The Vend-Trak Story

Getting Started

     I was at first skeptical. His dad always told me, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." And this sounded too good to be true. But Joe made a convincing argument, and I was eventually won over. Dad and I, now convinced this was a "good idea" in the long-run, took the plunge. We borrowed the required funds from a real estate joint venture we had to buy our first machines; and we were in business!

There must be a better way

     Dad and I are both the typical "Type-A" personality. Once the first machine was placed, we both began to try out different ways to track the business. Dad, who was comfortable with Excel, went the route of the spreadsheet. I, who hada little database experience, went straight to Access. Once we got all 30 machines placed and started thinking through how we wanted to track our business, we decided the spreadsheet wouldn't cut it.

     Developing the database became my top priority (enter again, the "Type-A"). Every day that went by equaled another day that the precious data on our business was lost. At times, I felt that I may have bitten off more than I could chew. "Tracking an entire vending business," I thought, "is an incredibly complex problem to tackle." So before I put too much effort into it, I started searching the web to see if there was already something out there that would work. After all, it would save me a lot of work if that wheel had already been invented.

     There were, in fact, several on-the-shelf versions of software for business management. There were also several software applications built for vending businesses, but they were primarily built for large vending enterprises. Of course, the claim was that they could be adapted to smaller bulk vending businesses; but after I demo-tested several free trials, nothing really fit the mold (not to mention the budget, as most of these programs were priced way out of range).

     "There must be a better way to manage our business", I thought again. "Even if I loaded something on my computer, it would only be on my computer. I couldn't get to it from anywhere else." Since we were miles apart, we needed something we could both access from anywhere. So I went back to my database idea and used my web design background to put it on the Internet.

Vend-Trak is born!

     Internet access to the vending business database was the best of both worlds! Now, our vending business could be tracked in real time, all the time, from anywhere! Over the course of the next few months, I added several features to make the program more user-friendly. I also tried to make it more helpful in helping us make good decisions with managing the business. This was such a helpful tool to the us, and dad just loved it! I started to wonder, "how does anyone else do it? How to others run their business efficiently with no tools?"

     That's when the idea of offering this service to other bulk vending business owners first surfaced. So I modified the product to accomodate multiple users, security features were enhanced, and additional features were added. Perhaps the wisest move was bringing in a professional (DecodeTheCode.com) to help make it better for everyone. Now Dad and I aren't the only ones enjoying the benefit of running our business with Vend-Trak...now you can too!

The rest of the story

     We are still owners of our bulk vending machine routes, and our business has grown to 41 machines. We are still using Vend-Trak to manage and report on our business. As for the vending business being "...too good to be true..." - it really is! The machines are serviced once a month, and it rarely takes 10 full hours. And the $500/month promised by the sales representative in the newspaper ad? According to our Vend-Trak Income Report, we're doing even better than promised!