The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

eCommerce and Gaming

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Hi guys,

I'm Jordan a 17 year old from Ireland. I'm still in school I have a year and a half left. I have been playing the game Minecraft for a few years now and I have built up a network of about 200-300 other players. In November 2013 I hosted a gaming server and ran a small website and forums for players of the game to communicate on. I was working on this with another person from England, he maintained the server and I maintained the website and forums. We sold rare items within our gaming server for money and we each made about 2000$ each in the space of a month as we split the profits in half. At the beginning of December the other person wanted to take two months off to focus on exams and study as he had tests coming up in mid-january. He wanted me to continue working the entire business by myself while he retained his share of the profits. I disagreed with this and we went our seperate ways. The website and gaming server were subsequently sold for 500$ as I didn't know how manage the technicalities of the gaming server. At this time I was pretty annoyed as all this hard work had paid off but we hadn't managed to build a lasting business.

Fastforward to now, I spent a month learning how to run a gaming server and continued building my network. About a month ago I opened a new gaming server along with a website and forums. While I do have an American guy running the technicalities of the server I do know how to do them myself but they consume plenty of time which I wish to spend on more valuable tasks. I have also completely automated the payment process and linked the website with the gaming server so when somebody purchases from the website the items are automatically deposited onto their gaming account this was the most time consuming part of the previous business as I spent hours online manually transfering items. I have also appointed a number of key players to manage other players on the server and enforce rules, again I have automated the tedious stuff like automatically filtering explicit language and blocking players from destroying each others buildings.

I'm starting this thread as a way to document my progress and also to recieve feedback from other people of a similar mindset. So far I have only made 30$ from two sales and I have 130 people registered on the website/forums. I attribute these low profits to that fact that I haven't been selling perks which influence gameplay to much as I felt it took away from the players that couldn't afford to pay resulting in a lower player count on my server, however I am in the middle of reevaluating this as MJ says you need to create value to get people to part with their money and maybe people don't see the current perks as valuable. Other changes this time around include the fact that I own 100% of the business this time and the others helping me are just promoted players and don't have to be paid. I have also designed a very efficient looking and working website you can check it out at www.ancientmc.com I would like people to provide feedback.

My first Goal is to make 100$ a week from my website and to expand on this goal once it has been reached.

I have recieved 1800 hits on the website over the last 25 days and most evenings we have about 20 players on the server. I'm also looking for other ways to promote and advertise my website, at the moment I have threads running on popular gaming forums/ranking lists. I also have a youtube video taken within the server and soon I will be streaming the server through Twitch.tv

Many of you will wonder why I decided to post how much I made and the idea. The answer is that I put in over a years work unpaid I didn't realise it at the time because it was just gaming to me also there is already plenty of competition for the 11 million+ minecraft players so I feel this thread will be more beneficial than destructive to me.

Expenses:
Website - 7.99$ a month
Hosting - 22.49$ a month

Income:
We have 5 perk packages running at 10$, 20$, 30$, 50$ and 75$ our target audience is 11+ million Minecraft players.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MoneyDoc

Platinum Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
273%
Jun 24, 2014
1,578
4,313
There's a lot of minecraft private servers. What makes you different?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

BigBrianC

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
129%
Dec 31, 2014
365
472
27
Athens, Georgia
How much time do you put in a week? How much do the servers, promotion, etc. costs? If you broke it down, this seems like something you can do instead of just gaming, not a true business. IMO, anyway.
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
There's a lot of minecraft private servers. What makes you different?
We use a custom map of the World instead of a randomly generated map. Players create towns based on ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire or the Greeks.

How much time do you put in a week? How much do the servers, promotion, etc. costs? If you broke it down, this seems like something you can do instead of just gaming, not a true business. IMO, anyway.
At the moment only one or two hours a day. The server costs 22 dollars a month to run, all my promotion has always been free. I have thought about setting up a business actually hosting other people's servers but the margins are very low and I would have to hire employees to do customer support. Also Mojang the company that runs Minecraft provides small scale hosting already. I haven't actually played Minecraft in over a year and I don't play on this server as there is no need for me to be online as everything is automated. While it may not be a real business in your opinion I think it is as there are extremely high margins, no physical goods, infinite goods, very low expenses and the possibility of building a brand out of it like Mineplex has done.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Mbc

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
106%
Jun 22, 2013
128
136
Montreal
Pretty cool. I don't know anything about the industry, hope you keep it up and see where it goes. Keep learning soon you'll be earning.
 

mt_myke

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
105%
Mar 25, 2014
245
258
53
Montana
I agree with MoneyDoc about this being a crowded market, although I haven't played Minecraft in years so I'm not sure what the situation is like currently. Even if there are many servers Minecraft is insanely popular right now, so there might be a huge audience for them. Due to the nature of the game you have to spread the players across many servers, so it's not like many internet businesses where you have the huge sites everyone uses (Facebook, Google, Amazon) and then a bunch of other sites no one has heard of and no one uses. Also - receive! Sorry, that stuff jumps out at me, and you also have it misspelled on your site.

Anyway I think it's great you're doing this. You already have solid business experience from running the first site, and what can happen when partners disagree (consider reading the book "Slicing Pie" for one solution to this problem). You made thousands from your first site, and you already have some sales on your second site - that's a lot further than many people get, even ones who've sunk considerably more time and money into their business. I wanted to make sure you got some positive reinforcement on this thread, seems so far people here are pretty down on it. If you can figure out how to make your server desirable, and how to get the word out, you may be able to make a nice business out of it.
 

BigBrianC

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
129%
Dec 31, 2014
365
472
27
Athens, Georgia
We use a custom map of the World instead of a randomly generated map. Players create towns based on ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire or the Greeks.


At the moment only one or two hours a day. The server costs 22 dollars a month to run, all my promotion has always been free. I have thought about setting up a business actually hosting other people's servers but the margins are very low and I would have to hire employees to do customer support. Also Mojang the company that runs Minecraft provides small scale hosting already. I haven't actually played Minecraft in over a year and I don't play on this server as there is no need for me to be online as everything is automated. While it may not be a real business in your opinion I think it is as there are extremely high margins, no physical goods, infinite goods, very low expenses and the possibility of building a brand out of it like Mineplex has done.

I think the key will be how much of the virtual rare items you can sell to people. Good luck to you! You could also expand to others servers, and allow others to host under you (They pay for server cost, but are under your brand, so they get more attention. Ofc this will require to build your brand)
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Shades

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
103%
Apr 8, 2011
335
344
We use a custom map of the World instead of a randomly generated map. Players create towns based on ancient civilizations like the Roman Empire or the Greeks.


At the moment only one or two hours a day. The server costs 22 dollars a month to run, all my promotion has always been free. I have thought about setting up a business actually hosting other people's servers but the margins are very low and I would have to hire employees to do customer support. Also Mojang the company that runs Minecraft provides small scale hosting already. I haven't actually played Minecraft in over a year and I don't play on this server as there is no need for me to be online as everything is automated. While it may not be a real business in your opinion I think it is as there are extremely high margins, no physical goods, infinite goods, very low expenses and the possibility of building a brand out of it like Mineplex has done.


Are you at all familiar with the top Minecraft servers? You will need to bring WAAAAY more then that to the table to make someone even give it a second look. You have much research to do. Right now it sounds like you know almost nothing about the realm you are entering into friend.
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Also - receive! Sorry, that stuff jumps out at me, and you also have it misspelled on your site.
Corrected.

If you can figure out how to make your server desirable, and how to get the word out, you may be able to make a nice business out of it.
My plan is promote it on general minecraft discussion forums, facebook, twitter and reddit. I also have some connections to a few big personalities on youtube but I want to get things running as smoothly as possible before I dive into that.

You could also expand to others servers, and allow others to host under you (They pay for server cost, but are under your brand, so they get more attention. Ofc this will require to build your brand)
Tried this before but it wasn't very successful although it is a good idea and could be implemented in the future in a different way than was done previously.

Are you at all familiar with the top Minecraft servers? You will need to bring WAAAAY more then that to the table to make someone even give it a second look. You have much research to do. Right now it sounds like you know almost nothing about the realm you are entering into friend.
I will admit I am not fully familiar with the working of the top Minecraft servers I understand that when the server begins to receive over fifty players on at once I will have to look at more expensive options for hosting. The idea we are using is slightly more complicated than I have stated here but completely understandable to your average player. Would you be able to point me in a particular direction that I should be researching?




Another update, I made my third sale about an hour ago it was for our highest package which is currently on sale at 68$
 

RichyV

Death Is Winning. Do Something.
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
124%
Aug 31, 2014
54
67
Your'e 17 and made $2000 dollars in the space of a month, you now have a plan to use the knowledge you gained to make more, which you are
and some people here are for some reason giving you negative feedback. I think what you have achieved and what you are doing is awesome. Purely digital products, low overheads (bar the server hosting), only 17y/o - sounds awesome.

Keep it up, this could turn into a nice passive income for you!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Thanks RichyV for the encouraging comment! Another purchase of our lowest package 10$ in the last few minutes.
 

mt_myke

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
105%
Mar 25, 2014
245
258
53
Montana
Thanks RichyV for the encouraging comment! Another purchase of our lowest package 10$ in the last few minutes.

Are these all new customers or people migrating over from your previous site?
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Are these all new customers or people migrating over from your previous site?
It has been over a year since the previous website was in existance so only a few people have migrated over the one's that I had kept in contact through skype. The majority of the playerbase including the people who purchased are new customers.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Switch

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
14%
Jan 25, 2015
7
1
32
Massive respect for taking action at 17.

Most people don't try their hand and entrepreneurship until their early 20's, sometimes even much later. I would say keep exploring this venture, learn as much as you can, and if you decide to pursue something else, you can take all that experience (and Internet monies) with you.
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Massive respect for taking action at 17.
Most people don't try their hand and entrepreneurship until their early 20's, sometimes even much later. I would say keep exploring this venture, learn as much as you can, and if you decide to pursue something else, you can take all that experience (and Internet monies) with you.

Thanks for the supportive comment! There has been another purchase of our second lowest package of 18 dollars. I believe the reason behind this flurry of purchases has been the 10% sale that started yesterday and will continue for another few hours.
 

Shades

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
103%
Apr 8, 2011
335
344
Your'e 17 and made $2000 dollars in the space of a month, you now have a plan to use the knowledge you gained to make more, which you are and some people here are for some reason giving you negative feedback. I think what you have achieved and what you are doing is awesome. Purely digital products, low overheads (bar the server hosting), only 17y/o - sounds awesome.

Keep it up, this could turn into a nice passive income for you!


Im just familiar with what goes into these actual big money making minecraft servers. If this is just his little hobby that awesome. Congrats. Theres 1000's of people with servers making a couple bucks. But if he wants to make this a business, it sounds like he has much research ahead of him. These money making servers generally have a team of people. And you needs at least someone with knowledge of coding. They have a team of builders making custom "maps". Coding new game modes. etc...

Basically, what hes doing right now is the equivalent of putting up a Wordpress site with a free theme if you aren't familiar with what Minecraft servers are. Great that its a start. But I cant pat him on the head for that either. I simply want him to know that he must look more at what the top competition is doing and strive to compete with them. Not compete with the equivalent of thousands of affiliate marketers putting junk websites out there if you get what im saying.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Im just familiar with what goes into these actual big money making minecraft servers. If this is just his little hobby that awesome. Congrats. Theres 1000's of people with servers making a couple bucks. But if he wants to make this a business, it sounds like he has much research ahead of him. These money making servers generally have a team of people. And you needs at least someone with knowledge of coding. They have a team of builders making custom "maps". Coding new game modes. etc...

Basically, what hes doing right now is the equivalent of putting up a Wordpress site with a free theme if you aren't familiar with what Minecraft servers are. Great that its a start. But I cant pat him on the head for that either. I simply want him to know that he must look more at what the top competition is doing and strive to compete with them. Not compete with the equivalent of thousands of affiliate marketers putting junk websites out there if you get what im saying.

Yes, I respect your opinion and thanks for taking the time out to write this post. Before I read the Millionaire Fastlane this was just a hobby but from reading the book I realised that there was so much more I could do. A lot of people seem to suggest undertaking research to discover what the big players are doing and then do it better. While I have conducted some research it is difficult to get an insight into some of these servers as they aren't exactly "openly flaunting" what they do and what makes them a success behind the scenes. Already by even having a website I am in the top 10% of Minecraft servers as the majority don't even bother to take the time out to do so, a lot of other servers have very poorly designed and non-functional ones. From the research I have done servers like Mineplex (the previous example used) started off with very small roots and grew as the need for them to grow arrived they didn't have multiple game modes and thousands of players in the beginning. I hope you can come back to me with some more solid advice as I would really appreciate it.
 

Developmental

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
403%
Oct 10, 2014
34
137
33
Nottingham, UK
I too think you are doing a great job

people are too quick to give up in a crowded market place - your financial investment in this seems pretty low so you aren't risking too much, yet you will learn a huge amount from this - even if it doesn't make you millions.

Go play on the top servers - find out what it is like to be a customer, note down things you love about your competition and improve on it. note down things that they do poorly and improve on it. find out what other players love about the server and yep, you guessed it, improve on it. Strive to be the best of the best and listen to your market

The lessons learned from fighting your way to the top when you aren't taking a huge financial risk are incredibly valuable. You are 17, learning how to compete and how to market something are life lessons that will stay with you so worst case is that you loose the small sum you've invested but learn an awful lot, best case is that you make some money out of it, I see it as a no-loose situation.

I say go for it and do your best with it.
 

mt_myke

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
105%
Mar 25, 2014
245
258
53
Montana
To me, the fact that you got several people to buy during your sale means there's a demand being fulfilled. Ignore the naysayers and keep going with it. It'll become obvious soon enough if the business generates too little money for the work you have to put into it (I know what a headache managing a user community can be). For now those initial sales are validation that you've put something out there people want. Who cares if there are way bigger and better servers out there if people are paying for access/items on yours?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Progress Update: I haven't posted in a long time but I have been busy. When I started this thread I had made 30$ and had 130 users registered on the website. I can now say that I have made almost 600$ (Gross) about 400$ (Net). I have spent around 200$ in different start up related costs like special features on my website and the actual server hosting. I won't be spending anything near that much this month. I have also grown the website to 250 users.
 

Timbonitus

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
83%
Aug 28, 2014
89
74
30
I think this a cool idea. I wrote a eBook for on how to build structures in minecraft for a client and he told me that it has been making a decent amount of cash every month. Maybe that could be another way to make some cash? OH, and your website doesn't load for me. IT's just blank.
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
I'm unable to edit the original post. We renamed our website to www.roleplex.com some time ago. We felt that it looked much more professional and the that it would be easier to try and build a brand around. We also don't want to be stuck with one game and hopefully the name change will let us branch out in the future.

Thanks for that suggestion its always good to hear of other ideas and ways to diversify my income.
 

SirTristram

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Jul 24, 2014
48
55
28
I can relate due to having been a gamer myself at a younger age, I remember people with RS private servers making 80k a month. Props for taking action!
Keep updating to follow your progress.
Cheers
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Ses

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
84%
Dec 14, 2014
31
26
27
Did you do all that paper stuff in order to open your business? How do you recieve payments?

Keep it up!
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
There was no "paper stuff". I receive payments through Paypal.
 

Ses

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
84%
Dec 14, 2014
31
26
27
There was no "paper stuff". I receive payments through Paypal.

Here in my country sources of income/especially business has to be registered. Is the situation different in the USA/other western countries?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
I don't believe websites have to register as businesses let me know if I am wrong.
 

JordanK

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
295%
Feb 17, 2014
557
1,644
26
Ireland
Progress Update: I have made about 250$ more since the last post but the time to money ratio isn't all that great.

About two months ago I came up with a new idea seeing as I had always wanted to get away from having to host a server as well as run a website because the server causes trouble every now and again and it's very time consuming to manage it every day. I am starting my own community similar to Planet Minecraft and Minecraft Forums which are the two giants for the whole Minecraft Community. I have a lot of unique features that I will use to attract people to my site and away from the other two as I believe the both of them have run into a period of stagnation where they are happy with the status quo and aren't very inivative.

I have secured a small team of web developers who actually helped me out with a previous issue in the past and they are involved within the Minecraft community which is a major bonus because they were able to brainstorm with me about what features to implement and they knew exactly how I wanted some of the things done. They also offered to do the work for a respectable price while also fixing anything that goes wrong and maintaining the site into the future for free because they would be using the site themselves to advertise their work.

We have a landing page setup while we build the website and forums. It includes a link to our Twitter where you can see progress on the site and the option to signup to our newsletter. As of today we have 11 people signed up.

www.completeminecraft.com

I have five different ways of generating revenue from the website but I would prefer not to share them at this point.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top