How One Man Launched A Mobile Gaming App From Apartment. It Brings In $200,000 A Month

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http://www.parallelkingdom.com/

Four years after its launch, the mobile gaming app Parallel Kingdom (PK) is now one million players strong and brings in just over $200,000 per month in in-app purchases. Maintaining and growing the title has taught our team a lot about about creating deep mobile games, allowing us to launch another location-based game, Parallel Mafia, which has already seen traction. But it all began in a 700-square-foot apartment.

Our dream for the product started simply. My PerBlue co-founder, Andrew Hanson, and I were bored with homework one night around 4 a.m., so we decided to take a break and start a totally new project. We wanted to make a game with four goals in mind: it had to be played on phones, it had to be fun, it had to make money and — just for kicks — it would use the phone’s GPS. The iPhone had been released a few months earlier and the Android was just announced, so we wanted to take advantage of this new technology and gaming platform.

PerBlue was founded in the summer of 2008, while Andrew and I were both interning in Seattle. We both had really attractive job offers from Google and Microsoft, but we ultimately turned them down to pursue our own dream with PerBlue. The first year and half was spent bootstrapping, working for no pay and carrying few operating costs — with the exception of an occasional pizza or domain name.

Our team was built from our college friends from the University of Wisconsin, but the excitement of creating a location-based game for mobile phones was what really attracted them. PerBlue’s team was based out of my apartment in downtown Madison, and we occupied just about all 700 square feet of it. Since the entire original PerBlue team was attending college when PK was first being designed, we would go to class and part-time jobs during the day, and work on the game late into the night (sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m.).

Working in close quarters and for no pay required a lot of passion for the project, trust, and strong friendship. These things were the glue that held us together.

As the launch approached, we were working insane hours — sometimes 80 to 100 hours a week. At one point, one of our developers hadn’t gone to any of his classes for almost two weeks. Everyone was on their last nerve, but it was either now or never — we decided to strip 95 percent of the game’s features and push it live, bugs and all. Within the first day we had over 6,000 downloads, and four years later, some of those early players are still active in the game community.

The third iteration of PK, which launched in November of 2009, first introduced our virtual goods revenue model to the game. At the time, earning revenue from virtual goods was still a relatively unproven business model. The night before we shipped this update, I remember telling myself, “If we don’t make any money tomorrow, we’ll shut the whole thing down and I will be very happy. This has been fun, and it was a great adventure.” We woke up the next morning to find that we had made over $5,000. That day marked an important turning point, and the rest is history.

Parallel Kingdom’s in-app purchases and subscription services have allowed PerBlue to monetize the game and grow as a company. Our game has some of the highest revenue per player in the industry, and growth at PerBlue has been largely fueled by the success of Parallel Kingdom. We’ve grown rapidly with three hiring bursts, from a team of five to over 35 employees today. Given the fast-paced nature of the mobile games industry, our team and products are quickly growing and changing — and we can’t wait to share what’s next.

[Via - Forbes.Com]

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Weird Profits - How To Get Rich Selling Unicorn Meat On Amazon.com

It sounds cliche, but in order to succeed you have to stand out. You may offer outstanding quality or lowest price, but more and more companies use ‘weirdness’ as their strategy. Case in point – Canned Unicorn Meat from ThinkGeek.com

Now, you probably know that unicorns don’t exist (no judgement here), but that’s exactly the point. A typical ‘product review’ reads along these lines:

Of course this isn't as good as fresh, but who has time to hunt unicorns these days? I'm a busy professional so I don't have the luxury of just grabbing my bow and quiver and spending days in the high glens hunting fresh 'corn. This product allows me to come home from a hectic day and enjoy a meal packed with that special nutrition only unicorn can provide. I even keep a few cans at the office for those late nights.

While selling ‘unicorn meat’ may seem silly to you, ThinkGeek got a ton of free publicity from the product and made over a hundred thousand dollars.

You don’t even need to come up with a wacky product in order to get attention. You may simply ‘rebrand’ your existing product. Let’s do a test – what gets your attention.

1. Hand sanitizer
2. Maybe You Touched Your Gentials Hand Sanitizer

See, I told you so.

Sebastian Abondano And MyFunkyPlanet.Com

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http://www.myfunkyplanet.com/

What it does: Sells toys with virtual counterparts
Founder: Sebastian Abondano, 24
Website: myfunkyplanet.com
Based: Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Revenue 2010: $1.3 million
Revenue 2011 (projected): $2 million

Sebastian Abondano was fascinated by the success of Webkinz, stuffed toys that came with a corresponding online persona for kids to play with in a virtual world. In 2008, while a junior at Babson College, he started his own line of toys that bridge the physical and digital worlds. My Funky Planet sells remote-controlled cars and helicopters that come with codes to unlock virtual replicas in an online game. Targeted at boys aged 6 to 12, the toys are manufactured in China and sold through U.S. retailers such as Toys R Us, Sears, and Discovery Channel Stores. They retail for from $20 to $120 and come with virtual currency that can be used to soup up the online avatars. Though selling virtual goods is not a big source of revenue right now, Abondano expects it to grow as the user base expands and players can eventually interact with each other in a game world. Abondano says the nine-employee company has raised $400,000 in seed money and has been profitable since its first year.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

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GameTag Success Story

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http://www.gametag.com.au/

A stay-at-home mother of four from south-west Sydney could make a fortune out of a simple Nintendo DS accessory she invented out of frustration.

Janene Samuel, 42, invented the $20 Gametag - on sale in EBGames stores around the country from tomorrow - after her young kids kept losing their Nintendo DS games, costing the Bankstown mum close to $100 every time.

No matter how many times she told them to pack them away, the games were constantly scattered across the carpet and they were soon being hoovered up by the vacuum cleaner. All four of Samuel's kids - aged between seven and 13 - have a Nintendo DS and the tiny game cartridges were easy to lose on family outings.

"Some people I've spoken to have lost seven or eight games - that's a weekend away for a family, it's almost a mortgage payment for some people lost in a child's toy. It's a huge expense," she said in a phone interview.

Samuel fashioned her first Gametag prototype out of odds and ends she found in her cupboard around Christmas 2008, but it took her another year after patenting the invention to begin trying to commercialise it. They have only been on sale online for about six weeks.

"Other mothers started saying to me 'oh my god, where did you get that from'? In two weeks I had 12 mothers approach me and ask and I said to my husband, 'I think I'm onto something'," she said.

The deceptively simple product consists of a lanyard attached to a keyring that holds eight tags, which are stuck on to the game cartridges. They always remain connected to the handheld games console, even when playing and swapping between games.

Australia's largest video game retailer, EBGames, believes in the invention and has ordered an initial lot of 1000 units, to be sold in its stores around the country. Samuel said she was in negotiations with other distributors and retailers and also hoped to sell the product internationally by the end of the year.

She is also selling the Gametags on her website for $20, and through her local Bankstown and Fairfield markets.

Samuel estimates she has sold over 450 units just through word of mouth. The only comparable products on the market are containers for Nintendo DS games but Samuel said these don't work as kids never put the games back in the box.

"From a child's point of view they never lose the game, so we never get into that situation of $89 down the drain. You pick up the console and you have all your games," she said.

Samuel, who stopped working after having her first child, said she had sunk several hundred thousand dollars into the venture and had much of her extended family around the kitchen table helping her assemble each Gametag. She has enough stock for about 300,000 units so far.

"We're just a normal joe blow family from the suburbs so the stress of the money outlay has been the only downside to the whole thing," said Samuel.

"I didn't really set out to invent something but I'm quite humbled by the interest from everyone. Even old ladies came up to me and said I don't have a DS but I think it's wonderful."

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - SMH]

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The Little Company That Could

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http://www.woodentrain.com/

Surrounded by shelves stocked with 180 different wooden train cars, Sandy Oliver boxes orders at Whittle Shortline Railroad in New London, Mo. (pop. 1,001). Then she stops and picks up a bright blue replica of The Little Engine That Could.

"This is my favorite. I think it has personality," says Oliver, 48, about the beloved storybook character whose positive attitude and "I think I can" spirit help him conquer a mighty hill.

Owner Mike Whitworth, 61, likewise has a soft spot for The Little Engine That Could. The engine powered his little company into the national toy market in 2007 after more than a million Thomas the Tank Engine trains, made in China, were recalled because they were coated with lead-based paint. When parents began shopping for safe wooden trains made in the United States, they found Whittle Shortline Railroad.

"Our sales tripled in 30 days," says Whitworth, recalling how demand for his wooden trains skyrocketed. "We sold out. We had nothing left."

Since then, Whittle Shortline Railroad has steadily chugged ahead, even after the Mississippi River flooded its manufacturing plant in Louisiana, Mo. (pop. 3,863), in June 2008, prompting the company to relocate 30 miles north to New London. When production was suspended for a month, Whitworth continued to pay his employees.

But nothing about the little toy company is as surprising as its accidental origin. In 1994, Whitworth's wife, Pat, 61, gave him a Sears miter saw for a Christmas gift in hopes that he would make crown molding for their house. When the box sat unopened for two years and she threatened to return the saw, Whitworth set it up in his garage and began building wooden trains.

"The neighborhood kids would come by and I'd give them away," he recalls.

Word soon spread about Whitworth's handmade hardwood trains, and orders began rolling in from merchants and companies, including Amtrak. In 1999, Whitworth bought the 1880 Frisco Hotel in Valley Park, Mo. (pop. 6,518), and opened a retail store and offices for his toy company.

Like The Little Engine That Could, the former U.S. Air Force pilot and designer of mail-sorting machines for the U.S. Postal Service embarked on another challenge earlier this year. He invested more than $1 million in equipment to manufacture wooden puzzles, including a line of multi-layered puzzles.

"Nobody wanted to give me a loan, and I had to go to literally nine different banks to get small loans," Whitworth says.

His American Puzzle Co. now produces its own designs, plus George Luck Puzzles that previously were manufactured in China. "We're actually bringing jobs back here," Whitworth says.

Today, 30 employees craft the wooden puzzles, trains and trucks—cutting, sanding, painting, printing and applying decals to make the American-made toys, which are sold at 500 stores nationwide. The company has licensing agreements with nearly every major railroad, including Burlington Northern and Union Pacific. Employees gather around tables for "buffing parties" to hand sand each vehicle.

"Mike doesn't mind the investment of time," says Eric Brown, 43, who especially enjoys creating the colorful, finely detailed puzzles, which include up to seven layers of pieces.

One multi-dimensional puzzle depicts a toy box with layers of vintage trucks and planes, and another reveals a child's tea party behind a garden gate. The birch wood puzzles are laser cut, polished, sealed and printed in
permanent ink.

"We call them puzzles, but they're really works of art that come apart," Whitworth says. "They're simply the
best there is."

His little toy company's sales are projected to total $1.5 million this year, and Whitworth hopes to double his work force by spring.

Like The Little Engine That Could, Whitworth remains optimistic about the future and his company's American-made toys.

"I've never lost sight of our customer," he says in explaining his company's success. "It's a little kid who's going to chew on the toy."


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