RMRB 1379 – Building an eCommerce Business Making $54K per Year in the Gaming Niche

In this episode, Lauren talks to the seller of an eCommerce and digital product business created in April 2020 in the gaming, entertainment, and technology niches. Listen in to find out how the business makes an average of $54,430.00 per year in net profit, why the seller has decided to sell, the lessons learned from running the business, and much more.

Visit https://empireflippers.com/listing/96846 to learn more about this business.

Listen to this episode

Transcript

Forget gurus. Forget anyone claiming to be an online business expert without going through the challenges of entrepreneurship themselves. The Real Money, Real Business Podcast is here to prove the best insights in online business come from your fellow online business builders.

We dig into stories of entrepreneurs selling their businesses on the Empire Flippers Marketplace so that you can learn how they made their businesses profitable, how they overcame obstacles, and what lessons they learned in their online journeys. If you want to take your business and your knowledge to the next level, you've come to the right podcast. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Real Money, Real Business Podcast. We record these interviews so that potential buyers can learn more about the business and the seller to help them make an informed buying decision.

If you would like to learn more about this business, including details like what type of business it is, how much revenue and profit it makes, and all of the assets included with the business, simply visit empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and in the description. Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can click the link in the description to go straight to the listing.

So, without further ado, let's get into this interview.

First up, let's learn a little bit about you. Can you tell us about your background in building and running online businesses?

I started in this industry in 2017 as a live streamer and a member of a streamer community that also had a design agency. That gave me experience in graphic design and an understanding of how a creative business for streamers worked.

Later, I decided to start my own brand, and the brand grew very quickly. At one point, I remember having around 23 custom projects in the queue, with delivery times close to two months. People were very happy to wait. That pushed me to build a more scalable business.

Over the next few years, I gained experience with e-commerce, Webflow, Wix, and especially Shopify, while learning the full process, from lead generation and conversion to product delivery and marketing. Eventually, I turned the service business into an e-commerce business selling digital products. Today, we combine passive digital product revenue with some custom project revenue.

Why are you selling the business now instead of keeping it and growing it further?

The main reason is a mix of personal and financial factors. A few years ago, I purchased a house and later discovered there was a significant debt tied to the property that had not been properly disclosed during the purchase process. About a year and a half later, we had to return the property and move back into a rental.

My main reason for selling this company now is to improve my financial situation and be able to purchase a home again for my family.

Can you describe the amount and type of work that you do on this business to maintain it?

The main ongoing work is creating new digital products and promoting new releases on social media and YouTube. Basically, if a game or some type of content is hot, or is going to be hot next month, we focus our energy on creating products around that topic so we can promote them.

We already have a very large catalog of stream packages that were created over the years using Photoshop and After Effects. More recently, we've been using AI tools to allow us to increase production significantly while still applying the creative direction and experience we developed over many years.

We are currently focusing more on stream widgets and products for ecosystems such as the Elgato Stream Deck and Corsair Xenia Edge. We also have a close relationship with the Elgato Marketplace staff and regularly develop products for that ecosystem.

Overall, the recurring workload is relatively light: creating new products, publishing them, and promoting launches. I also consult every day with my KPI experts, which are a group of AI assistants that help me analyze what's working and what's not.

So, if you were to keep this business, what are some of the ways you would try to grow it?

First, I would definitely continue expanding the catalog of AI-assisted products, especially for the Elgato ecosystem. Outside of that ecosystem, we already have a very large catalog. Elgato has a lot of focus on actual hardware, and that's where our advantage is.

Secondly, I would invest in paid marketing again. In the past, our Google Ads campaigns generated roughly 1.8 to 2.3 ROAS. We proved that paid acquisition could work, but at the time, I did not have enough experience to scale it efficiently. Today, almost all of the business revenue is organic, so I believe paid acquisition is still a major opportunity.

Third, I would continue to expand the recurring revenue. We recently launched a yearly subscription for $150 that gives customers access to more than 2,200 assets. We also launched a Widget Pass, which is some sort of light subscription that gives access only to widgets.

And that's around $49 per month, right?

What would you say are the biggest risks with this business that buyers should be aware of?

One of the biggest risks I see right now is not investing enough in the community and in customer relationships. AI is making digital product creation much more accessible, so more people can create these products. Competing only through production becomes harder over time.

I believe the brand needs to continue building a stronger community and closer relationships with its customers, not only through email marketing, which is an untapped marketing channel for us, but also through things like Discord.

Another risk is stagnation. The streaming ecosystem changes quickly, so continuing to produce the same types of products without adapting to new platforms, devices, and trends could reduce the brand's relevance over time.

How much support are you willing to offer the buyer who acquires this business?

I could provide whatever support is necessary to make the transition successful. The business already operates with a high level of automation, but I think transferring the operational knowledge is very important.

I would explain how the products are made, where they are distributed, how we launch new products, and how AI fits into our current production workflow. The goal would be for the buyer not only to acquire the existing passive income, but also to understand how to keep building and growing the business.

Are you open to negotiating something like an earn-out agreement?

Currently, I'm not open to an earn-out payment structure.

Okay, final question. If you had to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer, why is your business worth buying?

I think the main advantages of this business are the high profit margins, low ongoing management requirements, and significant untapped growth opportunities. The business already has a large digital product catalog, strong organic traffic, Google authority, and distribution across multiple channels.

There are still several growth opportunities that we have not fully explored, including influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and paid advertising, not to mention email marketing.

Another advantage is that much of the labor-intensive traditional product catalog has already been built with AI tools. We can now create new products much more efficiently while still applying strong creative direction.

Overall, it is a high-margin, relatively low-maintenance business with a strong existing foundation and several clear opportunities for further growth.

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening. To learn more and see if this business is still for sale, head over to empireflippers.com/marketplace and search for this business's listing number, which you can find in the video thumbnail and description.

Or, if you're watching this on YouTube, click the link in the description to go straight to the listing. Once you've unlocked this listing, you'll find everything you need to know about this business.

Thanks for joining us. See you next time, Sam.