8:08This Scratch-Off Activity Book Is Making $85 Million a Year
From My First Million · Published Jul 5, 2022 · Watch on YouTube
TL;DR
The video tells the story of Brian Ellis, a high school dropout and former skyscraper inspector, who created a scratch-off adventure book called The Adventure Challenge. After a failed Kickstarter (raised only $1,700 of a $10,000 goal) and almost quitting, he got a sales job, tested paid ads on TikTok and Facebook, and grew the business to $85 million in annual revenue and ~2 million copies sold.
Key insights
- The original idea was a machine that prints adventure ideas on a receipt; it later evolved into a physical scratch-off book.
- Ellis spent 6–8 months prototyping the book himself, buying materials from Hobby Lobby and documenting the process in vlogs.
- After the Kickstarter stalled on day three with only $1,700 raised, he planned to quit and took a sales job to save money.
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