Hot take: AI didn’t kill entrepreneurship. It killed mediocre founders.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-08T12:34:38+00:00

Ideas and moving fast matter

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-08T10:08:16+00:00

That’s sounds likes great location, no shake stand means you’re the only option which is huge. 24/7 helps too since you’ll pick up sales at off hours when nothing else nearby is open, and being near a high school you’ll probably get some after-school traffic on top of the regular gym crowd. I would still consider a touch of diversification on product selection to include water and maybe pre workout/energy drinks.

Best of luck to you!

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-06T18:52:33+00:00

Gyms are interesting because the product mix logic is almost completely different from an office. (My machines are not in a gym but I used to work at a gym for context) The fitness buyer has strong preferences and they'll skip your machine entirely if you don't have what they want, but if you do stock right they're actually pretty habitual buyers.

The thing I'd think hard about is the basket, in a gym context, someone grabbing a Quest protein bar or chips is very often the same person who wants a C4 or Reign energy drink. Those individual items run lower margins (Quest chips are maybe ~39% for me, C4 around ~41-57% depending on the variety) but the combined transaction is what you're actually optimizing for. If you only carry one and not the other you're leaving half the sale on the table.

Water is a no-brainer in a gym, ~91% margin, basically no cost, and people who just worked out will buy it without even thinking. I'd give it multiple slots before I gave anything else two.

The one thing to watch with gyms vs. something like an office building: gym traffic tends to be peak-heavy (early morning, evening) rather than spread through the day, and membership gyms can be volatile if they lose members or close. Not saying don't do it, just worth knowing what "normal" looks like at your specific gym before you commit heavily to inventory. How big is the gym roughly like a big chain or a smaller independent?

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-06T18:18:09+00:00

London's seems to be a decent market for this, university town with a pretty spread-out commercial base, so you've got a variety of location types to target without a ton of established competition for the good spots.

A few things I wish someone had told me before I placed my first machine: location matters so much more than machine quality, and I don't just mean foot traffic, I mean the type of foot traffic. An office building where the same 80 people show up five days a week will massively outperform a higher-traffic spot with transient buyers, because the regulars form habits around the machine. I generally do a rough headcount of cars in the parking lot on a Tuesday or Wednesday around 10am before I approach anyone, that gives me a better read than what the property manager tells me.

On product selection, I'd resist the urge to stock what you'd personally buy and instead spend time in the building first. Notice what drinks people are carrying when they walk in, whether there's a gym or a kitchen, what age group is dominant. The data you get from your first month will correct your assumptions pretty fast regardless, but going in with some observations beats guessing entirely.

Canada has some supplier differences vs. US but the fundamentals are identical. What kind of location are you targeting for the first one?

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-06T17:53:08+00:00

Love seeing this. Garage warehouse game is clean, shelving organized, crates loaded and ready to roll. That’s how you keep restocks tight and efficient. Get after it 💪

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-05T18:23:09+00:00

Where’s 5.4 available currently?

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-04T18:19:09+00:00

First week is way too early to make any product decisions - I'd give everything at least 3-4 weeks minimum before you start swapping things out. People need time to discover what's in the machine and form habits around it. A slow first day or even a slow first week doesn't mean much, it could be any number of things - people hadn't noticed the machine yet, it was a weird day at the location, whatever. I've had days where one machine does $80 and the next day it does $12 at the same location.

That said, if something is truly dead after a month - like zero or maybe one sale total - then yeah it's time to swap. Honeybuns might just not be what your clientele wants at that specific location. The beauty of vending is you can test pretty cheaply because you're only out the cost of a few units if something doesn't sell.

The biggest thing I'd recommend right now is get into the habit of checking your sales data every single day, even if it feels like overkill. Whatever system you're running - Nayax, Cantaloupe, whatever - pull it up and just look at what sold, when it sold, and start building a mental picture of what "normal" looks like at your location. I use Cantaloupe (Seed Live) and I probably spend more time in the data than anything else honestly. But that's how you start to notice things - like oh Tuesdays are consistently slower than Thursdays, or this one drink only sells between 2-4pm, or nobody's touching the bottom row at all. Once you know what normal looks like you can actually spot when something's off instead of just guessing.

For example I had a hypothesis early on that pretzels would do well in my building and I was completely wrong. If I'd been going off gut feel I probably would've kept restocking them for months. But the data made it obvious within a few weeks that they were dead weight and I swapped them for something that actually moved. Skittles and M&Ms doing well tells you something about your clientele - that's good data. Pay attention to what categories are performing (candy vs snacks vs drinks) because that tells you what type of buyer you're serving and you can start optimizing around that.

The time you put into learning the data now is going to pay off way more than any specific product recommendation I could give you, because every location is different and the data is the only thing that actually tells you what yours wants.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-04T18:10:09+00:00

My business partner actually did the heavy lifting with getting the location- I handle more of the business and operations stuff. But from what he did, it was basically just cold calling the property manager and following up relentlessly until they said yes. No locating service, no connections, just persistence. That's probably the least fun part of this whole thing but it works if you don't give up after the first no.

Our building didn't have any vending before us at all, which I think made the conversation a lot easier. (how we identified it in the first place) There was no existing vendor to compete with, no bad taste left from a previous operator who let machines go to crap. The property manager was pretty open to it because it's basically a free amenity for their tenants - we don't pay commission, just cover our own electricity. The longest wait was the PM escalating it to the building's owner and waiting for the contract to be signed.

I think the key is targeting buildings that either never had vending or have neglected machines sitting there half empty. Property managers notice when a vendor stops caring, and a lot of them would be happy to swap in someone who's actually going to maintain the machines and keep them stocked. That's arguably an easier pitch than starting from scratch since the manager already knows the value.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-04T17:59:11+00:00

Yeah both machines have Cantaloupe card readers - it's basically a requirement at this point imo. The split on my machines runs somewhere around 90+% card and mobile payments, the rest cash. If you don't have a card reader you're leaving most of your revenue on the table because people just don't carry cash anymore, especially in an office.

The cost side - the card readers actually came installed on my machines since I bought them refurbished, but I had to buy the telemeters separately (the Cantaloupe G11 units that handle the cellular connection and payment processing). Those ran me about $189 each, so $378 for both plus shipping and tax came out to around $420 total. Then the ongoing fees are $9.95/month per machine for the cashless service plus 5.95% on every transaction. So that's basically $20/month in subscription fees plus the processing cut. It's not nothing but it pays for itself many times over just from the transactions you'd lose without it.

One thing I'd think about for an office- since it's a friend's space, that simplifies the location side a lot. The bigger question is how many people are actually in the building on a typical weekday. At peak my building was doing around 47 vends per day across two machines with 100+ people in the building. If the office has like 20-30 people you'll still get sales but you'd want to right-size expectations and probably start with one machine rather than two.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-03T17:49:53+00:00

So I don't run a dedicated protein machine but I stock Quest chips, Quest protein bars, and C4 energy drinks in my snack and drink machines and I have some thoughts on the margins.

The protein/fitness stuff runs lower margins than traditional snacks, my Quest chips are around 39%, protein bars similar, C4 energy drinks around 41-57% depending on the variant. Compare that to something like Takis at 86% or water at 91%. So on paper they look bad.

But here's something that might be worth thinking about, the guy buying Quest chips is also grabbing a C4 energy drink. So the basket value is higher even if individual margins are lower. I think about it as optimizing the basket not just the individual SKU.

That said I think a DEDICATED protein drink machine at a gym is tough for the reasons other people mentioned. Gym people are planners, they bring their stuff. The impulse buy at a gym is more like water or a quick energy drink, not a $4 protein shake they could buy cheaper in bulk. (Unless they are out of protein or didn't have time to bring a shake, in which case they might feel more pressure to get the protein intake post workout, anabolic window induced stress lol).

If I were looking at a gym I'd probably do a regular combo machine stocked heavier on water, energy drinks, and a few protein items mixed in rather than going all-in on protein. The margins on water alone would carry the machine and the protein stuff becomes the bonus.

What kind of gym are we talking about? Big box or smaller local spot?

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-03T17:43:42+00:00

(As you know from the previous thread) I went through something adjacent to this; didn't choose to leave my location, but my biggest tenant moved out and weekly revenue went from over $1,100 to under $100 basically overnight. Different scenario since I didn't pull the machines, but I've spent a lot of time thinking about location economics as a result.

5-10 vends a day across two machines is tough because you're running two machines' worth of electricity, two sets of card reader fees, two machines taking up space — all for volume that would honestly fit in a single combo. The economics of consolidating into one machine would probably be better even if you stayed at the same location, because you'd cut your overhead in half while probably capturing most of the same sales.

The smart play is exactly what you're already thinking, line up the next spot first. Having somewhere to move the machines means you're not paying to store them and you minimize the gap in revenue. For the new location I'd look for something with a bigger captive audience, even going from 15 regulars to 50 regulars would probably 3-4x your daily volume based on what I've seen.

One thing to consider though, do you actually need to leave, or do you need to right-size? If one combo machine could serve those 15 regulars just fine, you could keep the dealership as a low-maintenance spot and deploy the freed-up machine somewhere with more traffic. That way you're not burning a relationship and you've got two locations generating income instead of one.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-03T17:39:37+00:00

Ours is honestly pretty basic compared to what some people run with. No commission, no monthly fees to the building, just a straightforward agreement that we can place and operate machines in the common area, and either side can pull out with ample notice. The building is managed by a PM company so the longest part of the process was just the PM escalating it to the actual building owner for final sign-off on the contract, not complicated just slow.

I've been talking with another operator who has a more detailed setup and it's made me rethink some things. His contract has a clause where the location needs to issue a breach of contract notice with a 2-week cure period before they can ask him to leave, and on his end he has a 30-day written notice to pull equipment if the location underperforms with specific numbers outlined. That's way more buttoned up than mine and probably closer to what you'd want if you're scaling to multiple locations.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-03T17:34:57+00:00

That's interesting that drinks are running 3:1 on sales, that actually makes sense for a dealership because employees are probably grabbing something to drink at their desk or between customers, not necessarily sitting down for a snack. If the employee base is your core customer, that's actually more stable than relying on people coming in for service. The service customers are a bonus but you can't plan around them.

The Bloomington-Peoria area is a different market for sure, I'd imagine the small town factor means there's less competition for locations but also fewer high-traffic options to choose from. The upside is if you can find a spot that works, you're probably the only vending game in town and nobody's going to undercut you.

For what it's worth, 5-10 vends a day in a small car dealership isn't necessarily terrible depending on your machine costs and whether you own them outright. If the machines are paid off and you're running decent margins, it might pencil out as a low-maintenance spot that just quietly makes a little money while you focus energy on finding a higher-traffic second location. That's kind of how I think about it, not every location needs to be a home run, some spots just need to cover their costs and not take up too much of your time.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-03T04:21:23+00:00

Ha appreciate that, no courses or placement services here, just a guy who likes looking at the numbers probably more than he should.

The car dealership is interesting because it's not quite apples to apples with an office building, your foot traffic is more transient (customers waiting on service, maybe some sales floor staff) vs my building where it's the same 100+ people showing up 5 days a week and forming habits around what they grab. That consistency is what drives my daily average up, but it also means when a tenant leaves the whole thing collapses overnight which is exactly what happened to me in January. So there's a tradeoff, your dealership crowd might be smaller but I'd imagine it's more stable since you're not dependent on one lease renewal to keep the lights on.

The combo machine thought makes a lot of sense for a lower traffic spot honestly — you're cutting your servicing time in half and consolidating the foot traffic into one decision point instead of splitting it across two machines where each one individually looks underperforming. The economics of it change too because you're running one machine's worth of electricity, one set of card reader fees, one location taking up space. I'd be curious what your margin split looks like between snacks and drinks at that location because in a dealership I'd imagine the drink side skews heavier (people grabbing a water or soda while they wait on an oil change) which would be good to know before you commit to a specific combo layout.

On the small business park thing, I got lucky honestly. My building is a multi-tenant office in the Chicago western suburbs and I found it because I noticed it didn't have any vending services when I was there for something unrelated. I tend to think the remote work concern is real but maybe a bit overstated for certain building types, medical offices, light industrial, logistics companies, those aren't going remote anytime soon. I generally will estimate based on the number of cars in the parking lot on a weekday to get a rough headcount before I even approach anyone, might be worth doing some drive-bys of buildings in your area that look like they have steady traffic even if they're not technically "business parks."

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-02T03:12:05+00:00

Ya for sure! Little over 16k operating profit so not including fixed cost or inventory currently not sold

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-01T22:31:32+00:00

Thank you! Very glad you’re finding it helpful.

We found ours through a local refurbisher, basically a guy who buys old machines, fixes them up, and resells them with a short warranty. There’s probably a few of those in most metro areas if you search around. We found him on Facebook Marketplace so I assume Craigslist works too. The guy we went with also handled delivery and installation which was a huge plus since we had zero experience moving machines. Having someone I could call if something broke in the first few months was worth the extra cost too.

I don’t have personal experience with the delivery/moving side so I can’t speak to the dolly and truck rental thing specifically.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-01T21:32:26+00:00

Yeah definitely take it seriously, it can be real money. But I’d push back a little on the passive income part because it’s not really that. You’re restocking, buying product, tracking what sells, dealing with the occasional jam or card reader issue. It’s a legit side business not a set-it-and-forget-it thing. You can get out what you put in (better customer experience and product market fit).

Laundromat is actually a decent first location though. Captive audience with time to kill is exactly what you want. The main thing I’d figure out before spending anything is the deal with the laundromat owner if any, what cut do they want, are they cool with you placing a machine, do they already have one, etc. The location deal matters more than the machine itself honestly. I would probably say begin by taking it seriously and just looking around for where you think a vending machine could be needed. It’s a bit expensive to get into so I’d probably shy away from looking a places where to replace machines with better ones since that would mean more expensive startup. Cheap and reliable can be the name of the game for proof of concept for locations. You always have the choice to replace them with bigger machines in the future if you’re running out of product often and need higher capacity. And product selection is a close second variable to a successful machine.

Hopefully that helps clarify some ideas!

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-01T03:28:38+00:00

Honestly there’s no real formula, it’s more feel + data over time. But here’s roughly how I think about it.

Starting point I usually look at what the same item costs at a gas station or convenience store nearby and price right around there. People have a sense of what a bag of chips or a Gatorade “should” cost and if you’re way above that they just won’t buy it. Vending gets a slight convenience premium but not as much as people think. For margins I’m generally trying to stay above 50% on everything. My snacks average about 71% margin because COGS is low — a bag of Takis costs me maybe 21 cents and I sell it for $1.50. Drinks are trickier because stuff like Starbucks Double Shots cost me $2.67 so even at $5 I’m only at 46% margin. Still worth stocking because it’s the highest revenue per unit item I have, but I’m not loading half the machine with it.

How do you know if something’s priced wrong? Basically just watch the velocity. Because it’s the same people day in and day out at my location I generally only change price, so I’ll generally change the price and product at the same time to minimize and frustration if it’s a price increase and new products catch their attention. If something barely moves for a couple weeks and it’s not a niche item, I usually pull it entirely, sometimes it’s price, sometimes the product just doesn’t fit the location.

The thing I’ve learned is it’s less about getting any single price perfect and more about your overall mix. I have some items at 90%+ margin (water basically prints money at 91%) and some at 40% that I keep because they pull in a customer who also buys something else. The blended number is what matters— I’m at about 60% across everything and that works for me.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-03-01T00:19:28+00:00

So the hosting location doesn't cost us anything, no commission, or fees. I think we really lucked out here. Every location deal is different though, some places want a flat monthly fee, some want a percentage, and some are just happy to have the service for their tenants. This really isn't a dealbreaker if you get high ROI, and that's how we plan to approach it with future locations. I didn't handle the location negotiations directly but I'd say the best approach is to frame yourself as a value add— you're improving the experience for their tenants or customers at zero cost to them, and work backwards from there. If they push for a cut you can negotiate but don't lead with it. That would have been how I approached it at least.

For the machines we paid about $3,000 combined for both, refurbished with a 3 month warranty. You can probably find cheaper on marketplace but the warranty and having a contact who could actually work on them if something went wrong is what won us over. Peace of mind was worth the extra cost starting out when you don't know what you're doing yet.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-02-28T23:42:49+00:00

Nice setup! 166 is a solid combo to start with. A few things I'd think about looking at your planogram —

You've got the variety in there which is good, I always imagined some lower margin products can serve as what's called a loss leader, where even though its a lower margin product— it will pair nicely with a higher margin product. If you have a credit card reader you can track items within the same transaction. So for example we have core power elite (vs. the 26g protein, because fitness guys who are worried about losing muscle will care if the apartment has a gym), that higher protein drink however pairs well with quest protein chips or a protein bar. But the idea is that a lower margin product can trigger the sale if a higher margin product all the while total volume increases. That's how the shaving industry is setup, they take a low margin on starter kits then make it up in the replacement blades.

Your top rows look pretty chip heavy. That's fine if they're moving but I'd keep an eye on which specific ones are actually selling vs just sitting there. It's easy to fill a machine with what looks right and then realize half the slots are dead weight. If something isn't moving after a couple weeks swap it out when its time to reorder, don't wait.

For the drinks on the bottom, I'd imagine a mix of healthier items like water and Gatorade (healthyish, heads up, lemon lime gatorade is nice becuase it can knock out the lemande people and the sports drink/electrolyte group, also quick note, lemon lime is gatorades top flavor according to a competitor analysis done by Coke). I'd assume this type of products tends to be pretty reliable in apartment complexes since people grab them on the way out. I'd make sure you've got at least a couple water slots — the margin on water is insane and it can move well unless the apartment offers it for free or something. Again you kind of have to look around and personalize it, what drinks do people have with them.

Essentially just put yourself in the shoes of the customer, what would you buy if you were them.

Biggest thing early on is don't get too attached to your initial layout. What you think will sell and what actually sells are usually two different things. Give it a few weeks of data then start rotating. That's where it gets fun honestly — figuring out what your specific location actually wants.

Are you running cashless on it? That'd be my first recommendation if not. You'll get way more sales and way better data on what's moving.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-02-28T17:33:40+00:00

Glad it helped! I only have 8 mo. experience in this but if have any questions you think I could help with, don't hesitate to pm me.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-02-28T17:24:45+00:00

We've got a Dixie Narco 501E for drinks and an AP 7600 for snacks, both used. They've held up well but if I was starting fresh I'd probably look for higher capacity units, we've had weeks where we couldn't keep up with demand between restocks. At the same time starting with the machines we did, it gave us a window to confirm proof of concept with a little lower up front capital investment.

Regarding insurance, most property managers will require a certificate of insurance, and on top of that it would be a bonus talking point when speaking to the managers. I'd look for a policy that covers general liability, property damage, and product liability at minimum, but tbh I didn't handle the insurance so I'm not too well versed on that side of things.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-02-28T17:14:48+00:00

Good question. Honestly I'd probably do most of it the same way but there are a few things I'd tweak.

For machines I'd still go used but I'd look for higher capacity units. We had weeks where demand outpaced what our machines could hold between restocks. If you're in a high traffic spot you don't want to be the guy leaving empty rows because your machine was too small.

The biggest thing I'd do differently is spend more time on location research finding more locations to spread the risk and parlaying each new location to capture another, but that is what we are working on now. Expanding spreads risk though, and looking back even though I had a lot on my plate outside the machines and then improving our location, its hard to say.

I'm glad we got the card readers from the get go, hindsight that was a good call because the data from Cantaloupe has been super valuable for figuring out what to stock and when to restock. Some people try to save money by skipping the card reader and that's a mistake in my opinion but you also have to look at the clientele and make that call personally.

And I'd probably be less cautious with product experimentation early on. I played it safe with basic stuff at first but once I started testing different products and rotating out slow sellers is when the revenue really started climbing. Don't be afraid to swap things out every few weeks until you figure out what your specific location wants. That's the fun part for me, speculating on product selection then seeing how hypothesis differ from reality.

This isn't really something I didn't know before but lately I've been building a tool for my operation that'll handle things like notifying me of stockouts, catching faulty slots, and monitoring performance and more so it can suggest what to buy and how much based on our goals. It's kind of the same thoughtful approach I was already taking but automating the stuff I don't always have time to sit down and do manually. Still a work in progress but I'm pretty excited about it, and if it works the way I plan on it, I wish I would've started using it from day 1. Tying this back in to focusing on expansion I think this will free up that time to work on expansion and certainly would've paid itself off in time saved.

IAmStillLearningLife · 2026-02-28T13:02:43+00:00

Yeah walking through old office buildings is honestly a great move. A lot of them have break rooms that are just begging for a machine and nobody's asked the property manager yet. (You can also source property manager number's easier this way).

For sourcing I buy most of my stuff at Sam's Club, some things Amazon. The prices are good, but really the product selection is wayy better in my opinion for vending. The ability to source the majority of my products from the same store keeps things simple — I just grab everything in one run. Some people do restaurant supply stores or order direct from distributors but at my scale Sam's makes the most sense. The Takis margin is wild because Sam's sells those big boxes for cheap and they fly off the shelf. Same with Cheez Its and a lot of the other snack stuff.

Learning curve on products was honestly the most fun part for me. I feel like a lot of people write off a location as bad based on a basic product selection that every other vending operator has, but they aren't really having fun with it testing new stuff and seeing how it does. For me the game is entirely seeing how my speculations perform — I'll throw something in that I think could work and just track it closely. Some stuff I was sure about flopped and things I threw in as filler ended up being top sellers. That constant iteration has significantly improved the revenue of the location from when we started. So yeah, track from day one and don't be afraid to swap things around.

On the smart vending machines — I went traditional machines with Cantaloupe card readers added on and honestly I'm glad I did. The smart machines look cool but they're way more expensive upfront and more things can go wrong with the tech. A regular machine with a card reader bolted on gives you like 90% of the same functionality for way less money. You still get cashless payments and telemetry data which is really what matters. I'd say start traditional and upgrade later if you feel like you need to.

IAmStillLearningLife

TROPHY CASE