She Left Corporate Training for a $1,000 Card-Game Idea — It Now Sells $1.71 Million a Year on Amazon
3 min read · RealCase summary
Jenny Woo spent the first part of her career in corporate jobs at companies including Deloitte and Cisco, training managers on communication skills. In 2018, while finishing a master's degree at Harvard, she put $1,000 of her savings into a side project: card games designed to teach emotional intelligence, sold under the name Mind Brain Emotion.
She eventually left the corporate track to focus on it. According to CNBC Make It, the games brought in $1.71 million on Amazon in a single year, with an estimated 40% of that as profit. Smaller sales also come through Walmart, Faire and her own website.
At 42, the Southern California mother of three runs four revenue streams — the card games, lecturing at the University of California, Irvine, an online emotional-intelligence course, and freelance business consulting — and works anywhere from three to 30 hours a week depending on the season.
Key takeaways
- ›Started Mind Brain Emotion in 2018 with $1,000 from savings
- ›$1.71 million in Amazon sales in a year, at an estimated 40% profit margin
- ›Works 3 to 30 hours a week depending on the season
- ›Four income streams: card games, UC Irvine lectures, an online course, consulting
Original source
Read the original (CNBC Make It via NBC Chicago)
Next story →
She Started Shooting Weddings From Her Dorm for $750 — She Cleared Her First $1 Million at 28
More Business stories
A Nurse Anesthetist Made Star Wars Quilts for His Sons — The Kit Company Sold $1.25 Million in a Year
Oklahoma City nurse anesthetist Mike O'Dell, who earns $240,000 a year, started Legit Kits in 2020 after quilting blankets for his sons; in 2024 it sold $1.25 million online while he worked on it one day a week.
From $5.15-an-Hour Fast Food to a $1.1 Million Tech Salary — He Retired at 39 With $3.5 Million
Jamal Robinson worked minimum-wage fast food jobs, started his career in the power industry, switched into tech in 2013, climbed from $135,000 to more than $1.1 million a year, and retired at 39 with about $3.5 million.
A $700 Startup Delivering Organic Groceries Grew Into a $26 Million Business
Door to Door Organics started as a small operation delivering organic produce boxes with about $700 in startup capital, and grew into a company generating $26 million in annual revenue.