Starter Story - The big business of pranking

Million-dollar business from your kitchen table?

The "kitchen table" is an expression that can be taken figuratively, but it can also be taken literally...

Check out these multi-million dollar businesses that started from their kitchen table:

• A $100M silicone rings brand
• These $540K/year pillowcases sold on Instagram
• This $20M/year laptops business

This week we spoke to Suzie who also started her $36M/year healthy snacks brand this way. She decide that the lack of resources wasn't going to stop her because (1) she thought it was important to provide customers with healthier options and (2) spotted an opportunity in the market.

Our take:

Don't wait for the perfect equipment or setup to start working on your idea. The only thing you need is a vision and the drive to make it come true.

Some numbers for you:

• 69%-> of businesses start from home
• $120M -> Suzie's business sales
• 50 -> her age when started the business

Your pain is a potential money-making business

Our day-to-day is full of inefficiencies. Tasks and processes that could be improved. Sometimes we forget that millions of people around the world also experience the exact pain as us.

That's why designing a solution for your own problems is one that may be helpful enough to build an entire business around.

And that's what Jaime did, the founder of Virtual Latinos. Instead of suffering the problems of hiring virtual assistants, he didn't settle and started his own business: now he makes $4.2M/year.

Our take:

Keep your eyes open to the inefficiencies around you every day. Do you know how Dropbox was born? The founder forgot his USB stick.

Some numbers for you:

• $245.91B -> size of the outsourcing industry
• $4.2M -> Virtual Latinos yearly revenue
• 50,000 -> applicants want to work with them

The wild & crazy million-dollar prank industry

I love businesses that sell novelty products. Glitter bombs, singing cards that never shut off, or framed Kanye tweets, there is a small but growing niche in the prank and joke space.

And that brings me to our next interview: Adam is a solo founder with 3 employees doing $1.5M in revenue per year - and what do they sell? Chocolate ‘junk’.

Our take:

How can a seemingly dumb joke become a business that’s worth millions? Their products can go viral. 

A prank makes for great content. When someone gets a chocolate dong in the mail, they’re likely to share it on their social media and tell everyone about it via word of mouth. Or get covered by tons of press outlets:

Some numbers for you:

• $125K → The amount of revenue d***atyourdoor.com makes every month
• $92,073 → How much this guy raised on Kickstarter for his prank greeting card
• $23M → How much a canned water DTC company just raised

Read Adam’s update on how he grew his business to over $1.5M/year.

What's your hobby? Might be a huge business

What do you know more about than most people? Likely, it's that weird and obscure hobby you have.

So why not try to and see if there is a viable business around it.

That's what Jon did.

At 17, Jon started a website about movie mistakes (!) and he has had the consistency to keep it current and working on it for the past 25 years.

His reward? Making a living at it. He even was invited as a regular expert guest on TV:

Our take:

Any hobby has the potential to become a full-time business or a profitable side hustle: aromatherapy ($900K/year), aquariums e-commerce ($120K/year or disc golf ($12M/year). It doesn't matter how niche or weird you think it is. 

Some numbers for you:

• 450,000 -> monthly visitors to moviemistakes.com
• $48K -> yearly ad revenue generated
• 50% -> people who'd love to turn their hobby into a business