At 13, entrepreneur Talon Polivka is paving a path into the world of business, and building relationships with area establishments along the way.
The Twality Middle School 8th grader owns and operates multiple candy vending machines and a dollar-a-play claw crane machine (the arcade game that lets players try to grab a prize by steering with levers) and has amassed more than 42,000 YouTube followers.
He launched Talon Vending last February with two multiple-compartment candy dispensers that he found and purchased from Offer Up, and soon after placed–one at Eagle Bargain Market and another in Beaverton at Round Table Pizza.
The vintage-style, triple-compartment machines dispense a handful of classics like Runts, Hot Tamales, Skittles, and gumballs, for a quarter a spin. He finds them good condition machines online, then refurbishes them before stocking.
Talon Vending isn’t his first upstart, but it’s the first that’s stuck.
The son of a librarian and a software engineer, Talon says he’s not sure where he caught the entrepreneurial bug, but he’s always loved starting businesses. At 8 years old, he started a mail-order mystery box company where customers picked a theme, and for a set price, Talon sent a box of surprises.
A garden box, for instance, might come with gardening gloves, seed packets, and small tools. The Mystery Box venture lasted a few months before orders fizzled, tanking the nascent business.
He’s learning to surf the ups and downs of small business ownership as he goes.
“There’s going to be some losses,” he said. “You’re not going get it correct the first time.”
The lesson is to learn from the failures, preserve, and try again.
Vending feels different. This one has momentum.
“When I bought my first two machines, it was really gloomy outside, but I just felt really happy, like nothing could bring me down,” he said. “I was proud that I was starting an actual company because before, all of my other businesses had just failed, but this one’s steady. It’s just steady income, and it’s great.”
Earlier this year, he expanded using gift money from his Bar Mitzvah to buy two claw machines for about $400 each. He placed them briefly at the now-defunct Reset Button arcade, but the classic toy grab games only saw a couple weeks of action before the arcade closed abruptly.
He later moved one of them to Eagle Bargain Market and sold the other.
To keep it stocked, Talon shops dollar stores and clearance sections, then fills the game’s big glass belly with mostly plushy toys he’s found. At a dollar a play, it’s his biggest money maker. Still, he sets the controls to ensure a high probability of winning.
“I try to make my machines the most winnable compared to l other machines because I always hated losing and losing and losing on all the claw machines when I was little,” he said. “I still try to make a profit, but I love being able to let people win.”
Seeing the joy on a kid’s face is part of the fun.
“When I restock my candy machines, if there are kids nearby and they’re looking at the candy machine, I’ll just give them a quarter so they can get some candy, and it’s nice to see the kids’ faces light up.”
Talon makes weekly restocking rounds on an electric scooter and pays his older sister in sodas or other treats to drive him to Beaverton.
As far as profits are concerned, he hasn’t begun tracking.
But the business is growing.
He’s practicing the art of networking and developing business relationships in Tigard and beyond. He teamed with brothers Joshua and Alfredo Carreon to place a machine at West Coast Torta’s food cart in Universal Plaza. When the restaurant moves from its city-subsidized Launch Pod home at Universal Plaza to a yet-to-be-determined brick-and-mortar location, Talon’s quarter-a-spin candy vending machine will move with them.
At press time, he was placing another in King City’s Gorilla Donuts and had one more at home.
If business goes according to plans, he’ll add a full-sized multiple snack vending machine to the collection when he’s in high school.
But that, he says, might have to wait until he’s old enough to drive.
Follow Talon Polivka online at youtube.com/@YaBoiTalon.
To add Talon vending to your business contact Talon at swankify.toast@gmail.com.
If you’d like to help Talon expand his business, you can make a contribution at tinyurl.com/mumkwzswor.
