MDM 02 | Million Dollar Monday with Mike Hoffman

2025-08-11

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In this episode, Mike Hoffman shares how he made his first million in real estate during the COVID short-term rental boom, and his most recent million by turning outdated vending machine routes into modern micro markets stocked with unconventional products like shampoo and Tide pods. He and Seth Bradley explore how his next million will likely come from leveraging artificial intelligence to scale vending and small-business operations. Hoffman highlights the rapid evolution of AI and its power to replace manual tasks, envisioning a near future where...

Links to Watch and Subscribe:

https://youtu.be/1EOavier6ug

Bullet Point Highlights:

First million: Real estate + COVID timing (short-term rentals)
Last million: Vending machines → flipped old routes into micro markets
Sold high-ticket items (e.g., $35 shampoo) in vending setups
Tech improvements + AI driving down costs, boosting efficiency
Next million: Scaling vending/small biz ops with AI tools
Believes AI is replacing human roles fast (e.g., virtual assistants)
Predicts humanoid AI robots in homes within 5 years

Transcript:

Seth Bradley (00:00.172)

Welcome to Million Dollar Mondays, how to make, keep, and scale a million dollars. Mike is a super successful entrepreneur in the vending machine business and beyond. Tell us, how did you make your first million dollars?

Yeah, Seth, probably actually through real estate and just getting a little bit kind of lucky with timing with COVID and short term rentals and some of that. But yeah, that's probably how I got the first million.

Gotcha. Yeah. Real estate usually plays a role in the everybody's strategy down the line, whether they're in, you know, in that primary business or not, you know, whether they start out there or they end up there, real estate usually plays a part. How'd you make your last million?

Yeah, that's a good question because it's completely different than real estate, but it's actually been vending machines. that's been kind of fun. just, you you talk about product market fit whenever you're an entrepreneur with a business. And that was just kind of the perfect storm right now of traditional vending really kind of being outdated. And we found a product market fit.

with it. Gotcha. Cool. And that was from, was this maybe mostly attributed to kind of buying those routes, those larger routes?

Mike Hoffman (01:14.646)

Exactly, yeah, buying old school routes and really kind of flipping them like a house with modern micro markets, charging with different products and what would fit in a vending machine like more of the unorthodox, know, toilet paper and tide pods and things that wouldn't fit in a traditional vending machine. I mean, we'll sell $35 bottles of shampoo in these micro markets. So just kind of go and add it in a different way.

Yeah, and then with the aging population, there's got to be more and more of these things popping up. So there should be more opportunity for people to get involved or for people like yourself to just snag everything, right?

Yeah, think there's no chance I could snag everything, not even just in this town alone that I'm currently in. I mean, machines are getting cheaper, the technology is getting way better with AI. And nowadays, it's not what fits in a vending machine motor. It's okay, what's shelf space? So if it's a bottle of shampoo or a glass Coke, it doesn't matter because it's not just getting thrown down the chute of a traditional machine.

Makes sense, makes sense. Last, how are you planning on making your next million dollars?

I think probably with AI, we're doing a lot of interesting stuff with helping people scale their vending routes that is applicable to any small business. And so I'm really intrigued. Just every time I go down a rabbit hole with some new AI tool, I feel like there's another better one that just came right behind it. So I just think it's kind of that time where you can really get ahead by just learning right now in this kind of wave of AI.

Seth Bradley (02:49.27)

Yeah, totally makes sense. mean, people that are not paying attention to AI, whether it's simply using chat GBT instead of Google search are getting left behind quickly because it's just advancing so fast. I can't even imagine what this world's going to look like five years from now, the way that things are moving.

It's crazy. Three years ago when I was working for a tech company selling software to the government, I would have to work with three secretaries to schedule a meeting with the general to sell their software. Now my EA is literally an AI bot and everyone that's scheduling time on my calendar, they don't even know they're talking to a non-human, which is perfect.

Yeah, 100%. I predicted within five years, everybody's going to have a humanoid robot in their home with AI instilled, and they're going to be doing physical things for us at our homes.

I hope so. I hope they can go to Costco, get all our groceries, do our laundry, the dishes.

Yup. Yup. Awesome,

Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:

Seth Bradley’s Links:

https://x.com/sethbradleyesq

https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq

www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq

https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq

https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/

https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/

https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq