The Boss Brain and Entrepreneurship

There is a brilliant new book titled Boss Brain by Tra Williams, serial entrepreneur and student of   entrepreneurial psychology.  We cannot recommend this book enough; it provides an entirely new  perspective to our field of entrepreneurship:

  1. It explains the psychology behind why most people feel they’re meant to be entrepreneurs.
  2. Uncovers the deceptions and pitfalls that trap aspiring entrepreneurs into traditional employment.
  3. Empowers readers with skills to tap their innate entrepreneurial instincts.
  4. Enables entrepreneurs to overcome barriers that stand between them and self-employment.

Published by Sunbury Press, PA and based on scientific research, Boss Brain traces the spirit of entrepreneurship through an arc of history…from the height of the Roman Empire to the moon landing.  It empowers aspiring entrepreneurs with a system to overcome the fear of uncertainty, escape the cage of mediocrity, and never be an employee again.  Willams says his mission is rescue 1 million entrepreneurs from traditional employment.  He tells readers all the reasons people should start a business while at the same explaining a second voice that tells them the reasons they should remain someone else’s employee.

“Entrepreneurship is about so much more than business ownership. It is listening and not being paralyzed by the fear of uncertainty.  Our creator gave us all an inner calling to explore the limits of our potential.  At the same time Mother Nature balanced our adventurous impulses with a second voice that advises restraint, our yin and yang, one pushes while the other pulls. Eighty to one hundred million Americans are not doing what they want to do, and the U. S. is third behind Poland as the most entrepreneurial nation.”

Tra documents this decrease in entrepreneurs through statistics like one in 183 Americans work for Amazon, comparing percentages of entrepreneurs from 30% at the end of WWII and 15% during the Clinton administration to a current 7%.  Despite the decline of entrepreneurs, the vast majority of Americans want to be self employed.  Bold Brain makes the case to focus on the optimism rather than uncertainty for it is the first component of our primary instinct belief, which is the ignition switch on the engine of advancement.  The enigma is society has improved at the expense of individual fulfillment. “As entrepreneurs who feel stuck in traditional employment, we have sacrificed our optimism in exchange for the certainty of society’s collective rise.”  Fortunately, the walls built around most people can be deconstructed.  Barriers between you and self-employment can be dismantled, and Bold Brain tells you how to do it.

This book is an excellent addition to entrepreneurial mindset which at its core opens eyes to opportunities not seen before and reduces uncertainty through validation of concept.  One opportunity Tra mentioned at a book signing Feb. 8th at the State College of Florida’s 26 West incubator is the emergence of A. I. certain to revolutionize marketing, enterprise and production.  Out of curiosity Tra asked ChatGPT what was the meaning of entrepreneurship and got back the best definition we’ve heard:

**

Spreading the truths in the Bold Brain will go a long way to reverse the decline in entrepreneurship and, more importantly, enable countless new entrepreneurs to live the fulfillment, happiness and financial security that is successful entrepreneurship.  Kudos to Tra Williams and this seminal work.

 

**READS, “The best argument for being self-employed is the ability to have control over one’s time, work schedule, and income potential.  Being self-employed allows individuals to set their own goals and priorities and to make decisions that align with their own values and interests.  Additionally, self-employment often provides the opportunity to learn new skills and to take on more responsibility, which can lead to personal and professional growth.”

Written by editor C Day and excerpts from Bold Brain

 

2023 Annual USASBE Entrepreneurship Conference.

After a two year hiatus caused by COVID, the U. S. Association for Small Business and Entrepren-eurship (USASBE) hosted an in-person conference January 18-21st at Florida State University’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship Florida. Not only was Tallahassee a pleasant surprise as a beautiful city filled with Spanish water oaks, but the content of the conference was truly first rate.

                           (1) FSU Turnbull Conference Center (2) Kate Goodall, CEO, Halcyon House social incubator

USASBE is an exclusive community which advances entrepreneurship education through four-year university and graduate programs using research, special interest groups, and conferences.  Entrepreneurship has become an important component of collegiate education and is now being taught at more than 3000 universities around the world. Over the past 40 years, USASBE has been a critical player in the adoption of entrepreneurship in collegiate programs.

Among keynote speakers were Peter Boulware, a former FSU and NFL football player and now a  car dealer entrepreneur, Kate Goodall, co-founder and CEO of Halcyon House,  an incubator for early-stage ventures for social solutions, Colin Coggins and Garrett Brown from USC’s Marshall School of Business where they created the Sales Mindset course, and Kim Rivers CEO of Trulieve, a seed-to-sale cannabis company based in Florida.   Each told a compelling story of need fulfillment and customer driven growth based on quality, integrity and financial success.

One of the strengths of USASBE is member contributions, and faculty from Texas State, Florida Gulf Coast, the University of Tampa, NC State, California State, the University of Leeds, Wharton School of Business (PA), University of No. Carolina, Belmont University, Babson University, Indiana University, San Diego State University, Florida State and Wayne State Universities, John  Carroll University, Universities of Wisconsin and Delaware, Iona University, University of Alabama and more all participated.  Independent incubators such as Biz Starts Milwaukee, Ignite Accelerator from PA, Teaching Entrepreneurship.org (online), and the Miller School from Eastern Carolina University added their unique approaches to certificate, pitch, poverty and social entrepreneurship.

                                                      (1) Author Panel and (2) Book Signing, Alex DeNoble’s The Entrepreneur Within

One first-time activity were book signings affording authors an opportunity to present recently published works in one-on-one, relaxed setting. Alex DeNoble presented his new intrapreneurship book filling the need for corporate entrepreneurs titled The Entrepreneur Within, Dianne Welsh her Entrepreneurial Family Business, Danie Cohen The Ideate Method, J. Howard Kucher Social Entrepreneurship, Clint Day his Ignite the Entrepreneur and Susan Muntean Entrepreneurial Ecosystems to name a few.

Each conference is a chance to induct new fellows and to bring all Longenecker members together.  Longenecker Fellow is the highest recognition USASBE gives to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the development and benefit of small and medium sized businesses.  This year past USASBE President and Babson SEE grad Doan Winkel of John Carroll University was recognized and made fellow.

The conference always presents significant research to the public in the field of entrepreneurship education, and this year saw a prolific group of papers such as utilizing NASA technology to promote cross-campus collaboration, women in entrepreneurship, CEO perceptions of compensation and innovation in SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises), learning from social media failure, enhancing diversity, understanding veterans and expats types entrepreneurship,  theorizing effectuation principles, competing in a platform-dominated world, envisioning entrepreneurship programs of the future, rural entrepreneurial internships, small business strategies to expedite recovery from COVID and emergent patterns as small businesses and consumers anticipate a recession.

Florida State University and the Jim Moran Institute were special institutions to host the conference.  The FSU business school, founded in 1950 had a tradition of educating future Florida entrepreneurs when a very successful auto dealer Jim Moran* moved from Chicago to Florida for health at age 46.  Having been a huge success in the car business and now based in the Deerfield FL, Dr. Kiichiro Toyoda approached Jim with the proposition to represent Toyota for all Southeastern U. S. imports through the Port of Jacksonville. He was the perfect representative and build Southeastern Toyota Distributors to the largest independent distributor of Toyotas in the world.  A visionary FSU business dean, Mel Smith heard of Jim Moran’s generosity and took it upon himself to visit Deerfield on behalf of the business school.  The story is a classic tale.  Jim enjoyed Mel’s personality and was learning a lot about entrepreneurship, and so asked Smith to spend the night so they might continue the  conversation in the morning.

                                 Mega auto dealer and champion of entrepreneurship Jim Moran (2) JMI Director M. Roberts

It was Mel Smith’s wedding anniversary, and he told Jim Moran he had to get back to Tallahassee for the anniversary celebration.  Jim then made an offer.  If Smith stayed the night, Moran would gift $1 million to the FSU business school.  Mel cancelled his return trip, and began a lifelong friendship the next day.  As time passed, the Morans gifted more to FSU, and at his death, his widow gave $100 million to establish the Jim Moran Institute and College of Entrepreneurship.  The institute mentors Florida businesses for growth while the college is the only independent college dedicated to entrepreneurship in the U. S. and recently was ranked no. 1 in Florida, 11th among public universities for entrepreneurship.

Florida State by itself is rated no. 1 among Florida public universities and no. 5 in the country by U. S. News & World Report for best value, has a 95% retention rate, is no. 1 in Florida for 4-year graduation rate, offers 276 academic and professional degrees including law and medicine, and enjoys a 21:1 student-to-faculty ratio.  Its undergraduate enrollment is 33,593 students.

The conference was concluded by a gala event of dinner and dancing in the new FSU Student Union Saturday evening.  Thanks to the USASBE team of CEO Julies Shields and Mari Couri Program Director; the Jim Moran Institute Managing Director Melissa Roberts; the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship Dean Susan Fiorito; Dr. Randy Blass former JMI director, senior lecturer FSU College of Business and Sr. Fellow IVMF Syracuse; the Turnbull Conference Center, Jennifer Wright Director. We all experienced the very best of entrepreneurship academic education through their efforts to make the 2023 conference one of the best ever.

 *Story in book, Jim Moran, The Courtesy Man, 1996 Bonus Books, Chicago ISBN 1-56625-044-7.

Supporting Early-Stage Startup Success

 

As CEO of Starter Studio, Dawn Haynes capitalizes on decades of experience, both domestically and internationally, in strategic business management and leadership to educate and accelerate startups.  In this episode of Florida High Tech Cooridor’s podcast, Haynes discusses how her work helps founders and drives Central Florida’s entrepreneurial spirit forward.  Her passion for assisting up-and-coming businesses evolved from the lack of support she received while attempting to launch her own technology company.  Haynes now takes pride in having supported many startups through their earliest stages, including Stax and Home Lending Pal.

Learn more about StarterStudio and what they can do for your company in this episode of Tech’s Potential.

https://youtu.be/SICXBlgTS6I

Courtesy Florida High Tech Cooridor

The BMC Business Model Canvas

The man to the left made a major contribution to new venture and the field of  entrepreneurship.  He is Alexander Osterwalder as Swiss born business consultant who with co-creators and while working on a Ph.D developed the primary tool of evidenced-based planning known also as “lean startup”, the business model canvas (BMC).  It is a nine-component, one-page visual block represents a business organization.  Based on Osterwalder’s consulting experience with partner Yves Pigneur, it encompasses all facets of a successful business.

About the same time, a Silicon Valley dot-commer Steve Blank who had founded several successful internet startup companies, chronicled his story, the Four Steps to the Epiphany, in which he layed-out customer development. The customer development process is a series of activities an organization takes to discover, test and validate business assumptions by partnering with end-users, the market that will buy the product or service.  Since inception over 5 million people have used the business model canvas as the primary template to design new venture enterprise.

Recently Osterwalder gave the keynote talk at the lean innovation educators summit in Dec. and was interviewed by Philip Bouchard of TrustedPeer for his entrepreneurship series.  For insights into Alexander Osterwalder’s philosophy we offer links to both talks below.  The first is 3/4 of the way through the recording, while the second is 100% his interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsSBMZeuPzQ

https://www.youtube.com/@PhilipBouchard/videos

Courtesy of Common Mission and TrustedPeer

ICSB Testimony Before U. S. Congress on Entrepreneurship

https://youtu.be/v-2J1WkystQ

Based on 2022 testimonies to U. S Congress by ICSB, International Council for Small Business, we have selected two ICSB testimonies by prominent U. S. entrepreneurship professors, Dr. Michael Morris of Notre Dame University’s Keough School of Global Affairs speaking first on poverty entrepreneurship and…

…Dr. Alex DeNoble, Professor in the College of Business at San Diego State University (SDSU) and Executive Director of SDSU’s Lavin Entrepreneurship Center speaks next on the importance of developing an entrepreneurial mindset in the next generation.

Speaking before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, ICSB spoke of the top trends in entrepreneurship for 2022, emphasizing MSMEs and Humane Entrepreneurship as a focus during the COVID recovery period.  MSMEs are Micro-Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises that provide 2/3 of all formal jobs in developing countries and 80% in low-income countries. Humane entrepreneurship can be found in companies whose management embodies equity, empowerment, and enablement for their employees.  A culture of such values helps generate innovation, appropriate risk-taking, and decisive actions producing quality jobs and company wealth.

Resilience was the most popular theme for 2021, and, while the past 12 months have challenged all in the business world, ICSB still believes that MSMEs and humane entrepreneurship provide the best framework for recovery. MSMEs are the most flexible, and the most in touch with their local communities. This allows them to extend the principles of frugal innovation further and expands the possibility of what the recovery can look like.

Entrepreneurs seek to build small businesses that match their lifestyles and passions. The pandemic has opened a new era of opportunity for entrepreneurs. The consequent slowdown afforded many aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to pause and reflect on their careers. Witnessing a world open to new ideas, opportunities, and change, they have made a brave recent decision and catapulted into entrepreneurship. ICSB recommends exploring this new adventure and being strategically prepared for it.

Courtesy of Ayman El Tarabishy, CEO ICSB

Demo Day at MIT

 

MIT delta v is an initiative across all of MIT’s schools and colleges: the School of Engineering; the School of Science; the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; the School of Architecture and Planning; the MIT Sloan School of Management; and the Schwarzman College of Computing. The accelerator is overseen by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and is the capstone educational opportunity for MIT student entrepreneurs as it prepares them to hit escape velocity and launch into the real world.  Martin Trust is rated the second-best undergraduate program in the U. S. behind Babson College and ahead of UC Berkeley (editor’s alma mater).  We thought it useful to show videos of Delta V’s winning pitches to readers.

“Welcome students, alumni, and community members to MIT delta v Demo Day 2022! This year’s accelerator was our first to be run out of the Trust Center since 2019 and it was great to have the teams back in person working to build their ventures. Today, they get to share the results of all their hard work.  Demo Day is our favorite day of the year. You will be blown away by what our student teams have done to create new ventures that will make the world better. Demo Day is the culmination of a year-long journey to become an MIT-quality innovation-driven entrepreneur. We couldn’t be prouder to show them off on the stage at Kresge – and inspire you, our audience. In fact, the majority of our cohort comes from people in the audience who say, “I want to and can do that!” 

https://https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/accelerator/program//accelerator/program/

Bill Aulet is the Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and the Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Bill is changing the way entrepreneurship is understood, taught, and practiced around the world.  He is an award-winning educator and author whose current work is built off the foundation of his 25-year business career, first at IBM, and then as a three-time serial entrepreneur.

Startup Founders Best 2022 Books

We gift each other a lot of books each year. It’s a good practice, as having more books makes you a more handsome individual, and buying books helps support the arts.  Current in Entrepren-eurship would like to list a series of recommendations from startup founders. Courtesy of TechCrunch here are the best books founder read during 2022:

Entrepreneurship Can Change Lives

Nate Bethancourt has found his calling in entrepreneurship. It’s something he’s studied in class with John Dobson, a professor in the School of Management. He’s gained confidence pitching his ideas and frequently sells homemade juice at Clark Collective Pop-Up events. Bethancourt is just like any other student on campus, but his path to Clark may be the least traditional.

Bethancourt is one of nine students in a new educational program for formerly incarcerated individuals. Liberal Arts for Returning Citizens (LARC) launched this fall, with course offerings taught by Dobson, Associate Dean of Academic Services Jennifer Plante, M.A. ’00, and sociology Professor Shelly Tenenbaum. The program is cost-free for LARC students, who have access to the resources used by typical undergraduates.

Nate Bethancourt sells juiceDobson has been teaching courses in the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction for several years. Tenenbaum has taught college courses at various state prisons through the Emerson Prison Initiative. Their shared experience encouraged them to design a program for Clark.

“The cooperation and work ethic within this group of students is the best I’ve seen anywhere,” Dobson says of the current LARC students. “They have the drive to better their lives and don’t mind holding each other accountable.”

Bethancourt heard about LARC through mentors at Legendary Legacies, a Worcester organization that connects formerly incarcerated people with community resources. He’s lived in Main South for years and was familiar with campus but couldn’t recall ever seeing someone with life experiences similar to his own at Clark.

“Seeing people from a different background in the same space on campus shows the public that we’re not that much different,” Bethancourt says. “We can be just as productive, just as educated as someone else from a different walk of life.”  LARC started in the fall with course offerings in entrepreneurship, sociology, and communications.

“We’re focused on communication, collaboration, teamwork, and empathy. You can only be successful in business if you have empathy for your customer,” Dobson says. “The entrepreneurship class is designed to develop these soft skills.”

During the communications course, Bethancourt worked on writing a memoir. The entrepreneurship class has helped him start growing his small business, Health Ya’Self. Bethancourt makes juices with ingredients like beets, ginger, pineapple, dragon fruit, and more, promoting the product primarily on Instagram. Bethancourt hopes to win Clark Tank, the University’s venture development competition, and invest in a larger juicer.

“I come from a family with a medical history that includes diabetes and high blood pressure. And in the age of COVID, people are getting sick often,” he says. “I started the business to spread knowledge on the benefits of eating better and having a healthier diet.”

Bethancourt didn’t take courses while incarcerated. In hindsight, he wishes he could have learned financial literacy. That feedback is helping Dobson expand LARC programming, with plans to add courses in financial intelligence, literature, and psychology.

Students in the LARC program have started to mingle with the campus community. They were initially worried about fitting in on campus and wondered whether traditional students would accept them. With time, those fears have dissipated, and they’ve built connections.

“Our traditional undergrads know about the program and have been excited to meet the LARC students,” Dobson says. “There’s been some effort to collaborate on projects.”

Bethancourt says entrepreneurship gives formerly incarcerated people a path to move forward, particularly because it’s challenging to find employment with a felony record. Dobson believes entrepreneurship can break the cycle of recidivism.

“Entrepreneurship can transform lives, get people out of poverty, and create productive members of society,” Dobson says. “It’s powerful.”  Bethancourt hopes to matriculate at Clark and continue growing his business. His past fuels his ambition.

“I’m trying to graduate and go to the next level,” he says. “I’m driven to inspire others. The best way to do that is to show them what you’ve accomplished.”

Courtesy of Clark University Clark Now

How Entrepreneurship Helped Bring Prince William and Kate to U.S.

This past week, you have probably seen that Prince William and Princess Kate visited Boston for their big Earthshot Prize and what a week it was. President Biden and scores of others were on hand for this enormous event. The hoopla from the visit was really quite amazing.  What does this have to do with Disciplined Entrepreneurship? Well, actually a lot.

While we entrepreneurs generally don’t care about credentials and titles (read “royalty”) for their own sake, the cause of fighting climate change is one of, if not the most, consequential challenges we face. As such, we applaud William and Kate’s efforts with the Earthshot Prize. Using their platform and access to capital to create incentives and visibility for entrepreneurs working to address this challenge is very helpful.

Almost fifteen years ago, inspired by then MIT President Susan Hockfield, Tod Hynes and I started to work to do something unique with the existing committed players in the MIT energy field, at both the faculty and student levels (including John Deutch, Ernie Moniz, Richard Lester, John Tester, Don Lessard, and more; and probably most importantly the students, including David Danielson, Nol Brown, Joel Moxley, and others too numerous to name). We looked to integrate our expertise in entrepreneurship with the powerful technical and policy capabilities that MIT had in the field to create a specialized lane for students of clean energy entrepreneurship.This started with a class called “Energy Ventures,” which was built off applying the fundamental framework of launching a company to the energy sector. The course was designed to be interdisciplinary and bring together technical, policy, business, and strategy courses across MIT and Harvard to create a space and structure to develop new startups in the field.

We also had another insight; that we needed to celebrate these entrepreneurs and create a new platform for them to succeed because these ventures were not going to be able to compete with traditional entrepreneurship for short-term recognition. This was the genesis for the MIT Clean Energy Prize, which owes eternal thanks to NSTAR’s and now Eversource CEO Joe Nolan for supporting us at the birthing stage and the first five years of existence.

Fast forward 15 years later and the Energy Ventures Alumni group is now a strong and extremely powerful community of 500+ change makers who continue to help each other in this generational challenge. Alumni have spun off many dozens of companies and organizations like Greentown Labs that have done enormous good for the world. Many alumni are now in government, large corporations, investing groups, academia, and other organizations so the community has expanded well beyond just startup founders.

At the MIT Trust Center, we now work with leaders in Texas on a project called TEX-E to bring this influence beyond just those entrepreneurs getting educated in the Boston area. We have hired our first EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) dedicated to climate tech, the great Ben Soltoff. He works closely with Greentown Labs, now the biggest clean energy incubator in the world, in both Boston and its new location in Houston. Our center not only continues to support Tod Hynes, Frankie O’Sullivan, Libby Wayman, and Jacquelyn Pless in teaching the continually updated Climate and Energy Ventures course, but we have brought Tod on as a Senior Advisor to our center after his success in the marketplace.  The Boston/MIT Clean Energy Innovation Ecosystem is considered the gold standard for building entrepreneurs who can address the two-prong imperative of energy and climate.

Courtesy Bill Aulet, MIT Trust Center Entrepreneurship News

 

 

A Side Hustle That Brings in $30,000 a Month

This 28-year-old built a side hustle that brings in $30,000 a month: ‘I only have to work 6 hours a week’.

Before the pandemic, I worked at an ad-tech startup in California and made $240,000 a year, including sales commission. But as the country went into lockdown in March 2020, so did many of my retail, restaurant and entertainment clients. Even after putting in long hours, I struggled to meet my sales quota.

That spring, I read on Twitter about someone making passive income by placing vending machines in office buildings. It immediately piqued my interest.  So in June and July, I purchased two machines for $5,000 to get a side hustle going. Things were slow at first, but I was hopeful that I could scale the business. I quit my day job that summer to focus all my time and energy into it.

I’m glad I took the risk: Today, I have 57 vending machines scattered across my hometown and bring in an average of $30,000 in monthly revenue. Over the last two years, I’ve spent about $160,000 on machines, but I have a positive cash flow and no debt. I only have to work six hours a week on vending machine operations. I can spend the rest of my time on other projects, like my online coaching business and trying to land new machine locations.

Here’s my five-step process on how to get started in the vending machine business:

1. Land a busy location.

For my first location, I called up a friend whose dad owns a mechanic shop. The shop had 10 employees and only sold $181 worth of products during the first three months, but it got my foot in the door. My second location was in an apartment building, and sold $1,200 worth of products in the first month.The best way to land a location is by cold-calling. I target buildings that have a lot of employees or foot traffic. I recommend using D7 Lead Finder, which helps you find different types of businesses in a specific area and the contact information.

Ask to speak to the business owner or manager and tell them that you’d like to place a machine in their location. Explain the benefits (e.g., convenience of snacks and drinks for employees or customers) and lay out how you’d be handling all of the responsibilities.

Many venues just want the vending machine services without having to pay a premium for installation and upkeep. One vending machine business owner, for example, has 21 locations but only pays one venue 15% of his monthly profits.

2. Buy a quality machine.

I bought my first vending machine on Craiglist for $1,000. I also got some deals on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace.  But looking back, it was a waste of time and money. I’ve found that it’s more worth it to buy new machines through a local supplier, even though it could cost up to $4,000. They are more reliable and require less maintenance. I frequently purchase from Ross Vending, which has an entire warehouse of new and refurbished machines. For first-time vendors, I suggest getting a stacker drink machine. It holds six to 10 types of products, which means you don’t have to buy as many variations and can experiment with what sells. I only buy three types of vending machines. For snacks, I use the Crane 167/168. For drinks, I use the Royal stackers or the BevMax 4.

3. Buy a credit card reader.

Not all machines come with credit card readers, so I bought one from Nayax for my first machine. They can cost up to $399, but are well worth the price.

Nayax card readers show you sales on a live basis through their website and app, meaning you don’t have to physically go to the machine to see what needs to be restocked. Credit card readers give customers an alternative payment option. Losing a sale because someone doesn’t have cash on them isn’t good for business. Plus, it’s the customer who takes on the credit card processing fees, not the seller.

 4. Pay someone to move the machine to your location.

Vending machines are heavy and dangerous to move, so it’s hard to fit them into tight spaces. It costs about $100 to $150 to pay for a professional mover, but it’s worth it. Your machine distributor can connect you with a local and experienced mover.

5. Buy products from wholesale stores.

I have a 2,000-square-foot warehouse where Pepsi and wholesale suppliers deliver products that my two part-time employees use to stock our machines. But I still buy products from bulk stores because the deals are great. When it comes to stocking, Sam’s Club takes the crown.

Depending on your product mix, it costs anywhere from $250 to $1,000 to fill a machine. My first machine cost $250 to stock. When deciding what to sell, start with popular, recognizable brands. Test what sells and what doesn’t. Aim for items will give you a profit margin of between 50% and 75%.

I love being a vending machine business owner. My biggest problem is when coin slots getting jammed, but I wouldn’t trade that in for the stresses that came with my previous 9-to-5 job.

Courtesy of CNBC  Small Business Playbook by Quinn Miller  who quit his six-figure sales job in 2020 to run his vending machine business full-time. Follow him on Twitter @quinnmiller.