@MikeHoffmann
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Girl Dad, Husband, Serial Entrepreneur, Investor. | Built a nationwide vending business while working a W-2 | Helping others do the same.
Oregon, USA
Joined May 2022
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I've been on X since 2022.
I've never properly introduced myself.
I'm Mike, 36, from Eugene, Oregon.
Here's the short version of how I got here.
2012: Strength coach for a college football program back in the Midwest.
60 hours a week, $1,200 a month.
Bought my first rental anyway with my Emergency Fund: a $70K Midwest house, $14K down, $280/month in cash flow.
2014: Took a sales role at a Bay Area health tech startup. $60K all-in salary. Living below the Palo Alto poverty line.
Three weeks a month on the road implementing tech with NFL teams, special ops units, rugby programs.
Living out of a carry-on.
2020: Wife pregnant.
11pm in Denver airport, buying a $4 bottle of water out of the vending machine
I knew the owner paid $0.25 for it.
He made the sale while sleeping at home while I was dealing with flight delays while chasing a quota.
That gap bothered me more than the price of the water.
2021: Placed my first AI-vending machine at an apartment complex that had turned away every traditional operator.
Built it on the side, kept my W-2.
2022: Left the W2 job. 18 months after starting, not before.
I also bought a used machine that died at month six and paid for it twice.
Lost money on Bitcoin Mining. Amazon FBA, Meta Drop Shipping
Tried to figure it out Vending alone for way too long before building a community of help.
Now: National AI-Vending Company with over 10,000 machines in the wild. Me personally, have over 300+ machines myself, $100K+ profit per month, run by hired operators and systems.
Built the VendHub platform to help vending operators find leads, operationalize their route, and make ad revenue off their screens.
We have an Airbnb investment close enough so we can use it when we want.
Other alternative investments we've had success with outside of real estate and vending include our Amazon eBooks and land flipping, most recent one with a 270K capital gain after 18 months.
The calendar is mostly empty these days. Only filled with things I want to do.
Dinner's at home with my family.
I'm not here to sell you on quitting your job.
My whole point is the opposite: Entrepreneurship is hard. You're not alone. Also, don't quit your job.
The W-2 funds the side project until the side project can replace it.
I was a performance coach who spent a decade training elite athletes.
Then I trained my money to work the same way, so my time could belong to me and my family.
That's what I write about now: building ownership that buys back time, not just income.
Vending is an unsexy, low-capital place to start. That's why I love it. KISS
That's exactly why it works for people with a full-time job and no extra Saturdays.
If you're a W-2 worker, especially a parent, who's starting to feel how fragile a single paycheck is, I'd like to hear where you're at.
MH
PS - Being a Girl Dad of 3 girls 5 & under is the best 😎
We have a vendingpreneur selling his route for north of $600,000.
He started at the beginning of 2025 building his route from the ground up
Fun exit for him 👇
Hire before it feels affordable.
If you wait until hiring feels comfortable, you'll be doing every job yourself for another year. The first hire is what frees you up to grow enough to pay for them.
What's the first task you'd hand off?
About a year of follow-up for one yes.
This member stayed in touch with a 400-unit property, following up monthly before it agreed to change vendors.
If you’re still working toward your first yes, you can start with finding the decision-maker, understanding what the property needs and learning how to follow up respectfully.
Book a call with my team: vendingpreneurs.com/contact
We’ll analyze the market in your area, discuss your goals and build a plan for finding and approaching potential first locations.
I built my business around my girls, not a boss’s calendar.
For years, someone else decided when I flew, when I worked late, and which moments I missed.
So I built something different. One location at a time, beside the job. It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t easy. Building it was the work.
But every location I added had to follow one rule: it had to fit our family, not the other way around.
Now my day has two things nobody can move. My workout in the morning. And being home for dinner and bedtime at night.
A business can be built to fit your life. Most people just never build it that way on purpose.
Want to see what that could look like where you live? Book a free market analysis for your area: vendingpreneurs.com/contact
White Castle’s next expansion fits inside a vending machine.
The chain announced a rollout targeting 1,000 slider kiosks, headed to hospitals, college campuses, and workplaces.
Think about an overnight worker whose cafeteria closed hours ago. Plenty of chips nearby. Nowhere to buy dinner.
That’s a problem hot-food vending can solve.
“But isn’t vending saturated?”
Vending is evolving. The opportunity starts with noticing what’s missing.
Look at where people are stuck without a real meal:
- A nurse on a 12-hour night shift.
- A student after the dining hall closes.
- A warehouse crew on third shift.
- A family waiting in a hospital lobby at midnight.
Before counting machines, ask what people still leave the building to buy.
Photo: Restaurant Dive
My AI reads every email before I do. That’s not even the craziest part.
Here’s what my setup does for my business every week:
It reads my inbox before I do. Every morning, Claude reviews all my emails and sends me a brief with only the things that actually move the business.
It logs in for me. A Grok Bot signs into the paid tools and apps I use, reviews what happened, and briefs me. That includes our Vendingpreneurs community app, so I see which posts and questions need me.
It helps me talk to property managers. A Grok Bot engages properties that need vending, then drafts personal replies that handle their objections. I review them and send them.
It turns my dog walks into memos. I talk into my phone with Wispr Flow, and it turns my rambling into a clean brief for my team.
That last one matters more than it sounds. Most people are readers, not listeners. I’d rather talk. My team would rather read. Now we both win.
None of this does the work for me. It clears out the noise so my hours go to the stuff only I can do.
The best tool I ever bought wasn’t software. It was my time back.
Your boss gets your best years. Your kids get what’s left.
Nobody tells you that between 30 and 45, your kids and your career peak at the same time.
These are the years your job asks the most of you. More travel. More late calls. More “just get through this quarter.”
They’re also the years your kids want the most of you. And they won’t ask forever.
Here’s the part nobody says out loud: someone else decides what those years are worth. Your raise, your schedule, your days off. All set by people who will never sit at your kitchen table.
I lived that. I spent years in airports for a job that paid well and cost me time at home. When my wife Chelsea and I found out our first daughter was on the way, my question changed. I stopped asking “how do I earn more?” and started asking “what do I own?”
So I built something one location at a time. Beside the job. Boring on purpose.
It wasn’t fast. Building it was the work. But now I decide what my years are worth.
You only get them once. Go hug your kids.
I write about this every week: what it really takes to build something you own beside a job and a family. Subscribe free: vendingpreneurs.com/newslett…
I read the wins our members post every week. Here are a few recent ones that stuck with me.
A first contract. In their words: "The property is more excited than we are!"
One machine at a collision center. It started with a fender-bender in July. The staff loved the machine. Now: approval for 3 more locations, 2 more on the way, and 25 car dealerships next.
A micro market at a 340-unit apartment building. Their son helped stock it on a Saturday morning.
A member who isn't live yet, and already ahead. Residents surveyed. Planograms set. Pricing planned. All before a single machine goes in.
Four people at four different stages.
Different stages. Same pattern: one location, done well, and then the next one.
One location at a time. That's the whole playbook.
Want to be the one posting a win like these? It starts with your first location.
We'll look at your area with you and run a free market analysis, so you know where a first machine could actually work.
Book it here: vendingpreneurs.com/contact
Buying your first vending machine?
The machine isn't the only cost. Here's everything else to budget for before you buy:
Delivery & install. Getting a heavy machine into the building and set up safely.
A card reader. Most people pay by card or phone now. Processing fees come out of every sale.
Insurance. Mine paid to replace a machine after a break-in.
Your first load of inventory. A full machine on day one, not a half-empty one.
Cash to keep restocking. Enough to keep it full until the machine pays for itself.
Budget for all 5 and your machine stays full from day one.
Skip them and it runs empty, and you start doubting the whole idea.
Plan the full cost before you buy.
Has your health ever been impacted by your work? I’m curious who else has experienced this. Let’s show people they aren’t alone. Let me know in the comments.
"Should I start an airbnb or a vending route?"
I get some version of this question every week. Here's how I'd compare them honestly.
Upfront money. An airbnb asks for one big check: down payment, closing costs, and cash set aside for repairs. A vending route asks for the full launch cost of each location: machine, delivery, card reader, insurance, first inventory, and cash to float restocks. You pay it one location at a time.
Weekly work. Airbnbs mean tenant calls, repairs, and turnover. Vending means restocking, service visits, and keeping the location manager happy.
What can go wrong. An airbnb can sit empty, get a bad tenant, or need a new roof. A vending location can close, a machine can break, and product can sit.
How it grows. The next Airbnb usually means the next big check and the next loan. The next vending location means finding, winning, and stocking one more spot.
Who else has a say. With an airbnb, the market sets your rent and the bank sets your terms. With vending, the location decides whether you stay.
Here's what I'd tell anyone choosing: neither one is passive. The better question is which kind of work you'd actually show up for every week.