Monetising your passion: vending machines, side hustles, and play

Executive overview

Most people don't believe they can earn money from what they love. The internet has made passion-to-income a realistic path for anyone willing to treat their off-hours as an asset.

Scott Jochim (Mr. Squishy), CEO of Sqwishland and Brand Vending Products, built a 250-million-unit toy business through vending machines — an overlooked, low-barrier retail channel. GaryVee uses the conversation to argue that 2–3 hours of nightly work on something you love can, over a year or two, replace the job you hate.

Passion plus authenticity, applied consistently online or in physical retail, beats credentials and capital as a starting point.

Holding onto youthful curiosity as a business asset

• Scott built a conference table out of LEGOs — not as a stunt, but because it was genuinely fun; that mindset has driven every business decision since
• Gary identifies 2–30% retained "youthfulness" as the source of his sustained happiness and professional output
• The question to ask: what do you do with your most valuable hours, and could that become income?
• People who love boating or wine tasting every weekend could build businesses around those things; most never try

The case for passion-driven side hustles

• A Barbie-obsessed creator who started a TikTok or podcast three years ago could have earned $50k in sponsorships when the Barbie movie launched
• Thrifting full-time — hitting Salvation Armies on weekdays, estate sales on Fridays, garage sales on Saturdays — can generate $250k/year in profit
• 8–10pm on weeknights (instead of Netflix) equals 10 hours a week; compounded over two years, that can replace the day job
• The internet makes this practical in 2023 in a way that was impossible in 1965

Scott's entrepreneurial path: big toys to small ones

• Started reselling government auction goods in high school; wrote and published a book on auctions that was distributed by Success Magazine before finishing school
• Invested royalties into a virtual reality company; the scent technology they developed ended up in Disney's Soaring Over California ride
• Built NASCAR simulators for General Motors; feast-and-famine project cycles made him want a higher-volume product with broader reach
• Pivoted to augmented-reality books (physical book + phone scan brings content to life) in 2005 — too early; webcam adoption wasn't there yet
• At the New York International Toy Fair, discovered a squishy pencil-topper brand with an online game component; acquired the IP and distribution rights, transforming it into Sqwishland

Why vending machines work

• Vending is the first thing customers see walking in and the last thing they see walking out — highest-traffic retail position in any store
• ~30,000 US locations carry one-inch toy vending machines; total vending "heads" across all categories exceed one million
• The industry was commoditised (clear capsule, generic toy) until Scott introduced fully wrapped, barcoded, IP-branded capsules — retail chains then came knocking
• 250 million Sqwishland units sold exclusively through vending; no shelf space, no retail dependency
• Post-COVID QR-code literacy makes the physical-to-digital bridge (scan capsule insert → YouTube video) finally viable for mass audiences

The side-hustle opportunity: owning vending routes

• V Friends vending machines: $750 per unit, stocked with Gary Vaynerchuk's V Friends IP toys
• The model: buy the machine, approach a local pizza shop, bowling alley, or museum, offer a 50/50 revenue split, and place the machine
• No store ownership required; the machine owner manages restocking and collects revenue
• Scott's 10-year-old daughter placed a unit at a museum she visits annually — she collects cash, runs the coin counter, deposits at the bank; Scott takes a driving fee
• Contact for V Friends machines: v@veefriends.com; for broader vending wholesale: sjochim@brandvendingproducts.com or brandvendingproducts.com

Lessons from serial failure

• Scott built 11 books, 15 puzzles, tattoos, and stickers with AR technology — all failed; the public wasn't ready
• Appeared on QVC and The View to pitch the concept; still couldn't move the product at scale
• Failure identifies which doors to stop knocking on; every closed door accelerated the pivot toward what actually worked
• The vending machine model succeeded not by being novel but by raising quality standards within an existing, ignored channel