Matt Miller – Owner School Spirit Vending

Matt Miller grew up in the Chicago area. Matt went to the Air Force academy. He was blessed to be medically qualified and he did well enough in school to be invited to the flight training program after graduating. He flew for nine years. He was stationed in Lubbock, TX for six as a Air Force instructor pilot. He then went to Dover, DE for three years and when his commitment was up in 1998, he exited the military to join corporate America.

During his time in the miliary and the corporate world, he realized that he didn’t like people telling him what to do. After a short chuckle, Matt admitted that he didn’t like the fact that the rules were always changing and they weren’t changing in his favor. It was frustrating for him to have other people telling him who, what, why and where he was going.

Matt took to business online. He sold books on Ebay and he did some multi-level marketing, but none of these ventures produced what he was seeking. He was seeking an income that was passive in nature and offered something that he was really passionate about. One of his friends from church who mentioned that he and his young daughters had gotten started in the vending business. They were spending time together as a family and making money.

He thought this might be an opportunity for him to live the lifestyle he dreamed about. Matt bought his first gumball machine on Ebay. He drove across Houston on a Saturday morning in his 1998 Honda Accord with two of his kids in tow and that was the beginning of his vending career.

Making the Change and Succeeding

When Matt came out of the military and had to take a pay cut. He slowly worked his way up in the advertising space. He was #2 in the company out of 750 sales reps with the company he was working with. For some reason, his boss didn’t like this. She increased his quota by 96% when the average quota increase was 5 – 10%. That decision on her part ended up costing Matt and his family about $80k the next year. This caused a huge financial burden for Matt and so something needed to change.

Since Matt’s wife was responsible for home schooling her kids, the financial burden was Matt’s responsibility. This is why Matt decided to ultimately seek out entrepreneurship. Matt is a big believer of taking action.

“You can strategize your life away, but the only way you are going to move forward is to get it done, make it happen and figure things out.” – Matt Miller

The reason Matt decided to start School Spirit Vending was simple. In 2007 and 2008, the market tanked. People weren’t spending the extra money in the vending machines he had placed in the various restaraunts. Matt was frustrated. Right around that time, he had many kids from the neighborhood stop by his house raising money for the school. Matt didn’t think this was right. He thought that if he could find a way to help schools raise money and make it so the kids didn’t have to run around by themselves without their parents to keep them safe.

A couple months later, a good friend of Matt’s came by for dinner and told him about his idea. His friend, a gym teacher for a local school, thought it was a good idea and wanted to run it by the principal. Two weeks later, his friend called Matt and let him know they had an approval to bring in the first machine. Matt set up the machine and the numbers that machine did was incredible.

After testing the market even more, he found a model that was finally working.