Category: News

14-year-old Entrepreneur raises $100K to create First Aid Vending Machine

From School Project to Startup Sensation

What started as an eighth-grade project could soon turn into a multi-million-dollar company thanks to a 14-year-old entrepreneur from Alabama and his diligent work ethic.

A decade of playing baseball as a first baseman and pitcher inspired Opelika High School freshman Taylor Rosenthal to create a first-aid vending machine.

“No one could find a Band-Aid when someone got hurt,” Rosenthal said.

When the Young Entrepreneurs Academy — a program designed as a class for students interested in learning how to start their own small businesses — asked his class to brainstorm ideas for a company. Rosenthal’s mother and father, who both work in the medical industry as an x-ray technician and sports medicine trainer, respectively, helped him develop his idea for the machine, which they called RecMed.

From Classroom Victory to National Stage

Rosenthal’s RecMed pitch went on to win first place in his class, which earned him assistance from startup incubator Roundhouse to develop the pitch for a regional competition in Boca Raton, Florida.

“Have you ever been to an amusement park, and your child falls to the ground and scrapes their knee?” Rosenthal asked in his original pitch. “Then, you had to walk all the way to the front of the park to get a Band-Aid?”

The vending machine allows consumers to purchase first-aid packages to treat ailments such as cuts and blisters or buy individual supplies like bandages and rubber gloves.

A Young Visionary Among Seasoned Founders

In January, Rosenthal went on to win second place in the Techstars competition at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He will be featured at TechCrunchDisrupt, a startup conference in New York, where he is the youngest person to ever be accepted to the event.

Rosenthal’s mentor at Roundhouse, Kyle Sandler, said he is the youngest entrepreneur at the company, where the average member is in his or her 30s. Rosenthal spends all his free time at Roundhouse, where he even has an office, he said.

“We had to throw him out of Roundhouse on Christmas Eve because he wanted to keep working,” Sandler said. Rosenthal is even a local celebrity, with the mayor of Opelika declaring Dec. 16 as “Taylor Rosenthal Day.”

The straight-A student says he sees a need for RecMed in any “high-traffic areas where children can get hurt,” such as amusement parks and sports stadiums. So far, Six Flags has ordered 100 machines and several more “major” companies are interested, he said.

Other Vending Machine Applications

The Pizza Vending Machines, outside Costcutter opposite Southwark Station, delivers a hot pizza in under two minutes.

The customer pays and then chooses a preferred recipe by using a keypad. The pizza is then served on a cardboard tray ready for immediate consumption.

The vending machine, which contains both a fridge and an oven, can be stocked up to 102 pizzas. During its first day of operation the stock was sold out.

Other Vending Machine Applications

Staples Bets on Vending Machines for On-the-Go Office Needs

Staples Inc. has installed vending machines at Logan International Airport and a handful of college campuses, hoping to learn whether captive consumers in need of emergency office supplies will pay a premium for computer mice, pens, headphones, batteries, or travel-size Monopoly games.

While no one actually used the two red vending machines sitting across from US Airways’s ticket counters in Terminal B one afternoon this week, plenty of passers-by stopped to get a closer look at what was inside. Many of them said they welcomed the convenience, even if it often comes at a higher price.

Traveler Praises Practicality of Emergency Supplies

”I would say that it’s a good thing,” said Chris Root of Woods Hole, who passed the Staples machines while on a layover at Logan.

”Most of it looks reasonably priced and it all looks like stuff you could come up short on.”

Louise Sawyer, a Boston nonprofit consultant en route to New York, discovered the machines while wandering Terminal B looking for a candy machine.

”I came over here because I was hungry,” Sawyer said. ”They’ve got me right where they need me. It shows that the company is thinking about business travelers.”

Retailers Turn to Branded Vending as a New Sales Channel

Staples is just one of many retailers now experimenting with so-called nontraditional vending to sell products at higher prices with lower overhead, said Michael Kasavana, a hospitality business professor at Michigan State University, where Staples has two vending machines.

”We’re trying to bring new brands to the automated retail space. One way to do that is through branded vending machines,” said Joe Preston, Vision’s president.

Familiar Design, Unusual Inventory

Staples’s machines look and act just like others where you might buy candy or a bag of chips, with a few added twists — and some familiar glitches. Products — from a $60 SanDisk compact flash memory card, a $45 Targus USB optical scroller mini mouse, or a $3 box of Crayola crayons — are lined up in slots that are identified by a combination of a number and letter.

Straightforward Checkout—Mostly

Slide your cash into the appropriate slot on the machine, punch in the location of the item you want, and wait for the metal coils to rotate, dropping your merchandise down behind a door where you can reach in and pick it up.

It’s a pretty simple transaction when it works. A reporter using a credit card was able to buy the optical mouse, a $6 pack of Duracell AAA batteries, and the flash memory card with no problem.

Buying a $25 Cross brand ink pen, though, was a no-go. The machine initially rejected two credit card swipes before finally accepting the card and spitting out the pen. But as it fell, the pen’s box fell apart, with only the empty box top landing behind the pick-up door and the pen itself on a shelf beyond the reporter’s reach.

When told of the glitch, Staples spokeswoman Deborah Hohler said it was the first complaint the company has gotten about its vending machines, which have been in operation for about six months. She noted that a toll-free customer service number is posted on the front of the machines for such problems.

”Obviously, that shouldn’t have happened, but if you call that number, they’ll completely rectify the situation,” she said.

Other Vending Machine Applications

The U.K. will shortly see the introduction of music downloads away from the PC. Inspired Broadcast Networks and Entertainment UK have teamed up to get songs added to a range of different public vending machines.

This will mean that soon in addition to having buttons for a chocolate bar or soft drink, there may also be a music download button or even a separate dedicated kiosk. Pubs, bars, and clubs are also on the list where you can usually find a jukebox of some form (which could be networked for music downloading), and there are plans to allow downloads directly to a mobile phone as well.

The vending machine plans are made possible with the help of BT’s DSL broadband network, meaning the machines can be networked to a central repository and updated when required. Initially music will be downloaded using a memory card, but the ultimate aim is to make the whole process wireless using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Trials are being conducted now, with early interest being shown by Coca-Cola. With the music vending machine market set to boom over the next three years, Inspired is investing £50 million to get this arm of its business off the ground.

Other Vending Machine Applications

The Arizona Diamondbacks have added a Twitter vending machine that will give fans a chance to win themed prizes by tweeting a specific hashtag.

The vending machine will be set up on the upper concourse of Chase Field on the days the D-backs host La Terraza events.

It will allow fans to enjoy a Latin vibe in the upper right field concourse and includes specialized décor, live music and regional food from local favorites such as El Güero Canelo.

To use the vending machine, all one has to do is walk up to it and tweet with the hashtag #DbacksManSol and wait as the machine generates a code for you to tweet. The code is specific for every person, so you can only use the machine once per game.

“We don’t want one person to stand in front of the machine and tweet 50 times,” Krause said. “That’s why the machine generates one code per user per game.”

Once you’ve tweeted, the machine will dispense a prize that could be anything from a D-backs koozie to a $20 voucher for food at Chase Field.

“Last weekend was our first weekend using it and people seemed to really enjoy it,” Krause said.

Other Vending Machine Applications

In schools across the country, milk is replacing sodas, and nowhere is it more popular than in America’s Dairyland.

Two-thirds of Wisconsin’s high schools have milk vending machines. That’s a higher percentage than anywhere else in the country, said Laura Wilford, director of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board’s state Dairy Council. The state has 365 milk vending machines in high schools, elementary schools generally don’t have vending machines.

The milk from modern machines is a far cry from the boring cartons of yesterday. Besides chocolate, there’s strawberry, cookies and cream, and vanilla cream available in colorful, opaque plastic bottles, and most of it is lowfat, Wilford said.

“Some of the machines at this time of the year offer a nonalcoholic eggnog flavor, and it is a big seller,” she said.

Nationwide, there are 7,000 to 7,500 machines dispensing milk in schools, and most of those have been installed in the past three or four years, said Julia Kadison of the Beverage Marketing Corp., an industry consultant. It’s largely an effort to push kids toward healthier food and drink.

“School lunches do not give us enough milk,” Travis Brown, 16, a junior at Delavan-Darien High School, said as he supplemented the half-pint of milk he got with his cafeteria food with a pint from a vending machine.

Matt Venema, 17, another junior at Delavan-Darien, buys milk from the vending machine because “it’s healthy and it tastes good.”

In a state that claims milk as its state beverage and the dairy cow as its domesticated animal, dairy producers quickly got behind the effort to bring milk machines to schools. The Wisconsin milk board pays $100 to schools that install milk vending machines, Wilford said.

Wilford, a nutritionist, pointed out that milk provides calcium, potassium, vitamins A and D and protein.

Research presented at a medical meeting earlier this year suggested that adolescents who had just two servings of dairy food a day seemed to have less of a weight problem than kids who ate less dairy. Some doctors also say an often overlooked problem in teens is vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to weakened bones and stunted growth.

During a recent lunch break, almost every student in the Delavan-Darien’s cafeteria was drinking milk, from the school lunch program, the vending machine or both.

Other Vending Machine Applications

For the first time in Israel! There are New machines to sell Smirnoff Ice, beer in closed, large-scale events! Automated food and beverage company Mashkar, a subsidiary of the Coca Cola group, is set to introduce alcohol vending machine that sells alcoholic beverages. It reflected Israel’s cautious approach to public booze access while tapping into the convenience trend.

The age-limit on the purchase of alcoholic drinks will be enforced, as customers will be obligated to present an identity card to service attendants who will be stationed by each machine.

Focused on ready-to-drink options like Smirnoff Ice (flavors like green apple or original), with plans for beer later. No hard liquor—kept it light for event vibes.

This new machine may save organizers of large-scale events the trouble of setting up bars and, consequently, help them reduce the number of waiters and bartenders necessary for such events.

Other Vending Machine Applications

Pharmacists have expressed interest in medicine vending machines that would allow consumers to pick up prescription drugs out of hours.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia last week said the ATM-style machines, gaining popularity in the US, could have a role in Australia for stable patients on regular medication. But it stressed the idea would have to be thoroughly investigated and strictly policed.

PSA national president Brian Grogan said: “There are advantages if a pharmacy doesn’t open after hours and has one of these machines to provide a service to patients. But there would have to be some pretty strict controls.”

Three American states opened the way for electronic drug dispensers to go into use this year, allowing the public out-of-hours access to common prescription medicines and cutting costs.

A consumer phones ahead to order a prescription, which the pharmacist fills and places into the vending machine. The consumer picks up the prescription later, keying in a password or code.

Dispensed drugs can include asthma and blood pressure medications and contraceptive pills.

Mr. Grogan said there were disadvantages in that patients would lose contact with pharmacists who could monitor conditions. But he said for regular repeat prescriptions, where the patient was stable, there could be advantages.

Other Vending Machine Applications

An effort to force a redesign of the nation’s currency so paper money could be more easily used by the blind would be too expensive and could cause undue hardships on the vending machine industry, the Bush administration says.  

The administration asked an appeals court on Tuesday to overturn a ruling that could require the introduction of such features as Braille lettering, micro-perforations or varying the sizes of denominations to aid the blind and visually impaired.

Justice Department attorneys representing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson filed the appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking that a Nov. 28 decision by U.S. District Judge James Robertson be overturned.

Robertson ruled that the nation’s currency as currently designed violates the Rehabilitation Act, a law that prohibits discrimination in government programs on the basis of disability.

Robertson ordered Treasury to come up with ways for the blind to recognize the different denominations of paper currency, finding in favor of a lawsuit brought by the American Council for the Blind, which has waged a four-year court battle over the issue.

In his ruling, Robertson had said the United States was the only nation out of 180 issuing paper currency that printed bills that were identical in size and color in all their denominations.

He cited the successful use of such features as varying sizes, raised lettering and tiny perforations used by other nations as evidence such changes were feasible.

But in their petition to the appeals court, government lawyers argued that varying the size of denominations could cause significant burdens on the vending machine industry and cost the Bureau of Engraving and Printing an initial investment of $178 million and $37 million to $50 million in new printing plates.

“Even placing these figures in the context of the $420 million the BEP has spent annually on average in producing currency over the last 10 years, the additional costs proposed to modify the currency are not easily dismissed,” the government argued in its petition to the appeals court.

The government lawyers also argued that blind people were not being denied “meaningful access” to currency transactions because there were portable readers that could identify denominations and they also could use credit cards for transactions rather than cash.

Jeffrey Lovitky, an attorney for the American Council of the Blind, said he would ask the appeals court to reject the government’s arguments and allow the case to go forward with a January hearing where the government is scheduled to provide testimony to aid Robertson in deciding what remedies should be adopted.

Christopher Gray, president of the council, said that while his group has been lobbying for changes to help the blind since 1995, the government has yet to conduct any feasibility studies of what those changes might cost and has instead moved ahead with a number of design changes to thwart counterfeiters.

“We would be happy to wait until the next change in the bills and build accessibility at that time,” Gray said. “Surely, if you did it that way, the costs can’t be anything like what is being claimed by Treasury.”

Tara Cortes, president of Lighthouse International, another advocacy group for the blind, said the government’s decision to fight making changes in the currency could end up being harmful to millions of Americans.

There are 1.3 million people in the United States currently who are legally blind, but it is estimated that number will double by 2030 and millions more will have vision problems as the baby boom generation ages and more people fall victim to macular degeneration and other diseases, such as diabetes, that can affect vision.

“While the government may argue that changing the dollar bill will cost billions, it will pale in comparison to the costs of the vision loss epidemic,” Cortes said.

Other Vending Machine Applications

The big red vending machine at the McDonald’s whirrs and hums and spits out rental DVDs of Chicken Little and King Kong.

Machines run by McDonald’s Corp. subsidiary Redbox Automated Retail have popped up in hundreds of Golden Arches restaurants in six cities in an experiment to see whether they drive more customers into the stores. Rental chain Movie Gallery is experimenting with DVD rental machines, too, saying the machines will make rental transactions easier for customers and make its stores more efficient.

The spread of DVD rental machines comes as rental stores are struggling under a business model that hasn’t changed much from the mom-and-pop video stores of 20 years ago. The rental business has suffered from the sale of inexpensive DVDs, rent-by-mail services, such as Netflix Inc., and expanding video-on-demand from cable companies.

“We think it’s a tremendous opportunity,” said Greg Waring, Redbox’s vice president of marketing. “We think we’re providing a new model for the industry that is going to be difficult for the traditional retailers to compete against.”

About the size of a soda machine, each “Redbox” holds 500 disks and includes a touch screen so customers can pick a movie, and a credit card reader for paying the $1-per-night fee. Customers return the movies at the machine.

Signs near the machines promote its movies. Redbox staffers load newly released DVDs each Tuesday.

Redbox workers at the headquarters in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., can monitor which titles are renting the most in each machine and adjust their selection accordingly. Generally there are 50 to 60 individual titles.

Chris Kliner and his daughters Olivia, 5, and Annaliese, 4, select a rental DVD from a Redbox before eating at McDonald’s in Apple Valley, Minn. The Kliners, who were visiting from Kenosha, Wis., said they appreciated the convenience of not having to sign up just to rent a single movie.

This summer, the company plans to let customers go online to check title availability in a particular location and rent a movie on the spot for pickup at that machine later.

In Apple Valley, a suburb of the Twin Cities, Chris and Teresa Kliner stopped at a McDonald’s for both a meal and a copy of “Chicken Little” for their daughters to watch during a visit with relatives in the Twin Cities.

“With kids, it’s easier this way, because they’re not running all over the store,” Teresa Kliner said while daughters Olivia and Annaliese played on the slides at the restaurant’s indoor playground.

Jeff Smith, a McDonald’s franchisee who owns seven restaurants and runs a cooperative that buys advertising for Twin Cities McDonald’s, said he doesn’t know whether the DVD machines are bringing in more customers because there are so many other variables, like the weather and promotions, affect whether people eat out.

But he says his customers love the machines.

“The only thing I invest is my space,” Smith said. “We don’t get paid anything, and it doesn’t cost us anything to have it.”

Other Vending Machine Applications