Running out of money/need investment

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

Hello everybody i came up with a vending concept several years ago and have since designed and built the machine and got it out there.

I will admit that since i was new to business and had never brought a product to market before i have made a lot of mistakes.

However my machine attracted a lot of interest from all over the world and i have had many enquiries about it's availability.

I have tested the machines in Luminar leisure(was UK's largest nightclub operator and now in administration) Walkabout Bars, a few gay bars, Tenpin, Butlins (Bourne Leisure) and Star City birmingham.

I also met with the MD of the Arena Group (Planet ice) who liked it too.

Everybody likes the idea and would use it except for a few design issues that need sorting out first to make it viable.

I know it's a winner and better still i know what needs doing to make it so.

What i need is somebody who is experienced in the industry who would also be willing to offer the financial support my machine and business needs so that i can modify the machine and get it out to the customers i have mentioned above.

my site if allowed? is www.vendandglow.com

I would also like to point out that the info on the site is very out of date and was put together before i even knew what the final costs would be.

The tubes are now £1.15+Vat and machines £525+vat

Hope this doesn't look like i am trying to sell something i have been here a while now it's just i know people will pick it apart so want to give the correct info.

Thanks

Lee

crphillips · Jan 6, 2012

Quite a good idea. I'd like to see a rave horn vending machine

I have no funding to offer but I hope you get the cash!

Billmccallum · Jan 6, 2012

the two questions most people would ask...

how much do you need?
what are you offering in return?

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

Billmccallum said:
the two questions most people would ask...

how much do you need?
what are you offering in return?

Well i need around 20k and would be willing to offer 40-50% of the business.

I need knowledge, experience and money.

It has massive potential and would make a good franchise for many people. Could also go to europe at holiday resorts etc.

TotallySport · Jan 6, 2012

have you tried the UKBF user id VendingRevolution aka Barbara, since its the same field it might be worth a punt.http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/member.php?u=10334

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

TotallySport said:
have you tried the UKBF user id VendingRevolution aka Barbara, since its the same field it might be worth a punt.

Yes i know Barbara and spoke to her when i was starting up.

She too liked the concept but i think she is busy with her own business!

BlueMouseDesigns · Jan 6, 2012

Hello

Nice Idea
Nice Design

Wish I had the money to help you, this could me massive. I can offer help with marketing however.

I could see this in clubs, would not look out of place. However would I pay £4 per tube personally not. If I had a few beers possibly

It's one of those things if one person buys one everyone will want one. Perhaps not on a weekly basis as people may start to just bring their own...

Gavin

jakef78 · Jan 6, 2012

Hmmm, im struggling to see the appeal of this idea. It's not a bad idea, its just not great, I mean, I can go into any petrol station and buy a box of glowsticks, but good luck to you.

JamieM · Jan 6, 2012

jakef78 said:
Hmmm, im struggling to see the appeal of this idea. It's not a bad idea, its just not great, I mean, I can go into any petrol station and buy a box of glowsticks, but good luck to you.

I can go in to any petrol station and buy a can of Coke.

Lee, where do you make the profit in the business? Selling machines? It doesn't seem like there will be much margin in the tubes?

Banned · Jan 6, 2012

JamieM said:
I can go in to any petrol station and buy a can of Coke.

Lee, where do you make the profit in the business? Selling machines? It doesn't seem like there will be much margin in the tubes?

Actually there's massive POR on the tubes 80% plus

WHARTY said:
Well i need around 20k and would be willing to offer 40-50% of the business.

I need knowledge, experience and money.

That's refreshing, a realistic (in my opinion) request. Perhaps all those "I have an idea but need someone to do it for me in return for 5%" boys could take note.

Good luck Wharty

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

BlueMouseDesigns said:
Hello

Nice Idea
Nice Design

Wish I had the money to help you, this could me massive. I can offer help with marketing however.

I could see this in clubs, would not look out of place. However would I pay £4 per tube personally not. If I had a few beers possibly It's one of those things if one person buys one everyone will want one. Perhaps not on a weekly basis as people may start to just bring their own...

Gavin

I have actually reduced the tubes price to £3 now. It works really well in bars like Walkabout (students) and Butlins does well too.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

JamieM said:
I can go in to any petrol station and buy a can of Coke.

Lee, where do you make the profit in the business? Selling machines? It doesn't seem like there will be much margin in the tubes?

Well i don't make much off the machines to be honest as i want the ROI to be good.

My profit is made from the stock as i buy in from China.

At the end of the day i can only sell the machine once but the stock many times.

british steve · Jan 6, 2012

Its a nice idea but I do think your vending machines are a little expensive.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

british steve said:
Its a nice idea but I do think your vending machines are a little expensive.

£525+vat is too expensive?

OliverLuke · Jan 6, 2012

Dragons den?

british steve · Jan 6, 2012

WHARTY said:
£525+vat is too expensive?

I think so! But smart looking machine. How many Glow Stick packs does it hold? How often will the machine owner have to go and refill it?

mobyme · Jan 6, 2012

WHARTY said:
Everybody likes the idea and would use it except for a few design issues that need sorting out first to make it viable.

I quite like the idea and could see it doing very well in the right locations. Are the design issues something that you can talk about on an open forum or is it something that you would prefer to discuss by PM?

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

british steve said:
I think so! But smart looking machine. How many Glow Stick packs does it hold? How often will the machine owner have to go and refill it?

Well the machine you see on the website was a one off machine that incorporated some of the design changes i needed. This was around 2k but it was a one off.(holds around 120 tubes)

The actual machines i designed are smaller and don't have lights on them and have a smaller capacity.

My machines hold only 60 tubes (1 design problem) they also don't have any lights as they were battery operated(2nd problem) The machines also need a lockable coin box(3rd problem) so the venue can re stock the machines reducing operating costs.

The machine also needs a hinged door(4th problem) so it is easy for somebody who isn't very strong to re stock the machine.

Another problem(5) is the machine only vends one product. It has 4 columns and i would like to vend different combinations of products.

The tubes contain 2x 6 inch glowsticks, 1x necklace, 4x bracelets and a set of glow glasses and in my opinion is a bargain at £3.

Most of the above have been incorporated into the one off machine and they make the difference but the problem is i need to get the machine designed from scratch. The one off machine was made by putting 2 of my machines on top of each other and making a larger case.

The machine you see is in Butlins, Skegness.

The money would go towards making the adjustments and franchising the machine out.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

mobyme said:
I quite like the idea and could see it doing very well in the right locations. Are the design issues something that you can talk about on an open forum or is it something that you would prefer to discuss by PM?

See the below post as i have listed some of the problems i have had(actually they are newbie mistakes i made!)

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

Going to look into Angel investment, does anybody have any recommendations?

adventurelife · Jan 6, 2012

Football clubs for night time kick offs with tubes in their colors? Busy sea front locations with lots of clubs like Benidorm. Seems a no brainer for someone who is looking t make a good return for a realistic investment for % share.

Only think that would worry me is the vending machines are not ready to go yet. Your ideal partner will be an established vending company I would imagine.

internetspaceships · Jan 6, 2012

I'll talk to you about it if you like?

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

internetspaceships said:
I'll talk to you about it if you like?

Hi and yes i would like to talk about it although i have had an ear infection for 4 days and can't hear!

Would you mind doing it over a PM for now?

internetspaceships · Jan 6, 2012

Absolutely fine. Drop me a note and I'll forward you my email address.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

adventurelife said:
Football clubs for night time kick offs with tubes in their colors? Busy sea front locations with lots of clubs like Benidorm. Seems a no brainer for someone who is looking t make a good return for a realistic investment for % share.

Only think that would worry me is the vending machines are not ready to go yet. Your ideal partner will be an established vending company I would imagine.

Yes the football clubs was something i had thought of. Can certainly see a sea of red at a United game, the kids would love it.

Psl · Jan 6, 2012

I think it is a great idea and will sell well in the right venues.

I see you need to re-design the machine, increase capacity etc and your thought process is to franchise it. I would like to offer my thoughts on how you could do it without giving any part of your business away;

Forget franchising it, licence it instead and still control the supply of the glow products to the licensee's.

You already have one in Butlin's so have you approached them to place a machine in all their camps?

Have you approached Pontins and Haven to place your machines with them?

If you can get interest and possibly letters of intent from the above that will help with your overall plan of expansion.

Using the feedback and hopefully letters of intent from the above you can then put a licence package together for the UK licensees.£10k gets them 8 fully stocked machines with the option to buy further machines and you will provide a number of sites for them- Butlin's, Pontins and/or Haven sites, once secured of course.

Do some market research on how many bars/clubs there are in Ibiza and say Tenerife. Then offer the master license to operate the business on each of these islands for a pre-detremined figure of say £50K. You would have to provide a certain number of units and a certain level of stock to be included in this figure, say 40 machines including stock. You would also need to work out how much to sell additional units for.
You should allocate circa £500 for advertising to get the required interest from potential master licensees. One master licensee should pay for the re-design of the machine that you need to undertake.

Once this is done you can look at selling the rights to other 'party islands'.

Take the parts of your website that are out of date, figures etc and remove distributors and potential earnings section and re-design the site to incorporate all the above.

Hope this is of some use to you and if you need any further advice just PM me.
Good luck

crphillips · Jan 6, 2012

WHARTY - Have you tried putting these into the music festivals? You could take a van with 20 of the vending machines and scatter them around the dance tents. Leeds and Reading Fest, Creamfields, Glastonbury, V.....etc. Also clubs like Gatecrasher.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

crphillips said:
WHARTY - Have you tried putting these into the music festivals? You could take a van with 20 of the vending machines and scatter them around the dance tents. Leeds and Reading Fest, Creamfields, Glastonbury, V.....etc. Also clubs like Gatecrasher.

Believe it or not i haven't thought of that! great idea they are very portable and i have just bought a new van too! Thanks

crphillips · Jan 6, 2012

You could quite easily make your money in two months of the summer! Take the rest of the year off.

You'd just have to watch out for vandalism. They'd need to be placed intelligently.

crphillips · Jan 6, 2012

Did you see the X-Factor final when Coldplay played? They gave out 10,000 wrist bands that were wirelessly controlled to light up on demand. They looked amazing. If you could get the licence for supplying them to festivals you could make a killing. I assume the technology is patented. I think Coldplay actually own the rights.

Check them out on YouTube if you don't know what I'm talking about. They'd be huge at gigs, clubs and festivals.

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

crphillips said:
Did you see the X-Factor final when Coldplay played? They gave out 10,000 wrist bands that were wirelessly controlled to light up on demand. They looked amazing. If you could get the licence for supplying them to festivals you could make a killing. I assume the technology is patented. I think Coldplay actually own the rights.

Check them out on YouTube if you don't know what I'm talking about. They'd be huge at gigs, clubs and festivals.

Yes i saw it too and your right they were really amazing. I looked the company up but they didn't have a website at the time. Coldplay do own a share of them.

It really did blow me away.

internetspaceships · Jan 6, 2012

That's the radio controlled ones which aren't actually hard to manufacture.....

WHARTY · Jan 6, 2012

internetspaceships said:
That's the radio controlled ones which aren't actually hard to manufacture.....

Oh right i wondered how they worked. Great for audience participation!

I would imagine you would need the DJ to have some sort of software linked to the music for it to work?

They too could go in vending machines lol

silvermusic · Jan 7, 2012

(old fogey alert)

OP, you'll have to forgive me, I haven't been to a nightclub in probably 20-25 years. Great though the idea may be, I can't help thinking what next? are these glow things a fashion/fad that will die out at some point quickly?

WHARTY · Jan 7, 2012

silvermusic said:
(old fogey alert)

OP, you'll have to forgive me, I haven't been to a nightclub in probably 20-25 years. Great though the idea may be, I can't help thinking what next? are these glow things a fashion/fad that will die out at some point quickly?

To be fair Glowsticks and other glow products have been around since the 1960's and they are as popular as ever. Loads of new designs coming out all the time.

There are always new children coming along and they always appeal. Not to mention when those kids grow up and they use them in the bars and clubs!

You see i hook em while they are young!

WHARTY · Jan 7, 2012

Psl said:
I think it is a great idea and will sell well in the right venues.

I see you need to re-design the machine, increase capacity etc and your thought process is to franchise it. I would like to offer my thoughts on how you could do it without giving any part of your business away;

Forget franchising it, licence it instead and still control the supply of the glow products to the licensee's. How is it different from a franchise?
You already have one in Butlin's so have you approached them to place a machine in all their camps?
It's a long story but yes Butlins do want them.
Have you approached Pontins and Haven to place your machines with them?Luckily Haven are owned by Bourne leisure who own Butlins!

If you can get interest and possibly letters of intent from the above that will help with your overall plan of expansion.

Using the feedback and hopefully letters of intent from the above you can then put a licence package together for the UK licensees.£10k gets them 8 fully stocked machines with the option to buy further machines and you will provide a number of sites for them- Butlin's, Pontins and/or Haven sites, once secured of course.

Do some market research on how many bars/clubs there are in Ibiza and say Tenerife. Then offer the master license to operate the business on each of these islands for a pre-detremined figure of say £50K. You would have to provide a certain number of units and a certain level of stock to be included in this figure, say 40 machines including stock. You would also need to work out how much to sell additional units for.
You should allocate circa £500 for advertising to get the required interest from potential master licensees. One master licensee should pay for the re-design of the machine that you need to undertake.
I need to do the redesign before i sell the machines though?
Once this is done you can look at selling the rights to other 'party islands'.

Take the parts of your website that are out of date, figures etc and remove distributors and potential earnings section and re-design the site to incorporate all the above.

Hope this is of some use to you and if you need any further advice just PM me. Thanks for taking the time to write what you did, it's given me plenty of food for thought!
Good luck

I have written in Blue under your original post.

Thanks

Lee

arcon5 · Jan 7, 2012

Sorry if somebody else has already mentioned this, but the following example on your website is incorrect:

By buying your stock from Vend and Glow @ £1.59 + vat per tube and vending them at £4 per tube, your profit is £2.41 per tube.
If each of your 5 machines sells just 2 tubes per day, you would make £33.74 per machine, per week. Thats £168.70 per week for the 5 machines!

Once you take off the VAT their charging the consumer, you get £3.33, so their profit per tube is actually £1.74. So 2 tubes from 5 machines per day is £17.40, thats £121.80 per week profit, per 5 machines.

pbdesigns · Jan 7, 2012

WHARTY said:
I have actually reduced the tubes price to £3 now. It works really well in bars like Walkabout (students) and Butlins does well too.

I used to DJ in bars, and used to take along a load of glow sticks to hand out to the punters for free (because I could buy 100 for about £5).

Why don't you also offer the cheaper, thinner glow sticks (the ones you wear around you wrist) as well. I'm sure you'd sell more of those at 50p each...

WHARTY · Jan 7, 2012

arcon5 said:
Sorry if somebody else has already mentioned this, but the following example on your website is incorrect:

Once you take off the VAT their charging the consumer, you get £3.33, so their profit per tube is actually £1.74. So 2 tubes from 5 machines per day is £17.40, thats £121.80 per week profit, per 5 machines.

Sorry about that i did point out earlier that a lot of information is wrong or out of date.

WHARTY · Jan 7, 2012

pbdesigns said:
I used to DJ in bars, and used to take along a load of glow sticks to hand out to the punters for free (because I could buy 100 for about £5).

Why don't you also offer the cheaper, thinner glow sticks (the ones you wear around you wrist) as well. I'm sure you'd sell more of those at 50p each...

I do each tube contains 2x 6 inch glowsticks, 4x bracelets, 1x necklace and a set of glow glasses

Cookie Consent

Essential

Analytics

Marketing

Running out of money/need investment

crphillips

Billmccallum

TotallySport

BlueMouseDesigns

Banned

british steve

british steve

crphillips

crphillips

crphillips

silvermusic

arcon5