A Side Hustle that Doesn’t Suck: $4 Billion Industry 🧊

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Selling Ice Passively for $71k a Year?

Brr, it's cold in here! Aside from the 'Bring It On' vibes, we're chatting even DEEPER into this asset in the premium crew, Cashflow, this month. The playbook on exactly how to make money off ice vending drops soon! Join Cashflow so you don't miss it. PS...you'll get SEVEN other playbooks on assets to add to your portfolio.

There's a meme on twitter about youngsters all leaving their job to go build the "future of web 3.0" or "the next evolution in AI" or "the company that will disrupt XX big life changing behemoth."

I too have an announcement...

I am about knee deep in a deal to buy a carwash, line all my Contrarians up to get sudsy and add a MFING ice vending machine onto it. Is it revolutionary? Assuredly. Will it change the world? Maybe, most definitely, probably. Might they call me Elon Jr after my innovation, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me?

First step quarters, next step Mars.

New graphic tee alert!

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🔊 Here's the audio version of this week's newsletter!

​Ice Vending, 71k year.mp3​

Today in < 10 minutes → We’re Going to Dive into:

1. A Contrarian Rant → On Not Being Soft
2. Ice Vending → $25k-$40k /year profit
3. How We're Playing this Market Today

BUT FIRST....

Are You Softer than Cream Cheese?

*This line makes me giggle, bts backstory - my bud Sam Parr called my husband softer than cream cheese... which is quite funny if you've met my husband.

RANT:

There is a widening, gaping division in our world today, but I don't think it's right vs left or government vs no government. It boils down to one singular question:

Do you want to make yourself strong, or do you want to make yourself safe?

It is a choice between resiliency and protection. A choice only you can make.

Think about our progression:

• "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me," vs words are "violence."
• Our children being encouraged to go play in the dirt, make mud pies, climb trees vs parents letting their kids walk home from the park and getting child protective services called.
• Safe spaces vs standing up to yourself and realizing not all humans are kind all the time.
• Microaggressions vs social differences and learning opportunities.
• Personal health and clean eating, exercising and herbal remedies vs big pharma and pills for maladies.

The real question I'd pose is a simple one, are you working to:

• Civilize your mind
• Make savage your body
• Build your bank account

Or are you hoping that you can pave the world in leather to prevent thorns? My preference: why not instead toughen up your feet and throw on some shoes.

The world my dears is not safe. How do I know? I can see the future. Yup. You WILL:

• Die
• Get hurt
• Break something
• Lose money
• Cry
• Get sick

Everyone will. We have a 100% mortality rate as humans as far as I'm aware. But the question is will you cower under the blankets of "protection," or will you make yourself and those around you more resilient. Just one small step at a time, day by day. Will you become anti-fragile as Taleb says?

Usually, I say there are no right and wrong answers in life but in this case, there just happens to be one.

Here we focus more and more on financial freedom, on decentralized wealth, on personal financial sovereignty but we are going to focus on the others going forward. Because Darwin had a discovery many years ago that stands as true today as ever....

Survival of the fittest.

Ice Vending: Selling Ice, Making MFing Margins

"She could sell ice to an Eskimo!" I've had a person or 7 tell me that. I always took it as a compliment although I felt a little underhanded hate in there, whatever. This year I'm about to make them honest men and women. Let's check out a boring biz that is tickling me to death.

Ice Vending. Yup.

So have you ever drove past one of these?

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Well, I did and I got curious. Why? It's a boring straightforward business, that requires no staff, little input (electricity and water) and can be an add-on to just about any location that is in a high traffic area. I always try to look for low people high margin businesses and I had this tingly suspicion this was one.

Turns out each one of these makes on average $25-40k a year PROFIT.

AND...

These dudes are all a bunch of the owners.

I mean don't I look like I just BELONG on this best-of list??

Brett & His Doggo

Besides being a jean shorts aficionado I just wanted to know this man's story, as it turns out one man's retirement is another man's opportunity.

Meet Brett:

“I’m Brett Gentry, Mena, Arkansas. My ice company is G-4 Vending. I started this just as a extra means of income. I’ve been a lineman on the electric utility companies for 25 years, started when I was 23 and that’s pretty much all I’ve ever done as far as work goes. I’m married, been married 25 years, got two children, one 19, one 23. Got my dog, everybody seems to love him. I love to deer hunt. I love guns. I’m just an old country boy that likes my guns and my hunting and my RZRs. And I ride a Harley and my wife rides her own Harley. And my best friends, they all ride. I just want everybody to know that you don’t have to have a lot of money to do this. I mean, I just took a chance."

Uhhhh I love Brett already. I bet his dog is lovely too.

You see, Brett and his wife were trying to figure out a way of making some extra money closer to retirement. He was thinking about a feed store (for you city slickers that's a store where you go for food supplies for animals like horses, cows, etc). Thing is that takes a lot of time. He kept researching and found ice vending instead.

What Happened:

• In a town of 500 people w/ a local state park 10 miles away sells 900 bags a month on average
• Revenue: $1,350 a month in revenue at $1.50 a bag
• Profit: $1000-$1150 a month (per machine)
• With 4-5 now we're talking $5-6k a month in dang close to purely passive income

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I Wanna Be Like Brett

So off I go in search of the same opportunity. Here's the simplified business model, you need:

1. A piece of land (or to lease someone else's)
2. A least 10,000 car count (people passing by it)
3. A water hookup and electric access
4. A water machine to place on itt
5. Cashflow

How I'm looking at this space:

#1 Show Me the Benjamins

How much money can I really make with these? And how much is it going to cost me? Aka what's the opportunity and the opportunity cost in frozen water land?

A good machine they say will sell 75 10 pound bags per day.

• It'll cost you .25 per gallon on the high end for water
• This means you'd make about $195 a day
• Monthly profit of $5,861.67
• Yearly profit of $71,322.50

How do I know? I used this calculator.

Feeling like you wanna make $71k extra per year? We're going above and beyond with where to find machines, where to find land, how to finance them, and the EXACT financial models to use, in Cashflow this month. Get the playbook here.​

#2 What are My COGS?

I talked to a slew of owners and ice machine vendors and here's what I found out.

First, it does not cost very much to make a bag of ice. Thus, your margins are pretty wild.

Cost Breakdown:

• Utilities vary, but water and electricity typically cost about $0.25 per 100 pounds of ice
• So a 20-pound bag of ice might only cost $0.05.
• Not everyone takes a bag, some coolers, but for the customers that use bags, each one is going to cost about $0.10
• So the cost of a 20 pound bag of ice is about $0.15.
• If you charge $1.75 for a 20-pound bag, your variable profit is about $1.60 per bag.

Look at what a 20lb bag would cost you to get delivered in Austin. Yikes.

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Or hell even Sam's club charges $2.28.

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#3 Can I Afford a Machine?

Ice vending machines vary from about $20,000 up to $100,000 or more. On top of that, there will be some site work in placing the machine on the parcel and having parking blocks or barriers installed around it.

Machines cost anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000

You can finance them through equipment purchases with the actual vendor like IHA (Ice House America - the largest ice vendor machine)

The interesting part is if you finance that a $35,000 machine that has a life of 10 years ends up costing around $300 per month.

#4 Additional Costs

So let's take our model:

• So $300 per month in capital costs (machine and site work)
• $300 a month in rent (if you don't own the land)
• $100 per month per machine in other permits, maintenance, repairs and other costs
• Profit of $1.60 after COGS
• You're break even point comes up to about 14 to 15 bags per day.

Even more interesting the machine essentially pays for itself in under two years. That's solid. Sounds pretty doable. What to watch out for and secrets the pros know?

#5 What you need:

• A traffic count of 10,000 cars per day or more is probably a good starting point.
• Good ingress and egress, street level visibility and adequate parking and easy access
• Typically located on high traffic locations, perhaps next to a gas station, convenience store, or dollar store.
• Freestanding and allow someone to drive up and fill up one or more 20 pound bags or even a cooler full of ice.
• Read reviews and testimonials of varying machines
• Talk to salespeople at each company
• Make sure they do install and go over every piece of equipment with you
• And that the ice machine company you buy from helps with maintenance

Now there's never such a thing as a free lunch but, just another boring business that doesn't take a rocket scientist, bu just might make you more money than the average rocket scientist makes.

I mean this is just a hypothetical butttttttt.....

Average Rocket Scientist works 40-50 hours a week & makes $66k- $172k a year.

My ice vending machine: Makes $71k a year and I work 10 hours a week on it?

How bout them apples? Btw - this is just a joke, take it easy rocket scientists.

Question everything & get your hands dirty,

Codie

Contrarian Uncon: Sponsors Who Don't Suck (cuz we use 'em all)

​Contrarian Uncon is upon us. With 5 days left to go we're SO ready and excited to see you all in Austin. Aside from our plethora of incredible speakers we wanted to make sure you checked out our sponsors.

Featuring:

​Flippa - The #1 global online marketplace where individuals and business owners buy and sell websites, online businesses and other digital real estate. A bunch of our humans have bought and sold here.

​Multifunding - Since 2010, MultiFunding has helped businesses achieve their biggest growth goals through creative and personalized SBA and other funding solutions. A bunch of our people have used them.

And if you're curious, there's STILL enough time to grab your tickets.

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