John Welsh was a repairer of fruit machines and now operates Tubz machines across Liverpool and the North West.
John at one of his vending sites
Tubz: Before you invested in Tubz what kind of opportunity were you looking for?
John Welsh: Well, I wasn’t particularly looking to invest in anything at the time. I just sort of fell into it. I used to fix fruit machines and I stumbled across them while I was doing that.
T: So you weren’t really looking at franchises or other opportunities?
JW: No, I wasn’t. I basically started doing it as a bit of a sideline and it grew.
T: How many machines did you start off with?
JW: I only started off with one, funnily enough. I must have been one of the first people in the UK, it was about 10 years ago. So unlike a lot of people I didn’t actually buy a franchise package off Tubz, I just bought one machine.
T: How many machines do you think you need to be able to go full-time?
JW: A hundred, I would say.
T: When did you go full time operating vending machines?
JW: It’s probably about 2 years ago actually as I had a full time job and not many machines until then. But since then we’ve really ramped it to have machines in lots of locations.
T: What area do you cover?
JW: The whole of the North West, pretty much. We’re actually based in Liverpool but we cover Chester, North Wales, Wigan, St Helen’s, part of Manchester. Quite a large area.
T: Are you still expanding or are you quite happy as you are?
JW: No, we’re still expanding. We just added another 20 machines yesterday.
T: Is it a joint operation?
JW: Yes, there’s two of us. He was someone who was selling up and I offered to buy him out, then we had a bit of a chat and in the end we decided, rather than do that, we’d come together.
He’s got money behind him, I’ve got time. So it works quite well. Hence why we’re growing.
T: As you grow do you think you’ll be able to handle the business with just the two of you?
JW: No, we’ll have to take staff on. We have had staff in the past but it’s just the two of us at the minute. We’ll need some help which will free up some more time for me. I’m pretty good at finding sites, you see. I find probably 80% of the sites myself.
T: Are you happy with your career move from fixing machines to owning them?
JW: Yes, definitely. And the team at Tubz are really helpful as well. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them and look forward to a prosperous future working with them.
Find out more about Tubz franchisees and their stories and experiences in our Testimonials.
