Solopreneur Marwan Barakat, a father of two living in China, launched Baby Sunnies exclusively on Amazon in February 2021.

The polarized sunglasses for babies and kids, which were exclusively sold in the U.S., quickly racked up more than $150,000 in monthly revenue — even up to $220,000 one month.

But four months later, in August 2021, Barakat got an email from Amazon. His listings had been removed due to an alleged patent infringement.

“My million-dollar business was gone,” he said.

Worse: He had $100,000 worth of inventory sitting in Amazon warehouses — all unsellable, Barakat shared.

Determined to save his business, Barakat vacationed to his home country of Egypt to clear his head and hash out a new strategy — one that led to him selling Baby Sunnies less than two years later for about $500,000.

Rebuilding Baby Sunnies to $1.1 million in annual revenue

After Barakat received the email from Amazon, he spent a month feeling depressed, trying to figure out what went wrong, he recounted in a video. But he knew he had to find a solution.

He figured out the patent Amazon referred to was for the sunglasses and strap design, so Barakat decided to manufacture new straps, allowing him to save his existing inventory.

In December 2021, just a few months after getting removed from Amazon, Baby Sunnies were relisted. The new design actually ended up selling better than the first.

“I made sure I took no shortcuts and simply did everything better than the competition,” Barakat told us.

Upon product launch, Barakat used Amazon pay-per-click (PPC) ads to outsell the category’s best sellers. “After our product was ranking in the top 10 for all keywords, we reduced ad spend and started making tons of profit, around 26% net margin,” he explained.

It wasn’t until his second year that Barakat started also selling Baby Sunnies from its own website, which visitors could find organically through Google search. However, he told us the site drove less than 1% of total sales.

Barakat also created social media channels, which were originally managed by his wife, as well as an email list with around 600 subscribers.

As a one-man bootstrapped team, Barakat sold a total of around 150,000 units. In 2022, Baby Sunnies made $1.1 million in revenue and had 2,000 reviews on Amazon.

Finding a buyer for Baby Sunnies through an online marketplace

Barakat decided to sell Baby Sunnies for two reasons: He was ready to build another brand he felt more passionate about, and he wanted to buy a home.

He found a buyer through Empire Flippers, a marketplace for online businesses. He took a call from an undisclosed European buyer, and they put in an offer. After one week of negotiations and two weeks of due diligence, they finalized the deal in April 2023.

The final sale, which included inventory of around $50,000, totaled about $500,000. That worked out to a sales multiple of about 0.4x annual revenue.

Now, Barakat is focused on building his new brand, an ergonomic keyboard stand called Deskello. Within five months of launching, he had already sold 11,000 units.