I Spent 24 Hours With Roblox Millionaires

This is Cole. These are his two best

friends. They all live in the same

apartment and they claim to make

millions off

Roblox. Yes, this game. But before we

get into all that, we got to go back. It

all started with a tweet. Is there

anybody actually making money with video

games? Hundreds of people slid into my

DMs, but one of them really stood out.

His name was Cole. And when he told me

how much money he was making, I just

couldn't believe it. And I had a lot of

questions. Is this actually real? Is

this something that's actually going to

last? And how much are you really

profiting from this? The only way to

find out? Well, I decided to fly out to

Austin, Texas, knock on his door, and

have him show me proof. Come join me as

I spend 24 hours with Roblox

millionaires. I'm Pat Walls, and this is

Starter Story.

So, after landing in Austin, Texas, we

grabbed a couple crappy airport

sandwiches and got ourselves a taxi to

Cole's place. At this point, I was still

pretty skeptical on if this was actually

going to be real. And I had a lot of

questions to ask these kids, which is

why the ride felt like an eternity.

Finally we

arrived. Okay, I think that's his

apartment right there. What if this is

all fake? Like, he's not even there

right now. Or what if this is some sort

of like rented apartment or something

like that and this is all a big sham.

All right, let's check it out. Let's see

what's going to happen.

Nice to meet you. What's up, man? What's

up? Come on. Let's do this. Let's check

this out. Nice house. Thank you. Thank

you.

Nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you

too. Thanks for having me in your house.

Of course, dude. Tell me tell me about

what you do. Uh, I make Roblox games.

Um, I'm one of the top like 50 biggest

Roblox developers in the world right

now. I have 1 million like daily active

users across all my games. It's mainly

kids, mainly in the US, mainly in

Canada. Yeah. And when did you start

playing Roblox? I started playing Roblox

2013. So, I think I was about eight or

nine years old. But I guess I didn't

start making like bringing the money

outside of Roblox until I was 16. And I

just I just skipped college. So, as soon

as I turned 18, I moved to Austin and I

just started going like full in on my my

journey. Nice. Cool. And I understand

that you have a brother who also

develops Roblox games. Is he your

younger brother or older brother? Twin

brother. He lives with me. He lives

here. He lives right here. He's here

right now. He's here right now. Probably

in his room. Yo, what's up?

So, you also uh make Roblox games. I do.

Yes. Yes. I made a game during winter

break when I was in college and it blew

up and then I had enough money to drop

out of college. So, Okay. Wow. Yeah. And

tell me a little bit about your game. It

used to be called Big to Baby and it was

a game where you would bake babies and

it went very viral because of that

reason. So, we got a lot of people to

see like I show Speed played it. All the

big Roblox YouTubers played it. Wow. I'd

probably say around like 100 million

views total during the release of the

game. Yeah. Cool. Cool. And where are

you guys from? Ohio. And what brought

you to Austin, Texas? A few years ago, I

met my friend Jake in person.

Eventually, we ended up talking a lot

online, like once a week, and then

eventually he's like, "Oh, no. I want to

move to Austin." And so, we ended up

moving down. He lives two doors down

from us. So, is he making money on

Roblox, too? Yeah. Yeah, he's making

money off of Roblox. Okay. Let's get him

in here, too. All right. Sounds good.

Can you give him a call? Yeah. Yeah. Yo

what's up? Yo, Jake. Uh, I'm doing this

like podcast thing. You want to come

over? Oh, hell yeah. Hold on.

Yo, what's up? What's up, Jake? Good to

see you, guys. Good to see you, bro.

Good to see you. Good to see you, man.

Nice to meet you, man. You, too. Tell me

about your Roblox business. Yeah, so I

run a marketing agency for brands that

come to Roblox. We worked with Nicki

Minaj and Spongebob when they came to

Roblox and we built basically all the

video content around that like these

trailers for it, social media campaigns

and all that. You know, we've made 450

videos probably now, done like well over

100 million views. Okay, we're going to

talk all about your guys' businesses.

But first, I want you guys to break down

the Roblox economy and really the

opportunity here for anyone that's

watching. So, let's go to the whiteboard

and let's do some math. Let's do it.

Let's do it. I'd love you explain to me

what is Roblox? Like how does the whole

thing work? Yeah. So Roblox is basically

just YouTube for video games. Anyone can

make a video game on this platform the

same way that anyone can put out a

YouTube video. So when you go on to

Roblox, you basically just have this

page with a ton of different games that

you scroll through and play. When

someone plays a Roblox game, they

basically have this currency called

Robux. And this could be used to just

buy anything in the game like powerups

or skins that a developer can create and

add to their game. As the developer of

the game, then I receive those Robux and

then you turn your Robux into real

money. Then like newer way that games

are also making a ton of money is brands

sponsoring them. So instead of just

going out and you know putting a YouTube

sponsor like before this video for

example, they can build something that's

interactive in Roblox and that's the new

way to make people into kind of lifelong

fans. Yeah. Before we get into guys'

businesses, I just want to let anyone

watching know how big Roblox is cuz I

think it's almost kind of unfathomable

how big these numbers are. So if you

walk me through that, I think it's

pretty crazy. Yeah. So, one in two kids

under 16 years old in the US are playing

Roblox every day. That equates to there

being 400 million monthly active users.

So, 400 million unique people playing

this game every month. And the kids that

are playing Roblox are spending two

times more time on Roblox than Tik Tok.

And half the time these kids are on

TikTok, they're literally using it to

find their next Roblox game to play. All

right. So, sounds like a lot of kids are

playing Roblox, but uh what does that

mean for the future? Yeah, it means that

as big as Roblox is, this is literally

the tip of the iceberg. Like, we're not

anywhere near the peak because we have

all of these kids in the US that are

growing up on Roblox that as they grow

up continue to be able to play. And then

this just keeps growing and every time

the base gets larger and larger as more

kids come to the platform. Then there's

also this concept of like unlocking

demographics. So for a while on Roblox

girls didn't really play, especially

like older girls. Until this game called

Dress to Impress comes out. It's this

massive fashion game to the point of

over a million people have played it at

one time. It's been played well over a

billion times. So now we have this huge

demographic being unlocked by a new

game. And what we'll see is this will

happen with the older male demographic

eventually. This will continue to happen

with different groups and eventually

Roblox will cover all bases and be the

largest platform. You even mentioned

that Mr. Beast is now coming onto

Roblox. Oh yeah. This is like a big

thing. Like he's making a massive

entrance. He had a meeting with the CEO.

He made his own game. And so he's

realizing this opportunity as oh crap

this is the next YouTube. I got to be

the first person here. Yeah. For someone

like him to come on the platform is huge

because he's really up to date on where

things are going. And to know that he

endorses Roblox as a whole, I think is a

huge sign of what's to come for us. Hey

guys, it's Pat here. I'm just putting

the final touches on this video right

now. But first, I got to show you

something. So, these Roblox guys are

just killing it with their games, right?

But I wanted to find out if there are

other games in the starter story

database that are making money. Real

quick, I found these three examples.

This guy's making $200,000 a year with

an online solitaire game. This dude is

making $20,000 a month with his Mexican

train game. How funny is that? And my

buddy Peter Levelvels is making

$50,000 with his plane game simulator.

And it got me thinking, what if anyone

could build this? What if anyone could

turn an idea into a real working app on

the internet? Well, what if I told you

you could? AI coding tools are making

building games like this entirely

possible. In fact, Peter Levelvels built

his game with 100% AI coding tools. And

this is why we've been low-key working

on our new product, Starter Story Build.

In Starter Story Build, we teach you how

to use AI coding tools to turn an idea

into a real life production app. You'll

start by learning the basics of an AI

coding tool called Lovable, and our

in-house Lovable expert will guide you

through 14 different modules that teach

you how to vibe code. Each module builds

on the other, and in just 12 days

you'll go from an idea to a real working

app on the internet. We've had hundreds

of people enroll, and some of the stuff

people are building is amazing. I

believe that AI coding is going to

change the world. that is going to give

tools to people who didn't know how to

code before to build apps that could

potentially make thousands of dollars

and change your life. And I'm super

pumped on all this. So, if you're ready

to start vibe coding and actually take

that idea and bring it to life, click

the first link in the description to

check out Starter Story Build. All

right, back to the video. Okay

personally now I'm convinced that Roblox

is the real deal. The only thing that's

not clear yet is how to actually build a

successful business around it. So, I

decided to have each of the boys dive

deep into their respective Roblox

business, explain how it works and how

much money it actually makes. Let's

start off with Cole. I'd love if you

could actually pull up your game, pull

up some of the money that you're making

so that people can see. I'd love to just

see what you do specifically. Yeah, man.

I can definitely show you. Yeah. Uh my

game is a game called or Die. I think

it's like the top 100 game on Roblox. So

the daily active users is about a

million. Oh my god. So you can see every

single like So you have Show me up in

there. It says you have 13,000 people

playing, right? Yeah. 13,000 people

playing right now, but you can see these

are like real kids playing. Um and the

round starting in 10 10 seconds. Oh my

god. The kids are voting for what map

they want. Show me how you actually

coded this. Is are you writing in a code

editor or is it like if you could pull

up the development and stuff, I'd love

to see that. Yeah, there's like Roblox

Studio. So, I can press edit in studio

where I can like edit anything in the

game. These are all models. There's a

bunch of different like folders and and

like scripts in here where it maps out

code. I actually I'm not a programmer. I

do everything but program. So, I like do

all the UI and all the building and all

that stuff. I have like a business

partner who who does like all the

programming for all the games basically.

So, you know, man, it's endless code.

It's probably thousands of scripts in

here. Yeah. if you could break down how

much money you generally make per month

what channels those come from. And then

you did say you have like a split and

profits or anything like that. Yeah. So

it's kind of confusing because it's

going to be in Robux. Yeah. But I have

like 6 million Robux right now. For

every 1 million Robux, it's 3.5 grand.

We're looking at like 15 grand right

now. So far this month, we've got in the

group. How Die is a fairly new success.

About like 6 months ago, we launched it

and right now it's sitting at about like

45K a month just or Die, that one game.

Wow. Um, before I actually spent like

half a million dollars on two projects

that both failed. One of them was a

Roblox game um that I spent a bunch of

money and time on that just didn't end

up blowing up and it it like it like

destroyed me. And then I had this other

company where you could hire like

YouTubers and content creators to make

videos on your game. I I spent three

years on these projects, spent all my

money on these projects. I was like

super burnt out and I was like, man, I

just want to I just want to make a game

quick. And that's when we made or die.

And then we've started to like help out

other developers with their game. We're

taking like splits of that, too. This

month alone, we're on track to make like

70 grand this month. Wow. And then I

split it with my my programmer/ business

partner. He has half of it. Okay, cool.

And then I have an accountant and lawyer

and a bunch of miscellaneous things

too. We don't do any ads, so like it's

kind of like YouTube or something. You

don't really need to advertise YouTube

video. It just kind of gets shown to

people, but I do have like modelers and

and people who make graphics for us that

I blow through like 5K a month just

paying people for contract work. Yeah.

Sure. Cool. You mentioned that you had a

few games that flopped and then you

created this one with less expectations

and then it went crazy. Yeah. Uh, tell

me a little bit more about that. Yeah.

So, I mean, I spent basically all my

high school years and like 300 grand on

this game. I basically was trying to

like remake all these best games and

combine it into this like grand thing.

And within that time frame, I saw Ian

over winter break make Bake the Baby.

The game blew up. And so, I think I I

kind of looked at Ian and I'm like, Ian

had so much fun with his game and he did

it so quickly and now he's super, you

know, he's making a lot of money. I

spent 3 years and all this money on my

game and my game failed. I ended up

calling my programmer. I'm like, let's

make a game in 2 weeks. And I think it

taught me a valuable lesson about test

first and then build. Don't build then

test. You can waste years building a a

startup or a game and then it ends up

being worth nothing, but if you build it

and it somewhat works to begin with, you

know you have something. Yeah. Now that

you had this game that has 13,000 active

users right now, is there any sort of

like framework of what it takes to get

to the top with a Roblox game? Yeah. So

I always focus on clickability. Is the

game clickable? Because if it's not, no

one's going to play it. Bake the Baby

for example, was like that was a crazy

title and that's why it worked. And Hide

or Die, Hide or Die, that's pretty

dramatic. So, I think being like

dramatic or or unique in some way, it

always works out. And then another

important thing is it's like social. So

Roblox is all about playing with

friends. Making a game that's playable

with friends or against friends or

whatever, it's like super important. The

final thing is it needs to be

replayable. And so, when I play your

game, if I play it for 10 minutes and

know everything that the game has to

offer, I'm going to leave. But if I play

the game and I'm level 10 and I got to

be level 100 to see the next thing, then

I'm like, well, maybe I'll play again to

see what was behind that door. So, you

got to build a curiosity in the user.

Same way for YouTube video. So, yeah, I

need to be clickable, social, and

replayable. That's the formula I could

give you, but it's probably going to

take you a few attempts anyway to get a

hit game if you want to hit a game.

Cool. Ian, do you want to show off your

game? Sure. Sure. My game is called

Bathe the Baby. It was formerly called

Baked the Baby. Basically, it's a game

where players will step in this pad and

we make all our money from just like

daily shops. So, we sell like a pigeon

skin, cow skin, and we make money from

selling coins as well. So, you can use

these coins right here to buy skins and

then you can also buy abilities as well.

So, like shoot a meteor at somebody or

turn into a ghost and be invisible. But

as you can see, our average revenue per

paying user is pretty crazy. That's

high. That's very high. That's a high.

What's the dollar amount on that? It's

about $1.50 50 cents. Yeah. And we have

around 150,000 daily active users. Wow.

Which is close to a top 200 game on

Roblox. All right. So, how much does

your Roblox game make? And also go over

some of the costs involved with it, too.

Okay. Mine makes around 25 grand a

month. And I also have a business

partner and we put it 50/50. Basically

the exact same process as Cole. We also

have brand deals as well that come in

but my brand deals are closer closer to

like 5 grand. We also have a few

modelers, a few people who make graphics

for us, like the thumbnails and icons

but it's still a pretty small team

probably like only four or five people

are really uh contributing to the game.

Yeah. Cool. Mhm. All right, Jake, tell

me about the business you built around

Roblox and how it's a little bit

different. Yeah, so I built a company

called Vector 3. So, anytime like a

brand comes to Roblox, there's a pretty

good chance that we're creating the

media around it. So, you know, a bunch

of Tik Tok videos on the game, have it

go viral, and that would bring in

players. So, like a new form of

marketing. Cool. Cool. I want to take a

step back. So, how did you even get into

Roblox and then this kind of business

idea that's adjacent to it? Yeah. So, I

started playing Roblox in 2011, so 14

years ago. For me, I always just like

moved around between different

interests. You know, one week I was a

graphic designer and then I would move

and spend a week working in a Roblox

cafe as like a barista and just like

literally make virtual coffees. Other

weeks would like program for people. And

then when middle school hit, I would

make these montage edits and I spent

years doing that. And that's where I

learned that I really, really liked

video production, that whole aspect. And

with that mentality, I went into kind of

video production for brands on Roblox

and started building out these trailers

and social campaigns. All of the editors

that I knew from middle school that we

would make these Phantom Forces montages

with actually work at my company now.

Yeah. You're running your company

remotely, is that right? Yeah. Walk me

through that a little bit. How does how

how do you do business? Yeah, so we run

um Discord in just a group chat where we

have stuff that we're working on and

then our bread and butter is our content

management system. I nerd over this like

all the time in terms of like how things

get done. Let's say we are hired by Nike

to make a trailer. Our head of content

Ryan, will go into this templated

project plan where there's a 45step

system of how to do the trailer. So

every little step in each one of these

steps has an SOP that then has a video

that I've recorded on how to do it. The

way we get about 95% of our clients is

LinkedIn. So I basically built a

LinkedIn account where I was putting

out, you know, a lot of educational

content as well as our work. Over time

when people were like, "Hey, I need to

either figure out a strategy for coming

to Roblox or I need someone to make

video content," we were the people that

they thought of. I don't do cold

outreach. I don't do cold calls. I also

use consulting as a really big way of

getting clients. So, you do a paid

consulting call, at the end, they also

need someone to execute. That's where we

also come in. So, it's like, I'm not

paying, I'm getting paid for the lead.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Damn. If you

could pull up some of your numbers here

that'd be really cool. Yeah. So, this

month we have, you know

$36,150 coming in so far. 20 to$25,000

of that just comes from our retainers.

But on top of that, we'll have like our

per project payments. Yeah, basically it

cost me about $10 to $15,000 a month to

run it. I have two full-time guys

getting a total of like $10,000 a month

and then there's probably an additional

$5,000 that's going out for like

animation contractors, anyone doing

motion graphics, actors that are

participating, like volunteering. Yeah.

Cool. If you have a framework or

something on how to build a company at

your age without having to go to college

and take that path. Yeah, my framework

was take everything that interests you

and just put your head down for a little

bit. See if you can get a little bit

better than average. If you enjoy that

keep doing that. Work as a freelancer.

Just do the thing for a while until you

build up expertise. Don't even think

about it from the approach of like

wanting to build this business. If you

can do that, you put yourself onto a

path for success no matter what, right?

And it might not be the thing you

started out doing. I bounced around

between a hundred different skills. The

difference was that because I did them

all, I know what I like and how to be

good at it and scale it. Yep. Yeah

that's great advice.

All right, boys. Tell me what a day in

the life looks like for you guys

building million-dollar businesses while

you're not even going to college. Just

tell me about what's life like. Probably

way less exciting than anyone. Yeah, I

think you you'd imagine like the

craziest things ever. And I think it's

funny cuz like we have crazy moments

but most of our life is just super

boring or like just super normal. I'll

wake up at like 10:59 usually for my

meeting at 11:00 with my team. I'll take

it in my bed on my phone and then I'll

have a really slow morning and then it's

you just sit at your desk. You put on

your headphones, put your phone in your

other room, sit like that for usually 4

or 5 hours. We're really big about like

you're either working or you're like

resting. There's not like that in

between. So, we'll all just kind of work

and then usually around like 5:00 or

when sun's starting to set, we just sit

out there, no phone, just kind of hang

out. Yeah. I think I want I want to add

to that. I think it's like you hear

about stories about startups or

businesses, it's like you got to work 24

hours every single day, no sleep

sacrifice everything. While that's true

maybe to learn a skill or become really

good at something, it's not necessarily

true like after that. Creating the space

for you to have thoughts, it'll make you

like a 10x better entrepreneur because

you like you all just have more

actionable steps on what to do next.

Yeah. I think it's cool that you guys

found your people. I think a lot of

people may be watching this feeling like

I'm kind of passionate about this thing

but I don't have like friends. Like you

guys are all friends. You say you can

bounce ideas off each other. Maybe you

can retell the story of how you all got

together and then also advice for people

who are looking to find other people

across the internet to live and work

with. It takes awkwardness. I think

that's one of the best ways to put it.

The start of our friendship was a Google

calendar weekly call just to talk.

Literally like scheduling a conversation

with each other. But if you can embrace

that and do that at scale and keep

trying, it'll lead to finding your

circle. And it's it's so so worth it.

Yeah. And it's also important when you

own a business and you do anything to to

build a real relationship, you have to

make sure it's not transactional and you

have to set the clear boundary of like

these are my friends. These are not

people I'm selling to. These are not

people I'm doing like a quid proquo for.

Like these are like my people, my

friends that I would do anything for and

vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. All

right, guys. Well, you got a good head

on your shoulders. I mean, what you guys

built is amazing. It was great to meet

you guys. So, thank you all. All all

pound here. Yeah. Follow this advice and

you'll be Roblox millionaires. Good

luck guys.