We’re looking for a new home for our profitable Emoji company — the originator of the viral hit, Emoji Masks. Read on for how much money it makes, details about the business, and the asking price.
EDITORS NOTE: Emoji Masks was sold in 2016
The Emoji Mask story thus far
Just before Halloween 2014, we dreamed up the idea for what became Emoji Masks. It’s the easiest product in the world to pitch. Ready?
“Emojis… for your face.”
In a whirlwind 60 days, we went from idea to product launch. We created a 100% unique product, manufactured it, and shipped it to customers.
To our surprise, it went viral.
On the first day, Emoji Masks was #1 on Product Hunt for the entire day. That same day Apple announced a new iPad and Retina 5k iMac during a keynote. For a day, Emoji Masks were more interesting than Apple (lolz). We did $5,000 in sales that first day and sewed the seed for the the following Monday — the day it really went viral.
We were featured on Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, CNet, Wired, MTV, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Dailydot, Elite Daily, HypeBeast, and many, many, many more.
You can read about the entire crazy first 60 days here.
From its humble beginnings, we’ve improved the product several times. We upgraded to higher quality plastic, thickened the masks, and designed our own proprietary designs. They’re much better than when we first started.
Emoji Masks has been a great source of profit for us for the last 20+ months.
Why are you selling it?
It’s simple, for the same reason we’re selling Mod Notebooks. We’re going all in on Smart Bedding and Peel. We’ve been fully focused on those brands and haven’t touched Emoji Masks or Mod in the last year — despite them making great money. Peel and Smart Bedding are just growing too quickly for us to focus on anything else.
As I mentioned in our 2015 year in review, we’ve been planning to sell 1 or 2 of our companies this year to double down on our big brands. This is us doing that.
Emoji Masks has been a blast to own. It’s time for someone else to run with it and have fun!
What goes with the sale?
- emojimasks.com domain + Shopify store (custom design).
- 10,200 units of stock. At $7.99 a mask, that’s $81,498 of retail stock!
- #1 search results for “Emoji Masks”, all inbound links, press, etc.
- Instagram account with 13,200+ followers.
- An email list of 4,900 people that averages a 31% open rate.
- 80 Emoji Mask designs we own for creating more masks past our current 15. See below.
- All of the brand’s photos and design assets.
- Relationship with the manufacturer to continue.
- Relationship with the warehouse & fulfillment center to continue.
The Numbers
Emoji Masks did $44,525 in the trailing 12 months (June 1st, 2015 through today, June 1st, 2016).
$38k of that is directly via e-commerce sales on emojimasks.com. The remaining $6,500 is from miscellaneous orders that come from inbound inquiries.
The month Emoji Masks went viral — at its peak in October 2014 — it did $35,000 in sales. It was featured in press outlets everywhere.
The following Halloween it did just over $18,000 in sales with ZERO press or advertising. We think that’s pretty impressive. We were expecting a much larger drop from that peak month to the following year. That $18,000 came from our own Emoji Mask customer list and word of mouth. There were no press features like the year prior to drive massive sales. We’ve also never done any advertising.
I think this speaks to the long term viability of the brand. Emojis haven’t shown any signs of slowing in popularity. We think for years to come, each Halloween and holiday season Emoji Masks will do well. Additionally there’s a market for parties, weddings, etc year-round. We still do several thousand dollars each month in sales during non-peak months.
Photo captions in jest.
Growth Opportunities
There are many products that can be created around emojis and sold as an upsell or a brand extension. Think t-shirts, mugs, etc with our emoji designs. More mask concepts could all be marketed to our existing audience and customer base.
Additionally, we’re often approached about various co-branding opportunities for Emoji Masks. Most recently Pepsi (the soda company) approached us about doing co-branded Emoji Masks for their new Pepsi labels. We turned the opportunity down because we just don’t have the time for Emoji Masks right now.
How do you buy it?
We’re looking for a quick sale of $75,000 or best offer (that price includes the $81k of stock on hand). We’re not looking to owner finance, so please don’t approach with a creative deal structure.
If you’re interested in buying Emoji Masks, email me at marshall@needwant.com for more info.
