How a 12-Year-Old’s Side Hustle Makes Nearly $50,000 a Month
When Madden Forrest, 12, and his dad, Steven Forrest, 35, started breaking cards — purchasing and opening the sealed products to reveal their contents — it was just for fun. Pokémon cards were first, followed by football. Then Madden watched TikTok creators who livestreamed the process and sold cards to interested buyers.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Bull Island Breaks. Madden and Steven Forrest.
Madden asked his dad if they could try it themselves, and in October of 2024, the side hustle was born.
“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Steven tells Entrepreneur. “We saw other people doing it. Everyone was ripping this one particular box — it was a Costco [football card] box exclusive. You could only get them from Costco; we didn’t even have a Costco membership. We just posted on Facebook, and a buddy of mine hit me up and said, ‘Hey, I can get 10 of them at Costco right now.'”
Those 10 boxes cost about $1,000, and the investment paid off: The father-son side hustlers sold them in one afternoon.
Soon after, Madden and Steven replicated the success with a $500 card set purchase from Sam’s Club.
Because TikTok prohibits minors from hosting livestreams, Steven took the lead in front of the camera on the Bull Island Breaks account (named for their city in Virginia), and he continues to do so.
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Fueled by the early success, Madden and Steven kept at the hustle, breaking both single packs and hobby boxes, which can retail for thousands of dollars.
“ Most average people can’t afford to buy a whole box and risk it,” Steven explains, “so we do breaks. Everyone buys a team from the NFL, and then if their card hits, they get that card. If it doesn’t hit, we give them free cards. I’ve got over 50,000 from my collection from when I was a kid. So we just give them to people for free.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Bull Island Breaks. Madden Forrest.
The father-son entrepreneurs dabbled in selling baseball and basketball cards but continued to see the most success with football, which they attribute to the fact that they “live and breathe” the sport. On a typical Sunday, the Forrests tune into football from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes even earlier if there’s an international game in the morning.
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From October to December, Steven says they were “half-in” on the side hustle, riding a lot of demand that came with the holiday season and wondering if it was just a lucky streak. However, any questions about Bull Island Breaks’ potential were cleared up on New Year’s Eve — thanks in part to fewer sellers online, the account cornered the market and did more than $4,000 in sales.
“We’ve been doing roughly $2,000 every day of June so far.”
Madden and Steven resolved to double down on the business in 2025. Bull Island Breaks launches its livestream every night at 7 p.m.
The Forrests prioritize value breaks for the business. For example, they might invest about $120 for a single pack, then charge about double, between $400 and $450, or source a $1.25 pack from Dollar Tree and turn it around for $6.99.
Bull Island Breaks has seen more than 7,000 orders and $180,000 in gross sales between January and June. The business pulled in about $28,000 in January, $34,000 in February, $36,000 in March, $34,000 in April and $49,000 in May, bringing the year-to-date profit to around $70,000, Steven says. In June, the ambitious goal is to hit $65,000 in monthly revenue.
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“ August is when training camp starts, so we project things to go way up [then],” Steven says, “because now we have a little bit of a following. We’ve been doing it every night consistently. So I think $65,000 is probably more attainable come August, but I think we’ll do every bit of $30,000 this month. We’ve been doing roughly $2,000 every day of June so far.”
All of the money is for Madden, whose behind-the-scenes dedication makes Bull Island Breaks possible, Steven notes. At first, it seemed like the business would earn enough income to fund a future car, but if the current trajectory continues, it may even cover college and a house. Madden, who turns 13 next month, also dreams of opening his own card shop one day.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Bull Island Breaks. Madden Forrest.
Despite the business’s consistent success, there have been some challenges. Madden recalls a time when TikTok banned the Bull Island Breaks account after a simple misunderstanding.
“We’re big Commanders fans, so our first mess-up was buying the Commanders [cards] in our shop and refunding ourselves,” Madden says. “TikTok doesn’t really like when you refund people, so it’s better to just take [the product] out of stock. When we did that a couple of times, they held our money for 60 days.”
“ They thought we were buying them to artificially look good and leave ourselves good reviews,” Steven adds. “The Commanders are the most expensive team because they have Jayden Daniels, the rookie, [and] essentially, no one wants to buy the Commanders because it’s a lot of money — you’re talking a $100 every single time. So we would just buy them ourselves and reimburse [because] we basically get them for free by doing the break.”
Now, the father-son team just removes the cards they take from the stock to avoid the issue.
“You have to keep going [with] consistency.”
Madden and Steven’s expanding network helps them sustain their stock and grow the passion project. “I love meeting some great people that buy from us, ripping the cards and spending time with [my dad],” Madden says.
”A couple years ago [meeting friends online] sounded weird, but now that we’ve immersed ourselves in this, we’ll be at the card shop looking for stuff for ourselves, and we’ll be like, ‘Oh, Mary would like that card, or John would love that card,” Steven adds. “And we get it for them. We show it to them on the live, and they’re excited, like, ‘Oh, how much do you want for it?’ We’re like, ‘Dude, we’re going to send this to you. You guys have supported us so much.'”
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As they look to the future of Bull Island Breaks, Madden and Steven are excited to keep growing their audience, and they know that staying consistent will remain the secret to success.
“The first time everyone sees [this business], they think it’s really easy, but it takes commitment and hard work,” Madden says. “You have to keep going [with] consistency: posting every day, going live every day.”
This article is part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being a young business owner.
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