This Couple Sold 3.5 Million Games With Amazon Without Hiring Employees | Entrepreneurship| Alfred Mai | Presented by Amazon

Alfred Mai built a million-dollar business with his wife without hiring a single employee, raising outside funding, or managing a traditional warehouse. What started as a card game side hustle became ASM Games, a company that has sold over 3.5 million games worldwide. By leveraging Amazon's fulfillment and seller tools, the couple scaled their business, reached #1 on Amazon's Toys & Games bestseller list, and kept their team to just two people. In this episode, recorded at Amazon Accelerate 2026, Alfred shares how entrepreneurs can use Amazon's tools to attract customers, reduce costs, and scale without needing a large team. In this episode, Hala and Alfred will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (00:58) Launching ASM Games as a Side Hustle (04:11) Transitioning into Full-Time Business (07:00) Navigating Inventory After a Viral Sales Breakthrough (09:58) Scaling ASM Games as a Two-Person Team (13:44) Using Amazon's Seller Data and Ads to Drive Sales (15:57) Managing Costs and Growth Without Hiring (22:17) Simplifying Operations With Amazon’s AI Tools (24:36) Starting a Business With Amazon’s Logistics (27:51) Expanding Customer Reach Online and In-Store (29:32) Best Advice for Aspiring Amazon Entrepreneurs Alfred Mai is the founder of ASM Games, a San Francisco-based card game company he launched with his wife, Sarah, in 2017. The couple has sold over 3.5 million games worldwide, including These Cards Will Get You Drunk, The Ultimate Game for Couples, and Do You Really Know Your Family?. Alfred brings a decade of Silicon Valley growth and customer acquisition experience to the company, which has earned multiple Amazon bestseller placements. He and Sarah continue to run the business as a two-person team, using Amazon’s seller tools and retail partnerships to grow without outside funding. Sponsored By: This episode is sponsored by Amazon and recorded at Amazon Accelerate 2026, Amazon's annual seller conference. More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses. Amazon provides tools and services to help these entrepreneurs grow their businesses. To learn more about how Amazon is helping independent sellers succeed, visit https://sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com. Resources Mentioned: Alfred’s Company, ASM Games: asmgames.com Alfred’s Amazon Storefront: bit.ly/AM-Storefront Amazon's Seller Tools: sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com Amazon Accelerate EP1 with Lisa Curtis: youngandprofiting.co/Amzn-EP1 Amazon Accelerate EP2 with Katie Diasti: youngandprofiting.co/Amzn-EP2 Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new LinkedIn Creator Club - Skool.com/linkedin-creator-club Disclaimer: This episode is a paid partnership with Amazon. Sponsored content helps support our podcast and continue bringing valuable insights to our audience. Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Passive Income, Online Business, Solopreneur, Networking

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

  Today's episode is sponsored in part by HeyGen, Shopify, Indeed, and Northwest Registered Agent. HeyGen helps you create AI avatar videos without being constantly behind the camera. Get your first three videos for free at heygen.com/protting. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com/protting. Indeed helps you attract interview and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/podcast. Northwest Registered Agent gives you the tools and guidance to build a complete business identity. Start using free resources at NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com/yaapfree.

• 0:45Hala Taha?

  As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at YoungAndProfiting.com/deals.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  I look at my Amazon account and I saw that we had sold more in the past two hours than we had the entire year leading up to it. We were the number one best-selling product on Amazon in the toys and games category. We were outselling Uno, we were outselling Monopoly. We weren't until we sold out, literally, I think, two days later.

• 1:10Hala Taha?

  My guest today is Alfred Mai, founder of ASM Games. Alfred and his wife Sarah started the company from their living room while they were still both working full-time jobs. ASM Games has sold more than 3.5 million games globally, and Alfred and Sarah still run the business as a two-person team.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  We had about $10,000 in the business. It wasn't a whole lot, but it was our savings. And for us, when we sold out, there was a new problem. It would take a month to manufacture the next batch.

• 1:38Hala Taha?

  How did Amazon give you leverage, though?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Amazon has a program called Fulfillment by Amazon, which you can just ship your products over to them, and they'll disperse it to the warehouses and ship it to their customers. And so, right from the beginning, when we first launched, when we barely had any sales, it got to a point even eight years later, when we're selling hundreds of thousands of units, we can ship cartons over to Amazon. I know a lot of third-party warehouses require you to have some kind of minimum contract or some kind of scalable size. But Amazon was like, hey, just send us a box and we'll handle that for you.

• 2:07Hala Taha?

  So for anybody out there who's tuning in that wants to start their own consumer brand on Amazon, what is your best piece of advice for a scalable, profitable business?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my best piece of advice is to focus on...

• 2:22Hala Taha?

  Hey, Young and Profiteers, we're live from Seattle at Amazon Accelerate 2026, which is Amazon's annual seller conference for a special edition of How We Profit. My guest today is Alfred Mai, founder of ASM Games. Alfred shares how selling with Amazon helps him spend less time managing operations and more time creating games that keeps the business growing. Yap gang, let's get straight into it. Alfred, welcome to How We Profit.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you.

• 2:51Hala Taha?

  I am really looking forward to this conversation. I thought your story was incredible that you started ASM Games with your wife, your two-person business, but yet you scaled to over $1 million in revenue annually, which is so cool. So for any Young and Profiteers out there who don't know what ASM Games is, what do you sell today?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we sell all kinds of card games. We have everything from adult party games to family trivia games to even games for kids. We like to think we have a game for everybody at every occasion.

• 3:24Hala Taha?

  Very cool. And you actually started this as a side hustle, both you and your wife were in corporate.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:30Hala Taha?

  What made you like first think of like, okay, we want to like create this game?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so actually, I, my wife and I hated card games. We hated board games.

• 3:39Hala Taha?

  Oh.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny to say, as a founder of a card game company. But we, whenever we had people over, right, and we're hanging out and we're catching up and chatting, the one thing that we hated was, hey, everybody, stop what you're doing, stop talking. Let's pull out this, you know, flight instruction manual of a game instruction and try to figure out this game in the next 20 minutes. Right? And we hated that. And we were younger at the time, so we just wanted people to come over and have a drink and hang out. And so, we thought, you know, what would be cool is that let's just go, instead of the next game night, playing this, you know, stupid, complicated strategy game, let's just get like a drinking game where people just come over and have a drink and laugh and have fun. That's what we like to do.

• 4:21Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Again, we were young at the time. I don't drink as much anymore. And so, naturally, we went on Amazon and we tried to find that kind of drinking game. And to our surprise, it didn't exist. It wasn't out there. And so, we kind of just thought to each other, well, if we really wanted a product like this, clearly, I think other people do as well.

• 4:40Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  And so, we then decided, let's just go ahead and make it ourselves. And at the time, we knew nothing about game design. Like you said, we knew absolutely nothing about how to even Photoshop or how to create the files, to print, to manufacture it, or how to sell and when to sell. And so, we kind of just Googled our way through everything,

• 5:00Hala Taha?

  Cool.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Figured it all out and finally came up with our first product and manufactured it. And it was called, These Cards Will Get You Drunk.

• 5:08Hala Taha?

  Very cool. And what industry were you and your wife in?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my wife and I were both in tech. We were from San Francisco, so naturally, everybody in San Francisco's in tech. And we did customer acquisition and growth for tech companies.

• 5:21Hala Taha?

  Nice. So you guys had like golden handcuffs. You probably had really nice salaries, but you're like, okay, let's start.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yes, actually, yeah.

• 5:26Hala Taha?

  Why did you decide to, did you think it was going to turn into a real business? Did you ever imagine that you were going to like quit your job and do it full-time?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  No, not at all. So when we, when we launched the business, we, we had nice tech jobs, right? I'm not complaining at all.

• 5:40Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  We had the free lunches. It was a nice cushy job. And, and when we launched this product, we just thought it was a cool product that we thought other people would like. And so, we launched it and it actually, surprisingly, actually sold. Like, right in the beginning, we were right. People wanted something like this and we were selling.

• 5:57Hala Taha?

  And you started on Amazon right away?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  We started on Amazon right away. And, and we were still working full-time jobs because it was, it was nice. It was making, you know, some money, but definitely wasn't enough to, you know, to pay for mortgage and the Bay Area mortgage and everything. And so, we continued our full-time job and this was just kind of a nice side income for us.

• 6:16Hala Taha?

  Very cool. And you started in 2017, is that right?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 6:20Hala Taha?

  And you had a viral post about a year later. How did that change everything and what happened?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so I still remember that day vividly. My wife and I would take the bus to downtown San Francisco for work every day, like normal, just any normal day. And we get off our exits, we say goodbye. And as I'm, as I'm taking the elevator up into my office building, my phone starts buzzing. And I get a text, I get a text from my buddy and he's like, hey, hey, man, you're viral on Twitter. And I'm like, what? Like, that's the worst thing anyone can hear. Like, did I say something wrong? Was it like a bad picture of me? Like, what's, what's going on? And so, I'm trying to hurry to my, my little cubicle. And he's like, oh, no, no, your game's viral on Twitter. I'm like, okay, well, you could have, you could have just started, you could have just started with that.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  And so, I'm in my cubicle, I pull out my phone and I'm, I look at my Amazon account and I saw that we had sold more in the past two hours than we had the entire year leading up to it.

• 7:19Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I click on the listing and I see the bestseller badge on the listing. I'm like, what is that? I've never, I've never seen that on my listing before. So I click on it and we were the number one best-selling product on Amazon in the toys and games category. We were outselling Uno, we were outselling Monopoly. We were, we were literally the number one best-selling product. And, and we weren't until we sold out, literally, I think, two days later.

• 7:49Hala Taha?

  That's so amazing. So at that point, you're still working full-time jobs?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:54Hala Taha?

  What did you and your wife decide to do?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so actually, when that happened, I called my wife and I said, hey, we need to meet. And so, we left our offices. We met at a coffee shop in downtown San Francisco in between our offices. And, and we decided right then and there to quit our, our jobs. So we decided to go back to the office, type up our two-week notice, print it out, and hand it to our boss. And it was tough because at the time, I actually, I was, I started my job, I had, I was 11 months in and my first shares would have vested in 12 months. And so, I was like four weeks away from my first 25% of my shares vesting. But I knew, like, sometimes you have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You hear that a lot, but I think once in a while in life, you really feel like this is it. And I think for me, in that moment, like, that was it. And so, I decided, yeah, we both decided to quit that day.

• 8:40Hala Taha?

  So you took your savings?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:43Hala Taha?

  How much money did you initially put into, like, once you were like, okay, we're doing this full-time? What were your next steps? Like, how did you figure out, like, okay, manufacturing? And how much money am I putting in this?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we had about $10,000 in the business. It wasn't a whole lot, but it was our savings.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  And for us, when we sold out, there was a new problem, right? The problem was, and we didn't have a good answer for, was that it would take a month to manufacture the next batch. In a month, would there still be that same demand? Would there be less? Would there be no demand? Like, is this an extremely fleeting moment? And, you know, no matter what kind of analysis you do, and we're very analytical, you just couldn't get an answer to something you just didn't know. And so, we kind of compromised and we, we bought enough, we bought more than the worst-case scenario, but less than the best-case scenario. And we hoped that would be a good starting point for, for the, well, I guess, at that point, for the business. Yeah.

• 9:44Hala Taha?

  Okay, so you ended up putting that money in, you got the product, and you focused on Amazon. But you did try to get into retail, right? So you, you ended up going to Amazon because nobody responded to you, right? Like, when you reached out to retailers?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think any, any founder or creator of a physical product, I think in our heads, the hallmark of success is kind of seeing that physical product in a physical store, right? Like, how cool is it that you walk into a store that you normally go to and then see something you made on that shelf?

• 10:16Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  And so, when we created the product, we're like, this is such an awesome product. I'm sure retail stores would want it because I'm sure their customers would want it. But what we learned was that there's kind of a gatekeeper, right? The retail buyer is a gatekeeper. And that person decides whether or not your product is good enough for their customers or makes sense for their spot or whatever. And pretty soon, we learned that we're just, at the time, really a bunch of nobodies. We had no sales history. We barely formed our LLC. We were really nobody with any sales history or any connections or anything like that. And so, we were just one out of, I'm sure, thousands of emails that these buyers get. So it's not a knock on buyers. I mean, they do fantastic work. It's just, we really were.

• 10:59Hala Taha?

  They didn't see the potential. It was like, like you said, you were first to market.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:03Hala Taha?

  How did Amazon give you leverage, though?

• 11:08Hala Taha?

  Hello, young and profiteers. Black Friday is almost here and customers are ready to buy. The only thing standing between them and your business are all those steps you keep overthinking before your launch. And I get it. When I launched Yap Academy, I was thinking about everything. How should the website look? How are people gonna pay? How is supposed to build all that? I'm not a web developer. I don't know how to build websites. So I built my storefront on Shopify. Their ready-made themes helped me get up in just a few days without needing to be an e-commerce expert or a web developer. And the Shopify checkout made it really easy for people to pay. And with the holidays coming up, Shopify even has an AI assistant called Sidekick that can help you plan promotions and get ready for the rush. So if that business idea is still sitting in your notes app, maybe it's time to give it a storefront.

• 11:53Hala Taha?

  If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/profting to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/profting. Go to Shopify.com/profting today and hear your first.

• 12:08Hala Taha?

  Yap, bam. These days, it feels like I'm starting a new LLC every month. In fact, I recently bought a commercial property that has tenants and I wanted to keep that venture separate from Yap Media and my personal assets, which means another LLC. So of course I turned to Northwest Registered Agent. That is my go-to for business formation and registered agent services. I can get an LLC application started online in less than 10 minutes and their filings have been super quick. Northwest also helps you build your complete business identity. They give you a business address, operating agreement, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. And when I missed a step, a real person from Northwest actually texted me to help. Starting another business should feel exciting and not like another full-time job.

• 12:51Hala Taha?

  And Northwest has a lot of free resources that you can leverage for starting your business. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get for free from Northwest. Visit NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com/YapFree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at NorthwestRegisteredAgent.com/YapFree.

• 13:14Hala Taha?

  What's up Yap gang? So I recently caught a really bad summer cold at the worst possible time. It was right before my interview with Gary Vee. Everything turned out okay, thankfully, but it did remind me how quickly getting sick can throw off your plans, especially when you're running a business. So I've been taking my health routine way more seriously. And one habit that I'm sticking with, it's AG1. It's a daily nutritional drink with 75-plus ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, pre and probiotics, and superfoods, all in one scoop. I just mix it in with cold water every single morning. Plus, AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials with key nutrient levels improving within three months of consistent use. There's also AG1 Pro, designed to support performance and recovery.

• 13:58Hala Taha?

  It includes five grams of creatine for muscle strength, CAH and B for muscle protection, and zinc carnecine for gut health. I can't control when a cold hits, but I can keep my morning routine consistent. For a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/profting and get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3K2 with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/profting.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  What's great about Amazon is that Amazon doesn't have that gatekeeper, right? You don't need a buyer to tell you whether your product is good or not. What's great about Amazon is that you can let customers decide whether or not the product is good or not. And so in a way, Amazon kind of democratized retail.

• 14:45Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Because it allowed, you know, any random guy like me to come up with a cool idea and to sell it to the world.

• 14:53Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so cool. And you end up being like very successful on Amazon. And you're a two-person team, like I mentioned.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:00Hala Taha?

  How does Amazon help you make that possible?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Amazon provides a lot of tools and services that make, that allow us to scale with just my wife and I. I mean, we, right when we started, I knew that we didn't want to pick, pack, and ship stuff out of a garage like a lot of entrepreneurs do. I mean, that's, we do that, that's incredible.

• 15:21Hala Taha?

  So you never did that?

• 15:22Speaker 01

  We never did that.

• 15:22Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Because I, well, our homes in the Bay area are a lot smaller. We don't, we don't exactly have a big garage space and so it'd be tough. But Amazon has a program called Fulfillment by Amazon, which you can just ship your products over to them and they'll disperse it to the warehouses and ship it to their customers.

• 15:41Hala Taha?

  Okay.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  And so what's great about that is that you don't need to be a big business to leverage it. I know a lot of third-party warehouses require you to have some kind of minimum contract or some kind of scalable size, but Amazon was like, hey, just send us a box and we'll, we'll handle that for you. And so right from the beginning, when we first launched, when we barely had any sales or just a handful of sales, we were able to leverage Fulfillment by Amazon. And it got to a point even eight years later, when we're, you know, selling hundreds of thousands of units, we can ship cartons over to Amazon and, and have, you know, have them handle all that.

• 16:16Hala Taha?

  Yeah. So you started with this breakout game, these cards will get you drunk, and now you have other games. Can you tell us about that?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so after our first game, we didn't know how long it would last, right? We didn't know if drinking was gonna be a hot thing for many, many years. We didn't know if the virality of this game would last us forever. So I think we knew early on that we wanted to expand into different categories and launch more stuff. And what's great about the drinking game was that it kind of gave us insight on, on how it all works and how to manufacture and how to sell and how to market. And so we kind of used that blueprint to create other games. And I think we have over a dozen games now, three of which have also been on Amazon's bestsellers, bestsellers list. So that's, that's incredible.

• 17:05Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  That, I mean, just to have one product at one time be on Amazon's bestsellers list, I think was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

• 17:13Hala Taha?

  What are the other two?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the other two games that were on Amazon's bestsellers list, the second one's called The Ultimate Game for Couples.

• 17:19Hala Taha?

  Okay.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  So we were kind of like the first couples game where couples can kind of learn more about each other. And that sold crazy during Valentine's week.

• 17:29Hala Taha?

  Yep.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  And our latest game is called Do You Really Know Your Family? And that's.

• 17:34Hala Taha?

  What a cool concept.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  That's one of our most popular games and it gets families kind of talking and seeing which family member knows you best.

• 17:41Hala Taha?

  Honestly, like what a fun story. This is like such a fun founder story in terms of like this like little idea that you and your wife had, and now you've expanded it to other games and you're getting it to like more kid games too now, right?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my wife and I have three kids, three boys. And as any, any parent knows, keeping them entertained without screens is like the hardest thing. And it's everything, it's, it's, it's every, every parent struggles with that. And so as we're struggling with it, we kind of looked at each other and we, we said, wait a minute, we, we make card games for a living. Why not just, this is like our ethos, is to, is to get people off screens and, and just in the moment with each other. And so we thought, why not just make games for our kids?

• 18:23Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And use them as inspiration and ask them what they're interested in and, and to make them, make games for them. So our latest games are geared towards kids, geared towards parents who just want to get their kids off, off iPads and TV.

• 18:38Hala Taha?

  And how do you use Amazon's data, like their seller tools, to really understand what products you should be getting into?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Amazon provides a lot of keyword data. And it's incredible because this is Amazon's proprietary data. And Amazon knows how much search volume people are searching for, for example, like plushy toys, right? And it kind of gives you an idea of what people are looking for and where, where the next opportunity is.

• 19:10Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and probably like what metadata to put on your listing in terms of keywords based on what people are, especially since you have so many more competitors now. So even if you just like, you know, outrank them, you could get the purchase, right?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, you know exactly kind of what people are searching for and you, you can craft your, your listing towards that.

• 19:30Hala Taha?

  How are you using Amazon ads, like for your marketing?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think Amazon ads is one of the most effective ad platforms out there. And I've done this for, for 10 years in Silicon Valley, buying media, buying meta ads and stuff like that. But Amazon ads is just incredibly effective because, I mean, it's the nature of Amazon, right? When people are on Amazon, they're ready to purchase, right? They're searching for, for something ready to buy. And so to, to, in that scenario, you put your relevant product to that keyword that they're searching for. I mean, that's kind of just a match made in heaven when it comes to effective and efficient ad spend.

• 20:08Hala Taha?

  Have you raised any money?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  No, no, not at all. We, we.

• 20:13Hala Taha?

  Bootstrapped?

• 20:14Speaker 01

  We've bootstrapped the whole thing, which there's pros and cons, right? We, we ran out of money at times and, and we ran out of inventory because of that. But that also kept us lean. And so we never had the problem where we had too much inventory and nowhere to sell. It was usually the opposite, where we had not enough inventory and too much demand, which is a fantastic problem. I'm not gonna say that's not a good, that's a good problem to have.

• 20:34Hala Taha?

  But you want to kind of balance.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  You want to balance that. And again, it's a hard balance because it's oftentimes impossible to predict how much I'm going to sell until the rest of the year. So that's, that's, that's an ongoing problem that's, that's not exactly 100% solvable, but you try to get as close to, to that as possible.

• 20:50Hala Taha?

  Tell us about your margins.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so our margins are healthy-ish. We, our, our costs, it's, it's not like one piece that takes a lot out of our margins. It's, it's a lot of little things. So our costs, the freight shipping costs, growth and marketing budget is obviously a big one. So it's, it's a lot of little things combined together.

• 21:14Hala Taha?

  What is like the most cost-heavy thing that like people might not realize when it comes to like games?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  I think definitely growth and marketing. I mean, everybody has an idea for a game and I'm sure it's great, but to really put your product above all the other noise out there, it, it costs a bit of money.

• 21:33Hala Taha?

  So most of your money is going towards like Amazon ads and stuff like that?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  It depends on the product. Some products do well with Amazon ads, some products do super well on like TikTok or, or Instagram or whatever. So it's really product-dependent, but it, it's a nice mix between all these different channels.

• 21:48Hala Taha?

  And is seasonality big for you?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in the toys and games industry, it's, it's probably, seasonality is probably one of the biggest things for us. Between Q4, between really Black Friday to even the day before Christmas, because Amazon Prime, there's.

• 22:04Hala Taha?

  And then you get the Valentine's Day bump.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Right, and you have that too. So it is, it is very seasonal depending on the product, but overall, in the toys and games category, that like one month period between Thanksgiving, post Thanksgiving and Christmas is just.

• 22:16Hala Taha?

  So there's a lot of your planning all year, like for that season?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yep, all the big purchase orders, all the inventory planning, it all goes into those four weeks. Yep.

• 22:27Hala Taha?

  And you are in retail now, so you, you've done some licensing deals.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  As we continue to grow, I knew early on that I wanted to keep the business small. I wanted to keep the business kind of just my wife and I. I, in my later part of my career in Silicon Valley, I started managing teams, I started managing people. And I knew that to be a good manager, you kind of have to, you kind of have to craft your, your employees' journey, right? It's complicated. You want to make sure that they're taken care of, that their goals are going to be, are going to be there. The opportunity is going to be there. And when I'm building the business, I knew that I didn't want to lose focus. I didn't want to do that. And so initially, right off, right off the bat, I knew we want to keep it small. And so to keep it small, we kind of leveraged all these services, these agencies.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  And when we got into retail, that was a whole of the beast. Like, I come from the tech world, the online world. I knew nothing about retail. And so we partnered with an amazing toy company, Moose Toys. They're, they're, they're a huge toy company. And we have an amazing partnership where they kind of handle all the selling to retail stores. They handle that relationship, they handle shipping and doing all that to those retail stores. So that I can focus on what I think I know best, which is Amazon and product.

• 23:49Hala Taha?

  Yeah. So that's so cool. So basically, you've, you've done licensing through retail to sort of outsource all the operations and logistics other than product, right? You get to focus on specific products. And then on Amazon, you control the, the DTC business.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:08Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content.

• 24:51Hala Taha?

  And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. Thirty million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting. That's H E Y G E N dot com slash P R O F I T I N G. Heygen.com/profitting.

• 25:20Hala Taha?

  Yap fam, I've interviewed some of the world's leading health experts, and those conversations have really changed how I think about my health. I stay active and I eat well, but you know what I realized? There's still so much I don't know about what's actually going on inside my body. And I've been hearing so much about body scans lately, so I finally did it. I got my whole body MRI at Prenuvo. The scan is radiation free, which I love. There's no needles, and it takes just about an hour. Prenuvo evaluates major organs and systems, including your brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. And they give you a full, detailed picture of your health. I just got my results back, and nothing serious, thankfully, just a little scoliosis. I'm looking forward to reviewing my results with my Prenuvo provider,

• 26:02Hala Taha?

  where I can ask questions and better understand all my results and what's going on in my body. So I'm really curious about that, and I'll keep you guys posted. To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/hala and use code HALA. That's prenuvo, P R E N U V O dot com slash hala, H A L A. Terms and conditions apply. Receive $300 off Prenuvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenuvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenuvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenuvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 26:44Hala Taha?

  Yap gang, hiring can be such a catfish. You read somebody's resume and think, they're perfect. And then 12 minutes into the interview, you realize, well, maybe not. And that's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help. It boosts your posts in the search results and connects you with candidates based on skills, certifications, or location. And the best part is you only pay for results. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

• 27:27Hala Taha?

  to help give your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Why did you really want to keep that for yourself?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I think the reason why is because it's kind of been my baby since the beginning, right? I, I, I've been an Amazon seller for nine years now. I've loved every bit of it. I mean, there's obviously ups and downs as with anything. But watching kind of the Amazon marketplace grow into what it is today, it's amazing to be in the forefront of it. And I'm always a big believer that if you're gonna, if you know something well, you should just own it. If that's your part of your business. And so I just had to keep Amazon.

• 28:20Hala Taha?

  How do you and your wife divide up the work with a two-person team?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, well, thankfully, our strengths are in completely opposite things. She's incredible creative, she had a degree in accounting, and I'm more on the business side and the idea side. And so we kind of, we kind of stay in our lanes, like, not in a, like, in a way that we trust each other, right? Like, I trust her to make all the accounting decisions, the tax decisions. And she trusts me when, when I, when I make these partnership deals and stuff like that, that it's going to be overall in the best interest of the company.

• 28:56Hala Taha?

  Is most of your traffic for Amazon coming from Amazon itself? Or are you driving traffic from other channels?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  It really depends. I mean, there are moments where we get big influencer pushes, where we get a ton of traffic outside of Amazon.

• 29:10Hala Taha?

  Are you paying for that, or it happens organically?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Both, both, which is incredible. Like, I've, I've been on, I've listened to random podcasts where they would mention our game.

• 29:19Hala Taha?

  Oh, nice.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  I've watched TV shows where they would show our product, and I'm like, wait a minute.

• 29:24Hala Taha?

  And does that directly, like, correlate with spikes in sales?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And sometimes when we have spikes, I'm like, where did that come from? It's hard to find, right? Like, is it TikTok? Is it, is it someone on a, on a radio? Like, it's sometimes hard to find and...

• 29:36Hala Taha?

  Yeah, that's so great. With all these SKUs, you said you have 12 games. I imagine you're going to have to start cutting low performers, right? Do you think about that at all, or with the margins, does that not really matter?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good question. So we try not to have super low performers. I think that, I think, whenever we create a new product, that's not, you know, that's not the North Star. We don't want to make games that suck or that don't sell. But obviously, sometimes there are games that we, how do I lawyer this? We, we don't sell as much as we anticipated, right? And so, and so, yeah, we have cut some SKUs. And I think as we continue to grow and continue to keep small as just a small company, we will continue to look into cutting SKUs that don't really make a lot of sense to make room for SKUs that we think have more opportunity.

• 30:26Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Let's get practical. Tell us, like, how you're leveraging AI so that you don't have to actually hire any employees?

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I leverage AI in almost every aspect of my business. And just to give you an example, right, it's such a, it's such a good time saver. In the past, when you wanted to do deep analysis, you'd have to pull Excel sheets from different sources, right? You have Amazon, you have your own, your own source of truth. You have your accounting software, you pull everything together, you marry it up, and then you try to find an answer to a question, whether it's something like, hey, did this big deal that I launched, was it worth it? Did it drive additional conversions? Did the net margin, was it actually overall more than I, I would have made if I just hadn't launched the deal to begin with?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  And now with AI tools that plug into everything, you can literally just ask that question that I asked you without having to pull all these different spreadsheets and do all these different things. And so that's just one example of how incredible AI is in terms of saving time, in terms of helping us run, run the business.

• 31:32Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and I knew that Amazon has some AI tools that are really helping you do.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they, they launched Seller Assistant AI, which is incredible. Because like a lot of people, I hate digging into like help files and documentation when it comes to like a question that I have. For example, if my manufacturer has a new carton size for a product that they want us to ship into fulfillment by Amazon, well, I need to make sure if that, you know, that sizing is kosher with Amazon's warehouse requirements. So in the past, I would have to, okay, where are the help files? Right? Where's the documentation? I gotta go find it. I gotta dig through, it's like hundreds, hundreds of pages of help files to try to find my answer. Whereas now with Seller Assistant AI, I can literally just ask, hey,

• 32:20Speaker 01

  my manufacturer said they want to put our products in a 20-inch by, 18-inch by 10-inch carton that weighs 32 pounds. Is that okay with Amazon warehousing requirements at FBA? And two seconds later, they get, yeah, you're good.

• 32:34Hala Taha?

  So much, it's so much easier now.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  So much easier. No, no longer, I don't think I've opened a help file or documentation file in, since that, since that launched.

• 32:42Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Let's help people who want to start their own business on Amazon. And they want to be like you, like, they don't want to pack and ship in their garage. They want to use supply chain by Amazon. What is that like? Like, like, give us like a day in the life of using Amazon for your business.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, supply chain by Amazon is so easy. It's not even a day in the life. It's like, like 10 minutes in the life. So for people who don't know, supply chain by Amazon is an all-encompassing platform that you can...

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Manufacturer overseas, you can use supply chain by Amazon to bring that product over from your factory overseas, all the way into the ports here in the US. They'll handle the shipping, they'll handle the import clearance, they'll do all that for you, and they'll bring it into a bulk storage warehouse, which is like a long-term, think of it like a long-term storage warehouse. And then when you're ready, you can then move that inventory from that long-term bulk storage warehouse into fulfillment by Amazon, which is what they call last mile delivery, which is what customers will, where customers will get the products from. And so, supply chain by Amazon handles all of that for you in kind of this one platform. So if I order, for example, like, let's say I order, you know, 100,000 units from my manufacturer,

• 33:59Speaker 01

  I just tell Amazon, hey, I have 100,000 units that is going to be ready in two weeks. Like, okay, we'll, we'll handle all that, we'll connect with your manufacturer, we'll put on a truck in China, we'll then put on a truck into a boat, we'll bring that over into the US and put it in storage.

• 34:14Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  And when you're ready, just let us know and we'll move it into FBA, and that's it.

• 34:18Hala Taha?

  And how much money do you think that saved you not having to do that yourself or even figure that out?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're, we're bigger now, so we're a lot more scalable. And we switched over entirely to supply chain by Amazon in 2025. And prior to that, we had, it was a hodgepodge of different services, right? We had a third-party freight forwarder, we had a third-party logistics warehouse, and then we had to contract with, you know, UPS or FedEx or trucks to move that over to fulfillment by Amazon. And every one of these services had to make money off of us. And so by kind of consolidating and moving everything over to Amazon, those savings kind of passed on to us. And I think we saved close to six figures now.

• 35:00Hala Taha?

  Wow.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  In 2025, and I think a little more this year by moving our entire supply chain process over to supply chain by Amazon.

• 35:06Hala Taha?

  So you're just gonna keep doing that and adding more games?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%.

• 35:09Hala Taha?

  What are you most excited about, like, for your company? Like, what do you, what excites you right now?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I think the most exciting thing is having all that free time to create new products. Right? Because this is kind of why we, this is why entrepreneurs get into what they do is because they had a cool idea for a cool product.

• 35:27Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  And then as you scale, as you build your business, you get sucked into the spreadsheets, get sucked into the daily monotony of running the business. And, you know, it's not always fun and games, right? Like, you're, you're spending hours and hours and hours kind of looking through numbers and things like that. And having AI and, and a lot of services help you manage all that, you're then now able to kind of go back to why you first started the business to begin with, which is the excitement of launching and creating new stuff.

• 35:54Hala Taha?

  When you're thinking about your customer, do you ever think of like their lifetime value? Or like, if they can buy more than one game from you? Or like, how do you think about that? Or is it mostly like you want to attract new people who might be interested in a specific game?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, so for us, it's a little different because we have so many different games in different categories. So for example, someone buying a drinking game is probably not going to buy a game for the little kids, right? Probably. So it's, it's less about building this, for us at least, it's less about building this loyal, super loyal brand following ASM games. Although we do have that, and it's incredible and I love it. There's people that have bought like, at one time, like seven of our games that fit their family, whatever that is, and that's incredible. But for us, it's, it's always also about chasing potentially new customers and bringing our products to additional people. Because another big driver of sales is just people playing our games at their friend's house or their family's house and going, whoa, that's really cool.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  I'm gonna find that on Amazon or retail stores and also buy it. So the more people we can get into this fold, the more they'll bring into the fold. And that's, that's kind of our North Star.

• 37:03Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Has being in retail actually impacted your Amazon sales in any way?

• 37:09Speaker 01

  No, no, not really, which is a bit surprising. Because yeah, you're right, I think when we first launched into retail, we thought, would this kind of cannibalize our online sales?

• 37:18Hala Taha?

  Or, or the opposite, where like people see it, they don't buy it in the store and then they go on Amazon and buy it or something.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  I'm sure that happens, but I don't think that happens as, as often as people think. Because, or at least from my, from what we've seen, we haven't seen a big way, one way or the other.

• 37:35Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Hala Taha?

  YapBam, I've interviewed some of the world's leading health experts, and those conversations have really changed how I think about my health. I stay active and I eat well, but you know what I realized? There's still so much I don't know about what's actually going on inside my body. And I've been hearing so much about body scans lately, so I finally did it. I got my whole body MRI at Prenuvo. The scan is radiation-free, which I love, there's no needles, and it takes just about an hour. Prenuvo evaluates major organs and systems, including your brain, spine, abdomen, pelvis, and more. And they give you a full, detailed picture of your health. I just got my results back, and nothing serious thankfully, just a little scoliosis. I'm looking forward to reviewing my results with my Prenuvo provider, where I can ask questions and better understand all my results and what's going on in my body.

• 38:24Hala Taha?

  So I'm really curious about that, and I'll keep you guys posted. To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/hala and use code HALA. That's prenuvo, P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com slash HALA, H-A-L-A. Terms and conditions apply. Receive $300 off Prenuvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenuvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenuvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenuvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider. What's up YapBam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business.

• 39:09Hala Taha?

  I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is, consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools.

• 39:49Hala Taha?

  30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting. That's H-E-Y-G-E-N dot com slash P-R-O-F-I-T-I-N-G. Heygen.com/profitting. So 60% of sales on Amazon actually come from independent sellers, just like you. For somebody who's hoping to start their Amazon store, what is something that they might not realize that Amazon actually helped them with?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think Amazon can help you with the entire process of selling. Like, literally from, from bringing your products over into the warehouses and into the hands of customers. They have tools to help you create the listing, they have tools to help you fulfill your products, they have tools and products like Amazon Ads to help you bring a brand new product into the eyes of a potential customer. So I think almost every aspect of that sales process can be done by Amazon. And, and it's, it's gone to a point, and it's much easier now than when I first started. It's gone to a point that really you don't, you don't need a lot to get started and to do well and to scale.

• 41:03Hala Taha?

  Yeah, speaking of that, this is news to me. Like, I always thought that you needed like $100,000 worth of product to start an Amazon store.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  No, no, not at all. Yeah, we started, I think, with just, I think it was like 100, 200 units, and that's it. And I know a lot of people, when they first launch a product, they don't want to spend a whole lot of capital on something they don't know whether or not it will move or not. And so, Amazon doesn't punish you for having a small amount of inventory early on. And so, my advice is go ahead and launch our product and bring it to Amazon and see what will happen.

• 41:36Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Is there any other Amazon tools that you want to shout out or tell us how you use them?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Those are the big three. I mean, my favorite again has just been supply chain by Amazon. I'll give that a shout out forever because it's just saved me so much time in terms of managing supply chain and logistics. And it sounds as boring as it sounds. Supply chain logistics is one of the most boring and worst aspects of running the business. And now I spend virtually no time managing that aspect of the business.

• 42:07Hala Taha?

  And it's enabled you to design a company that you want.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:11Hala Taha?

  Right? Because like you specifically wanted a company, you and your wife actually decided like, we're not going to have employees.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  We're not going to take outside funding. I don't want to answer to a boss other than my wife, of course. And we wanted to keep it small, yeah.

• 42:24Hala Taha?

  So for everybody tuning out there who wants to start their own brand on Amazon, what is your best piece of guidance for them?

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my best piece of advice, and this comes from my professional background, spending a lot of years managing growth and customer acquisition for other companies, is to focus on growth and customer acquisition for your business, right? I've, I've seen pitch decks from people where they have 30 slides on who they are, their product, why they're doing what they're doing, which is great. And they spend like half a slide on customer acquisition. And I've seen it where that half a slide would literally just say, we're gonna post on social media and people will buy.

• 43:06Hala Taha?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  But yeah, but it doesn't work like that in real life. And so, you know, before you launch a product, have a really solid go-to-market strategy. Think about all the ways you can drive eyeballs to that product. And when you do it right, I think things will kind of just fall in line.

• 43:23Hala Taha?

  Yeah. One last question to you for, like, you entered into this space without any game design experience. Totally different field. For somebody who also wants to start a company and they have no experience in that field, what would you tell them?

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Google. I mean, we literally Googled our way through everything. Like, how to, how to print, how you manufacture. And when we realized that we didn't know how to do something, we would just Google further, right? Like, so when we knew we had to use Photoshop to create the print files, we didn't know how to Photoshop. And so we just spent the next week learning how to Photoshop. And so, I mean, everything is online to learn. And all it takes is just kind of learning that specific thing, and, and you'll, you'll get there.

• 44:04Hala Taha?

  It's the easiest time to be an entrepreneur.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:06Hala Taha?

  Especially with Amazon.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 44:08Hala Taha?

  Alfred, thank you so much for joining us on How We Profit.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 44:12Hala Taha?

  And that YapBam is how Alfred and ASM Games profit. What makes Alfred's story especially relevant here at Amazon Accelerate is how intentionally he built the company to stay small. By using Amazon's tools and services to handle more of the operational complexity, Alfred and Sarah can keep focusing on creating games instead of building a large team around their business. His journey also shows what's possible for independent sellers today. More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses. And with more than 25 years of seller success behind them, Amazon offers comprehensive tools and services to help businesses of all sizes

• 44:54Hala Taha?

  launch and grow their brands, while making it easier for customers to also support these small businesses. To learn more about how Amazon is helping independent sellers succeed, visit sellingpartners about amazon.com. This is your host, Halataha, signing off.