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- [00:00]
Host
If you're selling online or in person, you're familiar with this challenge. You need people to find your products, which usually means paying for ads or hoping they stop by. Whatnot flips that this is the live shopping platform that's exploding right now. On whatnot, you go live and sell directly to real people in real time.
- [00:17]
Nick
I've seen whatnot climb to the top
- [00:19]
Host
of the app store. I've seen the seller earnings everything from
- [00:22]
Nick
small part time projects to multi million dollar businesses.
- [00:25]
Host
Whatnot is the largest dedicated live shopping platform. They see what you've got, they can ask you questions, and then they buy. And what's fascinating is they keep coming back for more Whatnot. Buyers are spending more than an hour a day in the app. And all that is great news for sellers. In fact, sellers on whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces. That's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers. From collectibles to cookies, from resale treasures to vintage fashion. People just like you are building real audiences and real businesses on whatnot. And for a limited time, Whatnot will match your first $150 sold in the first month. Visit whatnot.com sell to start selling. That's w h a t n o t whatnot.com sell whatnot.com sell so here's a side hustle that shows up on
- [01:18]
Nick
a lot of passive income idea lists, but it's hard to find anybody actually doing it or at least openly talking about it. And that side hustle is ATM machines. So similar to our vending machine episodes, you can literally go out and buy a money making robot. You just got to figure out where to put it so that people use it. So my guest today has got five of these ATM machines bringing in around 1500 bucks a month in exchange for an hour of work a week. Pretty good return there From Viking Vendors LLC.com Will Butterton, welcome to the Side Hustle show.
- [01:54]
Will Butterton
Thanks for having me, Nick.
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Nick
You bet.
- [01:56]
Host
Stick around.
- [01:56]
Nick
We're talking startup costs, we're talking location placements, risks to be aware of, and lots more. So, Will, you're a full time engineer by trade, by training, by employment, you're a dad. My understanding is this is one of several side hustles. But what attracted you to ATMs?
- [02:11]
Will Butterton
My wife was pregnant. I was like, man, I think that's something I could do. Didn't seem like there was a whole lot of risk. My buddy who was living next door to me at the time also wanted to Start something. And we decided to pony up some cash and buy our first two machines out the gate.
- [02:27]
Nick
So you're going machines first and then we'll figure out where to put them next versus securing a spot first.
- [02:34]
Will Butterton
By far the hardest part of the ATM landscape is finding your business bank account. Generally that's a local bank or credit union that will offer you the bank account that will actually allow ATM transactions to be processed through their avenue.
- [02:50]
Nick
So if you go to a national bank and say, I want to open a business account and they ask, what's your business? And you say, I'm starting an ATM business. And they're like, full stop. We don't want to touch this.
- [03:00]
Will Butterton
Yes, your large chain banks. In the early 2000 teens, there was a big federal investigation that involved money laundering and gang activity in the mob and ATMs. And basically the, what was discovered is that these criminal entities were using ATMs to launder money or part of their, you know, their criminal enterprise, if you will. So all of the large banks, after this was found out, basically put a hard stop to it, which it was an easy solution for them. But then it became a massive pain in the butt for legitimate ATM operators like myself and other tons of other ATM operators that have been doing this for an extremely long time. So that is your hardest task while starting this business is securing that bank account.
- [03:45]
Nick
Okay, so that's step one before buying any machines, before looking for locations like try and set up that account.
- [03:51]
Will Butterton
And in order to set up that, that account, you're going to need your ein, your, your federal tax number. So really before we pulled the trigger, there was an LLC that I created. Once you're through that, securing your business bank account for this specific business ATMs would be the first thing I try and do because I had to call six or seven local banks. And by the end, you're considering how many branches you're going to be pulling cash out. You want a decent amount of branches, you want branches close to you. So at the bottom of that list, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be driving like 45 minutes to pick up cash. And luckily we did find one that is a reputable banker in Washington that has plenty of branch access.
- [04:31]
Nick
Got it. Okay, so with that in hand, what happens next?
- [04:35]
Will Butterton
So now the time ATMs were about 2,500. With they've increased so around 3,000, you can probably get a nice new ATM. So 3,000 for the ATM, it's going in a decently high traffic location. You're going to want at least $1,000 to start with. Me personally, I stick with the Gen megas, so gen mega 2500 is what we use.
- [04:58]
Nick
Okay.
- [04:59]
Will Butterton
And then the Hyosungs are good. I have one Hyosung. We buy all of our ATMs through the company that processes the transaction, which I'll get to. And then, you know, maybe 500 extra if you know you're going to have receipt paper parts supplies or whatever. So a good $4,500 is what I would start per machine.
- [05:17]
Nick
Yeah, I didn't really think about that. It's like you need to. It's like a snack vending machine. Well, I got to fill it with product only. The product in this case is cash.
- [05:25]
Will Butterton
Yeah, Your. Your money is the product, essentially. Right. So we have the money set aside. We're going to buy the machines. Finding an ATM processor, another very important step. So there's a ton and they all offer similar things, but really what you want to find and doesn't matter who you use, find yourself a processor that doesn't take any percent of your surcharge fee. That is the entire profit margin. All your profit for an ATM business is the surcharge fee. When you get to this screen or if I'm taking money out and I get to this screen that says, do you agree to pay so and so $3 to process this transaction or go through with it? Yes, that $3, that's really all the money that there is to be made, right there?
- [06:06]
Nick
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:07]
Will Butterton
So some processors will take 10% of that. Okay, well, that's only 30 cents on a $3, but that adds up over time. You want that 30 cents? That 30 cents could be the 30 cents that you share with the person that owns the business that you're putting the ATM at. You know that you want that 30 cents.
- [06:23]
Nick
So how are the processors making money if they're not taking a cut of that fee?
- [06:28]
Will Butterton
So the processors make the money by the agreements that they have with the banks and the card companies. So say like if you go to an ATM and it takes MasterCard, Visa, blah, blah, blah, like it has the list of. Normally there's a sticker that shows all the cards that they take. They make money on the back end and it's pennies per transaction. But the banks have to pay money to basically be hosted on these universal ATMs, if you will. So the companies that process those take money in the back end of the transactions. So we use Pruneta. And again, I'm not they don't give me any kickbacks or discounts. That's just who we landed on. There's tons of great companies. I looked around quite a bit and I liked Pernetta and what they had to offer. They didn't take any percent of your surcharge fee. They really good customer service. Like I can text them their customer service agents and they'll reply back to me. And good company, they take 0%. Okay, so if I charge $3 for a transaction, I get all $3 back in my bank account.
- [07:27]
Nick
Is that typical pricing wise?
- [07:28]
Will Butterton
We kind of base our pricing on a couple different factors if we're doing price sharing. So like I'll give some of my pitch if you will. But if it's a cash only business, the convenience to them and their customer is having a place they can get cash on site if you're only accepting cash of that business. So what I would pitch to someone like that is I can make the surcharge fee lower so your customers don't feel like they're being drug over the coals with a 4 or $5 surcharge fee. But I'm not going to split profit with you or I'm not going to do profit sharing because basically Our number is $3. Anything over $3 will share profit. Anything under, we won't. And so we can set the lower price as a convenience to your customer in a cash only business. But if the business owner wants to do profit sharing, then we'll have to raise the surcharge fee in order to combat some of the profit loss that we're paying back to the. Got it.
- [08:23]
Nick
And so that was kind of one of the questions was, are they going to charge you rent for taking up some of their floor space with this ATM machine, even though it's a service to their customers? That was one question. Then part of it was like, well, if the machines are only 2000 bucks or 3000 bucks, why wouldn't they just put it in themselves? But it's like, well, maybe there's this red tape hurdle of finding a processor and finding a separate bank account doing all this stuff.
- [08:45]
Will Butterton
We'll use Prinetta as an example. So Prinetta, the company that I that processes our transactions, started out as someone like Viking Vendors myself. They started out as ATM placers and they had kind of grew their fleet. And then there's a point where a passive income no longer becomes passive or a job like ATMs, it might take an hour a week. But if you ask one of there's a guy around here, the ATM guy, who. He was over 400. I mean, like that guy, outside of being an ATM millionaire, he's also. That's not passive income. Like, I got told a really good thing or a good quote, and I can't really quote verbatim, but basically it was, you know, if you grow too big in this space, you can kiss your vacations goodbye because you can't let your ATMs run dry. You are your brand or you're your business. In this case, like, the amount of machines you're leaving on empty, the. You know, how good you are at keeping the machines full and keeping your customers happy, that really translates over to the business. And so when it grows to a point where, yeah, it no longer becomes passive. And these people are like, don't. Like, past a certain point, don't do it. Because it really. It takes. It starts taking away from family time and vacations and all that. And so I haven't quite got to the sweet spot yet.
- [10:04]
Nick
Yeah, maybe there's a little bit more of a. I'm thinking of a, you know, hiring somebody to restock or, you know, refill the machines. It's a little bit different than having somebody pick up some cans of Coke and some bags of chips. It's like you're picking up stacks of thousands of dollars and under your name and going to refill these.
- [10:22]
Will Butterton
You have to really be able to trust the folks that you're working with in the space, because it really is all cash. And the point I was making with Prinetta is they. They started, expanded, expanded, got to the point where in order for them to level up, they became processors and. And then started taking people like me on that buy ATMs through them, that use them to process. So they actually still own some of their ATMs and they have cash fillers and everything. But a lot of their clients are people like me that then buy a fleet. So then it kind of trickles down. They make money off of every transaction that I do. If I was a business and went through a company like that, I could buy, like, rent an ATM from an ATM processor. So they would ship it, get it set up everything. But all that business would have to do would be like to fill it with cash, essentially. But in terms of surcharge, we haven't had to split any surcharge for any of the locations we've placed so far.
- [11:15]
Nick
So keeping it kind of at that $3 sweet spot and saying no rev share basically with the location.
- [11:21]
Will Butterton
Yeah. And I do Think that that is a little bit rare in this space. That's something you need to be prepared to do is the revenue sharing because that's how you're going to land some of those bigger locations.
- [11:32]
Nick
Well, let's talk about finding the right location for these because you kind of alluded to this. I want to find a cash only business and one that doesn't already have an ATM machine in place. Like those overlapping circles on the Venn diagram have got to be pretty small these days.
- [11:47]
Will Butterton
It's hard. I mean it's a business that's been around a really long time. The approach that I've always taken is like the small family owned, it's me and my buddy, childhood buddy. The flyers that we hand out or give to a business normally when we do our first interaction with them, we try and be as personable as we possibly can in a world or in this business space. Like that doesn't really exist. I started like going around to these locations first. My first foot in the door. I'll go see if they have an atm. If they do, I'll go put my card up to it. I'll see what the surcharge is, I'll see who owns it, I'll get the information on who's processing it and I'll ask them if they have any issues with their current processor or their current ATM loader, filler, whatever operator. The number one complaint I get is that the machine breaks and that the PE people take too long to fix it. It's a multiple day thing. The ATM will be down. And so I started equating that with the distance that these operators are placing locations from. So I try and stay really close or close enough that if something goes down I can be there same day. I give them my cell phone number, you know, the direct contact me, email, everything. So I come in there with business cards, flyers, more information, like ways to contact me, website than any other. The ATM processors even the big ones have like you don't see full complete websites and that level of commitment from those guys and they might not need it because they it's word of mouth at this point for them. But for me, in order to selling somebody going into a store and telling them whatever they have currently working that you can offer better service or hey, let me kind of mess with what you have going and I will on my word, provide a better service than you're being provided. It's one of the hardest sales you can make.
- [13:34]
Nick
Okay. So it's not likely to find that they don't have an ATM machine and need one. It's more likely. And we've heard this from our snack and drink vending entrepreneurs as well. It's like, no, we, we have one. It's just, it's always out of stock. It's broken. They, you know, they don't respond to our calls, they don't come out and restock and they don't fix it. And so it's like, okay, I can come in. And this was their pitch as well. Like, I'm going to be better, I'm going to be local. I'm going to be responsive. You can. Here's my cell phone number. You can call me directly. And that level of personable customer service, you know, ends up winning some people over.
- [14:07]
Will Butterton
Yeah, a hundred percent, you got to promise. But then you also have to deliver. Like, you have to not only say that you're going to be better, but you do have to be better. Yeah, there's a lot of people in this space that are rude or don't show up on time. You know, they just don't have any business etiquette. And there's a lot of those. And I've done plenty of Facebook marketplace interaction with other ATM companies. And the bar isn't set super high, at least from what I've seen.
- [14:33]
Nick
So I'm picturing you and your partner going, you know, through strip malls, you know, door to door, and first doing the awkward look around like, oh, is there an ATM machine here?
- [14:43]
Will Butterton
And we're dressed up too. That's the other thing is like, like I go in there with button up shirt with our logo on it, dress pants, like I own it.
- [14:51]
Nick
Okay. Like a uniform. Sure.
- [14:52]
Will Butterton
My dad does boomer generation. He was in the Navy for 30 years. A lot of these business owners, majority of small businesses owned right now are owned by that generation as well. But like, look in the part. It all plays into that, like securing a location. It really does.
- [15:07]
Nick
Well, tell me about your first win. Where do you, where do you put the first machine?
- [15:10]
Will Butterton
It was a indoor soccer center in Bremerton, the Pendergast Park. It's an indoor turf soccer center. And I was currently playing cornhole there on Tuesday nights. It's like a beer league cornhole thing. And so those guys are making side bets and stuff all the time. It's like a lot of cash in cornhole. So as I was getting into it, I was like, we need a place to get cash.
- [15:34]
Nick
That's really interesting. It's not a cash only business, but the people who Come there. Need cash. Gosh. Okay.
- [15:39]
Will Butterton
Yeah. So. So I ended up. I talked to the owner. We sat down. He was like, yeah, man, like, I will let you try it. But I went into that meeting, like, the full Persona, the fake it till you make it like we had done it before type of thing. I did not divulge that we. Our first ATMs were being ordered. He didn't really ask. I had my website set up everything. And first sale, I was nervous, like, petrified, trying to. I'm. I'm an engineer, not a salesman. And I'm like, the machine got delivered a week later and we. I was watching YouTube videos, trying to figure out how to set this thing up. And then Pernetta offers. They have technicians that will set it up with you over the phone and you can do it on site or there. But I'm like, I don't want to do that on site because I want to. I don't want them to think that, like, it's like, yeah, hit this button. Like, you know that I'm inexperienced. So we set it up in my garage. It really is just power and ethernet cable, right? So plugged it into my router, got it all set up, and so now it's ready to drop. And we dropped it in, plugged it in, wired 100 foot of ethernet through the ceiling into his router. And yeah, it's not super involved.
- [16:47]
Nick
All right. So the soccer center says yes and still knocking on door. Well, now we got to find a home for the second machine where that one goes.
- [16:54]
Host
Plus, more ATM vending machine profit potential and best practices with will coming up right after this. When you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Hoping the right people see your job posting really isn't the best growth strategy. When the pressure's on and you need the right hire, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs get you the quality candidates when you need them most. Like yesterday. How it works is Sponsored Jobs boosts your job post in the search results so you can reach the people with the exact skills, experience and qualifications you need to help your business thrive. Plus, with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, you only pay for results. There's no monthly subscriptions or long term contracts. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes with less stress, less time, and more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Inside Hustle show listeners will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com podcast just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indee Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for Indeed. Sponsored jobs. A lot of side hustlers suffer from this debilitating disease called what ifitis. What if it doesn't work? What if I don't have the skills? What if I picked the wrong path? But one thing 100% of our amazing side hustle show guests have in common is they took their shot. They faced down those what ifs and they got their answers through taking action. Our partner Shopify helps you turn those what ifs into into why nots. Shopify is the commerce platform that powers millions of businesses around the world. What if you never built a website before? Well, they've got hundreds of ready to use templates that help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. What if people haven't heard about your brand? That's where everybody starts. Shopify helps you find your customers with email and scroll stopping social media campaigns too. And what if you get stuck? Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24. 7 customer support. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com sidehustle go to shopify.com sidehustleen that's shopify.com sidehustlez
- [19:17]
Will Butterton
yeah, so second machine. There was a barber shop and I didn't know outside of my buddy went in there to get his hair cut and he was like hey man, there's a barber shop I just went into and I don't know if they take card but she told me it was cash on and they didn't have an atm. They actually made him go to the Rite Aid next door. And it was five minutes from my house. I didn't even know about it. And so I went in there, pitched them the same thing that I did, the indoor soccer place. And yeah, they, they let us place it there. And that's another thing, like try your hardest to make friends with these people. I know them all, like first name Nikki. You know, I got all my, my folks, sometimes we'll bring them little like a little goodie basket. Just cheap, cheap little things that I guarantee you no other ATM operator or you know, little Christmas card here or anything while you're going and filling because like when you're small you want Everything in house, it's going to be your cash. You're going to be filling it yourself.
- [20:13]
Nick
What's a good month from the barbershop?
- [20:16]
Will Butterton
So our surcharge there is $3 and it'll do like in a good month, like 200 transactions, like I think the best month ever. Some ATMs do way crazier. True. But like $600 coming from a single machine and if you have 10 of those. Yeah.
- [20:32]
Nick
From a small town barbershop.
- [20:34]
Will Butterton
Yeah. And now the, the real like olden goose if you will or where you want to be in Washington or any space that allows it is dispensary like Washington state. That is your ATM dream. If you can get into a dispensary, that would be the difference from some people like quitting this business and it becoming their full time job type of thing.
- [20:56]
Nick
Yeah. Here's a high volume cash only operation. But again they, they've got to be disgruntled with their current provider because you have to imagine that they all already have one or more ATM machines in there.
- [21:07]
Will Butterton
Yeah, exactly. So this is the different levels of atm. So there's big enough companies that have people on payroll to sit basically sit on the LLC database.
- [21:18]
Nick
Kind of like a new business registration data.
- [21:21]
Will Butterton
Yep, New business registration database. And they pay people to sit there and anything that sounds remotely like something that they'd be interested in in a brick and mortar before the location is even built. Like it's just an llc. They have people reaching out. Hey, when you get this going, you're going to need an atm. We were your guys.
- [21:38]
Nick
Yeah. Hey, you're gonna, you're gonna want one of these. Yeah.
- [21:40]
Will Butterton
And so if I don't have the time to do that, you have to come from a different approach. If you are a one or two man team, you gotta do what you can to try and give yourself advantages over the people that have large teams of people doing this. You're not going to be the person that's going to reach out first, but you can surely be the person that provides the most personable, friendly, warm experience with them. You can do that.
- [22:03]
Nick
Yeah. Any luck getting into a dispensary so far?
- [22:07]
Will Butterton
No, it's tricky. Also if you go in there, be prepared that the people that work there are probably not going to pass your information along. You got to catch like a manager. I've been in there a lot of times where you know, you're chatting with folks and you're like, hey, you know, if you could pass this along, either an owner or manager the people that just work there that are just regular employees, they don't care. I've gone in and seen my card sitting the same little pile over there after. So I go and I'll try and get numbers or like look up online, find people who owns it, call them. There's ways to try and figure out who you need to talk to. But yeah, we still haven't landed it. I did hear a really encouraging story though from. Because I know a guy, the guy who owns cash money ATMs, he's out of Tacoma, but like full time gig, really big ATM operator. He had like nine to ten ATMs at the time. And he was like, at the time when he was just getting going, his wife was. They were on the threshold of quitting. And that's why I say it can really change your business. And he was like, I was honestly like about to quit. And just so happened that a location that I was already in, the owner, the guy who owned that bar, owned a dispensary. And because I had, you know, never let him run dry and he and I built a relationship, he finally let me give it a shot over there and he's like, I tell you what, the transactions I got from that crushed all nine, 10 other machines I had. And he's like, that location alone, that made my wife and I completely change our minds and decide to do this full time. And he's like, I never looked back after that. He was like, that one location, because you have to think an ATM at a dispensary, at least from the metrics or the information that I've gathered from the employees, it will do over 5,000 dispensed a day. 5,000 cash per day.
- [23:56]
Nick
Wow.
- [23:56]
Will Butterton
So even if everyone takes out the maximum limit at so 5,000 dispensed a day and divide that by the max 200. So that's 25. A lot of ATM set, like a max limit of $200. And then you have to pay again. That kind of conserves your cash that you have in there. If I let someone take out 2,000, I only load it with 2,000. You know, that could be a one transaction before I fill.
- [24:20]
Nick
Right.
- [24:21]
Will Butterton
25 transactions a day over 30 days, you know, that's 750 transactions and those are normally like $3. So you know, that's $2,250 in profit from a single location in one month. That you could do in theory.
- [24:38]
Nick
Yeah, that could be big. Yeah. And you can imagine, you start to do, oh, what if I had four or five of these?
- [24:43]
Will Butterton
Well, that would double. I mean, that's what he was saying. Like one location would double what I pull in from our seven.
- [24:49]
Nick
Do you get a kind of remote dashboard so you know how much is left in there? You're like, oh, shoot, I'm down to my last $100. I better go refill it.
- [24:56]
Will Butterton
So it's a, both a phone app and a website. I don't even use the phone app. I just log in on my phone to the website. I can see transactions real time. So if a power outage, any error, I have it set up. So anytime my machines go below 400, it texts us location machine. So that all that part's automated. And that's not even something that you have to set up.
- [25:17]
Nick
So is that the bulk of your time now that you're kind of up and running and several years deep into this is going to the bank, taking out large sums of cash and then going along the route to fill the machines?
- [25:29]
Will Butterton
Yeah, my buddy does the cash and I do the vending machines. So about once a week he'll go take all of our cash out of our bank account. And also, just a quick touch, three bank accounts. One for all the, your vault cash, the cash that you load into the machine, one for all of the transactions that are coming in, and then one as a savings just when times get tough. That's how we set it up at least. So, yes, he'll go in, grab all the cash out of the vault cash. So say there's 5,000, he'll take that 5,000, go put 5,000 in our machines. And then when that cash is taken out, the surcharge, the $3 surcharge fee gets put in our income. So every transaction, you'll see $3 drop in there. And then the amount that they take out, the 200, the 40 they just pulled out, goes back into the vault cash.
- [26:16]
Nick
Got it?
- [26:17]
Will Butterton
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Nick
Because it wasn't yours, it's theoretically it was theirs from their own account.
- [26:21]
Will Butterton
Yeah, they take 200 and their card will plop 200 back in the vault cash and three dollar surcharge fee into our income cash. And so that part is all pretty smooth. So it's just loading. That is, that is your, your time commitment is loading. And then really, if you want to make it a growing business, if you want to get to a spot where, okay, like you're comfortable now, you don't have to go pound pavement and look for new locations. Still not a bad idea because businesses go out of business, stuff happens. So I still stay Vigilant. I have a couple spots that I want to go check out, and I'll go talk to them and. But that would be a larger commitment if you're trying to grow to a certain spot. And we have, like, a number in our head.
- [27:02]
Nick
Yeah.
- [27:02]
Will Butterton
You know, the amount of ATM balance of. Okay, we could each add another hour a week. How many more ATMs could we get? We're trying to keep the commitment low to where we can still provide the good service. Where it doesn't for us, it doesn't need to be a full salary, just, you know, a little extra coming in. And you know, who. Who doesn't want a little extra coming in? That's as you want that extra to be as passive as possible, unless it's something that you're super passionate about. And I'm not personally, like, crazy about ATMs. I like woodworking and, you know, hanging out with my daughters and my new son. You want your free time too?
- [27:39]
Nick
You know, Totally. Yeah. Keep. Keep the commitment low and the hourly rate as strong as you can. It sounds like once it's up and running, it can be. It can be really strong in that way. Can you bring out your crystal ball? Because, like, my question around this business is like, is cash slowly dying? It's not going anywhere tomorrow. But, like, over the long arc, I certainly use less cash than I did 20, 30 years ago. And so it's like, does that factor in here?
- [28:06]
Will Butterton
Yes. And I've thought about that a lot too. But the card processing companies that. The racket that they have on processing fees, you know, three, up to 5% of every transaction is taken from the business owner to go to the credit card processing company. So we just placed an ATM a couple weeks ago of a business that's switching to all cash because he's like,
- [28:29]
Nick
yeah, I'm sick of this.
- [28:30]
Will Butterton
They're done with the processing companies and they feel like they're being short shorted. And I mean, really, they. I know that the processing companies are providing a service, but again, it's. It ends up hurting small businesses. And so that's a big thing. Like, a selling point when I go in there is like, hey, you know, if you want to start incentivizing cash and like, doing less card purchases. And it's all on our flyer. But anyways, long story short, I really hope not, because I'm involved in it. But also when that. The guy from, like, cash cash money ATMs, like, every time I text him, he's like, are you. Are you ready to Sell yet because
- [29:04]
Nick
he wants to buy your route when
- [29:05]
Will Butterton
you have like whales like that that are still buying up people, you know, and casinos. I'm not super worried about it in Washington.
- [29:11]
Nick
That's an interesting take. Maybe it does come. We kind of dial back the digital thing. You know, I want to be able to spend privately. I want to be able to, you know, keep 100% of this purchase in the local economy. Like, okay, yeah, I can, I can see some benefits there too. There was a time where I was like, no, I got to put everything on the credit card to get my points. And now it's almost like, well, I kind of like spending the cash because it's invisible. It doesn't show up on the statement at the end of the month. I don't know, it feels different in a way.
- [29:39]
Will Butterton
Yeah, I don't really know. But I've seen some strong trends from small business owners and other people in this space that cash should be here to stay for the near future. I don't know, I don't see it. If I did, I hopefully would be able to sell this before anyone else also caught on.
- [29:57]
Nick
You bring up a good point. What's the, what's the route worth in terms of multiple of the fees you're bringing in or how are they valued?
- [30:04]
Will Butterton
I wasn't thinking about selling this the day that I started it. But that is a thought that crossed your mind. Like, well, at what point do I would I give up on this? And so we have looked into like what does that look like? And that's not something that you maybe look into before starting it. So the closeness of your route. Okay, how, how serviceable is it really? Is it all in Kitsap County?
- [30:26]
Nick
Okay.
- [30:27]
Will Butterton
Like how tight, how tight knit your route is. The other thing they're going to check is do you have contracts in place with these locations? That's super important. We didn't really mention that process.
- [30:38]
Nick
Okay.
- [30:38]
Will Butterton
But yes, contracts in place. So I, I have all of my customers sign two year agreements, location agreements and I switched them out of five, going to see if they're okay doing that. Because five year that if we did end up selling, you know, then that actually adds on to your company's value. So yeah, these contracts, because the way they're written, like so we have one that was reviewed by lawyer and stuff and it's nothing crazy, it's just, hey guys, give us 30 days heads up if you are booting the ATM out so we have time to replace just common courtesies and if our ATM gets Stolen. Like, we'll cover all the damages to the atm, the cash, everything. You're responsible for the window, whatever.
- [31:21]
Nick
Okay.
- [31:22]
Will Butterton
Legalese type stuff. Anyways, super important to have your locations on a contract. And generally speaking, I think it's two and a half, 2.5 gross revenue, 2.5x, I believe, for ATMs. So at our route right now, five locations bringing in what it does, we could probably get like 4550.
- [31:41]
Nick
Yeah. The reason I bring it up is like, yes, I'm here for the monthly cash flow. Like, that was the initial goal. But also there's some equity value in the business, which I think is really cool.
- [31:52]
Will Butterton
Yeah. And I'm like learning all this stuff. So for me and my children and my family now I'm like, I've paid myself back. I can give them an hour to maintain. It's paying like a car payment a month. At this point. I don't see myself selling it because I want to pass this off. I want my children to go fill some vending machines or go talk to a business owner or make a deal or learn about entrepreneurship in a way that while their brains are still spongier and they don't have to fumble around with it as much like I did as a grown up. Right. And to kind of get that spark going at an earlier age. And like, my parents are awesome. They've supported me every step of the way. But they're also like, you know, a little more traditional in that sense. Like Navy, 30 years, boom, great retirement. Mom, teacher, 30 years at the end. You know, great retirement. And so it was always like, college, find yourself a. You know, I'm working for the government. I like it. I have no complaints. But me being comfortable was also, you know, I felt like kind of stopping me from trying to chase down some of the other little things that I've always wanted to do.
- [32:54]
Nick
Oh, that's an interesting line. Don't be too comfortable.
- [32:57]
Host
More with Will in just a moment. Including the threat of theft and his other totally unrelated six figure side hustle coming up right after this. In sports, there's this saying that speed is a weapon. And the same is true in business. If you're missing calls or being slow to follow up with customers, you're leaving money on the table sometimes without even realizing it, because your potential customer, they've already moved on. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo spelled Q U O. This is the business communications system built so you never miss a call. Kuo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews. And it's built for how modern teams work. More than 90,000 businesses, from side hustlers and solo operators to growing teams, already rely on Quo to stay connected, stay professional and consistently reachable. And here's what's really cool. Calls, texts, voicemails, transcripts and contact deals all show up in one clean view in an app on your phone or your computer. So that way you and your team are always on the same page. Plus, there's built in AI that can even answer calls and qualify leads for you. When you can't pick up the phone, money is on the line. Always say hello with quo. Try quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.comsidehustle that's quo. Q U O.comsidehustle right now we're all trying to do more with less. And I want to let you in on a tool that lean, mean, high performing teams are using right now to be more efficient and buy back some of their time. Our sponsor, Gusto, is the online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one. It's remote, friendly and it's incredibly easy to use. So that means you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. I'm talking about automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, workers, comp 401k, you name it. Gusto makes it simple and has options for nearly every budget. And if you ever have any questions, you've got direct access to Gusto's certified HR experts. So you can get back to running your business. But you don't have to just take my word for it. Gusto is ranked number one on G2's highest satisfaction products list for 2026, and it's already trusted by over 400,000 small businesses. I want to invite you to try gusto today@gusto.com sidehustle and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com sidehustle one more time. It's Gusto. G-U-S-T-O.com sidehustle I wanted to ask, you brought up theft.
- [35:23]
Nick
I wanted to ask if there were risks, insurance requirements. Like here, you got this box sitting there, relatively portable, it came in here on wheels. That's probably filled with cash, so maybe it's an attractive target for thieves.
- [35:35]
Will Butterton
Here's my advice on the insurance. When you're getting started here, take it with a grain of salt. But I called around a lot. I've talked to a ton of different companies trying to find insurance. We had two ATMs. The one that everyone recommends on the Facebook pages and everything. It's like an insurance company specifically for atm. It was 2250 for the whole year to insure my two machines. And at that point, and that was more than we'd even profit that year. At the time I just saw it in terms of ATMs. Like we're paying this insurance company a brand new ATM every year to protect our ATMs. Or we could risk it and hope our ATM doesn't get stolen. Basically we could lose an ATM every single year and it would be equivalent to paying. So I took the bet that I wasn't going to get an ATM stolen from me. In my first year I didn't have enough machines.
- [36:26]
Nick
I took the bet, sure, we're going to self insure.
- [36:28]
Will Butterton
Second year I also took the gamble. So at this point I'm like accruing ATMs. This company, it's 2250 whether you have one or 10. So it's great if you have a fleet of ATMs. It's garbage if you only have one.
- [36:41]
Nick
Oh okay. It rewards scale.
- [36:44]
Will Butterton
So eventually I found a location I really wanted for the vending side of things. Like my Pokemon vending machine. It was in our local mall and like I needed it there and they, they needed me to have insurance. So then I pounded pavement again. I've done the work. For any of you listeners that are trying this Coterie C O T E R I E coterie insurance will do ATMs and I had a harder time finding insurance than I did the business bank. And so it was significantly less money. And so anyways, we are insured now. I think it's 90 total monthly for our insurance.
- [37:19]
Nick
Yeah, that sure beats the 2,200 bucks a year.
- [37:21]
Will Butterton
Yes. Anyways, theft is a real thing. There's a couple different anti theft deterrents. You could use the concrete studs. Like I have a whole Home Depot set. Like I have a go bag that I use for ATM installs. It's like drill wrenches, extra Cat 6 Ethernet cable and little concrete studs you'll bolt to the ground. You'll bolt the ATM on top of those. They come through the bottom. But then when the thief basically they'll belt up the ATM machine, attach it to the truck and pull it out the front door. Like that is very standard ATM theft. It's attached to a vehicle in some form. Or fashion, and they rip it straight off the bottom. So in, in Washington specifically, there was a, a huge ATM crime ring going around. They just caught those people. I had an ATM stolen by them and they were responsible for some like, I don't know, it's like over 30 ATMs. I got my ATM back. But they knew exactly what they're doing. Generally speaking, like weights. You can put heavy weights in the bottom of your atm, you can bolt it to the floor. Either way, they're going to rip it out with a truck. You might slow them down a little bit, but if they want it, they're gonna get.
- [38:34]
Nick
Well, it's a machine too, but it's like it's the cash, the inventory that's inside it.
- [38:38]
Will Butterton
Whatever causes the least amount of damages to the surrounding store when they steal it, when they inevitably do. Because that would be my recommendation. Yeah, or the wall mount. Those are probably the most theft proof. But yeah, I made three years before I got my first ATM stolen. No, two years before I got my first ATM stolen. And then I have insurance now.
- [38:59]
Nick
Yeah, Sounds like it's kind of a badge of honor in the business almost.
- [39:02]
Will Butterton
If it doesn't happen the first couple of years, then that insurance money could have bought another atm. That's not good advice though.
- [39:08]
Nick
Well, you've got the vending machines, both the ATMs and the traditional vending machines. What's the story with the green screen? Like, are you a streamer? What's going on there?
- [39:18]
Will Butterton
So my buddy and I, he and I were doing a lot of sports card stuff. You know, football cards, baseball. We were participating in breaks. And a break is where somebody has a box of really expensive cards and you pay for a fraction of it. Like you get assigned a random team. So anyone from whatever this team is. Anyways, so he was like, dude, we should try to sell some of these cards that we're spending money on. So I started looking into it. I grabbed some sports cards from my parents house they still had when I was a kid and heard about whatnot. And really just by googling, I was trying to find a place that allowed us to sell without, you know, the high percentage fees. I wanted something non traditional and I'd heard about like tick tock shop and stuff. So anyways, we made a whatnot account to sell the sports cards that we already had accumulated. And I have this detached garage and so basically I took my box of sports cards and we started the account. At first we were using our phone set up in a little thing and we just Started streaming and our first stream. I lost a decent amount of money. I had been on there a couple days like, like doing market research and dollar starts were like the thing that everyone's doing. They start their cards for a dollar. So I started a couple cards for a dollar that were, you know, like $40 cards. There was like two people watching. I don't know why, you know, I'm just figuring out. I'm like dollar start sold for like $2. I'm like, okay, well there's negative 38, Eric. We're killing it. My buddy. So we just didn't give up. So we, we started there and we made it a, like a deal. Every weekend after we put our kids down to bed, we're gonna stream. So he would come over on Saturdays at like 9pm and we'd stream till 2 in the morning.
- [40:56]
Nick
Okay.
- [40:57]
Will Butterton
And we did that for about seven months and then we moved it to two days a weekend. We do Friday nights and Saturday. And we did that. Stayed consistent. Like we saw our followers start to grow a little bit and kept with it. And we ended up moving from sports cards into like 90s nostalgia, like MTV packs and Marvel universe, like 90s stuff and Star Trek, you know, just some nostalgic items that we were selling and those did way better than sports cards for us. People requested Pokemon. So now we're like full time Pokemon
- [41:31]
Nick
magic streamers and there's like thousands of followers over there. Like this is a pretty serious operation too. Like probably bigger than the ATM business. This may be the subject of our next episode.
- [41:42]
Will Butterton
If you're watching willing to have me back, I'll happily come Chit chat. Yeah. In 2020 25, all said and done, I think in total sales we sold over, I think whatnot was 92,000. And then in private deals we had another $20,000 in sales. So about 110,000 in total sales for 2025. Now, like instead of buying products and trying to flip stuff or wait, sit on it and wait for it to go up, we just like we'll buy people out of their collections. So somebody has a $3,000 collection, we try and offer them normally in the range of 70 to 80% for their collection. And that will include sealed and slabs and singles. And you know, the more I can get at 70% and then you.
- [42:27]
Nick
And then you can auction them off one on one at a time.
- [42:30]
Will Butterton
Yeah. And so I'll Facebook Marketplace. I'm camping around Facebook Marketplace and if someone pops up and it's never anything crazy because I also have Three kids. And so yeah, all these business started mingled in my personal finances and then, you know, as each one I slowly push it into its own self sustaining thing.
- [42:48]
Nick
Well, Will, this has been a lot of fun. Send me a note and we'll link up the live stream. We'll link up the whatnot channel or show in addition to VikingVendorsLLC.com you can check them out over there. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.
- [43:04]
Will Butterton
If you are looking to start a side hustle or a business, be the person selling the shovel during a gold rush. Don't be the person digging for gold.
- [43:12]
Nick
Well, awesome. Thanks for joining me. A couple takeaways or notes for me. Number one location really is everything in this. It can be the difference between, you know, making 50 bucks a month to making $2,000 a month. It all depends on where people are transacting with these machines. I like how you framed it at the beginning of it seemed low risk to me. You know what's my worst case scenario? I got this machine and I can't put it anywhere. I was sell it to somebody else, you know, and then kind of keeping your your goals and your vision in mind like in kind of intentionally keeping it low key. And look, I got an hour a week to do this, maybe a couple hours a week. I don't want it to take over my life. And so trying to build a side hustle that kind of fits within those constraints, I think that really hits hits home so big. Thanks to Will for sharing his insights. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.comdeals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. 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 the.