From $17/Hour to $500,000 a Year: The Top 5 Business Lessons from a 32-Year-Old’s Side Hustle Success

ive years ago, I was earning $17 an hour in a managerial role while living at home with my mom in Rochester, New York. But a nudge from a friend in 2018 led me to Philadelphia, where I launched a vending machine business with $10,000 of my savings. This initial investment covered a snack machine, a beverage machine, credit card readers, products, and delivery fees.

In the beginning, the business was just a side hustle, generating $5,000 in its first year. However, by 2022, Joyner Vending had soared to $500,000 in sales, up from $300,000 in 2021, and now operates in six states.

Here are the key lessons I learned during this transformative year:

1. Enhance Your Online Presence Investing $2,000 to revamp my website and improve search engine optimization proved invaluable. This upgrade attracted about five new business inquiries each month. Many prospective clients were unhappy with their current vendors and sought better service, which we provided through flexibility, prompt maintenance responses, and QR codes on machines for easy refunds.
2. Diversify Your Client Base Previously focused on schools and office buildings, we began serving manufacturing companies this year. These businesses offer subsidized pricing, where employees use prepaid cards with spending limits. This model resulted in guaranteed thousands of dollars in monthly sales and significantly boosted our revenue.
3. Scale Your Team as You Grow Expanding our operations to offices with 400-700 employees required a larger team to manage restocking. Some locations needed daily or even twice-daily stocking, sometimes necessitating my personal involvement. After three months, we established a reliable staffing system with 10 employees, mostly part-time.
4. Learn from Your Mistakes We made a costly error by investing $90,000 in vending machines for two colleges that ultimately didn’t pan out. After realizing the mistake, we removed the machines and cut our losses. The lesson: acknowledge errors, adapt swiftly, and redirect resources to more promising opportunities.
5. Support and Empower Others This year, I prioritized helping my employees secure their own vending locations, aiming to empower them to start their own businesses. I also gifted a vending machine to my mother in Rochester, New York, and look forward to seeing its success.

My goal for 2023 is to reach $1 million in sales. Though ambitious, aiming high is essential to achieving great things.