Do things beautifully
Estimated Reading Time: About 4 minutes
Since the inception of The Steel Road we have been notoriously against dropshipping. The problem we have with it is the idea that you can go to Alibaba, pick a fancy looking watch that only costs $5 and slap a weird brand name on it to resell for $100.
At that point you are doing nothing more than taking advantage of gullible people that click on Instagram ads. That’s not a sustainable business, you aren’t actually creating an asset that has value.
You might be able to get a quick buck, but you are never going to sell that ecommerce business for a significant liquidity event because you never built value.
Is there a way to do dropshipping or fulfillment by Amazon and build actual value?
Absolutely.
At the age of 52, Brent Beck launched his first ever company. As a near retired airline pilot, Brent had seen a lot of turmoil in the aviation industry and had very little confidence that his pension would sustain him through retirement at the lifestyle he wanted to live.
He had been playing games with his family for years, and had always been good at adding new twists and wrinkles to make the games more interesting. It must have seemed daunting to go up against the likes of Uno, Monopoly, and other iconic games, but Brent knew he had something unique to offer.
Brent took some classic games that he always played with his family and recreated them. His business concept was simple:
Traditional games, beautifully done
He didn’t reinvent the wheel, but just saw an opportunity and really doubled down on making it successful.
Currently all his games are fulfilled by Amazon, he doesn’t have to manage inventory or supply chain.
Since 2012 here are some of the numbers.
Over 2,000,000 games sold
Games made in 9 languages
14,600 amazon reviews on the popular game Cover Your Assets
Just think about those numbers.
2,000,000 games * $20 average purchase price = $40 million in revenue
That’s quite the retirement fund.
Here is what we like about this business.
It is a little outside of our typical scope to talk about a game company on this newsletter, but hear us out.
Use “beautifully done” as a business model.
It doesn’t matter if you are doing accounting, commercial cleaning, or customer service in a call center. If your goal is to do things “beautifully” then you will be able to build a great business. It doesn’t mean you have to have a perfect website or a unique logo, it just means you look to show your customers that you are giving them the best possible experience at every opportunity.
Be wary of building a business off the back of technology, but embrace it to improve efficiency.
Right now there is a huge wave of “AI” startups. 95% of these are going to fail because they aren’t actually based on a product people want. Nobody likes a bandwagoner. Don’t just get on a particular bandwagon just because everyone else is. Start your business and then look for ways to improve it with technology.
It’s never too late to start.
It’s amazing how Brent took a leap at age 52 and has achieved incredible success. Now his retirement is filled with the invigorating career of building a profitable business.
You’ll always wish you had started a year ago. Just Start!
If you are looking to try out one of Grandpa Beck’s Games, support The Steel Road and use our affiliate link!
If you like this edition of the newsletter, you can help in 2 ways.
Fill out this 2-minute survey. This helps us write better content.
Share The Steel Road
Blast From The Past
Bring a college football bowl game to your hometown.
It’s that time of year, College Football is right in the middle of its bowl season. Most teams that have a record above 6-6(.500) qualify to play in a bowl game. A bowl game is when two teams that qualify travel to a neutral site to play each other. Usually it’s a warm place with lots of culture and is surrounded by events for players and fans with a big…