Zero Followers to Full-Time Video Game Income: How I Built an Online Business for Sims Superfans

Ever thought about turning your video game obsession into actual income?

Gloria Riley from YellowLlamaCo.com creates and sells custom digital planners and templates for fans of The Sims computer game.

She’s built a full-time income by helping “serious simmers” organize their gameplay, track their virtual families, and stay connected to their digital worlds.

Tune in to Episode 701 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

how to turn a personal hobby into a profitable niche business
how TikTok and YouTube can drive viral growth and consistent sales
strategies for creating, pricing, and marketing digital products for a passionate community

Table of Contents show

From Personal Problem to Profitable Product

Gloria’s business started with a problem she had herself.

As a devoted Sims player, she kept getting attached to her virtual families but couldn’t keep track of them consistently. She wanted a structured way to document her Sims’ lives, traits, and storylines without starting from scratch each time.

So she created the SimPlanner, a physical planner with pre-made fields for tracking character profiles and daily gameplay.

She published it through Amazon’s print-on-demand service (KDP) at $12.99 and made just two sales in the first month.

The mistake? She wasn’t promoting it at all.

The Viral TikTok Moment That Changed Everything

After her sister pushed her to start posting on TikTok, Gloria posted consistently for about a month with minimal traction. Then she created a simple 6-second video using a trending sound that essentially said “Does that make me a weirdo?”

@yellowllamaco
Verified weirdo. #sims #simstok #sims4 #thesims4 #thesims #simsaddicted

♬ original sound – standardregal

She panned the camera across her planner with text making fun of herself for being obsessed enough with The Sims to create a whole planner for it.

The video took off. Hundreds of comments saying “I want this, I need this.” Sales followed immediately after.

The viral moment taught Gloria an important lesson about her market. She wasn’t competing against other planners; she was competing against spreadsheets.

Some Sims players had been tracking their games manually, but there wasn’t a printed planner designed specifically for this purpose.

Expanding Beyond the Physical Planner

With consistent four-figure monthly revenue from the physical planner, Gloria felt comfortable leaving her job to focus on the business full-time.

But instead of just marketing the existing product harder, she did what she calls being a “compulsive maker” and immediately dove into creating new products.

She expanded into digital templates for GoodNotes (a notes app for iPad) and OneNote, priced at $20 each.

These digital versions offered higher margins since there were no printing costs, and they appealed to a different segment of her audience who preferred digital organization.

The digital products also had a unique value proposition: customers could duplicate and reuse them infinitely, unlike the physical planner that eventually runs out of pages.

The Flagship Product: SimGuardian

Gloria’s most comprehensive product is the SimGuardian, a Notion template priced at $100.

This was a significant price jump from her other products ($20-40), and she faced some pushback from the community when she announced it.

But she stuck to her pricing because the SimGuardian is dramatically more comprehensive than her other offerings. It includes spaces for character profiles, lore tracking, screenshot organization, and interconnected databases that let users link everything together.

She only built it after Notion released Formulas 2.0, which finally let her create the functionality she’d been envisioning.

To make the higher price point more accessible, Gloria uses Parity Deals to offer location-based pricing for countries with lower purchasing power. She also continues offering free templates so users at every budget level can benefit from her work.

Marketing Strategy: YouTube Over Everything

While TikTok gave Gloria her initial breakthrough, YouTube has become her primary sales driver. Her channel now has over 3,000 subscribers, and she posts consistently every Friday.

Her most successful video, “You’re Never Going to Stop Playing The Sims After This,” has over 170,000 views.

What makes it special is that she combined two topics: soap opera storytelling techniques and Sims gameplay. The video addresses a common pain point (getting bored and abandoning save files) with an unexpected solution.

Gloria’s YouTube content strategy focuses on three core elements:

Educational content wrapped in personal stories. Rather than dry tutorials, she shares her own experience and perspective on common Sims community issues. Her video titles create curiosity (“I Found It”) rather than being purely descriptive.

Strong hooks and packaging. Before recording, she plans out her title, thumbnail concept, and opening hook. She often uses a Sims avatar of herself in thumbnails to make her content instantly recognizable as Sims-related.

Natural product integration. When discussing topics like staying organized or tracking characters, she can naturally mention her templates. For videos where products don’t fit organically, she created a one-minute ad segment about the SimGuardian that she can insert when needed.

Free Templates as Lead Magnets

Gloria offers several free Notion templates that serve as both standalone value and entry points into her paid products.

Her Backstory Creator helps simmers develop origin stories for their characters using tarot card and Enneagram prompts.

These free templates serve multiple purposes.

They give users a chance to experience the quality of her work before buying. They help less tech-savvy users get comfortable with Notion.

And they naturally lead to wanting more — once you’ve created a detailed backstory, you want a place to continue logging that story as you play.

The Simmer’s Block Quiz

Gloria created a quiz called “Simmer’s Block” that diagnoses what’s holding players back from enjoying their game. Results include types like “Scattered Storyteller” or “Overwhelmed Overseer.”

After taking the quiz, users receive a series of helpful emails with tips, lessons, and links specific to their result type. Product recommendations are “trickled in here and there” based on what would help with their specific block.

The quiz also feeds into her newsletter, which includes something Gloria calls “Plot Twist Prompts” — creative prompts in every edition to help simmers stay engaged with their save files and come up with their next storyline.

She intentionally made the quiz setup so people can just grab the free result without subscribing if they want. She only wants people on her list who genuinely want to receive the newsletter, since email lists cost money to maintain.

Tools / Tech

Gloria runs her entire operation with relatively simple and affordable tools:

Lemon Squeezy handles all digital product sales. It’s a merchant of record, which means Gloria doesn’t have to deal with VAT (value-added tax) herself — a major selling point for her.
WordPress powers her main website after experimenting with Google Sites and Squarespace.
MailerLite runs her email list. Gloria says it’s remained the most affordable option even after recent price increases.
ConvertBox creates her opt-in forms and quiz. She bought it as a lifetime deal rather than a subscription.
Heartbeat hosts her community and companion guides for all products. This drastically reduces customer support time since common questions are already answered there. Another lifetime purchase from AppSumo.
Komodo Decks hosts videos for her tutorials and guides.
PixelTO creates short links (similar to Bitly).
Pabbly Connect automates workflows between tools (similar to Zapier but more cost-effective).

Gloria emphasizes that she’s a “big fan” of lifetime purchases and dislikes subscription software.

A Surprising Marketing Insight

One thing that surprised Gloria: her newsletter doesn’t drive as many direct sales as conventional wisdom suggests it should. YouTube is by far her biggest sales driver.

She wonders if maybe she’s not “salesy enough” in her newsletters, or if subscribers simply enjoy them as a “cozy little letter” rather than a purchasing channel. Regardless, she values the newsletter as a way to stay connected with her community and keep them updated.

The free templates, however, do drive significant sales. They give users confidence in the quality of her work and a low-risk way to experience her style before investing in paid products.

Content Creation Takes Most of Her Time

The bulk of Gloria’s work now goes into creating YouTube videos. She generates ideas constantly — that’s never an issue. The challenge is making those ideas digestible and well-packaged.

Her process includes brainstorming her hook, title, and thumbnail concept before recording anything. She started by publishing every two weeks through batch creation, but now releases weekly on Fridays.

She’s also planning to add Sunday livestreams (potentially on Twitch) as a second content format.

Gloria emphasizes that she won’t increase posting frequency just to hit arbitrary numbers. She’d rather post less and maintain her current quality standard than pump out more content that doesn’t meet her bar.

Are New Players Still Finding The Sims?

Sims 4 is now over 10 years old and has been free-to-play for a while, which Gloria initially thought meant it was targeted at newer, younger audiences.

But she’s realized a huge portion of the community consists of “OG simmers” — millennials who’ve been playing since the first video game.

That said, new players do join constantly. Gloria’s already planning to introduce her niece to the game in a few years. The game maintains both a dedicated veteran fanbase and continues attracting fresh players.

What’s Next for Gloria?

Gloria’s primary focus remains growing her YouTube channel without losing momentum.

After our conversation, she also realized she needs to give her original SimPlanner more attention — possibly getting back on TikTok where physical products are easier to showcase than digital templates.

She’s considering relaunching her affiliate program (which Lemon Squeezy includes as a feature) and has a few new templates in development.

One interesting idea: creating a spreadsheet template to bring things full circle back to where the Sims tracking community originally started.

Gloria’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Be your biggest cheerleader.”

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