe even offsetting the cost to the trip. This is where Airbnb's co host network comes in. Whether you're working remotely or you're constantly on the road for your 9 to 5 or you're splitting time between homes, your house doesn't have to sit empty. Instead of letting it drain your wallet, you're still paying for it. Let it fill your wallet with a little help from a professional local co host. Extra income without the extra stress. That's the side Hustle dream, right? The key is finding the right support to help make it happen. Airbnb co hosts handle everything from creating a standout listing to managing reservations to communicating with guests, even helping you style the space. They take care of the details so you don't have to be on call all the time. If you're ready to make your space work for you, take the next step and find a great co host for your property. Just head over to Airbnb.com host and now onto the show. From zero to fifty grand in monthly vending revenue in sixteen months. What's up? What's up? Nick Culoper here. Welcome to the side Hustle show where we've been helping people make extra money since 2013. Today we're talking about the popular quote unquote passive income business of vending machines and how my guest was able to scale up his operation to 30 locations and over 50 grand in monthly revenue in under a year and a half from HnH Vending. Anthony Koloje, welcome to the side Hustle Show.
- [01:30]
Anthony Koloje
Hey, Nick, thanks for having me.
- [01:32]
Nick Culoper
You bet. Stick around. In this one, we're going to learn how to negotiate your first vending machine placements. The right locations that make the best fit there, the startup costs involved, and just how passive and profitable the business really is if you're constantly having to restock products. But Anthony, take me back to the beginning. Not that long ago, year and a half ago. And you're thinking, why I ought to get into this vending machine business. I'm going to turn some snacks and drinks into of monthly cash flow.
- [01:58]
Anthony Koloje
I've been in the real estate industry since like 2009, and I was like talking with my wife and I'm like, my kids were 3 and 5 at the time. And I'm like, you know what? I've had the real estate business. You. I've been doing this here for, you know, 15 years. I go, I really want to do something for, like, the kids and I want to teach them, like, entrepreneurship and, like, work ethic. You know, now that I'm making this transition from this other real estate job I was doing, I go, we should look for some type of business that I could, you know, put the same blood, sweat and tears that I'm putting in on the real estate side, you know, and put it into basically a business that could be like a recurring income stream. Because with real estate, obviously there's the highs and lows and peaks and valleys. So, yeah, you know, once you sell a house or flip a house, it's like, okay, gotta do it all over again. I came a guy across, Mike Hoffman on Twitter, and he had this VendingPreneur community.
- [02:50]
Nick Culoper
Yes, Mr. Passive on Twitter, right?
- [02:52]
Anthony Koloje
Mr. Passive. Yes, exactly. And I was like, vending, interesting. I go. And then I started like, reading more about it, and then I was like, you know what? I go, say, my wife's name is Taylor. And I go, you know what? I go, I think this could be a really good business that we could do. Not a lot of upfront capital initially. We could grow it into something passively, you know, and do it with the kids. I can teach them entrepreneurship and work ethic, and I think that would be a really good idea for us to kind of go full blown. So it was like a two, three weeks. I was going back and forth with Mike and his team, and I ended up joining this community, like end of September, and I just went full blown, like all in at the time. Fast forward, you know, 15 months later, you know, we did. With it just being the end of February a couple days ago, you know, we were over $65,000 in revenue.
- [03:42]
Nick Culoper
Wow.
- [03:43]
Anthony Koloje
You know, and I'm looking to be at over 75,000 by the end of April because I have other machines that have just got installed this past week. And I got three more that are going in three locations going in like next week.
- [03:55]
Nick Culoper
And so that's the name of the game, is stacking locations and machines. And now what's your take on this? Like, is there a place for one machine? Two. Two machines, like, you know, the toe dip, Hey, I want to get my kids, you know, some exposure to supply and demand and cash flow and product inventory turnover or it's like, do you need to go big, like do you need dozens of machines to make it into like full time thing? I mean, a full time thing? Yes, but just to be able to operate.
- [04:21]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, that's a great question, Nick. And you know, my story is different from like everybody else's story. Like, so like I said, I ended up joining Mike's vendingpreneur community. And when I was in there, I talked to a lot of other different people that had different routes. I was kind of like treating them as like my board of directors. But there was a guy down in Texas, he's a high school football coach and a teacher, and he has only four locations and he's doing 20k a month.
- [04:50]
Nick Culoper
Wow.
- [04:50]
Anthony Koloje
You know, so you could be very selective with your locations of like how, like depending on your goals or what your time is, like, hey, I'm a fireman or I'm retired, I just want some supplemental income.
- [05:01]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [05:01]
Anthony Koloje
You know, or I'm a teacher and I want to teach my kids to do this. They're 18 and 19 and you got some built in stockers already and stuff. So it all depends on like what your goals are. So for me, when I first got into the business, like, I was like so antsy. I was like, oh my God, I got to get a location. Let's do this. Let's go, let's go. But the biggest thing I tell people now, when they, when they're going to start out something, I go, be poised, wait for the right location. If it takes four or five months to wait for the right location, wait for it. Don't just do your. Let me use a sports analogy here. Don't use your spring training or training camp and like football on a, on a location that is not going to be the best. That's what happened with me when I did it. I ended up getting a location that was five minutes from my house and unfortunately has only been doing like $700 a month. Because there were certain questions that I didn't maybe ask in the beginning of when I was basically looking, when I was basically qualifying that property when I first initially went, I don't know, 700.
- [06:04]
Nick Culoper
Bucks a month is not nothing.
- [06:06]
Anthony Koloje
Well, 700 bucks a month revenue. So once you deduct your cost of goods and your fees and all this stuff, you know, usually your cost of goods, you want to shoot from like anywhere from like around 35, you want to be like percent if you're growing exponentially, like kind of how I am, you're buying so much inventory because you're constantly refilling up new Machines. I've been averaging a cost of goods of maybe like anywhere between like 40 and 43%, you know, but like once I plateau, my goal Is to be 35 to 33 ish percent cost of goods, you know, at that point.
- [06:39]
Nick Culoper
Okay, so an interesting raw number is like sell something for a dollar, that means you bought it for 30 cents.
- [06:44]
Anthony Koloje
That's correct.
- [06:45]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [06:45]
Anthony Koloje
Yep. I try to shoot for margins for drinks and chips. I try to shoot for 65% plus candy can't get there. Cocoa has gone up in price, you know, and just like with everything with inflation, you know, candy is going to probably be like one of your worst margins. You know, like it's, you're probably going to be like 50 to 57% on your candy. And then what I've been doing is since I've been going into a lot of class A luxury apartments, a lot of these seven elevens and Walgreens and you know, just have been closing.
- [07:15]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [07:15]
Anthony Koloje
You know, and so what I've been doing is I've been going in there with my pitch and saying these property managers and say, hey, you know what? I'm like, I'm also gonna, it's not old school machines. I'm using these AI powered smart markets now. And I'm saying, hey, I could put incidental items in there, you know, Tylenol, toilet paper, paper towels, Visine, Mucinex, Nyquil, Tide pods, bounce sheets, whatever.
- [07:39]
Nick Culoper
Okay. Yeah, yeah. More than just snacks and drinks. Sure.
- [07:42]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah. You know, you, those are a little bit like around a smaller margin, maybe like 45 to 50%. But I put it in there because when I go in there to pitch a location, it's a value add that maybe a certain person, a certain operator that has machines in there right now, they can't offer.
- [07:55]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [07:56]
Anthony Koloje
You know, so they see the value in me.
- [07:57]
Nick Culoper
Let's go back to this first location, the one that you said is doing 700 bucks a month.
- [08:02]
Anthony Koloje
Yes.
- [08:02]
Nick Culoper
Sits super close to home. It sounds like, you know, business with training wheels, like a, you know, low risk kind of, kind of a thing. I could stock it myself as need be.
- [08:12]
Anthony Koloje
Yep.
- [08:12]
Nick Culoper
And you don't have the machine yet. I imagine you get a yes from the property manager. What's the conversation like? Hey, have you, have you thought about. Mike was so Mike was on the show episode 599 last year. You go back and listen to that one. But he was like, don't say the V word. He's like lead with like modern amenities. Don't say vending. But what's your conversation like with this building or with this operator?
- [08:33]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, vending. It's out of my vocabulary. I say it's. There are smart markets is basically what they are. The ar, the. Their AI Smart markets. And that's what I lead with. And then this is going to be amenity for your workforce. This is going to be an amenity for your building, you know, because if you don't want it, I'm going to go down the street anyway and I'm going to talk to, you know, the other competitor and if they say yes, that's an amenity that they're going to have and that your building won't have. You know, so it's, it's a competition type business especially you know, like in luxury real estate, but like in manufacturing or that's the one warehouse that in. At right now. You know, they want their people to be satisfied and work hard and it's a nice amenity for them, you know.
- [09:18]
Nick Culoper
Was that, was it an apartment building that first location?
- [09:20]
Anthony Koloje
No, the first location. So this is where I made the mistake. So whoever's listening and wants to start your own vending route, make sure you've qualified the location thoroughly. So when I went there, they told me they had two shifts and it was 75 employees. So I assumed that it was 75 employees for both shifts. Well, it turned out to be that there were 70 employees for the first shift and then for the night shift there were four. So I was thinking that this thing was going to be 150 employee place and it was just a mistake on my part. You live and you learn, but you know, make sure you're thorough and you ask those questions and make sure you understand what the, you know, how many people are working there. I mean, especially if you come across like one of these commercial buildings or office buildings, you know, what's the vacancy? Okay, well that's great. But how many people, how many of these suites and these people are working from home? How many of these companies inside this office building are supplying goods for free? You know, because it might be like a wealth management, you know, team or office in there that has maybe 100 employees that go in there. But then, but they're supplying everything for their employees for free. Protein bars, water, all that stuff. That's, that's going to deter you, to deter them from going there. So just make sure you're very thorough with, with like asking your questions once you go there just so you're qual the property correctly. Because they might say, hey, we're 80% occupied. But if there's, they're only reporting into work two days a week, it's not a lot of foot traffic.
- [10:45]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, 80% times 40% of the week is a little bit, a little bit lower. Is there a sweet spot that you found in terms of, you know, building size, number of residents, number of workers, or, you know, before anything lower. And just like that doesn't really make sense.
- [11:04]
Anthony Koloje
If I'm evaluating a property site, it's got to have. For residential real estate, it's got to have a minimum of 200 units. Okay. And I don't like garden apartments, so I don't want like the, the machines being in a clubhouse. And then there's a 800 units that are like a four block radius. And then people have to walk to the clubhouse. I don't like those. I need a building that is, it's all one building. So the elevator takes you down to the vending machine. You know, it takes you up. You can't walk outside because again, convenience.
- [11:33]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [11:33]
Anthony Koloje
Manufacturing facilities. I would want to be in there with at least 150 employees. If it's an office building. I mean, I'll tell you, I've been looking at some of the most beautiful skyscrapers in downtown Chicago for the past eight months. And I've had a ton of meetings with a lot of them down there because I've just been getting referred to them. But I would go through the same questions now of when I'm asking them. Okay, what's the vacancy? Oh, 60%. How many people are working from home? Oh, well, you know, it's Mondays and Thursdays are. There's about maybe a thousand people through the turn dial, you know, and then maybe Fridays, there's maybe 300. I'm like, okay, so we're working with like around 2300 people a week. So times that by four, you know, we're like around 9200, you know, for the month. It's like, I'm like, all right. I'm like, but I don't know, like how good it's going to do. And a lot of these commercial buildings, they have these empty seven 11s or these bookstores that they used to have where they were cooking before COVID you know, and they got all these empty spaces. But I just don't want to be the guinea pig. So what I've been doing is. And I haven't got anyone to take one yet. Mike has been a lot better than me. He's actually had some people that have subsidized so. So what I do is, is with those commercial buildings, just so I'm not losing in the beginning, is that I will go in there and then I will offer them. And I'll say here, I don't know what your location is going to go ahead and do. I go, But I need a. And I'll work my numbers backwards with like, what I need to be profitable on that location. And I'll just say for an example, I need to make $2,000 in revenue. That way I could cover my cost of goods, my stock, or any spoilage.
- [12:55]
Nick Culoper
This monthly or weekly.
- [12:57]
Anthony Koloje
Monthly.
- [12:57]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [12:57]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah. So if the machine, without me knowing it, if it goes in there to just $1300 a month, you know, okay, I'm going to invoice you for the difference of $700 where you're building or your owner is going to have to pay. I know you guys want these amenities and stuff like that, but I can't take that risk of being a guinea pig here and having this thing, having me lose money and then I have to move the machine for relocation and all that. And like, I'm. I don't win, you know, it's not. It doesn't set me up for success. I haven't had anybody take me up on that yet. Mike has maybe done two or three of those out for him out in the west, out in Oregon by you guys. Like, he has done, like, he's been like a master at it.
- [13:33]
Nick Culoper
Got it. So that. So that's the pitch. It's like, look, we could offer these amenities, snack, drink, you know, food, service ourselves as the business owners. Or we could hire Anthony to do it. And we understand he's got to make some money and this is his minimum. And if it doesn't hit that minimum, then we're going to have to subsidize it. But it's still worthwhile because it keeps our employees, you know, keeps the tenants happier. That's the pitch anyways.
- [13:58]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, absolutely.
- [14:00]
Nick Culoper
More with Anthony in just a moment, including what happens when your prospect building already has a vending machine and how much you might have to pay to place a new machine right after this. Some businesses are quite adept at helping you part with your money with their crazy high bills, bogus fees, and quote, unquote, free perks that actually cost you more in the long run. I would lump traditional wireless carriers into this category, and that's why I made the switch to mint mobile in 2019 and haven't looked back. With our sponsor, Mint Mobile, you get Premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and even bring over your existing phone number and all your existing contacts. So join me in ditching overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for $15 a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com Sidehustle that's mintmobile.com Sidehustle upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 per month new customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. In the next 60 seconds, 23 entrepreneurs are going to hire their next team member on Indeed. I'm excited to partner with Indeed for this episode because when you need to find amazing candidates, you need the powerful matching tech and unmatched reach of our sponsor Indeed. Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire even faster. It'll make your job post jump to the top of the page for your relevant candidates and the proof is in the results. Sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed get 45% more applications. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed. And there's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. I asked Mike the same question like if this building has been around for 10, 15, 20 years. Like have they literally never thought about this before? It's hard to imag an office building or even a residential building that didn't already have this vending machine in the lobby or in the, you know, elevator bay.
- [16:34]
Anthony Koloje
What I have found out in this business is extremely archaic. All these property managers, majority of them had operators in there but they just couldn't get a hold of them or they weren't stocking it. So what I do is when I go into an appointment I tell them hey, I'm local, you could call me. You're going to call this cell phone number you're going to get me. Okay. And I'm gonna get back to you right away. When you're dealing with these property managers, these people that have decisions they have to make, they don't want another headache of chasing you down as a vendor, you know, and that because they're already doing that and dealing it with all these other fires that they're dealing with through the building. They're dealing with the painter, the scaffold or the window company, the, you know, all these other different trades that they're dealing with. If you just call and you give them a nice experience of customer service back, it's refreshing to them. So when I go look at a property, I put a proposal, gather, I send it, I take pictures and video, I send it over to my mockup guy, he gets it over to me within 24 hours, and I send them a proposal within 24 hours. And every single time when I do that, they are floored away of how quickly they got that proposal. So get back to people quickly, you know, set expectations from the beginning. A lot of these, like I said, a lot of these property managers, they are, they're. They're worried about when is it going to be stocked, because it hasn't been regularly stocked. So I, I go in that first meeting and I set up the expectation. I tell them, I go here when I'm. When we sign up, I'm gonna let you know what day your property is gonna be stocked on. So then that way, if you're getting down to like four Cokes or three Snickers, I don't need to have 30 property managers texting me, hey, it's getting low. I've already set the expectation up knowing that, hey, your machine's gonna be filled up on Tuesdays. So if it's Monday or Sunday and it's low, I mean, we're gonna be refilling it shortly. So they know I'm coming, setting that expectation, and I let them know after the first month if I feel like your machine needs to be stocked twice a week or three times a week. Yeah, we'll make the adjustments in our route sch. Make sure that it's going to be filled.
- [18:21]
Nick Culoper
Okay. So you find a lot of time. You're conquesting market share from some legacy providers.
- [18:27]
Anthony Koloje
I do.
- [18:28]
Nick Culoper
That have gotten. You gotten complacent or, you know, they're not answering the phone, they're not performing the way that you would like. For somebody who's new to the business, who's young and hungry, who wants to go out and get it with a, with a more modern experience or more modern machine.
- [18:43]
Anthony Koloje
100%. Because a lot of the locations that I go into, some of them had the same machines that I had in, but the other half, you know, they had maybe the old school coil machines that maybe when me and you were growing up that we would see.
- [18:54]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, I remember, you know, banging on, come on.
- [18:57]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, exactly. You know, it was like, so now I go in, I show. Exactly. Now this new machine, these new machines that I have, and you know, they're blown away. You know, they're blown away.
- [19:07]
Nick Culoper
Okay, so that's what's in the proposal. The proposal says this is the machine that we're going to use. You get to check out the specs, the model number, you know, how, what it, what it could potentially hold in terms of inventory. This is when we're going to come by. Your stocking restocking day is Tuesdays. And you know, here it is. Sign on the bottom line. Are they looking for concessions from you in terms of, well, you're going to take up, you know, 12 square feet of our floor space. We're going to charge you rent for that on a monthly basis or we're going to charge you a percentage of sales. Like what's, what's typical in terms of that arrangement.
- [19:42]
Anthony Koloje
So usually there'll be a rev share agreement that I'll give them when I go into there. You know, when I first initially thought, when I got in this business, I'm like, ah, do I give rev share? Do I not? But I don't need Anthony 2.0 coming down the line and offer rev share to all my buildings and trying to boot me out, you know. You know, a year down the line.
- [19:58]
Nick Culoper
There'S always another person coming down the line.
- [20:00]
Anthony Koloje
Exactly. After I just spent $400,000 on equipment, you know, this past year. But like, what I'm saying is I, I go in there and I say here, I offer it from them to the beginning of a rev share. And because I want to view it as a partnership, if I'm doing the job of what I'm doing and I'm constantly evolving and I'm making certain changes and I'm doing different things there, like with the machines and trying out new products. And I'm just very, I tell everybody, I'm a very collaborative person. I don't care what it is to put into these machines. I don't care, like, I will put whatever I have my variety that I put in there initially because I tell the, I tell everyone it's like dating. You know, it's like a month or so until you kind of learn that building. What do they like? Do they like Pepsi? Do they like Coke? Do you like Doritos? Do you like Cheetos? Like, do they like more protein? Do they like kind bars? Somebody has a suggestion, that person, that resident could scan that QR code and they could go ahead and send that back to me and my staff gets it and we review those weekly and then we make those changes. You know, on certain those machines, if somebody's got a request for a La Colombe black coffee, I'll go in there and I'll take out one of the drinks that are maybe not selling, maybe the Pepsi isn't selling, and I'll just replace it the following week and put it in there.
- [21:09]
Nick Culoper
Okay, that's. Yeah, that's kind of cool to crowdsource that wisdom a little bit. Yeah, you can take a stab at the beginning. This is what we're going to put in.
- [21:16]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah.
- [21:16]
Nick Culoper
And then you get some data pretty quickly. If you got 200 residential units to say, well what's, what's actually moving here, and then take out the bottom 10%, bottom 20%, try something new.
- [21:26]
Anthony Koloje
Exactly. No, absolutely. You know, and then basically that's kind of like what I do. So if I get those suggestions, I'll review those weekly and then I basically do a review of all the machines like, you know, basically monthly.
- [21:36]
Nick Culoper
Okay. On the rev share side, what's typical?
- [21:40]
Anthony Koloje
3 to 5%. Yeah. So when I go in there and it's of gross sales, you know, because if you do it off profit, like, you know, profit could get like a little, it's a little tough.
- [21:49]
Nick Culoper
Not, not a ton. But it's, it's just something to throw the, the property management company or throw the building owner.
- [21:55]
Anthony Koloje
Throw the owner. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's more about them getting a little bit of something back. You know, they feel validated that they're getting something for return for this amenity.
- [22:04]
Nick Culoper
Because the alternative is they could just do it themselves. And I've been reviewing some like Performa, like real estate syndication type of documents and there's a line item on there for like laundry and vending. Like they count on this as the investment group as part of their revenue. And so there's some segment of the building owner population. It's like, no, we'll just keep that in house. We'll keep, you know, all that margin. But there's another segment like the, the kind that you're catering to is like we don't want to deal with the logistics of product and restocking. And they don't machine maintenance or anything like that. We'll just. Hey, you want to give us 5%? Cool. You. You deal with it.
- [22:39]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, they don't. Because a lot of the people that I've experienced with is that they just have so many fires that they're putting out. Fix this punch list on this unit here, this move in there, like, all this stuff. So, like, I am, you know, there's just. There's just a lot of, you know, fires that they're putting out. And to have them focus on restocking, that is just something that. It's like the ROI is not there for them. That's not the best use of those. Those property managers. Time.
- [23:03]
Nick Culoper
Got it. So you mentioned you kind of alluded to this equipment cost here. What does a vending machine cost? What is. What's your take on financing versus buying versus new versus used? Like, lots of different routes that you can go.
- [23:17]
Anthony Koloje
Here I have, like, five different machines, which is kind of hectic because dealing with five different operating systems in their back end and trying to have them all communicate to each other with me just pulling reports and all that stuff as well, too. So it's a little bit of a pain in the butt, but I'm working through it. It's not like. Like, it's not, like, hard, and it's like, so much like extra work, but it is, you know, it is a.
- [23:39]
Nick Culoper
Nuisance in contrast to, like, the Southwest model, where we're going to fly one type of airplane. So every, you know, any mechanic can work on any plane, like that kind of thing versus. Okay. It adds just a little bit of complexity.
- [23:51]
Anthony Koloje
Yep, absolutely. So, like, the. I have a Futura combo machine, which it might be like one of those ones with, like, the coil, and that one takes cash. You know, those machines. I have a. I have four of those machines at a shelter, and those cost me like around 5,000. And I bought those refurbished. Okay. Brand new. They would probably go for 6,500, I think is the new pricing as of 2025. The micro markets. I have three of those. Well, now, when I say micro market, those are like those open markets, people cheap, you know, honest policy people could check out at a kiosk.
- [24:23]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [24:23]
Anthony Koloje
You know, and those roughly. And I'd have to build and put those together, and those run anywhere from like eight to like nine grand of what those are. But in those items, you got to look because you have some theft, you know, so it adds a little bit to my guy when he goes to stock it. Because one of our policies are, one of our processes are when he goes to restock that micro market, he counts, he stocks the whole unit and then he has to go and verify all the inventory that is there, every single item. And then if there's 10 cheetos that says on the system, but there's only physically eight, he has to change it to eight because what happened to those other 10? Well, somebody probably stole it.
- [25:02]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [25:02]
Anthony Koloje
You know, so those are the micro markets. I have stockwells, which are an AI smart machine. Those run like around like 8 grand, like 80, like 9 grand probably once, once it's delivered with freight. And then the newest and latest machine that I've been installing, I've installed 33 of them within the past four months has been these micromarts. So they are a refrigerator, They're AI powered machines, work like a stock wall, but they hold more inventory. But they actually have a video digital board that runs on the machine. So which is very powerful for me because like I can run ads on there is what I'm feeling like what I can do down the line once I have the data. And that could be additional revenue that I could get in without even like I haven't even tapped into yet.
- [25:47]
Nick Culoper
Sound fancy, dude.
- [25:48]
Anthony Koloje
When I was installing one of these last week in the Fulton Market area, which is like an emerging area like in the West Loop in Chicago, like it's like where Google has their space and there's new buildings being built all the time over there. The property manager was doing a tour, owner's tour and I was installing them and when he was, when he was walking, when one of the people were walking by, they like looked at it, they took a picture and you know, because they couldn't believe what they were seeing. It's not like anything that they have seen. It's a really good looking machine. So property manager comes around the corner, gives me a fish bump, you know, because I made him look good on his tour.
- [26:22]
Nick Culoper
Nice. What are, what do those things run you?
- [26:25]
Anthony Koloje
So those with freight, they are like around like 12k on there, you know, so they're a little bit more expensive. But I'm, I'm, I'm counting on the ad space that I could potentially be selling down the line once I have the data in front of me. Hey, I'm at a 500 unit building. I've had, you know, there's a monthly, I have over six, you know, 800 transactions. There's been this amount of dollars, you know, and then, hey, Coke, Pepsi, Chicago Cubs. You guys are playing the Cardinals this week. Okay, you want to put, you know, something, an ad space on here for 100 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month, you know, and run it.
- [26:58]
Nick Culoper
Okay. Yeah. Now you're in the media business all of a sudden.
- [27:01]
Anthony Koloje
Exactly. Right.
- [27:02]
Nick Culoper
Got a little mini billboard here for you.
- [27:03]
Anthony Koloje
That's what I'm hoping. I mean, that's. That's my goal there, to kind of really increase the revenues on those machines. So, like, that. That is my goal. So next year, hopefully I'll have a better idea about how that went.
- [27:13]
Nick Culoper
This is helpful at the risk of doing public math, which I've sworn off doing, but it's kind of this upfront capital in equipment and inventory, and then a payback period of a number of months or potentially years if it's a slow location. But how do you think about a winning location or what's kind of a target roi, if you think about it that way, in terms of the payback period on one of these machines?
- [27:38]
Anthony Koloje
So with me being initially started, I wanted to increase my cash flows right away on these. On these routes that I had. Cash flow was very important to me. So I actually ended up paying some of my first locations cash just so I didn't have a finance payment. And that way I was able to increase, like, my cash flow net. I wouldn't have to factor that.
- [27:59]
Nick Culoper
Sure.
- [28:00]
Anthony Koloje
You know, so one of those machines that I bought was like nine grand with and was doing like 2322 to $2500 a month. So my net payment of, like, what would come to me off of all that, that would be like, around like 750 or 800 bucks. So I was like, okay, my net payment is 750, 800. I'm gonna break even on this in, like, less than a year. And then, like, if I look at my return on that, like, every year over going over, like, I'm gonna be making that. It's like 100% return.
- [28:28]
Nick Culoper
So I'm like, right after it's paid off. I mean, there's depreciation, there's maintenance involved, I imagine, but you've covered your expenses, and then it's all gravy.
- [28:36]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, then it's all gravy. And then, like, I'm running the numbers, I'm like, okay, here it's like a. Each year it just goes up 100%. Return, return, return, return. And then obviously, there might be maintenance, and it might not be go up as High each years as that. But so when I was looking at the numbers, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm like, I have to like, if I'm making like 8% over here, I'm like, I'm just gonna take my money out and then just invest it into my machines, you know, it's like a better return.
- [28:57]
Nick Culoper
Right. Because if you're looking at a 100% return, potentially.
- [29:00]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, exactly. So that's the way I looked at it, you know, initially. Now what I did was, is that since I was growing, I leveraged like financing capabilities, you know, so some of these place options, basically what that meant was it would be like 0% down and then they would finance it over 60 months and maybe be like a 12%, you know, interest note. And then maybe that machine would cost me like 160 or 175 bucks a month, you know, but if I'm making 1500, $1600, you know, the 160, 175, it really wasn't, you know, the end of the world, like for me to go ahead and pay that, make that payment. Because now I got extra cash.
- [29:34]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Anthony Koloje
Where I could go reinvest back into the business by just, you know, buying inventory, you know, building out the warehouse and all that stuff as well too. Which I'll kind of talk about, like how my transition went from like me actually, like growing and then when I actually hired my first person and like when I actually did that.
- [29:51]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [29:51]
Anthony Koloje
But yeah, so that's kind of like where I was at within regards to like evaluating these things if I should pay cash or if I should go ahead and finance it. I will say, besides those first couple machines that I paid cash, I financed every single one since.
- [30:07]
Nick Culoper
More with Anthony in just a moment, including how he turns one location lead into three and hiring some help so he didn't have to keep stocking the machines all by himself right after this. On this side Hustle show, we spend a lot of time on generating ideas and the marketing tactics that drive traffic and make sales and intentionally less time on the behind the scenes mechanics of how those sales actually happen. And the reason for that is for tons of side Hustle show guests like Randall Pulfer, Mike Ettenberg, Becky Beach, Lou Rice, and more. The business behind the business is all the same. It's Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, and that's why it's the number one checkout on the planet. Plus, when you use Shopify, you'll be giving your customers access to shop pay, which boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning a lot less abandoned carts and a whole lot more sales going. Shopify is the commerce platform that helps you sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling online, in person, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout used by dozens of successful side Hustle show guests. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comsidehustle all lowercase go to shopify.comsidehustleen to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comsidehustle you hear that? That's the sound of your marketing working. And as an entrepreneur, you know that every call is an opportunity. But if you miss it, potential customers don't wait. They just call the next business on their list. With our sponsor, OpenPhone, you'll never let another customer's call go unanswered. OpenPhone is the number one modern business phone system that helps you separate your personal life from your growing business. For just 15 bucks a month, you get complete transparency and visibility into everything happening with your business phone number. OpenPhone works through an app on your phone or computer and integrates with HubSpot and hundreds of other systems. One of my favorite features is their AI powered call transcripts and summaries so you can streamline client communication and get a summary of every phone call with action items right when you hang up. That means no more note taking, no more forgotten to DOS. And right now, OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months. When you go to openphone.com sidehustle that's O P E N P-H-O-N-E.com sidehustle for 20% off six months. Openphone.com sidehustlez and if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge. Okay, this is really helpful because yeah, I think we hear, oh, $400,000 in equipment costs. Like, you know, the jaw kind of hits the floor. But there are different creative options. Think about your return on monthly cash flow, right? If you said, oh, my financing payment on this machine is 175, 200 bucks a month and I'm clearing, call it 300 even in monthly profit on maybe a thousand dollars in sales. Like if you've got those, that's even like really low margins. You're paying for the machine, you're paying for your inventory. And even if you're breaking even for the duration of that payment period, like you're adding equity to the business, which is another really interesting thing is like yes, there's this monthly semi passive cash flow play, but there's also like, okay, now if I've got this route that's doing 50, 60 grand a month, like there's a multiple that a new, another vending operator would come in and buy that from you. Did you consider buying existing routes like to grow through acquisition if you know, from that old tired operator that you know, just wanted out? Or has it all been kind of new, new conquest or new new placements?
- [33:51]
Anthony Koloje
No, but I actually we, I actually bought one in downtown Chicago. There was a kid through the community, my Mike's community, that was moving back home and we, I basically bought it from him and we transitioned him out as he moved back home and I basically took over his route.
- [34:06]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [34:07]
Anthony Koloje
When I joined his community in like October of like 2023, he has like a lead generation service and stuff like that. So I like paid for him to handle all that stuff. So as I was doing that, I was doing papa Pop ins, hitting the ground and everything. Like it was very like light for me. Like in the beginning, like I like I got some leads but like they weren't really like good locations to do. And then like February of 2024, it just like all happened like a waterfall. Property manager was answering the email campaigns that his team set up and it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I was like what the. Yeah, it was, it took me off guard. So I went to every one of those meetings and I closed them. Now I live an hour and a half away from the city of Chicago. So I didn't want to build a business model where I had to go down to the city. I wanted to build it out by my house and I wanted to do it within like 25 minutes of driving. Didn't work out like that. So I pivoted in my business and I ended up getting a storage unit downtown. Started off in an 80 square foot unit, went to to 150 square foot unit and then we just like in September of last year, you know, we went to a 700 square foot unit spot. You know, when I went into those meetings with those property managers, I went in there and I closed every single one of them. And then what I did was the reason why I was able to grow so quickly was I was able to turn one of those leads into three other locations by saying, hey, you have another property manager, you have a regional manager that oversees other properties that would like to see our get value from our amenity into those other buildings. And then it was just like introduced me here to there. I would go look at those things, put the proposal together for that one, and then close it and go.
- [35:37]
Nick Culoper
You took turning one customer into two, turning one lead into three. Say again, how are you incentivizing those people to introduce you to other property managers?
- [35:45]
Anthony Koloje
So, like, going back to the Rev Share, like, people will talk about it and say, hey, will you offer Rev Share? Yeah, I do. Well, and then what I would say is like, okay, it doesn't start until six months after because I have a huge front upfront cost of like buying the machines and everything like that. I'm like, so what I'll do is I'll start Rev Share after six months, but I will expedite. I will cancel that out and expedite the Rev share for you. If you refer me to over three other sister properties that you have within your network, and they're like, oh, well, we'll take it. Some of them jump on it, some of them don't. Majority of them did. And then I was able to get into these other locations relatively quickly and kind of grow the route pretty quick.
- [36:19]
Nick Culoper
Do you find that. Is that just a virtue of, like, podcasters? No. Other podcasters, Property managers know other property managers, or is it just like, well, this, you know, ownership group just has other buildings around the city.
- [36:31]
Anthony Koloje
It's more of that property manager, the company that they work for. How many buildings do they manage?
- [36:35]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, okay, okay.
- [36:36]
Anthony Koloje
And there's some of them out there that manage 700,000 properties throughout the United States. There's other ones that manage 500,000. Yeah, but there's also other ones that are, like, smaller, which are good, you know, that you can go in and they might have 20 properties and you could gain access to all 20 of those. So it all depends.
- [36:52]
Nick Culoper
Yeah. So then you have a warm lead versus a completely cold, cold call or cold email to some random property manager. It's like coworker or your peer, you know, around the corner, you know, said, we ought to get in touch and we can start that conversation. At what point do you bring on somebody to help stock these things? It sounds like you're spending a lot of time on the business development side. Yeah. Meetings with property managers, dealing with the higher level type of stuff. But at the same time, like, oh, shoot, we're sold out of Snickers on 3rd Street. So now I got to go over here. It's like, yeah, talk to me about the logistics maybe early on. And then what that kind of has transitioned to today.
- [37:26]
Anthony Koloje
Absolutely. So, so my first machine was installed of December of 2023. I then had a bunch of other. These ones, I had another one installed in January 23 or 24, and then another one in March of 24. So I had three that were up and running, like out in the western suburbs, like by me that I was handling. And I was using a. I was basically using the third car garage out of my house for this, which my wife, you know, God bless her, she's been unbelievably supportive and amazing, you know, throughout this whole process. But, you know, she was like, okay, I don't know if I want to make this into our warehouse as our garage, you know, so. So you had to. I had to battle that stuff for a little bit. So then once I started growing into the city, and then when I bought that route In May of 2024, I had them still stock the route in May for me. So it was good because it gave me like time to get my stuff settled down there in the city, find a storage unit, you know, which was a pain in the butt, you know, because a lot of these Life Smart and Life cubes and Life storage facilities, they don't allow you to have delivered food there because they don't want infestation. So I was actually able to find a place, place that was basically like a shared office space that, that hosted weddings and stuff like that. So they didn't care about food and they had a loading dock and everything. So I was thinking down the line with me growing this, I need to find something with a loading dock. So if there's a pallet that's going to be dropped off once my route gets big enough, like I need those tools and that accessibility eventually down the line. So that way I'm not jumping to another location.
- [38:48]
Nick Culoper
Okay, I didn't even think about that. Like, yeah, you got to have it an animal proof type of space. Are you at that point now ordering, I don't know, from corporate or like a distributor? What, like how do you get this stuff?
- [39:01]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, so what I did was originally I was buying all the stuff from the big box stores, Mike. But what he did was he actually went with like the mothership since that community has grown so much. And he basically negotiated distributorships with all these different companies and he went there with the volume basis of the community. So it was great. So what happened was we went to this one distributor and then now I could have pallets being dropped off at my warehouse now because now where my route is at, like I order a Lot of inventory weekly. Last month's cost of goods for me when I did 65,000 was like $27,000, you know, in cost of goods. Again, a higher number because I'm buying. I installed so many machines, so I had to install in stock so many machines that were bare right now. That number will come down once.
- [39:50]
Nick Culoper
Once it's stabilized.
- [39:51]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, exactly. So. So what happened was I started interviewing people last year in June. I was stocking all the stuff myself in June. Mike really pushed me because Mr. Passive is like, you can't be stocking these machines. You know, you're not saying that, you're not saying I'm not good enough for a 24 hour job, but like my skill set, I should be using it and focusing on stuff that's 800 or 900 or $1,000 per hour. I had to focus on business development and growing the route.
- [40:14]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [40:15]
Anthony Koloje
So he's like. But I'm like, mike, I can't like afford it, you know, because I won't be in the red for a little bit, you know, with bringing on a guy and all this stuff. He's like, just do it. I'm like, all right, so I did it. I. I went out there, I posted an ad, and I was interviewing people, and I was interviewing people based off of their car and their van. And do you have a van? Do you have a truck? Because I needed somebody to put all these toe containers, like in there. So I'm telling Mike, he goes, anthony, he goes, just buy a van. I go, mike, I go, I've talked to you in two days.
- [40:45]
Nick Culoper
Every time I talk to you, you're costing me money.
- [40:47]
Anthony Koloje
You're costing me 30 grand here, you know, with a van I gotta buy now and all this stuff. But you know what? I bought in. And he goes, you know what, Anthony? You have to. Because how are you going to grow the route if you're going to be stocking and doing these machines six hours a day? You know, when are you going to do it? You're never going to see your family. It's going to be like another job for you.
- [41:05]
Nick Culoper
Yeah. The driver that you hired because he had a van leaves for whatever reason, and then you're back to ground zero.
- [41:10]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, yeah, you're back to ground zero. So I bought the van. I bought one of those Ford Transit connect vans. They're like 103,000 miles on it. I bought it, put zero down. It was like a $300 a month monthly payment came in. Car insurance is maybe like a buck 70. 5 or something like that. So I bought it. Then I was. I went back to interviewing people, and I was able to interview people based on the best quality candidate that I could get instead of worrying about their. If they had a van or a car or a truck.
- [41:35]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, yeah.
- [41:36]
Anthony Koloje
So I was able to do that. I ended up hiring somebody, brought them on. It's nice that the facility that I have my warehouse at, they allow me to park in their parking lot. Now, it cost me 100 bucks a month, but that way I have the car parked there, you know, on site for my. For my guy to use.
- [41:52]
Nick Culoper
Yeah.
- [41:53]
Anthony Koloje
And at that time, I had like 2,000 units. I had at the time.
- [41:57]
Nick Culoper
So like rows of product in a machine.
- [41:59]
Anthony Koloje
No, so when I mean 2,000 units, I meant like 2,000, like luxury apartment units over five buildings at the time.
- [42:04]
Nick Culoper
Okay, got it, got it.
- [42:05]
Anthony Koloje
Like one building was 200 units, the other one was 250. One was 600, you know, so I had 2,000 units. So I needed to hit the pavement, start going around and, you know, start building that up, you know. So just this past month, Ivy clips 10,000 units total across my whole locations. And I have like 36 locations actually now I'm counting the three that are going to be delivered. And it would be installed here this week. But.
- [42:31]
Nick Culoper
Okay.
- [42:32]
Anthony Koloje
You know, I would have not been able to add 8,000 units to my route if I was picking and stocking. So, like, sure, thank goodness I took his advice and I leaped and it sucked. I mean, I was nervous about it initially, but, you know, I jumped and I went after it. You know, I don't want to say like a cliche saying, but like, you got to start being like, comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I know that's a cliche that a lot of people say, and literally that's what I did. And I leveraged myself and I went after it.
- [43:02]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, it's that kind of hold your breath for this short term period. And it's. It's like that in a lot of side hustles where it's like I can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I know it's going to be uncomfortable to get there, but hopefully it's a short term thing. And I believe in the business, I believe we can get there, but it's. It's not going to be fun for a minute.
- [43:22]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah. You know, and it's going back to that cliche. Like, I talked to somebody the other day and he's like, hey, Anthony, I really want to get on and he told me this and he was like, you know, I'm an IT guy and I'm an introvert. And you know, do you have to be really good at sales? Like when you go out and all this stuff? And I'm like, I'm like, here, man, you are, you're gonna not saying you have to be the best at sales. I'm like, my pitch now, totally different from when it started 15 months ago. I go, but I asked him, I go, are you married? You have a partner? He goes, yeah, I'm married. I got two kids. I go, well, dude, I'm like, you had to sell your wife on marrying you. You know, I'm like, you had some type of sales quality to convince her to know that she wanted to spend the rest of your life with you. I go, so I go dig down. You have the ability and just know that it's a numbers game and you're going to hear a lot, a lot of no's before you hit a. Hear a lot more yeses and you're just gonna have to be, you have to get through it. And it's just a numbers game, brother, and you just have to work through it.
- [44:12]
Nick Culoper
What kind of common objections do you hear from property managers when you are making the initial outreach or even after you sent your proposal with them?
- [44:19]
Anthony Koloje
It's always like follow ups. Because vending is not like their first priority. They're dealing with so much other stuff that's going on there throughout the building. So there'll be times where I send a proposal and, you know, I, I won't get assigned one back for a month and a half or two. You know, there's one right now that I've sent over last July and I'm still popping in and just touching base and doing all these different things monthly because that's the name of the game in sales and pipeline. You just got to build your pipeline up. And then once one says yes, one will say another yes. I mean, I got an email last week from somebody, hey, Anthony, I talked to you back in October. When can I get the machines in? I'm like, okay, sounds good, nice to hear from you, you know, but like, so it does take some follow up. It does take some sales strategy of like how you want to go ahead and follow up. You know, you don't want to be following up with people saying, hey, did you get my proposal? Where you at now? You know, like, I always follow up and I always want to add like some type of value. Hey, I, I just talked to the CEO, And I'm going to be ordering machines this week. You know, can I get that signed proposal back where I can kind of add you to that order? You know, creating some type of urgency, doing some type of different type of sales, follow up, follow up to kind of always add value. I'm not a big person of like, hey, when are you gonna get it back? Because, like, if somebody reads that, like, I know when I read it when I'm so busy, like, it's just like, I'm like, all right, I'll respond back to you later. Like, there was no value. But it's like, hey, I made a new vendor. I'm gonna be installing crumble cookies in our machines now.
- [45:45]
Nick Culoper
What?
- [45:45]
Anthony Koloje
This guy's gonna be installing crumble cookies. Oh, my God, that's so great. This is what you know. And then they respond, okay, have you.
- [45:50]
Nick Culoper
Been able to get the kids involved at all?
- [45:52]
Anthony Koloje
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. So on the weekends, we do our Costco runs and do the picking in the garage. I'll have actually brought them to some loc where I actually stocked them myself because the stalker at the time couldn't stock it for me. So I go, come on, kids, let's go. Let's get in the car and let's go. And I got photos of them doing it. And I'll tell you that that was the main mission for me, was to teach them entrepreneurship and work ethic when we first started. And then they were three and five at the time, and they're now going to be five and seven here, you know, come in May. But just their transformation of their minds of, like, how they think about things, like, within regards of value, you know, we used to walk into Target all the time. We used to always be like, okay, to get one. Get something, get something. You know? Now I taught them about, like, coupons and discounts, and then they would look at like, hey, maybe this could be good something value for the vending machine. And then, you know, something that I did not realize that they just got so obsessed with vending machines. Like, so, like, we're watching Despicable Me 4 and there's a vending machine in the back, dad, There's a vending machine in the background. Or if it's a tailor, like the Taylor Swift song, We're listening to it in the car last summer, and it's her song Cruel summer. And like 48 seconds into that song, there's a verse that where she says, with the light of the glow of the vending machine, hits your face or something like that. And then they went crazy, like in the backseat of the car. Dad, vending machine. So, like, that's the stuff that really moves me, man. And that's what motivates me every single day. Yeah, it's just. That's been so great for me to experience, you know, this past year is the impact of what it had on the kids. Because even when I was talking to other successful type people and just anybody, actually, and they would always reminisce about, hey, I used to go with my dad when he used to be a painter here, when my dad used to buy this, you know, and they get those little doses of real life experience, you know, at such a young age. And that's what I really want to instill in them.
- [47:47]
Nick Culoper
Yeah, it's really cool because it's an example of a business that is super easy to understand. Okay. Buy something for a dollar, sell it for two, and oh, wait, I didn't have to be there to make that sale. You know, that's, that's like that little flip that can switch from like, oh, you grow up, go to school, get a good job and, you know, trade time for money. It's like, here's this little fork in the road. I think it's really interesting that. And it's cool that you're exposing to them that, to them at a, at a young age.
- [48:11]
Anthony Koloje
Thank you. I was so addicted when I first got into this business. I would be checking my sale. I would be refreshing my sales reports weekly. I mean, I mean, not weekly. I mean, like every, like hour. Like, it was, it was so obsessive because I was so new to it. I would wake up in the morning, oh my God, how much did we make overnight? You know, and, and it's awesome because like, in the city, you know, some of these kids, they're going out for Halloween night or St. Patrick's Day. Like, I know Saturday night between 1 and 4am that thing's going to be cleared out at these luxury apartments because these kids are just going to go back and just wipe it out.
- [48:41]
Nick Culoper
Yeah. Refresh on the reports or pulled. Yeah, it's great. Any big surprises, Surprises or mistakes, we'll tee it up like that.
- [48:47]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah. Like I said in the beginning, just make sure you, when you're qualifying that location, make sure you're asking all the questions, you know, make sure you're figuring out how many people are working there, what's the times that they're working there. You know, just quantify that. Don't assume a second Shift is the same as the first shift, like me. And then don't overthink it. Like, I come from a real estate world that's always says, like, location, location, location. Same thing here with vending. But it's foot traffic. Foot traffic, foot traffic. So if there's going to be foot traffic and there's going to be people that are going to be walking by it, there are going to be sales. So just make sure that you are, are very conscious of the foot traffic that is there.
- [49:23]
Nick Culoper
Very good. What's next for you? What are you excited about this year? Where do you want to take it?
- [49:26]
Anthony Koloje
If you asked me 15 months ago if this is where I was going to be at, I would be like, you're nuts. There's no way that would be here. So my goal is to be at a hundred thousand dollars per month. I'm going to reassess the business and see if I want to go ahead and double down or triple down and then grow it to a 200 or 300,000 or for even a $400,000 a month business.
- [49:44]
Nick Culoper
Wow. And then some serious, serious equity involved at that point. Now you're talking about a multimillion dollar valuation.
- [49:51]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah, no, absolutely. So, like, these are some of the things that I'm like tossing around and going around about. So I'm trying to think, you know, where do I want it to go? Because I just don't want it to get it too big where it pulls me away from my family and my stocker. My guy that I hired, he only taken off four days in six months. So great hire that I had, but. But he was sick in January and he had the flu or whatever. So I had to wake my butt up and go out there and pick and stock and do it. And it sucked. It just did. It sucked. But my kid, he had a basketball practice. His first basketball practice started at 4pm and I wasn't missing it. So I told my wife, I go, you know, I'm going to wake up at 2am go do the route, pick all the stuff to make sure that I'm back in time. You're going to have to take care of the kids in the morning. She still works. She's a public school teacher out here in the western, the suburbs for 22 years. And she's like, yep. She goes, I'll do it. I'll take care of the kids that morning you go out and do it. And so it's been good, like, because to have a supportive partner like that has been like, I wouldn't be here without her and with her support and just having the sacrifice and some of those days where I had to get out there and do it and hustle and not come home till late because maybe the machine was delivered and the machine was acting up and it wasn't working the right way. And I'm on the phone with customer support till 9 o'clock at night and she's handling the kids and putting them to bed. So there's Murphy's Law for sure. No matter what.
- [51:06]
Nick Culoper
Absolutely. Whenever you're moving bulky technology, giant machines around physical inventory, there's people involved. Yeah, things are going to happen. But that's part of being a business owner and you figure it out as you go.
- [51:17]
Anthony Koloje
Absolutely.
- [51:18]
Nick Culoper
So this has been awesome, Anthony. I really appreciate you spending some some time with us and schooling us on the rapid growth vending model here at Chicago H&HVending.com you can find them over over there. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation. This does not have to be vending specifically related. This could be whatever entrepreneurial wisdom you'd like to impart.
- [51:38]
Anthony Koloje
Yeah. So you are going to experience some adversity, but you're going to have to push through it. And if you push through it and persevere, you will be successful. If you are, if you're thinking about a certain job that you're at and you want to, hey, I need a change or I need to do this, I tell somebody, jump and make the jump and go ahead and do it and push forward and, you know, try to make it happen so that way down the line you don't have any regrets, you know, and say, hey, I should have tried this. I should have did this. Just go out there and try it and then you'll leverage yourself to make sure that you're successful and it'll happen. You'll just have to push through it.
- [52:12]
Nick Culoper
That's right. Keep your risks low, keep your upsides high and go to town again. H&HVending.com awesome episode. Couple takeaways for me. You just alluded to this. Hey, real estate, estate is the rule is location, location, location in this business foot traffic really similar to this location. How many people are going to be having exposure to this machine? How many people? You know, a certain percentage of those people going to buy something if you stock it right and figure out the right product mix there. And the other side of it is. Yeah, on the surface, hey, you know, buy the thing for a dollar, sell it for two simple. But on the backside of that is this. It's a sales machine. Right? How do we get in front of the decision makers? How do we do that consistently? How do we turn one lead into three? Really like that? Hey, well the typical, you know, moratorium on the rev share is six months just because we got to pay back the machine. Like I love this line. Hey, but we could shortcut that. We can cut that out if you intro me to two other buildings. Three other buildings. Really like that building. And nurturing that sales pipeline and recognizing that this is not their top priority. Right. Do the follow ups and make sure that you you're top of mind because there might be another Anthony knocking at their door, sending them an email, cold calling them to try and get his machine in her machine in. So trying to be top of mind on that front, we referenced episode 599 with Mike Hoffman, the vendingpreneur Mr. Passive on Twitter. I think he's got a discount for side Hustle show listeners on the vendingpreneur community. Not positive on that, but if you mention side Hustle Nation or side Hustle Show, I know he'll take good. Carry you on that and go back and listen to his original episode if you're interested in learning a little bit more. Big thanks to Anthony for sharing his insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. As always, you can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message for me to that person in your life who is looking for creative ways to make extra money outside of their job. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on.