Skip to content

Avoid the usual ways this dies

Avoid the usual ways this dies

This page is the failure checklist. Use it before you spend money, before you say yes to a building, and again when a stop is underperforming.

The corpus is consistent on the main pattern: most beginners do not fail because vending cannot work. They fail because they start in the wrong order, say yes too fast, and then leave capital sitting in a weak stop. Anthony states it as operators saying yes too fast. Mike Kaufman states it as beginners underestimating the business. Anthony (20260710) also claims 70% of solo vending businesses fail in the first 18 months because they start backwards. Treat that as his claim, not a guarantee.

Current doctrine

Do the work in this order, every time:

  1. Qualify the building.
  2. Get a signed agreement that names the exact placement.
  3. Match the machine to that space and that traffic.
  4. Buy the machine.
  5. Stock what those customers buy.
  6. Run the full cost stack, not the revenue headline.
  7. If the stop is still weak after a defined trial, move the machine.

Anthony (20260707) and Mike Kaufman (20260320) both treat “buy the machine, then hunt for a home” as the most common expensive mistake. Anthony (20260710): never buy a machine until you have a signed contract. Mike Kaufman (20251107): if there is no signed agreement, do not buy the machine. Anthony (20260220) calls location-before-machine the golden rule.

A machine without a locked location is, in Anthony’s words, an expensive refrigerator in a garage.

Warning

The machine is not the business. The location is the business. Anthony (20260804)

What to do

1. Stop the beginner sequence before it starts

  1. Do not get excited and buy a machine first.
  2. Do not treat machine shopping as progress.
  3. Learn location types, machine options, product margins, and the sales process before you spend on equipment. Anthony
  4. Form an entity, get an EIN, open a business bank account, and keep it completely separate from personal money. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  5. Talk to an insurance broker about general liability plus inland marine coverage for machines. Anthony
  6. Only then start qualifying buildings.

Anthony (20260707) says the usual beginner path is: get excited, buy a machine, then try to find a location, then realize there is no plan, no route, no product mix, and no proof the machine can make money. Mallorie Rauch bought two Facebook Marketplace machines in October 2024, stored them, and later stated the lesson as: you do not buy the machine first.

2. Filter the building before you accept a yes

  1. Count warm bodies who are physically there with wallets, not unit count, payroll, or capacity on paper. Anthony (20260424)
  2. Count every shift. If a manager says “two shifts,” write the first-shift headcount, then ask how many people are on the second shift. Do not assume the shifts match. Anthony (20260109) assumed another ~75 people on second shift at his first location; there were 3.
  3. Score traffic rhythm: how people are spread across the day, not one big headcount.
  4. Score traffic concentration: one choke point versus people scattered across open space.
  5. Score substitutes: can someone leave in about 60 seconds and buy the same thing cheaper nearby?
  6. Verify demand by asking actual users, before you install or stock. Anthony: conversations are free; inventory mistakes are not.
  7. If the site fails two of those five filters, walk with no emotion. Anthony (20260424)
  8. If daily physical presence is weak, treat the rest as unsalvageable. Anthony

A bad yes is worse than a no, because the wrong location will not perform. Anthony (20260626)

Walk if you see any of these:

  • Empty parking lot at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Anthony (20260707)
  • Garden-style apartments with no centralized traffic, scattered buildings, or mail/Amazon delivered to each door. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  • Unused clubhouses. Anthony
  • Offices where people work from home, or skip Monday and Friday. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  • Back-corner or vague “we’ll figure out placement later” spots. Anthony; Anthony
  • Low employee count, no break-room culture, or easy cheaper alternatives. Anthony
  • A manager obsessed with high revenue share up front, or a bidding war on commission. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  • A site that is convenient for you (close to home, a dealership, next to a convenience store) but weak on traffic. Anthony; Anthony
  • Free snacks, free coffee, potlucks, or a competing soda program already on site. Anthony; Sandy
  • Claimed “huge parties” or headcount that collapses when you sit in the room and watch. Sandy
  • A laundry-room-only apartment approval. Mr. Passive would walk.
  • A hospital/medical spot next to the cafeteria. Mr. Passive; Mike Kaufman
  • A warehouse with one shift, a gas station across the street, or machines hidden from seating. Mike Kaufman
  • A sketchy high-crime neighborhood your insurer may not cover, or managers who keep threatening legal action to force terms. Mike Kaufman
  • Anything that feels wrong. Anthony

Mike Kaufman cites a garden-style campus of over 700 units / over 1,000 residents across 17 buildings that still failed because packages went to each door and nobody used the clubhouse. Anthony uses the same contrast: a 700-unit scattered garden complex can be a dead machine; a 300-unit high-rise with one lobby and one elevator bank can outsell it.

You do not want five locations doing $200 a month each. You want quality. One strong location is worth more than several weak ones. Anthony (20260707)

Do not place a machine just to photograph it, just to say you have a stop, or just to create cash flow. Anthony says that is how you turn vending into another low-paying job.

3. Slow down when you are impatient

  1. If you are anxious and have early opportunities, slow down. Manuel Duval (20260217) said he had a lot of opportunities, was impatient, and is now paying for two “dud” / “horrible” first locations.
  2. Treat the start as a slow walk. Rushing is how you get dud locations. Manuel Duval
  3. Joe and the host on that video: wait an extra month or two for the right location rather than jumping into one or two bad ones.
  4. DJ Fuchs: if the only available stop looks like a dud, wait. Do not place just to place.
  5. Sandy: people get tunnel vision on the first yes. Be okay that vetting takes time.

Anthony said he made the same first-location mistake after losing his job: rushing a square-peg location just to create cash flow.

4. Lock writing, placement, and an out before you spend

  1. Do not buy on a handshake. Mike Kaufman (20251107): if they will only do a verbal deal, do not walk away slowly; run. Anthony (20260724): slow down immediately; you are putting thousands of dollars of equipment on someone else’s property.
  2. Get permission, exact placement, access hours, and an out clause in writing before you buy. Anthony
  3. Do not accept “we’ll figure out where it goes later.” Without a specified placement, the machine can end up in a closet or the back of the building with no revenue. Mike Kaufman
  4. Do not open the pitch as “I’m vending company X” or “Can I put a vending machine here?” Anthony (20260213) says the word “vending” makes them picture an old, unstocked, quarters-only machine. Lead with amenity / convenience language instead.
  5. Do not open with a revenue-share percentage. Leading with money makes the conversation about money. Anthony example: last vendor paid 15%, so they ask for 20%. Mike Kaufman (20250705): do not print flyers that advertise revenue share; he says nine times out of ten it will not even be brought up.
  6. Do not leave a meeting on “send me some information and we’ll circle back.” Commit to a proposal in 24 hours and book a review call before you leave. Anthony says three unanswered follow-ups usually means the deal is dead.
  7. If they already have a vendor, do not thank them and leave, and do not bash the current vendor. Ask how it is stocked, whether it takes cards, and whether residents or staff are happy, then show the difference. Anthony
  8. If they say there is no space, measure on the spot instead of leaving. Anthony
  9. Learn what a protective agreement looks like and what to avoid. Small contract mistakes compound. Anthony. The corpus does not spell out clauses in that video: Not specified in the corpus.
  10. Do not lock a commission number in the first yes if you do not yet understand what you can live with. Sandy first offered a school 10%, then had to go back and renegotiate to 5%.
  11. If a prospect asks you to wait until a future month, keep following up. Graham Parker went dark for two months to avoid being in their face; they had already signed with someone else.
  12. If you have a target building, do not deprioritize it. Matt Dix waited about a month, walked in, and the manager had ordered a machine from somebody the day before.

Mike Kaufman says the industry is archaic and a lot of operators still run handshake-only stops. That is a reason to get writing, not a reason to copy them.

5. Buy the right machine after the location is locked

  1. Measure the space. Mike Kaufman
  2. Match the machine to that measured space and to that location type. Location dictates equipment. Equipment never dictates location. Mike Kaufman (20260320)
  3. Confirm the outlet, doorway, insurance the property needs, and connectivity before the truck is booked. Anthony lists these as first-machine mess-ups. Exact San Diego electrical/permit process: Not specified in the corpus.
  4. Do not buy used off Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist to save about $1,500–$2,000. Anthony (20260707); Mike Kaufman (20250217)
  5. Buy new for warranty, support, and predictability instead of becoming a vending-machine mechanic. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  6. Prefer a brand with a longer warranty. Mike Kaufman contrasts a one-year warranty with a five-year warranty that will swap a dead compressor.
  7. Shop more than one supplier before you commit. DJ Fuchs only talked to one company at the start and now tells new operators to compare what each option can actually serve.
  8. If revenue is unproven, start with one combo/hybrid machine, not a full drink-plus-snack pair or a ~$30,000 micro-market set. Mike Kaufman (20250705)
  9. If the office is only occupied 9 to 5 Monday through Thursday, do not buy a robust equipment set for that site. Mike Kaufman
  10. Ship the machine to the location, not your garage. A machine in the garage depreciates and makes no money. Mike Kaufman
  11. Start with one machine. Do not finance five machines that will sit unused. Prove one location, then use those profits to fund the next. Mike Kaufman (20250912)
  12. Keep the W-2 until vending replaces that income. Mike Kaufman

Used-machine failure stories in the corpus, all anecdotal:

  • Mike Kaufman: first Craigslist machine broke after six months; he treats about $3,000 as gone.
  • Same story with different dollar figures across videos: about $2,800 plus another ~$2,000 in refrigeration parts (e3fkYL0THF8); trying to save about $2,000 (BSx_SApKREw, nrlZCx2DA2Q).
  • Anthony cites Mike Hoffman’s used Craigslist machine breaking six months later.
  • Mike Kaufman: a student who ignored the new-machine advice ended up with a garage full of parts.

If you still look at a used listing, Mike Kaufman (20250129) says to compare it to new price, ask how long they have had it, what it has been doing in sales, what repairs it has needed, whether it has a card reader, and not to buy until you know the location type. Anthony (20260811) later says there is nothing wrong with a good used machine if you know cooling, parts, and modern payments; a cheap one gets expensive through repairs, lost sales, extra trips, and lost trust.

6. Inspect delivery and place the machine on the real path

  1. Do not sign while the machine is still wrapped. Mike Kaufman signed so the driver could leave, then found a dent.
  2. Unwrap, confirm it powers on, check scratches and dents, and check internals including cameras. Mike Kaufman; Anthony
  3. Take photos and video, then sign. If you sign first, proving later damage is harder. Anthony
  4. Ask the driver to email paperwork after inspection rather than signing on the dock. Mike Kaufman
  5. Leave at least six inches off the wall for compressor ventilation. Do not push the machine flush. Mike Kaufman
  6. Do not show up on install day asking for the Wi‑Fi password. Anthony
  7. Map the shortest route people already walk. Place the machine on that path so it happens to them. Mr. Passive (20251121)
  8. Prefer elevator traffic over stairs. Even 10 feet off the natural path can kill sales. Mr. Passive
  9. In an office, do not default to the break room. Mr. Passive claims break-room machines do about 50% less than elevator-lobby placement because people already decided lunch.
  10. Use the three-second rule: if someone cannot see the machine within three seconds from a natural standing position at eye level, move it. Mr. Passive
  11. Place only in climate-controlled comfort. Skip storage rooms, unused emergency exits, dead corners, isolated basements, back garages, and corridors that feel off limits. Mr. Passive
  12. A bad placement in a good location is still a bad machine. Anthony (20260707)
  13. If you are loading a Stockwell / 365-style planogram, save product photos as JPEGs, not PNGs. Anthony (20260505) spent hours with support until someone asked about file type.

Putting the wrong machine in the right location is just as bad as putting the right machine in the wrong location. Mike Kaufman (20250919)

7. Stock for the customer, then pull losers

  1. Do not stock what you like, wish people would buy, or think looks cool. Anthony; Anthony (20260813)
  2. Ask who is standing in front of this machine. A warehouse is not a medical center, is not a gym, is not an apartment. Anthony
  3. Before install, ask actual users what they would buy. If three out of five mention energy drinks, stock energy drinks. If no one mentions snacks, do not guess snacks. Anthony
  4. Fill the first machine with a basic mix only. Mike Kaufman cites $250–$500, then double down on what sells.
  5. Match the building: urgent care is not a soda wall; apartments may want late-night munchies; manufacturing wants a different mix. Mike Kaufman
  6. Do not copy a “always sells somewhere else” list into every machine. Anthony (20260729)
  7. Do not stock from operator awkwardness either. Anthony would stock condoms in a hotel and not in a plant, office, or gym.
  8. Watch the data. If a product sits, pull it. Do not argue with the machine. Anthony
  9. Diagnose flops into one of three buckets: right product / wrong location; right category / wrong size, price, or format; operator preference instead of demand. Anthony
  10. Do not wait months hoping people will gravitate to a loser. Mike Kaufman says he lost about $1,000 over time by leaving the wrong products in too long. Anthony left a personal-favorite SKU in for two months.
  11. Compare profit dollars, not just margin percent. Mike Kaufman (20250705) example: 16 oz water and 16 oz Monster both at 65% margin, but he cites $2 vs $4 sell prices and about $51 vs $112 per case.
  12. Do not optimize tiny cash profit if you later want to pay labor. Anthony example: about 87 cents left after buying a 30-cent fruit snack and selling it for $1.25.
  13. Do not hide incidentals in the bottom corner. Mike Kaufman
  14. Do not buy warehouse-club variety packs just to save cents if a flavor never sells or customers are picky about type. Mike Kaufman; Mike Kaufman
  15. Watch dates. Anthony says a box-store refund on short-dated chips did not help because he needed inventory in the machines, not cash back.

8. Run the real P&L before you call a stop a win

  1. Write down monthly revenue.
  2. Subtract cost of goods. Mike Kaufman (20260320) uses 30–40%. In BSx_SApKREw he also cites a typical 35%, then messy live math around $1,800 COGS on a $5,000 example.
  3. Subtract card / merchant fees and machine SaaS. Mike Kaufman cites 8–9%, then uses 10% for simple math.
  4. Subtract revenue share if you pay it. Mike Kaufman calls 5% an industry average in that walkthrough.
  5. Subtract fuel, maintenance, insurance, and labor. Mike Kaufman
  6. Judge leftover profit and cash flow. Revenue is vanity; profit is sanity; cash flow is reality. Mike Kaufman
  7. Do not hear “the machine does $5,000 a month” as “I make $5,000 a month.” Anthony (20260707)
  8. On Mike Kaufman’s $5,000 example, the leftover after the full stack was about $2,000. On BSx_SApKREw, he finally rounds the same $5,000 example to about $1,800–$2,000 profit. Those are his walkthrough numbers, not a promise.
  9. A weak location can still make a few hundred a month and feel like a win. If the same machine could do several times that somewhere better, the cost is the money you did not make. Anthony (20260811)
  10. If one machine does about $700 and another does about $4,000, blame the location, not the box. Anthony

You can still lose money with a bad location, the wrong products, or no system, even if the broader timing argument is favorable. Anthony (20260522)

9. Keep money, liability, and the machine itself from mixing

  1. Never mix personal and business money. Mike Kaufman and Anthony both call it a nightmare to untangle.
  2. Do not use a personal card or personal cash for the business, pay groceries on the business card, skip records, or put your personal name on the property contract. Mike Kaufman says those can pierce LLC protection.
  3. Keep service, inventory, and restocking logs. If a manager says you never service or the machine is always empty, show the logs. If they want new terms, get it in writing. If they threaten removal, use the termination clauses. Mike Kaufman
  4. Lock the machine when you walk away after a service stop. Mike Kaufman says an unlocked machine can get a theft claim denied.
  5. After theft or vandalism: file police reports immediately, give accurate serial numbers and photos, and share camera footage. Mike Kaufman
  6. Do not leave a wrecked machine sitting unrepaired. Mike Kaufman says a sitting broken machine is worse than no machine; the property will replace you, and sister sites talk.
  7. If you run an open micro market, install cameras, add “on camera” signage, and at workplaces consider HR/termination theft signage. Mike Kaufman. He also says you do not have to do open markets at all.
  8. If product is missing and you cannot log into cameras, tell the on-site partner, restock a known small quantity, compare transaction reports, and have their security review footage. Sandy did this in a school; it is a relationship workaround, not a universal system.
  9. If you elect an S-Corp, do not invent a 50/50 or 60/40 profit split as your salary. Document replacement cost. Stephen Lee (20251219) says a blank officer-salary line is a red flag. Exact San Diego / California payroll setup: Not specified in the corpus.

10. Do not live with a dud

  1. Give the stop a defined trial. Keep developing the next site while you wait. Anthony
  2. If it is still not producing at the end of that window, pull the machine and move it. Anthony; Anthony
  3. Find a better building first. Anthony
  4. Pay movers to relocate it. Anthony (20260217) said that move cost a couple hundred dollars / like $300.
  5. Treat the first month in the new building as the test of whether the move worked. Anthony
  6. If the dud is on a one-year contract, wait until the year is up, then move it. Manuel Duval
  7. If the property wants to keep a low-use machine, Mike Kaufman says they may offer more marketing or a monthly minimum of $500 or $1,000. If it still fails, remove it.
  8. Do not keep a vanity stop just to say you have a location. Anthony

Anthony’s move examples are one-operator stories, not a forecast:

  • Office / weak stop around $900 a month, or under $1,000, then $3,700 in the first month after the move. Anthony (20260217); Anthony (20260325)
  • Car-dealership machine at $400 a month for four months; after the move to a shelter, $400 in three days. Anthony (20251226)

Sandy left a dead senior-living machine from the end of October through January, then moved it into a high-school student spot.

11. Do not scale yourself into a low-paying job

  1. Learn the route yourself first. Mike Kaufman; Mike Kaufman says you cannot delegate what you do not know.
  2. Then stop treating owner-stocking as a badge. Mike Kaufman values stocking around $20–$25 an hour and location work much higher.
  3. Budget labor before you decide you cannot afford help. Mike Kaufman (20250620) uses about 1.5–2 hours per week per machine including drive and product pickup.
  4. Write down what you can delegate, what you can eliminate, and what the route needs in order to run without you. Mike Kaufman
  5. Hire overlapping part-timers so one quit is not the whole route. Kyle; Mr. Passive
  6. Screen stockers for character first; you can teach stocking. Mike Kaufman
  7. If volume jumps, hire and train the next person before you are underwater. Tim Barnes
  8. If operations are not fine-tuned, hold back on adding stops. Evan Tomahong says businesses die when they scale before operations are efficient.
  9. Around 10 machines with no systems, Mike Kaufman (20260320) says you have built a job.
  10. Do not stay too cheap for warehouse / infrastructure if garage storage is already holding growth back. Mike Kaufman
  11. If you buy a route, do not cash the owner out and watch owner-dependent relationships walk away. Use a transition, introductions, and enough seller involvement that the book does not fall apart. Mike Kaufman; Mike Kaufman
  12. Do not change everything the week after a route close. Time-box changes so you do not flatten existing stops. Mr. Passive
  13. Drop non-scalable side businesses when they collide with the route. Manuel Duval started juicing and woodworking next to a W-2; both were too time-consuming. Kyle left personal training after a staffing collapse.

Anthony stocked everything himself for the first eight months until he was called out for doing $25-an-hour work instead of business development. Shannon later said she would hire help sooner.

12. Do not quit on friction, and do not skip the expensive lessons only to invent new ones

  1. Expect prospecting, rejection, follow-ups, and logistics. Anthony (20260417) says beginners hear “passive income,” then hit that gap and lose momentum.
  2. Treat no’s as pipeline, not personal rejection. Anthony
  3. If you are stuck early, the constraint is location acquisition, not stocking, product selection, or machines. Anthony
  4. Do not wait for a perfect plan. Lane sat scared for months; the correction was walking into a building that day with the flyer and cards he already had.
  5. Do not spend early energy on logo, website, or email branding. Go do pop-ins. Mike Kaufman
  6. When you research other operators, ask for a real failure, not only wins. Erik: did they have a massive failure, or did they treat a no as failure?
  7. Take the advice you already have and execute. Anthony: the community can lead the horse to water; the operator still has to drink.
  8. If the day-one plan is wrong, take the U-turn. Anthony; Mike Kaufman
  9. The goal is not to avoid every hard lesson. It is to avoid the expensive ones. Anthony (20260707)

Anthony says most people quit at machine one or two, right before momentum starts. Tyrone Lewis almost quit after months of pop-ins with no location. Michael Deese remembered thinking the first location was never going to happen.

Nuance and exceptions

Note

A weak location does not always look like a failure. It may still make a little money. When you are new you often blame product mix, the machine, or time. Anthony (20260811)

Note

Manuel Duval (20260217) spent year one chasing every apartment. For 2026 he revamped around fewer, larger, higher-potential stops: high-rise or at least 200 units, potential to perform like his manufacturing-plant example, closer accounts (his manufacturing-type stops are within about 15 minutes of home), and room to move duds when one-year contracts expire.

Note

Headcount boxes are not enough. Sandy had 100-plus residents and a community room at senior living and still failed. Sit in the room. Ask about free food, other break rooms, budgets, and who actually uses the space.

Note

Andy Kunselman says if you are stalling because the process is not perfect, place the first machine and learn on the fly; he says those learnings show up within the first 24 hours. That is an exception to “wait forever,” not permission to take a known dud.

Note

Anthony pulled a cleaner-label energy drink in a warehouse because the familiar big-can energy drinks were the ones selling. The product can work and still be wrong for that building.

Note

Mike Kaufman wants operators on micro markets and smart coolers, and also tells people not to install a fancy unproven set in a 9-to-5 office. Both can be true: use modern equipment, sized to the site.

Note

Anthony once sourced a scarce SKU by cleaning out Dollar Trees and meeting the Frito-Lay driver. He later called that driving a waste of time once case delivery existed. Do not copy the workaround if you can order cases.

Note

Kyle said he would not change his first 21 months because he capitalized on mistakes, then immediately added that of course some advice would have helped. You can learn from a miss without romanticizing it.

Note

Tom Canterino said you can make mistakes quickly in vending and the mistakes do not even look like mistakes to the end customer. That is why logs, contracts, and sales data matter more than “it still looks fine.”

Conflicts

Warning

Operators do not agree on how long to leave a dud.

  • Anthony (20251226): he used to wait six months; he now pulls at 90 days / three months.
  • Anthony (20260325) and DJ Fuchs (20251223): 90 to 120 days.
  • Anthony (20260227) and Anthony (20260220): 90 days.
  • Mike Kaufman (20250705): be patient during ramp-up; do not leave an underperformer after six to nine months; later in the same video he also says month nine or even 12 is too long.
  • Sandy: waited from the end of October through January.
  • Jason: left a garden-style apartment doing about $100 a month for 3–6 months until they had somewhere else to put it.
  • Manuel Duval: if the contract is one year, wait it out, then move.

Current repeated Anthony/DJ rule is 90–120 days if you can legally move. Contract term still wins if you signed a year.

Warning

The 200-unit / high-rise rule is not universal in the corpus.

  • Manuel Duval (20260217): if it is not a high-rise and not at least 200 units, do not deal with it.
  • Lane (20260428): the early group rule he remembered was not to mess with anything under 200 units, but if the only buildings in the market are around 100 units, he would test them anyway when placement can hit the elevator, main entrance, and package room.

Warning

Used machines: the dominant rule is “buy new.” The later nuance is “a good used machine is fine if you can inspect it.”

  • Do not buy used: Anthony (20260707), Mike Kaufman (20250217), Mike Kaufman (20250705), Mike Kaufman (20260701).
  • Exception if you know what you are looking at: Anthony (20260811).
  • If you still look, use Mike Kaufman’s vetting questions. He also says everyone is different, and that he personally will not buy another Craigslist machine.

Warning

Hiring timing is split.

  • Learn the route yourself first, then hire: Mike Kaufman, Mike Kaufman.
  • Do not wait until you “can afford it”; hire part-time using the 1.5–2 hours/week/machine budget: Mike Kaufman (20250620).
  • Not hiring / staying the stocker is the biggest mistake he sees: Mike Kaufman (20250718).
  • Anthony waited eight months and later treated that as too long.
  • Shannon would hire sooner.

Warning

Cash versus financing a first machine is split, and it interacts with location quality.

  • Mike Kaufman (20250705): do not pay full cash; finance, preserve capital, pay the loan down early. He says paying cash left him strapped.
  • Anthony: if you are tempted to drain savings or a retirement account for cash machines, finance and hoard cash for down payments, a stocker, and reinvestment.
  • Joe: if you finance a bad location, you may not make enough to pay for the machine.

Warning

“Place something now” versus “wait for the right stop.”

Warning

Mike Kaufman (20250705) says traditional cash/code/motor machines are almost dead and bets they are gone in the next two years. He also says a bulky traditional metal machine can still be the answer if vandalism risk is high (n9vUTOG-L7Y). Anthony still runs a handful of traditional machines where that protection is needed, and calls them the biggest pain.

Caveats

  • Almost every number on this page is an operator claim from a specific stop or walkthrough. Keep it attached to that person. Do not turn it into your forecast.
  • Anthony framed the dud-machine move as “trimming the fat” and as one move he made, not a guaranteed result.
  • Mike Kaufman’s live P&L math is internally messy (35% then 50% COGS; 8–9% then 10% fees). Use the checklist of cost lines, not one frozen percentage.
  • Mike Kaufman uses “margin” and “markup” in the same walkthrough for figures from 100% to 1000%. Treat those as spoken sales language, not one accounting definition.
  • Traffic-concentration mistakes can cost beginners thousands, per Anthony. That is his warning, not a priced estimate for San Diego.
  • Buying a whole route can take you from zero to many locations overnight. Mike Kaufman says you are then going a thousand miles an hour and need to be ready.
  • Evan Tomahong says success-story timelines did not match his; it took a long time to get going.
  • Mike Hoffman: if you expect sales to peak in 30 days, you are set up to be disappointed.
  • Open-market theft fines, school machine hours, and insurance denials in the corpus are site-specific or jurisdiction-specific. Do not copy Colorado school hours or another property’s $200 theft fine as San Diego rules.
  • Exact local business-license, health, sales-tax, and placement-permit steps for San Diego: Not specified in the corpus.

Decision rules

Use these as yes/no gates.

  1. No signed agreement → do not buy the machine. Anthony (20260710); Mike Kaufman
  2. Handshake only → stop. Mike Kaufman; Anthony
  3. Fails two of Anthony’s five filters → walk. Anthony (20260424)
  4. Garden-style, no choke point, door-delivered mail → treat as likely dead even if unit count is huge. Mike Kaufman; Anthony
  5. Main reason is convenience, a photo, or “I just want a location” → do not place. Anthony; Anthony
  6. You are about to say “vending” or lead with a commission percent → rewrite the opening as an amenity. Anthony (20260213)
  7. Used machine to save roughly $1,500–$2,000, and you do not know cooling, parts, or payments → do not buy it. Anthony (20260707); Anthony (20260811)
  8. Delivery still wrapped → do not sign. Mike Kaufman; Anthony
  9. Spot is 10 feet off the path, or not visible in three seconds → move it. Mr. Passive
  10. You like the product, or a grocery trend said it should sell, and the data says it is not moving → pull it. Anthony (20260813)
  11. You have not subtracted COGS, card fees, share, fuel, maintenance, insurance, and labor → do not call the stop profitable. Mike Kaufman
  12. Personal and business money are mixed → stop and separate. Mike Kaufman; Anthony
  13. Still weak after your trial window, and the contract lets you move → move the machine. If the contract is one year, wait it out. Anthony; Manuel Duval
  14. You are heading toward ~10 machines with no systems → stop scaling on hustle. Mike Kaufman (20260320)
  15. One stocker is the whole route → hire overlap before the next quit. Kyle
  16. Property managers keep threatening legal action, want all their liability, or the site is a high-crime stop your insurer will not cover → cut losses. Mike Kaufman

Tip

If someone is already bragging about machine count, ask revenue per machine before you talk equipment. Mike Kaufman (20241226) says people with three or four machines often have them sitting in the garage.

Source videos