I I Don't think people think you can make money in the thing you like? Look at Barbie right now Barbie's back way away. And if you were obsessed with Barbie three four years ago, if you had started a meaningful podcast, an Instagram account a tick tock, there's a percentage chance that Mattel and Barbie would have reached out to you in these last six months or 12 months and paid you 50 000 for a sponsorship if you were the leading. Obviously, you have to be good at this. Everyone who's listening.

Vayner Nation How are you I'm really excited about this episode of the podcast because anytime you have a guest on the show that's named Mr Squishy, you know it's got to be decent. It's gotta be fun and that's exactly what this is. It's also pretty entrepreneurial. I'll let uh Scott my guests give you a ton about his journey I Want to use this as a as a double um, uh, bubble as I like to call I Want to hit on a couple things, one for the general audience I've been thinking a lot about side hustles opportunities.

The world's changing. It's just very clear that the way people think about their careers, you're seeing a much more multi-dimensional aspect where people think about their core job and then they think about side hustles or having three side jobs to represent the job. And I recently posted something in Social about how much of an Arbitrage there is for Doc dog walking businesses because so many people bought the Hug store in Covid and how lucrative that you know opportunity is. and it's around a passion that I think a lot of people have and so that was fun.

Ever ready within weeks. gotten a lot of emails from people who are making hundreds of extra dollars a week and are ecstatic because they love dogs. and I think what Mr squishy Scott represents in this vending machine conversation we have is actually a huge opportunity for a lot of people listening to the podcast. Whether they do it with him with us, him and I and our JB around be friends, we'll get into that or if you find something else you want to sell I You know the day I met him I was like oh my God You know if the internet was around and I found him when I was 16 I would have done this and so we're going to talk about the small toys industry I'm going to talk about at some point in the podcast why I've teamed up with him uh We've launched the Be Friends vending machine? this will Air Probably we're probably going to be in Chicago doing the national sports card, the national Trading Card convention where we'll have some vending machine stuff, but we've also talked to a lot of you in the V-friends community, but not in the broader Gary Vaynerchuk Garyvee Community about this opportunity so we'll be an opportunity for you to reach out.

Uh Dustin while we're doing this episode, come up with a URL with the befriends team of where people can email or not URL and email where people that are listening that want to take an opportunity and what we're doing together with Scott But that's all big setup for a really fun episode where I think people are going to learn a whole bunch. So Scott why don't you tell uh the Vayner Nation who you are, what you do um and we'll go into a little bit of your entrepreneurial journey and backstory and then we'll talk about some of the current opportunities in the marketplace. Well I think I'd like to start by. My life is about play Passion persistence but mostly pet play the side hustle's always been part of I think everybody's lifestyle surrounding what I've been doing uh since I've been in high school um I started High School writing a book surprisingly on auctions in Edison New Jersey now who here remembers or has any relation to Edison New Jersey Yeah, that was where I got my big start which which was the U.S customs auctions the government options out of Edison they were on Route One right? Yes and I got I Got you know I'm gonna get my high school in trouble a little bit I Left high school early to go to these auctions to buy Goods did you go to Edison Hi or did you go to JP Stevens I went well I actually went to Morristown I went to Chester New Jersey I got it and so you know what? what was what was super fun and super fascinating in um my my transition from high school to college was I just continued that hustle mentality that idea of.

okay so I'm buying stuff in high school I'm reselling it. Too bad the internet was not huge back then. I I had an AOL address. um that was super fun but my teachers figured out what I was doing.

They were like you know you're bringing scuba gear Old Bibles um you know toy sets you know, can we buy some of them and all of a sudden I started to get a reputation and uh my English teacher which I'll be honest school was not my best area of expertise but my English teacher came to me and said hey you should ride a uh a small pamphlet and this pamphlet turned into a book and this book actually got published and so I ran into college with an published book that was actually being distributed by Success magazine and that that leverage that little bit of Leverage there's just a stepping stone that constantly gave me this opportunity to open new doors I love that that's the idea of this transition. So I walked into college I'm a freshman I have this this cool book behind me I was getting royalties and I wanted a place to spend the money and so rather than spend it like typical college students, I wanted to invest it. Okay, um, and so I went two directions. What year was this guy just for painting a picture? 93 Understood it's uh, you know it was a while ago and uh I graduated high school in 94.

I mean we're not, You know I'm with you right now I don't know. that seemed very recent I Get where we're getting. we're We're not like in the 2000s graduating class anymore, but understood. So you're a couple years ahead of me.

Understood you Going to college you want to invest in what do you do? well I run it into an engineer uh at the end of my freshman year. Okay, and it was Bob Ferris and he had started a virtual reality company. Okay, and he needed investment and he needed some strategic alliances and I had money at the time I figured I would invest in his company, I would involve myself from his process and it was great And so we took the journey together for the next two to three years. Yeah, because that was.

That was the boom of like technology right? Like we were in it. Yeah, and so the opportunity came. Um, Disney came knocking and we had a little technology. We've been working on some scent technology, some Aroma technology and I had a choice I could stay in school or I could invest full-time working with uh uh, Ferris and Ferris Productions at the time.

and so I made the leap to the disappointment of my family I dropped out of school and I jumped in full force and worked full time for this engineer. In this company, we built Uh simulators and all of a sudden uh once Disney came knocking and they used this technology for some of their rides. Some of you might be familiar. it was called Soaring Over California It's now called Soaring but it has Aromas being released on a time-based event.

Um, that is the same technology we worked on and we used as a team and so we leveraged this Um early into my career with Ferris There was a a great camaraderie, but at some point I wanted to do my own thing and so I made the biggest leap of my life. I gave him back all of his stock for one thing: freedom, freedom to make choices, freedom to try to do my own thing. Um, we left on great terms. He got back most of his company I got my freedom to build whatever I wanted.

My first client was General Motors I built NASCAR simulators for them full-scale NASCARs with hydraulics that would give people the idea of racing on their tracks and traveled around the nation with it. Loved doing these products and we could spend hours with all the clients and all the cool Tech that we've built but the full circle on this is years later. um Bob Ferris calls me up and he goes hey, you want to come to New York I'm going to be ringing the bell, we're going public I'd like you to stand by my side. It's very nice the amount of respect and empathy and what gratitude he gave to me.

If that statement, the amount of money gone didn't matter, it was. it was the feeling that I had built something with this gentleman. He gave me the respect of saying I want to ring a bell with you in New York City that was priceless I I said to this day I would still take that moment over the millions of dollars 100 percent and so that has been my my series of experiences over the past few years. One of our clients was even Lego Everybody here loves Lego animations We were the first company ever to animate Legos and bring Legos to life and it was an amazing tour.

We Lego came to us and they said okay we've got we're launching this new series of products. We'd like to animate this in 3D with Aromas and have you travel around and one of the coolest things is we travel on this huge trailer that we'd animated and brought to the Toys R Us's and the targets of the world and this activation was about experiencing If if Legos and animations could meld together we all know it does now of course but the kids. The kids would actually come out and this is what was amazing about it. The kids would actually come out and visit me with their Lego creations and that was so heartwarming to me.

the fact that these children would come out and be like oh look what I built and then I could be like look what I built and when we would share that moment and I realized that Fascination I had the connection I wanted with a customer I wanted that customer feel like they were listened to I wanted a customer to feel even if it was a 10 year old kid showing me his Lego sculpture. It was the coolest thing ever for 10 months and part of the contract and Gary you'll appreciate. this is I wanted about 30 000 Legos when I was done and I backed my trailer into Connecticut and have them dump Legos at y because I wanted to build my conference table out of Legos I love it I just thought it would be fun. So I spent the next few months on the floor building a conference table out of Legos and and it's that type of experience that I've carried through.

Two questions guys: I Think just to bring a lot of value to a lot of people that are listening to this podcast, what do you think has allowed you to keep the joyful adolescence part in your life? because I would argue as I continue to go down my journey of Life professionally and personally. I I wonder and I I think a lot about why Am I happier than most people and it weighs on me in a great way. one it keeps me grateful on a 24 7 365. even when I am dealing with challenges.

you know last week was a challenging week for me personally and professionally and yet I'm just still like genuinely happy and so I think about it a lot because I'm also a person with a large audience now and and I'm a good communicator and much like I have spent the last 15 years enabling people to find angles in business and marketing mentally. But I I do find my ability to hold on to my youth me being childish yes as a good thing, yes, my never fully converting to full pledge adulthood and holding on to two to thirty percent I'm not even I don't know if I've done the work yet to realize what the number is between the two and thirty percent that I have in me, but I can tell you whether it's two. Let's say it's two or three percent. I Have a very funny feeling that that two or three percent in my mix right now has a huge impact on my joy and my peace of mind and honestly, my professional success.

So I'm jumping in here a little bit just to bring macro value to because I know this can impact regardless. If people are listening right now or into Collectibles IPS Entrepreneurship this can help everyone who's listening. You have a sense of why you've been able to hold on to this youthful when I Hear a man has a career you know and decides to take months to build a conference table out of Legos That's a level of youthfulness that I don't even possess. So I'm and I know you a little bit now because we're doing business together with be friends and your vending machine business and I find you to be really likable I really like you um, and I feel like this has something to do with it and I'm curious if you've consciously held on to it subconsciously or was it subconscious and then it became conscious and you've doubled down on it.

Break this down because I think we can change a person's life right now. Passion: You look at it directly at Passion. What do you do on your off time? What do you do that you love? Do you do you love sneakers? Do you love building? Do you love helping people? Do you love playing? Do you like changing people's lives? Do you like coaching? Whatever your passion is? Whatever you spend, you're off time. The time that is most valuable.

We all have the 24 hours in a day. But what do you spend when you have the most valuable resource at your fingertips? Where do you spend? It Is it social media? That's fine? Is it playing with toys? Social media? What are you consuming like people like I you know you're talking about I Mean my first book was lit I mean literally this little book right there is literally passion on your passion so you can imagine I'm excited and surprised by your answer like you know I I Don't think people think you can make money in the thing you like I I Think of people who like to Thrift in Brooklyn on on San Francisco and all these Austin on the weekends realized that they can make 250 000 a year in profit on thrifting full-time literally waking up at seven in the morning on Monday having breakfast and being ecstatic instead of going to the office to go to 16 Salvation Armies and 13 you know other thrift stores and then can't wait for Friday because that's estate sales and can't wait because that's garage sales I Don't think that person realizes that if they didn't buy just for themselves what they want to wear to be cool that they could buy the other 87 t-shirts that are the thrift store that they're buying for three bucks or seven bucks and could sell for 29 on what on on all these platforms right? Ari or eBay or things of that nature I Don't think the thrifter right now listening thinks or the person that's just fully UPS I Just watched a Ray Romano movie on Amazon which is really good By the way. something about Queens and the movie He plays a part of a dad who's got this kid sticks this basketball kid but in it the dad is clearly obsessed with Rocky like he just references Rocky the movie. There's a scene in a movie where he puts in a CD a DVD and he takes out Rocky II and I as we're sitting here.

I'm like the person that's fully immersed in Rocky or look at Barbie right now Barbie's back a real way. And if you were obsessed with Barbie three four years ago, if you had started a meaningful podcast an Instagram account a tick tock, there's a percentage chance that the Barbie movie company would have Battelle and Barbie would have reached out to you in these last six months or 12 months and paid you 50 000 for a sponsorship if you were the leading. Obviously, you have to be good at this Everyone who's listening. but I don't think the person that is a lawyer making 319 or the person that's a retail store manager making 87 thinks they can make that same number about Barbie and I know they can.

Yes, they can. Yeah, and it's It's even more than that. It's it's authenticity. So you've got to mix passion with authenticity if you take those two together.

If you're authentic about what you're talking about, it's not about just the hustle, it's about believing what you're talking about believing what you're flipping or what you're invested in I mean you and I talked briefly on the phone and we had such a connection. Such an electric connection with who we are as people like, just ingrained as individuals. Enthusiastic, passionate, authentic. and it came across on a webcam.

Yes, and and it was just I'm not sure if you use the term webcam anymore, but wait a day. That's 90 guys. That was a fun opportunity I'm sure I use so many terms. Don't even get started.

Me: not only do I use ridiculous terms I can't pronounce 33 of the things I say so you know I'm right here with you. but I agree with you I think the authenticity matters but keep going and and so what I like to look at is and I've met a lot of people who make a lot of money who are miserable at their jobs. but they go out every weekend and they're boating with their friends or they're going out every weekend and they're doing wine tastings and I'm like, why don't you do boating? Why don't you do wine tastes because the world believes that you gotta eat Monday through Friday to then employ the weekend. And by the way, this gets into another reason that school me up so heavily because I think it's being taught subconsciously there from childhood I Couldn't agree with you more the thought of eating Monday through Friday to be able to enjoy Saturday and Sunday this is why people are like we need four-day work weeks because subconsciously people are like man between kids and responsibilities and laundry and other I can't even enjoy my two days that I barely get and like the thought of like like I And by the way Scott I Live this life from K through 12 and even further into college I Understand what it feels like to like? look forward to the weekend or to Vacations or hoping it's snows.

we're hoping I get sick I Spent 10 years of my life hoping I would get sick because it meant that I could miss school. That's how that's what they wanted. The thought of doing that from 22 years old to 70 is insane to me. miserable.

It's it's it's miserable I it's funny for me I like Mondays I actually look forward to money. Money for me is exciting because I'm raring to go. Everybody got to relax on Sunday I let them have their time but man Monday I can get a little bit I can get going I can I can figure out what's going on in my world Mondays are great. It's a start of a week.

It's a restart. so it's a rekindling of what I'm trying to do. So for me, it's about passion. It's about authenticity.

It's finding what you spend your time on and make that monetarily make that part of your life. And by the way, unlike if we were doing this in 1965 and we were at a conference not on the internet talking about this today, that's practical meaning everyone's listening right now like all right you two Fantasyland guys like you I have a mortgage I have children I am debt. My big point is in 1967, you're right. like what do you do? You get home at seven and like.

But in 2023 you get home at seven and you can either go to the bar, join a softball team, watch Netflix decompress and try to enjoy some part of your day because you just went six seven, eight, ten, twelve hours. Or you can say I gotta get out of this. And if I do my podcast or my Channel or my side hustle on, you know 8 P.M after I do a little family time to 10 p.m instead of playing video games or pool or darts or watching TV those two three hours Monday through Friday can add up to 10 hours a week. You do that for a year or two, you might be able to build the thing at night that gets you off the drug that you don't during the day.

And speaking of family time, the idea is, how do you incorp your family into what you do? And for many years I've got two daughters uh, 10 and 10 and five and they are my world and I love to try to incorporate different things into what I do with what. Well, you're fortunate. you sell mini toys and it's cool to them. As you can imagine, if somebody's listening and they do concrete production I'm not sure that seven-year-old Johnny's gonna love that.

but to your point, if more people went into their passion yes, in business, it is more likely that going thrifting or or you know, supporting the podcast on The Muppets like literally I know today if someone is the most educated and most passionate listening right now with the Muppets I'm talking Kermit the Frog that if they become a Content producer at Scale and do it two hours every night that a year from now, they could be flabbergasted on the opportunities that come to them. And by the way, everybody who's listening why do I know this? This is a hypothesis for me. I've been talking about this for 15 years. I have the unlimited inbox email receipts from people.

Unlimited hundreds and hundreds, and now thousands and thousands of people who are just like who's listening right now saying this isn't real, This you're some people are Scott You know some people are listening right now in their car or walking their dog or exercising and are even frustrated by us saying do you realize what's going on in the world There's a recession, There's a this, but this conversation needs to be had because it's true. happiness and mental health are so key to my life. And I navigate what I do in the choices I make and who I do business with because of those things but people who run out of time So what happens? How do you get to the small toys I made big toys for a while simulators General Motors right I've made Toyota boss simulators huge big things But the problem was I was feast in famine. A lot of the times what would happen is I would build a product for six months and then I would be waiting for three months for the cycle of the new client.

The new product would come in. it'd be one two three a year and I wanted to affect more people I wanted to do more. um with the public and the opportunity came. I was at the New York International Toy Fair and somebody happened to come into my booth and they said hey, I know you're building these really cool books I had transitioned surprisingly into Tech So you know you're talking books right now.

The tech I did was books that come to life. So the whole idea was you read a book, you get your phone, you scan the book and the book comes to life. The dinosaur crawls out, the princess waves a wall. What year was that? This was 2005.

So when you guys scan phone like we're not in smartphone area so I'm a little confused. We just started the transition between mobile webcam to mobile phone. The iPhone had the standard you know, front-facing rear-facing cameras. We were able to now to have people use a mobile phone.

There's enough phones and families they could have iPads that were available and so we we thought we were on the cusp of something big and I I went into it hard. I went into this whole idea of what I call a digital Frontier Part of the the other business that I run is the idea of how do you do physical with digital So it had to be a little bit later though, right? because the iPhone came out in June of 2007. So we started with webcam in 2005. thank you because I was confused.

got it so the book would do the web. got it originally the book from the scanned it would be webcam, it would be on desktop and then that was thank you because I was a little confused. keep going and I wanted to disrupt print media I Wanted to disrupt puzzles, charts, tattoos, stickers, books and love this idea of a digital bridge between physical products and the digital need of kids. Parents want to buy something digital kids sorry parents, How to buy something physical.

Kids want something digital. It's really hard as a Christmas gift to open up an app. I Just but will a parent buy a book? Yes, if that book comes with an app, Will the kids use the book more? Yes, it's a different type of. Storytelling My favorite part of the world now as we sit together is again everyone who's listening.

I'm jumping in though. you might be frustrated. like don't interrupt Scott or this and that I'm really trying to bring value. We are really in a digital world.

This physical digital combo is so real it's funny we're talking right now. A headline that caught my attention this morning as I was walking to work was, um, the Oppenheimer Whatever. The movie crushed right like 235 million and it's just like Rolling Loud went down in Miami this weekend I Saw what happened at Vcon record numbers for the national Chicago that we're going to this week like we were in the house for so long. We're so immersed in our digital devices like it's just very clear.

not just the kids, but the grown-ups because really, our behaviors with digital and and the real world are more similar than people think from. Boomers There's plenty of Boomers sitting at their desktop computer right now for seven hours shopping and yelling at each other, uh, or supporting each other, uh, and on on their desktop computer or laptop. So it's just very clear to me that the the physical end digital world is like very real in healthy, both are very healthy. and when you can be smart and blend them together and let them work together, it's really cool.

Earlier, if you listen to the podcast, you heard a sound in the background from my mic. It was because my friend Bridget's here a former Vayner employee who's like friends with a ton of people. she's just visiting the office she's decided to sit in I Hope when you were talking about the vending machine I have one here in the office I took one and she opened it and I saw her while you were talking scan the QR code I wasn't sure if it was working or not so I took the piece of paper and I did on my own phone and I was like man, people gonna buy this little toy for 50 cents. These be friends toys, they're gonna get the little piece of paper.

There's a QR code post covered pre-covered I'm getting some sort of very small percentage of people knowing what to do with that thing and scanning it post covet. Everyone from five to 105 now knows what to do with the QR code. every you know the amount of kids with an iPad the amount of parents with an iPhone being able to scan it goes obviously to our video on. YouTube That combo of digital and physical is pretty rad.

It's it's it's for me. I Sought back in early 2005 of where this bridge would be and we talk about failure a lot. I Love failing I failed so much in my career with so many products I have on a shelf that didn't go anywhere of course but I have to and I love it I love failing because it shows me a door that closes and I need to do something that opens you. Also you also tried.

Do you know many people that also were yelling at us behind this episode right now like that's not real? Also, never try. Oh I I mean just just for the audience understand I I Built I think 11 books, 15 puzzles, five charts, tattoos and stickers and it failed miserably. The public was not ready yeah, too early. The webcam thing.

a lot of parents didn't know how to use webcams. didn't have enough yet. The kids in front of a computer like it makes sense in 2005 670. and it still is a hard sell today.

I mean we're talking I've been on QVC I've been on The View and I've tried all of it and it's just that there's a disconnect people want right now. Still today, the book to be a book. Um, and that's fine I I've This is the transition to the squishy toys and so I realized okay, how do I find a platform that works? And at the show at the New York uh International Toy fair I was debuting all these pop our products. Ran into a group that had these cute little pencil Toppers and they had what's called an Mmog, a massive multiplayer online game and they were trying to get these little pencil Toppers to work on an mmog And you know it was fascinating to me because their users and everything that they were doing with the digital physical connection was working Um, inevitably with what they had I inevitably bought out their distribution rights, bought out their IP early on, and I transformed that entire product into what today is squishland.

and here's some crazy numbers: I know we're on the on the cusp of of Barbie um so who do you? what do you think is the most popular, best-selling toy ever of all time. all time. The most popular spelling toy of all time is Slinky the Pet Rock um Mr like Plato like um uh like what's that thing? the pink stuff Anyway, go ahead, what's the answer? Hot Wheels Hot Wheels Four Four billion Hot Wheels have been sold. Okay, big shout out Mattel What a monster by the way.

big shout out for all the garage sellers listening. Hot Wheels Red Line Just for everybody knows, back in the way back day the Hot Wheels that were sold the tires had a little red line in the middle so when I garage sale I can literally I'm so knowledgeable about this I can go to a box of Hot Wheels look at all of them and pull out the red line Tire ones which are like 50 80, 200 bucks a piece that you can buy them for a quarter at a garage sale and that's what I love I mean and then look the next one after Hot Wheels is Barbie Okay, so that corresponds with the movie Barbie sold about a billion Barbies and now that Barbie you know when they brought in the new CEO he was very clear that I'm gonna make this a media company we've seen it with Transformers and all that Hasbro's done a good job with that. Like you're telling me that we're not going to see an epic either cars like Thomas or train like or even Fast and Furious light Hot Wheels movie in the next three four years. Clearly they're going to do that base on what just happened with Barbie And so when you look at like the top 10 toys, they're mostly retail toys Barbie You know, since 1959, about a billion you know.

Same thing with Hot Wheels about 4 billion. So the top 10 toys and then you go down and you get Tamagotchi Okay is again it's a toy we grew up with. You know, these things sold about 83 million pieces and they started in 1996. that little keychain.

Every girl in my school had that and so it. It's also about barrier to entry with a lot of this stuff and so just to give the audience some type of grandiose idea between toys and this is. this is kind of how I sometimes introduce myself. I I've made a toy that most people played with but never really knew who it was and who made it and squishland these cute little pencil.

Toppers that are, You know what? We're making a squishy 250 million pieces. So and and our success is not based on being front and center in a retail. Center In Toys R Us Our success comes from vending machines and that's what. That's what everybody needs to understand is pennies can make sense.

Okay, so vending machines are the first things you see when you walk through the door. It's the last thing you see walking out the door. It's got the best branding potential in retail ever. and you may not know this answer.

and there may not be an answer. Or there might be a number that the industry throws around at the vending convention shows. But how many stores doors have vending machines in them with toys or stickers or such? About thirty thousand? Yeah, it's a lot of locations in the U.S I Know people hear that number and it's not like a bill. You know we're so accustomed now to hear like a hundred thousand or a million 30 000 seems small, but it's so many.

Think about what like things are going. Let me say it a different way. Think about right now getting in a car and going to 25 stores. Now that sounds like a lot.

So you can imagine 30 000 stores in America having these vending machines. That's probably different than candy, right? Oh, this is just one inch toys. So there's two inch toys. There's claw machines, there's stickers, there's tattoos.

you're talking just one important I see I See it's exponential. It's it's the the last census was about a million heads of Vending in America a million heads. So you go into a toy store. there could be 12 heads in a store, so you're fighting for real estate space of those 12 heads.

So what I'm trying to get at is inventing. Most people disregard it, but for me, it's one of the best retail centers and nothing in nothing in vending had been streamlined. Everything in vending for years had been very tchotchke based. It was a clear capsule with a plastic toy inside and so what I did was I wanted to come around and say okay I wanted to give people in the vending industry a retail experience I wanted them to go and spend their 50 cents their dollar and when they came out they bought and they got a fully wrapped capsule.

It even had you know all the warning labels. It had your barcode that you could use and once we did that we exploded and and Retail came knocking. Retail went. Oh you make these toys I'm like yes and they're all unique IPS And so what we tried to do is we disrupted an industry by increasing the quality and the standard in which people wanted to have the experience.

We knew that the the people were out there buying something and so for you and me, our childhood and vending is very sacred. It was the first toy I got to buy with my own money. Yep and then that's that's huge. So if you're gonna to me it's I mean it's also for every parent that's listening with a three to seven year old.

It's like the greatest gift for you when you're trying to get some. You know errands finish because for 50 cents or when I was growing up 25 cents you can keep your kid busy for the 45 minutes you need while you're in the supermarket or the convenience store or what have you right? And that's and you think about it. Like whether we're talking about the side hustle of let's say you like sneakers. Well there's a huge industry now of how to display your sneakers that's only populated in the last few years, these sneaker walls that are backlit that are now motorized and then the same thing goes for the vending.

There are so many ways to disrupt these industries and some we just saw that with threads. so you know even in social media we've got these opportunities. And so what we did is once this came to this this little capsule that got wrapped. then retail came and they said hey, we'd like you to have an end cap and so this blue I don't know what's right there.

That's it. That's our end cap. that's all vending toys that have been moved into the store that do so we're inventing and we're in the store at the same time. So we're getting our IP doubled down before we run out of time because I want to go into the park? We team up.

We obviously do V-friends mini figures together. Really excited about it. We're kind of launching now. What really caught my attention when we were talking was the concept of sure there's a lot of people in my world that own six stores, 15 stores.

they're the head of marketing or partnership set a company that has a thousand stores or 500. So I was really excited about it. But the part that got me really going was the concept of the people listening. Right now that don't have a store, could buy the vending machine and then go to their local pizza shop or their burger stop or their bowling alley and get the vending machine in and share in the revenue with the place that was the 16 year old me that that was, you know, full transparency.

It was my instant connection to you because Edison boys that like never grew up and two, oh because I think we're selling them for 7.50 Oh, it's a great price I mean where people can literally buy it, go to their whatever. you know there's just so many towns in America and like there's always the cliche like hot spot that is a one-off and if you go there and you're like hey Mr Johnson I'll give you 50 cents on the dollar of everything here. Can you just plop this down and drill it into your the front of your store? That super excites me? Well I think I think the idea is everyone can now have their own little business and this and this is like a side side hustle. We Supply the machine the product and you and I are building a product line.

This product line is awesome! I Was telling my team about what we've developed for for you guys because it has smell and it has glitter, it has glow and has detailed. It has all these amazing pieces that usually I save one of those for a vending line but you get them all. Yeah I mean I come from trading cards so I need all the Rarities all the hits all like like it's been crazy to see some people. We obviously previewed it at Vcon.

Uh okay real quick everyone because we're going to run out of time. Uh, if you are interested in being a vendor for the V Friends vending machines email: V We're making this very easy. Vfriends.com B-e-e-friends.com Be Friends is B-e-e-f-r-i-e-n-d-s.com So V at Befriends.com and say you have interest, there's 750 bucks a piece. Then you buy the little toys, make margin on each toy and uh, best of all is the first official machines going into.

Wine Library My dad's store. He's very excited about it. He's already. he called me, it's not crazy, my dad is, he's like hey, can I get the rare ones in our machine.

Can you make like he's gonna lose? By the way on the record, why not. You're probably gonna lose money because my dad's gonna want to support me because he's the best and probably put it into a way too important spot in front of the store where he should have probably put wine that he can make margin on. but I was like no Dad we can't do that for you but I'm excited about that. Uh, and I'm excited.

That's for me, friends, but in general I Think this is a viable side hustle for a lot of people. you know just getting into the vending game either. adding it to the store you own, but most people listening don't own stores. being a middle man and woman buying machines and then finding locations that have enough traffic that sell through specifically places with kids coming through.

Well, I mean it's even more important if you have kids, this is a great way to teach them how to run a business. Yeah, I Agree. You got a 10 year old daughter who went to a museum and decided hey, we should put them. we should put a a unit there dad.

Why? Because we go there almost every summer so we stuck one of our units up at Bearizona in Arizona and so we get in free. All the money they make is Theirs to kind of spend and whatever. do whatever they want to clean the machine. it's their business and so they understand that Logistics of everything that are going on, it's it's really.

it's to your point. it's really Lemonade Stand 2.0 No, that sounds awesome but like actually actually having to sell in a machine to a grown-up establishment. Yep, managing inventory and checking on it every week or you know, day or whatever it is to like be like oh we got to fill it up. Exciting for them.

No, it's they come to it and they see it dumped out. They collect all the money they put the money through a coin counter I have here they get to stack them together. we go to the bank we we get cash I get my cut they get their cut I told them I gotta drive them so I I got a cut of what they were there and you're running a business here. No free rides kids Nobody you know.

Here's the thing is that even my five-year-old has a job. She picks up all the Squishies on the floor. she gets to keep them. But you know the idea simply is: this is a side hustle that you can do.

It makes good money. I you You are going to have an amazing cent of emails over the next few years of people doing this and they're going to have great stories for you. I Look forward to those heartwarming stories of parents and their kids stores doing this. so everybody who's listening.

obviously there's the befriend thing, but we're gonna sell out of those machines pretty quickly. We may even. By the way I apologize up front. We're going to be at the National where a lot of collector stores are going to be there.

We'll probably get close to sell out of the machines there. So a I apologize if when you email Vfbfriends.com If we're kind of out, be though, I'm just one. IP Scott's in the overall business. So Scott how do people find you If they want to explore more and get educated? potentially be a vendor for your stuff or other stuff, or be a wholesaler or a one-off person, what's the best way to connect with you? Well, best way to connect with us is.

uh, one of the one of the sites is Brand Vendingproducts.com So that's B-r-a-n-d Vendingproducts.com or squishland I'm known as Mr Squishy if you find me I'll tell you the story on how I got the nickname. It's incredibly sweet. Um, it's It's very endearing so far. And what's your email? Because that's sometimes the lowest point of friction.

s J O C H I M at Brandvendingproducts.com Um, connect with me. Ask me any questions you've got. You couldn't come up with a longer URL I mean Brand vending? But listen, trust me. I'm a mess too.

like I've made the mistake too. But like you know, Scott maybe we can like really crush this fee friends thing together and maybe maybe go buy a three letter demand domain at Bvp.com because I'm I mean I would misspell brand Vending. You know what? at the end of the day I could give people my email I have an AOL address cooler. by the way.

I'm actually thinking about getting a Hotmail or AOL address on some retro like Brooklyn Lancaster and be like yo I'm Gary.com We're like inches away from that being the new swag. I Love it So come come find me. I'll let you know about Mr squishy and I'll let you know how we have to buy up every I'm gonna I think I'm about to buy up a ton of Hotmail and AOL accounts that are one name things and like flip them because these hipsters are gonna get into this. It's so obvious to me.

Yes, 100 percent and so so a lot of side hustles. Today you could be in the vending business. You can be in the email retro flipping business anyway. Uh, befriends.com if you want to see we've got a vending part on our website.

um Scott I Really appreciate it. Parting thoughts: I'll give you the last minute you passionate about what you do, be playful with what you do. Know that that family comes first for me. but at the end of the day if you look to your right someone is more successful and if you look to your left someone is less successful.

You are in the middle, you are okay and you're balanced. I Love that brother! Really good show. Thank you I'll see you in Chicago Looking forward to having a lot of fun and uh, we'll talk soon. Let's go see ya.