The Code To Winning - HOW TO START AND RUN A SUCCESSFUL VENDING MACHINE BUSINESS || DONALD LUXAMA || EPISODE 087

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Donald Luxama, one of the biggest names in the vending machine industry, with over 700,000 followers and more than 1 billion views across social media teaching people how to start and scale a real vending business. What began as a simple side hustle, buying used vending machines for around $500 that generate over $1,000 in profit a month, has grown into a full-fledged movement inspiring thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs to take control of their financial future.Donald breaks down the exact blueprint he used to get started, from finding locations to sourcing machines. He explains that the first step is going around your local town and asking family, friends, and local businesses if you can place a vending machine in their establishment, often pitching it as a free vending machine for their location. From there, he shows how to search Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and Craigslist to find machines typically ranging from $300 to $700, and the importance of testing every machine before buying it to make sure it is fully functional.We also dig into the numbers behind the business, because vending is as much about margins as it is about hustle. Donald shares real examples of how he prices his products for maximum profit, revealing gains that range from over 100 percent to as high as 700 percent on certain snacks. Beyond the numbers, Donald opens up about his world tour, where he traveled to meet some of the top vending machine operators across the globe, learning firsthand how different markets, cultures, and business models are pushing the industry forward in ways most people never see.The conversation also dives into where vending is headed next, including Donald's move into Pokemon and trading card vending machines, a fast growing niche built for collectors that operates on cashless, remotely managed technology, as well as the rise of AI powered vending machines that are changing how operators track inventory, manage restocks, and maximize profit with far less manual work. Whether you are just getting started with your first machine or looking to scale into new verticals, this episode is packed with real, actionable insight into building and future proofing a vending machine empire Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So I was a college student, and I was doing so many different side hustle. So I was doing couch flipping, water bottle selling, furniture flippings. And then somebody told me along the ways, one of my business partners at the time, she was like, oh, there's a business that you could do that if you have for 24 hours, I could make a million dollars, and that was a vending machine. And this was the time where nobody was really doing it. There was only one person on YouTube. His name is Jaime I, he was the only person doing like vending machines.

And I'm the type of person. If you give me an idea, I just jump right to it. I don't need a lot of time to think. I'm just like, let's go forward. And that's when like vending machines started. I was like, okay, we could start a vending machine business. And I jumped right forward. If somebody would start right now, what's the expected amount per week and per month they're going to make for that vending machine?

Obviously, location plays a big factor. Yeah. But on average, what would you say is that much? So the average vending machine makes $200, $200 a month. $200 a month, right? That's the average vending machine location. So I know some people be like, oh, my goodness, you're not going to get rich for one vending machine. But the location that you get mad for, I'm doing like a vending machine world tour.

So since January of last year, I've been traveling around the world to meet vending machine business owners. I met a guy. He had eight vending machines. He made a million dollars his first. year. The location was a, it was a microchip plant. His name is Cozy Vending. You asked to see it on my channel. His name is Cozy Vending. He made a million dollars. His first year was a construction site. 10,000 employees. Eight vending machines. They were clearing out the vending machines twice a day. So they're filling up the vending machines twice a day. And they're setting up like tables and chairs. And they're selling

out. And then do you do it yourself or do you end up outsourcing other people to try and help and put the snacks and the vending machines. How does that work? So right now I do it myself. But the only reason I do it myself is just because of I make videos. That's the only reason I do it myself. If I didn't make the videos, then I probably would have outsourced it. But the videos are, every time I turn on the camera, I make way more money from just putting the snacks in. That makes sense. But the thing is, the code two winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. If you are curious in learning a bit more about the side hustle and business of vending machines, and I've been looking forward to this episode for a while and this topic has been very, very interesting.

very curious to learn about that as well. This is the episode for you. We have a gentleman right now in the studio that's going to be teaching and breaking down the fundamentals and the business side of owning your own vending machine and accumulating passive income through that as well. So without further ado, the man, the myth, the very legend himself, we've got Donald Loksama. How are you doing, brother? How are you doing today? How are you doing? I'm doing amazing. Awesome stuff. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate the time that you took to come in the studio. And like I said, I literally, I think I reached out to you three years ago, right? Yeah, I think I saw, yeah.

I began bombarded with messages and sometimes. Sometimes I'm like, how did I miss this? And I missed the opportunity. No, so we reached out three years ago. But then I was temporarily short time in New York. And then, you know, I reached out again. I'm like, because I typed in vending. And I'm like, it's so curious because I've had so many conversations with people about, I think yesterday or two days ago.

I was on the phone with you. We spoke about like ATMs and multiple different stuff. but vending machines. Like, I think this is not only giving me the first time I'm going to talk about this. I want to talk about something else I want to do with your regard in that as well. But let's just talk about like, you know, your very first vending machine. When did that actually start for you? So for me, I started vending machine in college.

So I was a college student and I was doing so many different side hustle. So I was doing couch flipping, water bottle selling, furniture flippings. And then somebody told me along the ways one of my business partners at the time, she was like, oh, there's a business that you could do that if you had for 24 hours, I can make a million dollars. and that was vending machines. And this was the time where nobody was really doing it. There was only like one person on YouTube.

His name is Jaime Ibniz. He was the only person doing like vending machines. And I'm the type of person. If you give me an idea, I just jump right to it. I don't need a lot of time to think. I'm just like, let's go forward.

And that's when like vending machines like started. I was like, okay, we can start a vending machine business. I jumped right forward. And at the time right now, before I used to sell people, I used to buy vending machines for like $500. But now, like prices are going up, right?

The easiest way to get your foot into vending right now, Let's say you want to start like today right now is buying a vending machine route. A route is just basically a bunch of vending machines in a certain area on location. That's how I got like started, right? I bought that first vending machine for 3,000. And then the next deal, I bought eight vending machines for 3,500. Eight.

Eight vending machines, 3,500. There was a guy. He was selling like 50 vending machines, 48 locations. And I asked him, hey, can I buy a piece of your company? It was like $50,000. At the time, I'm a college student. I don't, I'm broke. I don't have that much money.

And I said, hey, can I break a piece of the route? So he ended up selling me eight vending machines, three locations, $3,500. And then a couple months later, I ended up selling one of those locations. It was an office with a factory building. I sold it for $4,000. And I got all my money back. Mind you, these deals kind of exist today. Still, like, you just have to basically work the numbers.

But let's say I was brand new starting out my vending machine business today. And I was going to go buy a route. That would be like the easiest way. But let's say that was an option. I probably, you probably would need to spend about, I would say $2,500. to start your vending machine business today. That will include buying the vending machine. That will include finding the route.

Because most people, like, if you're not gonna buy the route, the best way I think is word of mouth. Word of mouth or you just buy the leads. Word of mouth is just telling all your family and friends, hey, I have a vending machine business. If you're a job or your workplace needs a vending machine, I could, I have vending machines and I could put them in. If you go find the location, it's easy to buy the vending machines.

People are always selling vending machines for 1,800, 1,500. You go always find a vending machine. That's the easy part. But the location is always going to be the hard part. And so with 2,500, how much would you say on average, if somebody would start right now? What's the expected amount per week and per month they're going to make from that vending machine? Obviously, location plays a big factor.

Yeah. But on average, what would you say is a month? So the average vending machine makes $200, $200 a month. Okay. $200 a month, right? That's the average vending machine location. So I know some people be like, oh, my goodness, you're not going to get rich for one vending machine. But the location that you get matters.

I remember I was telling you before I'm doing like a Vendermachine World Tour so since January of last year I've been traveling around the world to meet Vennemachine business owners I met a guy he had eight vending machines he made a million dollars his first year the location was a

it was a microchip plant his name is Cozy Vennie you asked to see it on my channel his name is Cozy Vending he made a million dollars his first year as a construction site 10,000 employees eight vending machines that were clearing out the vending machines twice every single day

so they're filling up the vending machines twice a day and they're setting up like tables and chairs and they're selling outside the vending machines. So location is going to play a big role in like the types of like the types of money that you're going to make. I always tell people more vending machines don't equal more money. It's better locations. So I'd rather have one location that makes me $1,000 a

month than have 15 locations that I could barely scrape up like a thousand dollars. So that makes $200. How much is that? How many vending machines do you have currently right now? I have 10 vending machine, 11 vending machines right now. And what would you say is the average of each collectively? What's the average of the amount. So right now I'm making about like $30 to $50 every single, every single day from those 11 vending machines. I just got a Pokemon one. That was kind of like brand new. Like I placed it like a couple days ago. So that's going to be a little bit more because I'm selling the Pokemon cars a little bit higher than like my normal snacking drink or AI vending machines. Oh, okay. No, that's that's fascinating. But now I think people are very curious into finding

out like location wise. That's a very big, that's a big important part, whether it's like a school or a factory or a work site or barbershops. You know, like, I, I mean, you've got a nice feed right now. I got it for this. I got it for this. I got it for this. I doubt it for this. So I would assume all these locations are of utmost importance.

How do you go about selecting a specific location for like placing a vending machine? Okay, so there's three things that make up a good vending machine location. Seclusion long hours for traffic. You want the place to be secluded, meaning that there's not a lot of stores around the building. You want it to be open for long hours, 24 hours, amazing, right? You don't want it to be seasonal. Those places that are seasonal, terrible, right? Depending on the location, because, you know, schools, nine months out of the year, they're

close for three months. So you have to account for those three months. And you want it to have a lot of foot traffic. A minimum, I tell people, of 40 people inside the building for you to place your vending machine there. You want people to be able to see the vending machine as well. A lot of people, they have good locations, but their vending machines is tucked away in a basement that nobody has access to.

That's why online, I'm always telling people, if you put your vending machines in, like a teacher's lounge. I think it's a terrible location. You want the students and the teachers to have access to the vending machine. So if you have those three things, it doesn't matter what the location is. It just has to fall into those three criteria. Foot traffic, seclusion, and long hours. And you want a minimum of 40 people in the building.

Not people that work from home, people that are in the building that are able to work past and see the vending machine. Okay. And then with that, though, is there, do you give them a specific cut or a rental fee for them having a vending machine at their store? How does that work? I don't pay. I don't pay any commission at any of my locations besides the Pokemon one I got.

The Pokemon Venom machine was the only place I paid commission at that Venomachine location. The guy wanted 20% commission. But mind you, where I tell people, if you ever have to pay commission, you just adjust it back into the cost of the goods. So for example, let's say I don't, for snacks and drinks, I don't pay any commission anywhere else. But let's say the guy wants 10% commission and I'm selling chips for a dollar. Now my chips become $1.10 to count the cost of commission. or maybe it'll be $1.25 for a year. So you just put the commission back into the cost of the goods.

Oh, all right. So basically offset the commission. Okay. If that makes sense. But I don't pay commission anywhere else besides that Pokemon of any machine location. And for people wondering, like, down Ohio,

don't you pay any commission? Remember, this is a service. This is like a win-win situation for you and the business owner. It's not like something where I'm only winning. These locations, they don't want their people to leave the building. They don't want their employees or their customers to have to go outside. If you go build, like, a store for them,

and this is when you're pitching, or when you're doing like your cold calling, this is how you're going to pitch to the people. You're going to say, hey, I'm providing a store inside this building. I'm providing luxury for your people, right? I have a vending machine out of the church. Church has late services. One in the morning.

Sometimes you're leaving the church. All stores are closed. I'm going to bring a vending machine that people don't have to leave. These are the things that you're going to bring up to places. And I think most people, they shoot themselves in a leg because they're like, oh, I'm going to give you guys commission. Don't even bring up commission. The guy that I was going back and forth at the Pokemon,

on Venomachine location, he was like, oh, 50%, 35%, and I just keep reeling him in. Also, too, I have social media. I'm playing a different game from most Vennemachine business owners. Because I have social media, I'm able to make money from the social media on top of make money from the Vennon machines. Because every Vennon machine business owner, I think the best Vennon machine business owners, they make money in multiple different ways. They don't only have their vending machines.

They sell vending machines as well. They sell snacks. They sell routes. There's so many different ways you can make money inside of vending than just placing vending machines at locations. There's some people, all they do is just find people locations. There's some people, all they do is they buy routes and then it's flip it for double the cost. Interesting. So there's so many different ways to make vending.

And the best vending machine business owners that I know, they play multiple games at the same time. And is that where you're at at the moment right now? Do you sell vending machines? Right now, like I have like, I work with like distributors. Okay. So I let the distributors do that. Okay. Sorry, continue?

Yeah, I'll just let the distributors do that. And then let's say I have some extra vending machines, I'm at sell on the side too. So that's what I do. Now, the interesting part is location obviously is important. Do you have to be, what's the close proximity miles? You have to be close to your location. Because, I mean, you're putting the stuff in for each a vending machine that you're doing, right? Yeah.

So it depends what you're selling your vending machines. Because remember, vending machines are only snacks and drinks. I've seen ammo vending machines. You guys talked about the Pokemon vending machines. In Ohio, I met a guy that had vape vending machines. He had in two different states. I met a girl. She had lash vending machines across the country.

So the stuff that you put in is going to matter, right? I'm going to do a series soon where I want to put a vending machine in every state. That's going to be kind of like a crazy little idea I had. But when you're starting out, I think it should be an hour proximity from every location. I met a guy when I was first starting out my vending machine business. He said that he gets vending machine locations all over because they might connect in an area. So let's say you get a vending machine very far out. And then you get another vending machine that's pretty close to it.

So now, like, over time, like your vending machine route, was going to start to grow. But I think you should just focus on having the best locations in a one hour proximity to each other. And then do you do it yourself or do you end up outsourcing other people to try and help and put the snacks and the vending machines? How does that work? So right now I do it myself. But the only reason I do it myself is just because of I make videos. That's the only reason I do it myself. If I didn't make the videos, then I probably would outsource it. But the videos are every time I turn on the camera, I make way more money from just putting the snacks in if that makes sense okay but the thing is the biggest problem that people have when it comes

to like outsourcing is they're scared people are gonna take their money and this is why AI vending machines come into place AI vending machines are really cool because there's no money involved it's cashless so all you have to make sure is that the product gets inside the vending machine this is why like I'm thinking I could do it across the country because all I have to do is make sure that the snacks getting into the vending machine I don't have to handle maintenance I don't have to handle money getting taken it's less it's less it's more safer with the AI machines.

Yeah, but then how would the AI work in terms of the merchandise and getting the snacks continually, like, available for people? Because sometimes you see a whole screen and you do an Apple, I use cardless everything. That's why I constantly stand with Walmart. Like they don't like... And a Walmart just with ApplePet. I know. I just went there.

I was like, where's people paying Walmart? So sometimes I'd be seeing an Aldi and I see Walmart. I'm like, I needed Walmart, but, you know, Aldi's got like Apple Pit. But like, because that's where the future is heading. So how do you end up, like, making sure you have enough stock? all the time with an AI. Okay, so there's inventory management. So it tells you exactly what's inside your vending machine.

And shout out to Vendera because they send me an AI machine. They have this feature called a snapshot that every five transaction, it shows you the Vennon machine. So I could be here in New Jersey and I could be seeing my Vennon machine in Georgia. I could be seeing the snapshot to see, did this person really fill up my Vennem machine right? Are all the things turned around? Are there anything's backwards?

Is there anything like folded? Like you literally see that inside the machine. And then also, too, it just becomes a logistic game at that point. if you decide to like put it in different states. Most people don't end up doing that. They usually kind of like stick into like their one little location. But you know, I'm, God is too big for my goals to be too small. So I'm always thinking big like, why not go bigger?

That's really like, why not go bigger? But that was how it would handle like the management. When you get to like you're placing in different states, it all becomes a management game. I just have to become a better manager. I have to make sure the logistics are okay. I have to make sure the route. People know what they do. People know what they order and stuff like that.

Awesome. You know, it's crazy, man. looking back two years and now when you I mean three years when I reached out like I think it was the beginning stage like I could you know you started during COVID but it's you've been popping up on my explore page because of the consistency in the video content you've been pushing out as well which has been super great I often feel the threshold of comfortability for you know somebody potentially if they want to try and get income passive a very comfortable thresholds about maybe $25,000 a month, how many vending machines would you say somebody would

need if they want to try and do that in like a year's time? Not like, yeah. Wait to make $25,000 a month for venting. If you have members, it's all going to depend on the location that you have because you have one location that makes you $25,000 a month. Like that's the general one you've said, right? Like the gentleman, yeah, like he was making like $150,000 a month like doing crazy amounts the numbers, right? I would think you would need at least, if you wanted to do 20, I think if you had at least 10 good vending machine locations, 10 good vending machine locations, AI machines, multiple vending machines inside of each, I think it'll be, I think that will be easy to do with 10 great locations. But most people, they have like, they most people,

they have like five good locations and then they have like 10 bad ones that they keep around just for storage. Because some people, I always tell people, you could, I've been changing like my views over the years. Bad locations, you could do a lot with bad locations. In what way? Like for me, like I use my bad locations now with storage. I just store my vending machines there. Because I don't want to, I don't, if I, if I, if I move them to somewhere else, now I'm not making any money. So you don't fill those vending machines up to the max. You just keep them there in those areas. So when you get better locations, you just pull those vending machines out and you put them on, on location. Interesting. And then right now, what would you say is your highest performing vending machine and what location is it around or where location?

Where is it located? So my best vending machines, I have them at rehabilitation centers. Interesting. Rehabilitation centers are some of the best vending machine locations I've come across because, number one, the people get driven to this location. So it means they can't leave. And there's no other stores around. Like they're literally, this is called trap traffic. That's what I call it.

They can't leave. So my vending machines is the only thing that they can use and they clear out these vending machines. They clear out these vending machines. I'm mad I can't put AI machines there if I could have. Oh my goodness. But they clear out these vending machines. Why can't you put AI machines there? I spoke to the people.

They don't think some people are scared of the AI technology. For people that don't know how AI vending machines work, like your regular vending machines, you just put your dollar bills in. But the AI machines, you tap your card, open the door, and you grab whatever you want. There's cameras to see what you get. It's crazy. Dude, speaking about that, I went to, I was in a wind hotel. down there because I was doing interviews

I had an event down there that we're, us participating backstage and do some interviews but we're now, they covered like the win. When you just take it out and you pull and it gets charged on your card. So like it's because it's in every single hotel

by Vegas. So you just take it out and then all of a sudden like even if you just touch something for I think more than three seconds and it's pulled out it just automatically registers something's been taken. So you can actually see a bill of everything that's been taken. That's really cool. So I think it's AI.

Similar to that? Yeah, similar to that. Okay. So now you grab whatever you want. So I've seen people in my machine spend like $20 in like 60 seconds because you feel like your God when you open the door because like, oh, I can grab a snack, a drink, a pastry. And then people, you know, people add a bunch of other stuff. You add some contraceptives, some Advils.

You had a bunch of other stuff to these vending machines, some high-ticket items. Some people might grab a seizure salad. You might have some sandwiches inside the machine. So like there's so much stuff that you go put. And at times people just, it just, it's just less friction. Less friction makes you spend more money. If you have to keep putting dollar bills in the machine, that's more friction, so I might spend less. But more friction makes me be able to grab more stuff.

And I've seen people really clear out the vending machine just like that. I recently put a AI vending machine at a manufacturing facility, and they clear it out. They're taking four or five drinks at a time. They're like, oh, might as well just get all my stuff for the day. Let me grab some ramen noodles. Let me grab some drinks. Let me grab the sparkling water. Let me grab a Gatorade.

Oh, my friend wants the Red Bull. Cool. And now they charge them. And the cool thing about the AI machine too, I just learned this trick. I met this girl, her name was Logan, and she taught me a pricing hack. So instead of pricing things at like, let's say, $3,

why not charge $3.12? Or let's say, why not charge, like, if you're doing it, do it regularly $1.50, why not charge $1.62? So I could literally increase the revenue of my AI machines by just adding a couple cents on all the products. Now imagine you do this across multiple vending machines. So you don't have to do anything, but just, and you could just start just making more money on, like, the product that you're selling.

Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense. And I was just thinking about it, like, because you see nothing as nice as a vending machine that you know is constantly, especially if you're like staying in a long place. And like, let's say you get some one specific product. But you know, by the time it's done, the next day it's already like packed. It just shows efficiency and good management. You know what I'm saying?

Because traveling here, I would not. I was driving past Ohio, I used to get those 25 cents, like, little candy. Because you don't want, I believe in, like, the, you know, diminishing law of marginal utility, the more you consume something, the less you wanted. But then at this point, like, I just want a certain amount of, like, just candy. So you put it 25 cents there. This thing was not operating. Each time I go, they never operates.

So it's just like, I feel like they just left, like, that little, like, machine there for, like, years. Because I'll put 25, 25, I put, like, keep putting. Oh, the gubern machines? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. They just never work anymore. I think, so I feel like it makes a big difference seeing a lot of good management because

then it makes you want to continue to get the product because we naturally very impulsive creatures. The more you like something, the more you want to consume it, you know? So I couldn't agree more, which kind of goes ahead to what I'm saying. Isn't it more of an inconvenience than to constantly go and get more stock or how does that like work for you? Like do you have a scheduled time when you do these kind of things or? Okay, so if I wasn't, okay, I want to preface this by saying if I wasn't making content, I could do I could operate my vending machine business a lot faster because I want to record myself going

into Sam's Club. Usually, I met this girl named Bethany. She told me she never walked into Sam's Club. And I was like, that's so smart. I could just pick up everything. I could literally just pick up or have everything delivered to my house. So I don't have to drive all the way to Sam's Club. Or Sam's Club, Costco, BJs, whichever wholesale club that you use.

And I just have it delivered to me. So it doesn't take that much time. But you know, me, I want to record the content, build a report with the people, make some videos and stuff like that. So there are easier ways than that way of what? Yeah, what I do. Like I can literally have everything delivered to my house, sort everything up, and then just go straight to the location.

And then it'll just be super quick because you just end up like opening the key. You put the stuff in and you leave. And then I leave. Yeah. Okay. Most Venom machine stuff happened the day before. So like most of the work happens not at the venom machine. It happens the day before because there's something called pre-kitting.

Pre-kitting is when you put everything in crates of what your vending machine needs. So like I'll put all my vending machines. This vending machine makes six coax. This vending machine needs five rice Krispies. Five things. you put all, that's the craze that you made before. That's like the real work. And then going to fill up the vending machines, that's like the easy part.

And then with, do you think people like chips or drink more? Do you have any other product that you sell besides chips and drinks? I've been trying out a bunch of products like crust, uncrustables, hot pockets. I got sandwiches the other day I'm going to test some things out to see what they like. Because remember, most people, the reasons why they fail their vending machine business is they buy the stuff that they like. They walk into the store. I like peanut M&M so I'm going to buy peanut M&Ms. I like skittles.

I like candy. Then you go into your location and then you realize like they don't like this stuff. I have the location that at the manufacturing facility that I use, they literally put sticky notes on my vending machine and say, tell me what I need. Hey, we want Bloom Energy drinks. We want orange Gatorade. We want party mixed chips.

I literally have all these posters notes and I just go and I just, okay, cool. I put these in for you guys. And then obviously, I mean, you mentioned it earlier on. You've done specialties like Pokemon, which I saw the excitement you had, regarding that as well. What kind of made you branch into that? Is it the fact that you generally like Pokemon or what made you kind of like go into that? No, usually because, okay, so one of them on major rules in vending or the golden rule in vending is don't buy the vending machine unless you have the location. That's like the golden rule. Because most people, they buy the vending

machine and then they sit and then they never have a location and then they get mad. All vending machine business sucks. All these guys on the internet, they're lying and stuff like that. So the golden rule always buy your, always find the location and then you buy the machine. But now, because I have a platform, like, I almost have like a million followers combined across all platforms get a lot of views i have companies that reached out and they're like hey we want to send you a machine so now it's like oh you guys they sent me a pokema machine so now it's like okay you guys send me the pokema machine now i want now want to make videos to show people like this is possible and stuff okay so i would have done it like this wouldn't i probably wouldn't have done it if they

weren't like looking to send it but now they're sending i'm like oh this is better content i want to i want to show my audience like you can make money with Pokemon cards so you've utilized because of obviously your social media brand you've you've used utilize the opportunity for sponsorships and stuff like that, right? Yeah. Because the brand has been building itself organically at the same time. Okay. No, that's pretty awesome.

Then obviously, what's the big misconception people often have about owning a vending machine? I think most people think it's passive. I think vending machines is semi passive income. Because right now I'm making money for my vending machines and I'm here. Right. So it is some type of passive income. But it's only passive if you buy like the right equipment. If you have the wrong equipment inside your buildings,

machines, if you buy like Sega vending machines, you feel me. For people that are looking to buy vending machines, they'll buy Sega machines, but if you buy bad equipment, it's going to cost you to constantly be checking your vending machine stuff constantly break. I have a machine right now that literally every couple of days, like, I get called, hey, this vending machine is broken, this vending machine is broken.

But, you know, people just I just think that, like, people don't treat your equipment how you treat it. Like, they're not going to put the coins in peacefully. They're going to be shoving dollar bills and banging it, banging it, putting foreign coins in it, then everything gets jam. Now, you have to come out. This is why I like the AI machines, because I rarely have any problems with the AI machines.

It's usually on the software side where, like, oh, they didn't send me my money in time. Like, that's usually the problems I have to deal with. But my normal machine stuff is getting stuck. People are not getting their coins back or change back. Someone put the dollar bill in and it ate the money. Like, it's just little stuff like that that I deal with, with the traditional vending machines. Obviously, I mean, you did mention that it's semi-passive and in your situation can be passive. Is there a way

that somebody can just a hundred percent, I mean, we spoke about a lady yesterday when you're now on the phone who would do this thing as well. And I think she did it on a full time basis. Is that way people can actually quit and actually like just primarily make income from this? Yeah, I think you, with the right locations

and the amount, yeah, you could definitely like quit and make your full time income from this. You call these people like pro vendors and stuff like that. But like I said, most people, they make money in multiple ways in vending. So like that's why I remember one of my mentors said Donald nobody makes money in vending like I was I was always like but I'm starting to see it now like people use multiple different ways to make money inside the vending machine business so they're not only relying on the income that the vending machines make you know it's crazy looking at different fields there's so much more behind the scenes that actually like occur like with what you're saying as well when I when I speak about just podcasting as well people think is YouTube ad sense only pays you so much. Even Spotify and Apple barely does that much. But it's leveraging the sponsorship kits and the sponsorship stuff with people that end up reaching out. It's like the studio, like multiple different things with studio, like all these different things that go into making the investment,

the podcast. But like itself, within the views, I can't live off like ad sense, like, you know, YouTube stuff. But there's a lot of people that do the booking as well when I'm like in Utah. There's all, you know, people that do like the sponsorship kit, all these different things. So like When I heard about the vending machine of like finding locations, I would assume that people behind these things make so much money and helping me get locations, people that are actually selling vending machines, referral base,

all these different stuff, right? And is that like the trajectory you're kind of slightly going to be heading with as well besides just like having vending machines? Is that what you're looking at? Now right now, I spend a lot of time literally like building up my brand. Like Latin, in 2025,

I spent probably $45,000 on the World Tour. So me, because with the World Tour, I didn't like charge any of the people that went to go see. I went all over the world. I let my followers text me. I didn't do it on the basis where you have a lot of vending machines I'm coming to you. I let all my followers text me.

And I made like these crazy videos. Like there's some people I went to go visit that one vending machine. And sometimes when I was going to these places, I was like, God, why would I even come here? This person has one machine. And then would those videos go, those videos do the best. Millions of views. Hundreds of millions of views. There's some people that's like, well, like this person, I wouldn't expect this.

But their personality was amazing on camera and stuff like that. And where did you go? Which countries did you go to? I went to Canada. I went to the UK a couple of times. And I meant to a lot of places in the States. So I went to Texas, California, Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee. I've been to a lot of places. A lot of places. And I just let my followers text me. Like, I was, at one point, I was going every single week. I was just going to a different location. Interesting. Interesting. And what content were you guys doing around there? We were just talking about their story. I was just documenting their story. I literally just spend a day with them.

And it's cool now, like seeing like a bunch of those people like they're blowing up now. I'm like, yo, this is crazy for me. This is crazy. From that, what was the most fascinating story that you came across regarding that tour? The tour, what was the most fascinating story? The $1 million guy was crazy. There was a guy in Ohio I met. His name was Micah.

He was a janitor and he made, he's making an idea. Everything right now, he's doing over $150,000 a month. But he has vape vending machine. Even though I kind of like a little bit against the vape vending machines, I kind of don't like it. But like, I do respect. I do respect hustle for my. I do respect grind and grit and stuff like that because it takes a lot of work to make,

to make that type of money, to make those type of sacrifice and stuff. I think his story was really cool. I think one of like the most amazing thing, there was this guy in Texas, his name was Jaime Ibnance. I used to watch him in my dorm room and I was first starting on my vending machine business.

And now we're pretty cool now right now. So now we're like really, really cool. And we talk. I could call him up now. And it was crazy because it was like a full circle moment when I got to meet him. And now every Venomachine event I go to, I'm now seeing him and stuff.

and now we built a relationship. Also, there's a girl in the UK. Her name is Megan. Shout out to Megan. I got to see her a couple of times. Her story is really, really cool as well. She's a college dropout, built a massive vending machine business,

and now she's living off it and helping other people start their vending machine businesses. There's so many stories. There was a guy. He was 21 at the time. He had 100 vending machines at the age of 21 in Canada and stuff. And one of the cool thing about his business was everything is free in his vending machines.

And then, like, they, and then he just sends an invoice. to the company at the end of the at the end of the month his name is frederick wow that's a that's i think that those are called like pantry systems if i'm not mistaken that's like a pantry service or something like that so the he the business the business pays for the vending machines for their employees the vending machine is going to be free just send us the invoice at the end of the month he had a bunch of coffee machines and some snack and drink ones as well man like obviously with the utilization of um of i i mean i've been using uh i used to use chat dbti

with the stuff, but like, I'm a little lady I'm going to be speaking to on Monday. She is incorporated how Claude can become like your personal assistant. I use Claude. I only use Claude. I only use Claude right now. Do you use the browser extension? No, not yet. The browser extension has probably been like my best friend.

I have it. I got the Max program for like a month and I've been telling it. Go through my entire story. Hang out all the Kings to work through all my emails. That's how I got my Pokemon Venom machine location, by the way. I use Claude. Hey, look for all the places in my area and send emails. and send them send the emails at 8 a.m.

And then send all the emails and I got my location. Yeah, it's so wild. It's the same thing. Like, because people don't fully understand the power AI, you know, usually has and stuff like it. And it's ever evolving. So like by just utilizing it, you become more efficient in your work. You know, builds a good lead flow and stuff like that. So that's why I was kind of leading with that.

Do you feel like the future of vending machine is going to be the AI one? I do think the future is going to be the, you know, it's crazy. I literally went to Washington, D.C. there's this organization called NEMA. I literally want to go to Washington, you'll speak to some politicians because you're thinking about making the AI machines accept cash.

But the thing is, AI machines can accept cash. That's the whole point of them being AI. So they wanted to prevent the AI machines from B. They wanted to make the AI machine take cash. Because it's called unattended retail, right? You see when you go to like a shop right? Yeah.

And you have to put, and you have the self-checkouts and they accept cash. They wanted to make AI machines like that. And they wanted to make somebody stand next to the AI machine, just all these weird stuff. And I want to go speak to the politicians about not having that happen. So I was like a really cool experience.

But I do think that they're in the future, the vending machines are probably going to be more sophisticated. Like in Japan, that's a trip I want to go to. I would definitely go to Japan. They have vending machines for everything. Every type of thing you can imagine, food, breakfast, lunch, dinner, all your type of accessories and stuff. They have vending machines for everything.

I think we might live in a world where they might, be vending machines for houses. There's your house in this vending machine. Boop, put it by buttons, put the house together since it's like, I think we might, I think vending machines are going to become more sophisticated in the future. You just gave an episode for Black Mirror right now when you said vending machines for houses like that. Who's the episode for Black Mirror about that?

No, that's not. No, no, but you're given the idea for season eight. They hit it your first, right? They hit it first. They hit it first. They hit it first. They hit it first. No, it's fascinating because I was just thinking up, I'm just about that, like, just

the power of vending machines. This is my next question right now. In terms of permits, I was at Baltimore. You know, he spoke about D.C. Because I was just thinking about Baltimore. And when I was at a gas station there, actually preparing for an interview, I saw a vending machine,

but they were selling scratch off lottery tickets. And people were paying as high as like 50 bucks, 20 bucks to get all these. Because the higher the scratcher, the higher the payout, like I think for like maybe two or three. million, whatever it may be. I would assume stuff I get is only entirely with the state of Baltimore because it's lottery tickets. I think lottery tickets are yeah, mostly like the state

that handles that. But in terms of like permits and stuff like that, it depends on like your county. Okay. And the state that you're in like, there's going to be some places that are going to be lenient. They're going to say, you need this, this and this. You need a food handling permit. If you're doing these types of foods, but some places are like, I've locations are, they're not really strict. If you're like a small vendor, less than like 20, 30 machines, they're not, you're not at the point where they're like oh you need to do all these things but just make sure that you you go to your your town your town hall your city hall to ask hey this is what this is what do what do i need for my vending machine business because it's going to be different from every state

because i don't want to say something here and then in in nevada they're like oh not that we we don't need all this stuff so okay no because that's what i was trying to think because i was like oh my gosh this. Like I said, when I was in Vegas, that was my first experience of the one where you just open up the cabinet. You take something and it gets like, and it's like, it's interesting. It's very fascinating because it'll have like your snacks, your late night munchies and stuff. But then there's another vending machine that is selling different products like contraceptives and like alcohol, all these different stuff. Same thing. It shows the price there. You take it out and you already bought it as well. So I feel like location matters, but also your target market.

Because if you're going to like a Vegas and stuff like it, sometimes when people are there, usually they're there for like the tables or business trip or whatever it may be as well. Do you feel, what do you feel is going to be like a big product in the near future that nobody's picked up on right now? Well, that's a good question. Oh, that's a good question. It is a good question. Because I do think that where you see like I've seen vending machines that they have like women products. So they have like pads.

They have different types of things next to the women bathrooms. And like they sell a lot and stuff like that. You might see like tie pods and like the long. But in terms like I do think that who knows like they might start having vending machines for like your own like personal robots or something like that. You can buy vending machines for your own like robots and stuff. I feel like I don't know. The world might go into like a weird way. like you can buy your own robots.

So I think, I'm trying to think, I do think we might be in an error where like, you could literally, like a wally error where you just, everything you could just order, it will be from a machine. I think we're going into like a time where people don't talk to each other. People don't talk to each other that much in general. Everything is like self-checkout. Don't talk to people.

I think we're going into like that type of world where you could just put, everything's going to be like at the push of a button. you might walk into a store, it might just be a vending machine store. You ever see like the Amazon Go stores where it's like you just put everything in your cart and then you just, it is charge your cars you go. I think it might be in a society like that where people are going to talk to each other. I think it's going to be crazy, you know, social meeting and everything now. Like people are like going away from like talking to each other.

So we might live in a world where you do everything. Everyone's like independent. No one talks to each other. You just do everything with buttons, clicks and stuff like that. That's scary you think about it because communication is so important. especially what people experienced during COVID, but, like, you know, you could have a valid point there. And with the amount of self-checkouts,

because self-checkout was not really a big thing 20 years ago, and not everywhere you go, there's like a self-checkout, like, thing, you know, even Smith's, like, actually encouraged people when I was at Jersey somewhere. Actually, no, not Jersey. I can't remember where it was, but, like, they just encouraged us, and we're not just go to a self-checkout at this point. Yeah, no, it's just fascinating as well.

Just quick question. this one as well. What's the difference and profitability between vending machines in high traffic, public spots versus private businesses like offices or gyms? Oh, okay, good question. I would probably prevent because I don't have any public vending machines.

Like all my locations are like kind of like private in a sense. Like they're not open to the public, it's like the people inside those buildings. So I do think I always tell people that ask me and that now, what do you think about vending machines and malls? I think those are like terrible places to put vending machines if you're like a

say newer person. I feel like a well-established vetting machine owner is kind of different for you because like you never want to compete on price. That's the worst play

to compete. That's why I always say seclusion is very, very big. Because if you compete on price, I could just keep bringing my price down and it brings your value down as well. So now like if your drink is $3 and my drink

is $2, I might just go buy the $2 drink. But I know these people that have it at these public places, the sheer amount of foot traffic that are in these locations, it makes sense. Because there's something

that's going to be like, okay I'm just I'm gonna spend three dollars who cares I'm good but I always tell people you never want to compete on price because when you're the monopoly and you don't compete with price you could charge whatever you want people will pay five dollars for a for a Sprite bottle I saw a girl like when I met in North Carolina like a couple weeks ago Logan like she was literally selling four dollar of sprites and people were just buying out the machine when you're the monopoly people like I pay for convenience doesn't really matter and remember every every you go to

like a professional sports game whatever And they might sell a hot dog or water bottle for like $7, $8 and you buy it. That's the same thing with the vending machine. Like the location that you put it at is going to matter the most. So in competition, like what are the biggest competitions people face with vending machines? No, I just think it's like other stores around the other stores around the place. Like if there's like a, you have a vending machine in like a, let's say like a hotel, for example. And there's like a dollar store right there.

And someone sees that you're selling like a crazy, that your prices are crazy. They might just like, hey, we're just going to go to the dollar store over here. I'm just going to go down the road to just go buy the thing. You know what's crazy. people are literally willing to drive somewhere, like five, ten minutes just for them to save an extra dollar. An extra dollar, yeah. And that's, yeah. I think, I think, I think rich people care about their time so much that they're like, I'll just buy it.

You know, no. So again, goes back to target market because if you had a motel eight, man, or a motel six, fam, just bring the prices down, fan, because the guys are willing to go all the way to freaking to get wing stop and then get some stuff on the way there. rather than spending an extra $2 there as well. So, no, the thing is, it's just the commission. Because I remember I went to a hotel, like, to pitch, the guy was already starting at 25% commission. I'm like, hey, I'm selling like $2 drinks. Like, how much commission do you want for me? Like, this is like a service.

This is why people, go, put their prices like so, so, so high. You did mention that at the beginning. When you were talking about, like, that whole thing of the 20% guy that's charging you, right? You said you kind of just put a few extra cents that are trying to balance out. to make sure you can pay you out as well. Okay, that makes sense. Because, I mean, you are reasonable when you own a vending machine, but you don't want to be in a negative.

You have to at least make something. The entire purpose is for you to make profit. That's the entire purpose why you create a business. And I think some business owners are like, oh, all they think about is, oh, how much can I make, how much can I make? But that makes sense, though. Like, they're taking up their space using the electricity on their Wi-Fi. So I can see why they would want an incentive,

especially like the Pokemon vending machine. It's like a niche. It's like you don't really need it. kind of like a want in that case. But like a vending machine, I don't pay any commission anywhere else because it's kind of like a one thing. It's not like a, I mean, it's more of a need thing, not like a one thing, if that makes sense.

Okay. And then right now, what's your lowest, like the least performing one? How much does that bring about your vending machine? I think my lowest performing ones probably like, I've been like for $500 a month. That's a, I got like a fact, I got a part of a deal. I bought 11 vending machines, 11 vending machines. 11 vending machine, six locations for $12,000.

And of course, you're going to have some bad locations. What I like to do is I like to sell like one or two of those locations to get all my money back. So like when I bought the deal, I told you about eight vending machines, $3,500. I sold one location for $4,000. So now I have two locations and I kept the

and I'm back in the money. I got all my money back. And would you say it's reasonable for somebody to think. Obviously, I know locations important. And I've been very appreciative. of how authentic and honest and genuine are intending us the averages in the industry and stuff like it.

But is it realistic for somebody thinking right now? If they get a vending machine with the right location and building rapport and relationship with the right businesses, they can make $1,000 a month? Yeah, definitely. Okay, let me do my own personal calculation over you.

Definitely, definitely. I'm trying to make $10,000 a month, like just figuratively speaking, right? So let's say, on average, it's 1,000 per location. thousand per location. Let's say there's two vending machines inside the location. Okay. Or let's just say it's an AI machine because the AI machines tend to make more.

How much is an AI machine? The cost of an AI machine, they go from 3,000 to about like $14,000. So let's say $8,000, like a good one because you don't want to. No, no, no, you, for a good one, I tell people you could get like a, I'm going to say the names, Haha machines, Vendera machines, Micro Mart machines, and Kingo machines. You could get them for around like 3,200, 4,400. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, those are good. Those are good. I have the, I have the, I have the, the Vendera machine.

Okay. Let's do this. So it's 32. Let's talk about just getting the actual vending machine. So it's 3200, right? Yeah, yeah. Let's say it's 3,500. 3,500. Let's say 3,500. Okay, that's one machine. Okay. That's one machine and it's not limited to snacks and drinks. There's no coils inside the machine. So you can put whatever you want. Think about it like that. You put it anything you want because there's a camera. Okay. So with your current one, you put snacks and drinks, right? Yeah. The ones that are, even the ones that are AI, do snacks and drinks and them as well, but I have them on one machine. But this, you could put anything in it. But that you can put anything.

What other expenses do we need to cover? So we've got the $3,500 there. What other things you have to cover for that? Okay, so it's because it comes with the car radio. So you probably have to cover just moving. So it's probably like $150 to move the Venn machine, not really that much. The product that you're going to put inside the machine is probably going to be, let's say, to fill up an AI machine. I'm guessing, depending on the type of product you're going to get, let's just say about like $500, $500 to fill it up. So we're looking at with that and moving and stuff.

We're looking at $4,000. $4,000, yeah. It's very reasonable to start. And also, you can finance the machines too. You could do 12 months, zero down. So you put $1,000, then you could finance the machine as well. If you don't want to put all the money down and let the location kind of like pay itself. Okay.

So now that I've hypothetically bought one, $4,000. And now I'm in Salt Lake City. I'm trying to look for a place. And I'm going to start because I'm very good at building relationships and rapport with people. But now I have to find something that's going to be more convenient that can actually have customers. You said 40 minimum, right? 40 minimum for me. So do you want me to start off the hotel or a gym or a barbershop?

What's your preference? So what I would do first, if I were you, I'll go over to Facebook marketplace. I'll type in Vennon Machine location for sale. I'll scour all the different inventing machine locations. You're looking for people that are selling, let's say, 100. $50, $100,000, $70,000, selling my entire Vennemachine company. You're going to text that person, hey, are you willing to break up the route? Somebody that's selling a whole entire company, they're not going to care if you buy a couple

from them at like a cheaper price. Someone that's selling one location, they're like, oh, $15, and it's making $100 a month. Like, people will literally sell something like that. So what's a good location? What's an average for a good location? How much you have to pay for that? Okay, so what I tell people what I like to do is I like to take the sales price divided by $10 and however much that's making, that's how much I want to be making every single

month. So if the location is $10,000, I want it to be making at least $1,000 a month for me to even buy it. All right. Okay. So now we have, we have $4,000 and we have an extra $10,000. So it's looking at potentially $14,000 before everything is set up. But we, under the expectation, we're going to make $1,000 a month. So in order for us to actually make break even, we need 14 months. To break even. But the thing is, if I buy a machine, mind you, you could buy traditional machines as well. you could probably spend $2,000 by the traditional machines and it could be making the same amount. Because I want to make my money back in six months. The AI machines is just so you can make more revenue.

That's what I'm trying to see. It's like 14 months to make even. That doesn't sound. That doesn't sound. I want to make my money back in six months minimum. That's why I like to buy the routes. Buy the routes. And then you sell off the bad ones.

Sell up the bad locations. Regroup your money. And then you're making money already. So it's better for you to go look for. a location that's being sold from somebody through Facebook marketplace and for you to actually look for a click. Yeah, yeah. I don't think, yeah, Facebook, Facebook marketplace offer up in Craigslist.

Also, you could buy leads. So I went to this place called Vending Exchange. Vending Exchange is a website that you use. It has a bunch of leads that pop up all over the country. So definitely is going to be in Utah and Salt Lake City. Okay. You buy leads from that place. Leeds can vary.

I've seen some for $300, all the up to like $3,500 for the lead. Vending exchange, the leads are not guaranteed, though. So you could buy the lead, call up, and they could be like, no, and then you just won't get your money back. So that's always, that's the drawback. There's also this place called Vending Village. I use Vending Village once, but the location, but that's more like guaranteed guarantee, guarantee leads. That's the one thing I like about Vending Village. They don't charge you every single month because vending exchange, they charge you like $49 or $39 every single month.

But Vending Village, you get guaranteed kind of like leads. There's other places. There's another thing called Venlis. There's like a bunch of different places that you can look that sell you leads. Like I was telling you before, people make money in vending in all different types of ways. Wow. So I bought a lead. I bought a lead from Vending Exchange.

It was the manufacturing facility. I spent $780 in the lead. Okay. Now, man, do you have a community? I do have a community like on Instagram and like also. Man, go start school. Start a school. You guys start school?

I've been getting a bunch of people that text me about starting a school. I'm telling you because the reason is the same thing with my thing. I'm connected with so many people that are in the podcasting space and the same thing I keep getting people like just start a school. So I literally did the setup right now with what you're doing, you're traveling so much. If you do a school thing, first of all,

I'm curious in what you're saying. So naturally, I'll end up just joining a school, whether you have a free community there, whether you have a community for like where people pay a subscription per month. Like I will join because naturally like it's very educational stuff that's been given whether you're sharing the stuff you're doing or you have a person like, you know, a Zoom call with people as well.

Because if you start a school, I mean, I think that's a trajectory that's going to just bring so much in, not just business revenue, but also people are going to be curious who want to learn from you. So that's my suggestion to you. No, definitely. Definitely. But yeah, now, I think the way moving forward, I think it's especially the AI ones from what I have seen. The AI ones are just fascinating. And the fact that, you know, it just opened up because people, like I said, you take one thing like, I think I might want

a chocolate as well. Hang on, I'm a bit thirsty because you know the cards already being swiped, right? Yeah. So you're not thinking

though. That's a thing though. Like most people, I'm not thinking when I'm grabbing. I'm just grabbing. And you don't feel the money getting taken

out your bank account. Like you're like a regular benefit because you're just grabbing like whatever. So I think it's like super cool. All right. Where was I? So yeah,

we spoke a lot about that. So I, and I feel like, obviously, your social media is growing. I think the next time we'll do an episode, you'll be the Mr. Beast of Vending Machine. Hopefully, hopefully. Hopefully.

Hopefully. Okay. So how do you decide what products go in a machine? And how often do you change the lineup based on what you actually sell? I know I'll ask that thing, but I want to be very specific with that. Like how often do you change your products? So when you first get a vending machine location, right? That's probably like the hardest.

And now you're just basically like, oh, let me. Let me take a guess what people like. So I like to buy like multi-pack items. So you go to Sam's Club, like you have like multi-pack items. So it has like Doritos, laged, sour cream. You have all those things. You put them in the Vennem machine. And then you, that first month, okay, this sold, this sold, this, sold this thing.

I'll take this out. And I keep switching it out. And then also, too, I'm very, I talk to all the people inside my locations. I think most people like they walk into the equation. They're so scared. I walk and I talk to everybody. Hey, what do you guys want in the vending machines? Hey, what do you guys are looking for?

What don't you like? And then they'll talk to you. They'll tell you exactly what they want to say exactly what they don't want. There's going to be some cases like my rehabilitation center. They told me, hey, you can't put regular soda in there. I got in trouble one time for doing that. They're like, oh, you can't be regular soda. You have to put healthier stuff.

Even though the people that are buying the stuff, they want unhealthy stuff. But that's the time where like the management of the staff, they overrule what the customers want. Usually I tell people, only get the stuff that your customers like. Love that. I love that so much. Also QR codes You put QR code on your machine They can scan it

Send you suggestions Send just like Google form Send you what they want And then boom Oh man That's interesting And how have the sandwich Has been performing right now

You just started I just got the same Like I literally got the sandwiches Like two days ago How would that work In terms of like temperature and all that The AI machine is Is refrigerated

So all the stuff are cold Inside the AI machine Okay And that I would assume You change and regular because it's sandwiches, right? Yeah, with the sandwiches, it's not like a bag of Skittles

that it's like, it's two years. Like, the sandwich is probably like 10, 12 days. So, and also, too, the thing I like about the AI machine, you could change prices on the go. I think most people, that's, so like, let's say like the sandwiches,

like there is coming up to expiration days. You can make them cheaper, even though most people are probably not looking at how much they spend, but you could do that. No, man. That's, that's legit. As we have bought a wrap up

right now. What, okay, we obviously spoke about technology like cashless payment system. And do you feel that will eventually, I know we spoke about the takeover AI, we spoke about CROD and all that.

Do you still think there is a future in non-AI vending machines? Yeah, I know. I think there's some places that you have to put traditional vending machines in. It doesn't make sense for you to put like an AI machine. Because even though with all the safeguards, AI has, you could still steal from the vending machine. there's still ways that you could like take from your AI vending machine.

Right. They're getting better, obviously, but like there's still ways that people, you know, kids and stuff like that would like break into your machine. So there's some places that traditional vat machines is a must. I had a girl. Her name was Brianna. Shout to her. She was in Michigan and she had an AI vending machine at a hotel. Mind you, they messed up her machine.

They were trying to break. Like, they were just doing a bunch of stuff. So she took out her vending machine there. So, and then she just put a traditional machine. Oh, no. No, no. I love that. I love that.

Have you ever made a loss on any of your vending machine like in a month? A loss? Like in other words, not make any like money or anything. You have some locations where I make like, I had something in the past where like I made like, like, like I said, like I remember the first location we got. I made like $14. But the thing was we got all the snacks for free because I was at my college and we had like unlimited meal swipes because of COVID. So I was getting all my products for free at that location. But over time, it started doing better.

So I started doing $14 and $200 a month, $300 a month. It started getting better as like, as we got better at putting like snacks and drinks inside the machine. And when you spoke about the 500 and the 1,000, is that commission after the expenses have already been bought in terms of the products and stuff like that? Oh, when I paid the commission, they're 20%? No, no, like when you said 500 bucks a month, was that straight commission or is that just the revenue that is generated? Oh, to pay for the product? Yeah. That's probably your initial cost.

So you pay like your 500. You want to sell your snacks for double the cost that you buy them for. You want 100% markup. Okay. So if the snack costs 50 cents, you want to sell it for a dollar. Some people are going to do $1.50 depending on how you want your margins. But the general rule is you want 100% markup. There's going to be some products where it's going to be very hard to go do 100%.

Some sorts of candies. It all depends how much you buy the product for. That's why I go to stores like Walmart, shop rights, all these littles for people down south, publics. There's stores like that that they have like specialty items if you buy in bulk. Because usually I go to wholesale stores like your Sam's Club, your Sam's Club, VJ's Costco. So there's also distributors as well. In New Jersey, there's a store called AAA Warehouse that they have a lot of products for cheap. But the expiration dates are a little closer.

So there's always trade also these things. I love that. Second to last question right now. If somebody right now is out there and, you know, was inspired, loved this episode, just wants to start. I doesn't want to leave anything entirely like their business, whatever they may be. They want to just get something on the role. What's the advice you give them right now? how would they start in vending first thing yeah first just the one advice okay the one advice

i would say is i would always tell people don't do the things your passion and when i started vending machines it wasn't because i'm so passionate doing vending machines it was the thing that just came to me it was a thing that an unfair advantage and i think most people should do things you have an unfair advantage and i was getting free products from my school so if any machine business was the way to start so if you have an unfair advantage right now and let's say it's not vending machines do that right someone might see this and be excited but if you have something that you have an unfair advantage and I think most of you guys should go on. If you have like a studio at your at your college that you could utilize, if you have,

your mom has like a, has a furniture store. Like I just do your unfray advantages. And if that includes having a vending machine, go, go for it. I love this. I know we didn't get a chance to talk about social media. I had some good advice, but. Hey, no, go, go for it. Let's go.

Let's talk about that real quickly. Really quickly. Yeah. Okay, so social media. I think most people, I just want to give you guys just all the gems and stuff that went really, really quickly. So for social media, the reason, social media has opened so many doors for me, like I said, makes me tens of thousands of dollars a month, brand deals. I get free vending machines now and all that stuff. And it's all because with social media, when I was, I worked

at a preschool and I listened to a teacher, explain stuff to students to little, to little preschool kids. And I said, I'm going to do the same thing with my content. I'm going to make my content so simple that a first grader or kindergarten can understand the content. And that's why I started making content throwing boxes in the air, telling people like how much I buy and I sell snacks for and stuff like that. And the way to win with social media, if you don't take anything, just on the social media front, is you do these things called formats and formats are just types of videos. So day in the life is a format. Get ready with me as a format. I've been doing the same formats since I started. I bought this many vending machines and it makes me this money a month. I buy this snack

that makes me this amount of month. And I day in the life of a future millionaire, best places to put your vending machine, worst places to put your vending machine, five things I wish I knew before. I bought a vending machine business. Five things I wish I knew. Like, I've been doing the same formats over and over and over and over again and they get millions of views. There's a couple other little stuff that I do, but that's probably the main thing. Make a couple formats.

Stick to the winners and stuff like that. Storytelling, I think when you make videos that are, I have, I posted probably almost 2,500 videos and 12 videos make up almost my 328,000 followers on Instagram. Only 12. I posted 2,500 videos and only 12 make up the majority of the thing. I forgot what rule this is, the 80, 20 rule, whatever it is. But like, I had videos, like one video got me 25,000 followers. One video got me 16,000. That video got me. And I posted 2,500 videos. I think volume would be stuck in any case.

I would have never got to those twallows if I didn't do the 2,500 bad shots. I think most people will be better at content if they post more times a day. Every time, every person that's asking about like how to get become successful content, I always tell them post 32 videos a day. And they're like, oh my gosh, I can't do 32. That's so much. I can't do that. It's impossible to do that.

But once you get into the mindset, like, I could do 32 videos and there, your brain is going to unlock to find different systems. Okay. Because I spend one day to batch content for the entire month. It doesn't take me that long. One day, I have content for the entire month. I templatize all the content. I can take content from, from two years ago, put it with the content now and make a

crazy story with it. So. And that's powerful nuggets right there. I appreciate that, man. Obviously, the co-to-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. For Donald, what is your definition to winning? Oof. I think winning, winning for me is, uh, oh, that's a good question.

I think if you, if your goal is only to win for yourself, I feel like you're going to feel like you didn't win in life. I think winning for me is the ability to help other people when I think that's, when you feel the most fulfilled. If you win only for you, you feel me. I thought you're not going to be as fulfilled if you're winning. If you're winning, you put other people on. Like when I see other people like, hey, Donald, like I watched your video and I started Venomachia. That's winning to me. That's success to me. That's like, that's more impactful than if, oh, I just got $100,000. When I know like when people walk up to me, I watch your videos,

I was inspired. I started my business. So I started this because of you. I started that. For me, that's winning. I like that so much. If you could let the viewers and guests know where they could get a hold of you, social media, if they want to try and reach out to you, if they want to learn about, you know,

a vending machine, can you let our viewers know as well? So, on Instagram is D-N-L-14, so D-N-A-L-D-14. YouTube is everything, D-S-K. And I think Instagram you can probably find all the links there.

So, yeah, but I really appreciate you. Thank you for this episode. And thank you guys. Awesome stuff. The co-twining insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Donald Luxama.

Thank you so much, my brother. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.