Making Profit and the Business Side of Collecting Pokemon Cards w/ @vanadergrowth
Kind: captions
Language: en
so i'm looking for webcams or whatever and i'm on
a time crunch because i like i had another podcast
i had to you know stream for and i needed it in
a certain time and they were all freaking out of
stock this was like in october and november when
everything was out and so i'm like uh okay i guess
i'll get another camera nice so are you happy with
the decision going with the sony yeah yeah i do
really like it because of the fact that i don't
have to know too many things for it to just look
acceptable you know i have one light
that's on me and then that's it like
one light one camera super easy setup you got
to keep it simple and plus you probably have
it set up in a way so that like it you only
need like a button press to start recording
yeah yeah it's that simple it's that
easy that's why i do this way to do it
that's why i do it do you have a similar
setup or um yeah i use streamlabs so i have my
i have my dslr plugged in with like uh hdmi to
the computer and all that stuff i couldn't get
the cam link to work because it's a canon it's
a crop sensor it's got a mirror like it's just
not ideal for what i'm doing but it's all i
had and so i was like okay how can i make this
really easy to record because setting up lights
and everything's a pain in the ass so i have a
bunch of lights clipped to my desktop and then the
camera is right there and it's just ready to go so
i just open up streamlabs hit record and i'm done
that's awesome do you use um those elgato lights
i'd like to they're just a little expensive yeah
i noticed like amazon stuff for now that's that's
what i'm using i got like a set of maybe three led
little lights that i can you know dim and increase
it's so easy 45 bucks or something like that
it's crazy like everybody has this stuff now
like um these these lights and the ring lights
and the tripod setups everybody's got one because
everybody's creating content at least in some type
of way shape or fashion in their houses i think
maybe not yeah yeah no it's it's crazy how that's
happening and honestly it's not going to slow down
just because like i listened to all the little
teeny boppers all the little teenies that are
like you know when i grow up i want to be a
youtube influencer or something like that so yes
yes i mean it's great i love it but yeah so
it's just going to keep on growing um eventually
sometime in the future i'm probably going to want
to like just this is really random but just build
tools around creators i know there's a lot of
things out there so i want to spend much more time
like doing the thing to figure out like what
would really help me because i'm just all about
scratching my own itch and so um i think those
tools would be really helpful for people i'm
really interested in like those ai tools where
you can um like generate blog posts and things
like that those are really interesting to me
some are not that great but oh really mm-hmm
that's awesome gpt3 to you um it's called copy.ai
and you they use gpt3 to um write blog posts and
descriptions for youtube videos and titles
and i like that i like that that's awesome um
there's some really good products out there
i use uh contentbot.ai but i'll have to use
what was your buddies uh called again copy.ai
or copiedcopy.ai copy.ai okay cool i'll have to
check that out because i'm i'm really interested
in the tools because there's there's like you know
obviously a level of quality that that vary and
so it's so it's nice to have a really good one
that you don't have to spend too much time editing
you're gonna have to edit there's no doubt but but
yeah so tell me about your project oh sorry no i'm
sorry i was just gonna say i'm so happy for you
to be on today and i mean this is just amazing
i'm really excited that you're able to spend some
time so i'm excited too and then at the end we're
going to open this up because i want to open it
oh okay cool nice is that cool this would be
great yeah yeah that's absolutely cool i hope you
i hope you have fire hands because i want
to know something real good but i have not
i haven't gotten anything recently and so i
was like i was at target the other day with
my daughter i was like look let's go gotta run by
the pokemon cards let's see if they got anything
by two packs and you know children why not
that's actually what i do too the other day
i was at target and they have nothing now
i'm really glad i was able to get like maybe
eight or ten i don't know something like that but
but anyways let's go ahead and get started i want
the audience they've never met you and they're
gonna love you i know this for sure because
you're so knowledgeable but evan i was hoping
that you could tell us a little bit about you
um because you do a lot of things online which
is really cool and interesting and then i guess
we can talk a little bit about you know you're
collecting because you do collect pokemon you've
got that psa six first edition charizard psa four
psa four either way still bomb but anyways yeah
if you can let us know sure um i'm glad you
asked i'm super stoked to be here because i
really enjoyed the first time we got to talk my my
listeners got to learn so much about programming
and code and like having you on was just amazing
so i appreciate the chance to get to talk to you
again it's really cool so let's see i've been
an entrepreneur my whole life i've been doing
stuff selling lemonade mowing lawns working in
you know selling food like whatever i could come
up with you know it's just selling pot in high
school you know whatever it is that could make
me money and i could be able to get a leg up and
try and dig out of this rat race that i was and
i was trying it i didn't know what it was called
at the time i was just trying to make a buck and
so um trying jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs and then
finally you know um after working a bunch of
different jobs you know i'm like oh man i'm
getting tired of working just jobs man and
you know what am i going to do as a career and
that's you know my old man's influence he's a baby
boomer he said he's the of the generation where
you you work hard you go to school you graduate
with a bunch of debt and then hopefully you're
able to pay off that debt and retire with a meager
salary and afford your health insurance and so
i'm like okay sounds great let's [ __ ] go and so
i moved away and to become a fireman so i went to
a fire academy i got my emt uh i started working
on an ambulance that's where i met my wife and
then i got hired uh going to paramedic school and
then started working for a big fire department in
southern california and when we started that fire
department you go through what's called an academy
and so there's 30 guys and it was 18 weeks of just
some of the physically the hardest [ __ ]
that i've ever done in my life it was absol
uh oh is the connection so good
it looks like it froze
jess can you still hear me
me oh no
can you hear me still jess
let me know hey are you there yeah there okay hey
internet might be a little choppy
over here um but anyways go ahead
okay cool we're good so um so we get in this
academy it's grueling there's like 30 of us
and you know we have to go through it in order
to become a firefighter you have to go through
the fire academy you have to go through all these
these take these steps and when it was all said
and done we wanted to commemorate that experience
and so we i made this big walnut eight you know
my wood shop and i really wanted to would
burn our motto in together in together out
i really did and i grabbed my soldering iron
and i plugged it in and i heated it up and
i screwed up the entire project i screwed it up
and i had to start over from scratch and i was
like there's got to be a better way to wood burn
this motto in and my wife and i started doing a
little research and we put together a chemical
formula that allowed us to do it with just heat
and so we we draw we would paint on this formula
with a stencil and then we would apply heat with
a heat gun and then it would burn the wood only
where we drew it was super cool and the project
looked great it turned out amazing but out of
all of that um we created this product scorch
marker and so it allows you to draw on wood apply
heat and then the wood burns only where you drew
wow and so it's kind of a cool like little new
crafting product so they looked very different
when we first started i guarantee you um but it
was the reason i bring it up is because it was the
product that allowed us to um that finally gave us
a chance to kind of grow it into a company it was
something that it was working you know aside from
all those other side jobs we've done in the past
and so while i was a fireman over like the last
three or four years we were working on this
company on the side and building it up and then
last year the company became so profitable that
it was time for me to leave the fire department
because the fire department was now holding me
back it was holding me back from what i really
wanted to do which is build businesses and
teach other people how to build businesses and so
i left my wife and i made a collective decision
yeah it was uh that's amazing um is is your scorch
pen can you find it in retail or is it only online
or do you do direct to consumer we sell we started
out selling on amazon of all places um just out of
ignorance and then we sold on our website and
now we're in michael's and hobby lobby and we
had did some stuff with home shopping network and
so we're like we're growing and we have employees
and systems and we're learning about how to
run businesses so while we're doing this um
you know the pandemic starts to happen and i get
on tick tock and i'm still at the fire department
so i'm sitting there and refilling helicopters
on this wildland assignment and i'm snapping some
videos of it right and i put it up on tiktok for
fun and it got like 60 000 views and i was like
what i was like what there's a tension here and so
i'm like [ __ ] this i'm not going to talk about
firefighting anymore i'm over it like my heart's
not there anymore i want to talk about business
so i started talking about business on tick tock
and that's how this brand started my personal
brand putting myself out there helping people
with the foundation and the core fundamentals
so that they could remove that fear of not
wanting to start that's what it was for me
it was just afraid because i didn't know what
steps to take to start and so i was just stayed
in that permanent side hustle mentality that was
my life but now that i know what to do i can teach
other people and give them and you know empower
them to make their own decisions and i think
that's really cool so that's how it kind of all
started reading a couple books and and tick tock
that's awesome wow god i bet you got some
really awesome or very um interesting clips
from like on tick tock from when you so you were
in the helicopter you were firefighting up in the
helicopters or no i wasn't in the wild first um
i was down on the ground so i was working for i
got put on a water tender to go shuttle water back
and forth and then we had these big things called
pumpkins they're 3 000 gallon foldable pools that
we put out and then we dump all the water in there
and then we have the helicopter come in and they
have a snorkel a big long straw and they just like
hover down suck up a couple thousand gallons
of water and then they go drop it on the fire
oh wow oh wow that's that sounds like a lot of
work but that's that's awesome work though that
that's amazing but i'm glad that you're able to
make the transition because it is a really scary
thing i mean even for myself it's it's super scary
to take that leap into kind of the unknown into a
new life and one of the reasons why i wanted to
bring you on is because i know a lot of people
on here um and throughout the people that i met
in the hobby they love pokemon cards they have
them they own them they collect them i mean i
mean so do you too i don't know if you deal but
but what they also do is they also deal cards too
so they're making a little bit of a side income
you know whether or not they it is just more
so because of the opportunity um you know to
kind of flip a card at a really great price or
if that's something that they really love to do
it's it's honestly something it's kind of nice to
deal into a market that you collected because you
get to know a little bit more about that market
a little bit more of the ins and outs of it
and that was one of the great reasons
why i wanted to have you on was because
they are doing those things and now with new
changes in policy for you know people who i
think are i think the number might be six hundred
dollars you know if you're earning more than six
hundred dollars on paypal now you really have to
start paying attention to the taxes to how all of
those things you know play into it because right
now i don't think ebay puts out 10.99 but i think
ebay and paypal might i don't know if ebay but i
think paypal definitely will start doing that now
um because of new rules and new laws that are
in place and those are some things that you have
to think about and you know if you're selling
like um you know over a thousand dollars or a
few thousand dollars worth of cards depending on
what you have like now you have to start thinking
about it like a business right um which is talk
about that 600 too because i think it's really
important that we shed some light on it the whole
1099 thing is that that 600 it's a special number
and so at any time during the year if you pay
someone 600 or more you have to 1099 them you
have to tell the government that you paid them
money otherwise you're going to be on the hook
for the taxes so if i hired you to write some
code for me and i paid you a thousand bucks
and i pay you under the table and i don't tell the
government the government's going to expect me to
pay taxes because i earned thousand dollars but
if i fill out a 1099 and i say no no i paid just
that thousand dollars tax her they say okay
you don't have to pay the tax we'll text yes
and that's what paypal's doing and that's what
ebay hasn't really been doing yet but that's
what amazon does too like all these companies
are sending out 10.99 so that the taxes can be
correct so it's you're 100 right like if you're
if you're selling more than 600 dollars like
yeah you got to start treating it like like a
business and you need to uh be cognizant of how
you're dealing with the money so how do you deal
with it um for me i don't sell okay or i don't
sell that much but as i get in throughout the year
i'm starting to to get rid of a few things things
that you know are not really that personal to me
that i don't really need that you know i can do
without and that i know i will you know 2x or
3x you know because of my original entry point
so but now i do have to start thinking about
those things i will at some point this year have
to start thinking about those things um and so i
so as far as that goes i mean so when it comes to
the six hundred dollars if like let's say you sell
you pay someone 200 and then you pay someone 400
are you 10.99 each of those people if you
paypal them for your items or is it just
when it's over that 600 and then now you have
to for any like for for all future transactions
that you need to do that for it's six hundred
dollars per person per calendar a year
okay 600 per person per calendar year so for
example like i've had workers for me that work for
me that don't want to get taxed and they're like
well i don't want to pay taxes and i'm like well
i mean what do you want me to do i was like
here's what we do how about i write a 600
check to you i'll write a 600 check to your
brother to your kid to your husband to your
aunt and so to keep it under that limit and
you won't have to pay taxes and i won't either
that's that's one way people get around it
but it's messy and it doesn't always work
so directly answer your question um if
you're paying people let an individual
less than 600 you're good it doesn't need to be
documented only when it goes above and beyond
so then if someone is deciding to hey i want
to start a ebay side business because i have
all these cards that i've collected over the
years you know what are the first things that
they need to do and consider because let's say
they have anywhere between two thousand to five
thousand dollars worth of product that they could
that they could realize um in sales i mean what
do they have to think about opening up an llc do
they have to operate like a business at that point
well you don't have to you don't have to and
this analysis isn't mandatory for everybody and
some people probably won't be right for but
i'm a huge fan i'm a huge fan because llc's
give you protection then what it does is it
just creates an entity that's separate from you
and it gives you the opportunity to
like basically make a copy of yourself
more or less in a company form and then start
treating it like a business and the cool thing
about llc is they allow you to do great things in
the future too like s corpse and change your tax
status and you know awesome stuff that saves you a
ton of money but in the beginning most people just
sell cards as themselves right they'll just jump
on ebay and link up their personal bank account
and start selling cards as themselves and and
that's okay um but if you start to make some
serious money if you start to if you're making um
like more than like a thousand bucks a month like
it would it would make sense to get an llc to at
least separate it and protect yourself so that
in case you start blowing up and making a bunch of
money you can take advantage of all these cool tax
laws that are available for you um but we don't
really make a ton of changes until you're making
about 50 000 in profits or more once you get to
that mark that's when it's like all right let's
start putting like corporations in place so that
we don't have to pay as much money in taxes and
that's when you're really going to start feeling
it um when you have like significant profits
right but until then like yeah and llc's are i i
i'm of the mindset that everybody should learn how
to open an llc because it's a it's a fundamental
core principle of just doing business in america
it helps to know it yeah i absolutely agree and
even opening up an llc is a little intimidating
because it's like okay what are the fees how
do i do it where do i go you know what else do
i need how do i prepare you know these filings
because you have to prepare quarterly filings
um but but i i agree with you i think it's a
it's a great fundamental skill i know i know
for myself my first llc i filed through legals
and we talked about this before but now that i've
seen the paperwork i i see everything what goes
into it you know i'm just ready to do it myself
you know so there are a few more that i'm going to
need to open up in the next few like six to six to
12 months from now that i already know like it's
okay you know i can do this i can do that um you
know i know how much this is gonna cost me here
and honestly there's a ton of information online
um you know especially through your state
wherever you're deciding to actually file for and
and fun fact is i live in the state of illinois i
registered my llc through the state of illinois it
required a registered agent and at first i wasn't
too sure i'm like okay let me just pay legalzoom
to do that because i don't have to deal with it
but i learned that you can actually be your own
registered agent which was really cool because you
you could save yourself money because really what
that person is is they're just an entity something
where they can send official documentation
so if your address is up to date and you don't
plan on moving anytime soon you're not worried
about stuff getting lost in the mail because
redirecting you know mailing addresses you don't
have to pay anyone to be your own registered agent
you can just be one yourself you could be your own
which i really liked your own app the only
downside to being your own registered agent is
that now your address is public record because of
how you set up your company but i mean if that's
okay if you're okay with that then yeah you're
you're 100 on track and then you can go to the
full opposite side of the spectrum where you can
pay a company to be a registered agent you can pay
a company to give you a mailing address where they
scan and open your mail and email to you and you
can live in a completely different place and have
a company in another state where everything just
goes to because you're paying people to do it for
you oh yeah that's right i remember the last time
we talked you had talked about that specifically
uh do you go through any other states outside
of california you do right yeah for the for my
companies that do business in california i have
to have a california llc but for like my personal
brand my holding company it's a wyoming llc
because it doesn't do business in any one specific
state physically it does business internationally
so i opened it up in wyoming and i pay people to
take my mail over there for me because it's more
affordable and i like the anonymity that wyoming
provides oh that's awesome yeah yeah um i mean
so as far as someone opening up an llc because
they want to have an ebay side business
should they or is there any benefit to having
an ein number from the irs i think there is
so when someone starts a company um there's kind
of like a five-step checklist that i talk about
and i probably talked about this with you before
but there's like five things that if you're going
to go down this path and you want to be legit
this is what you got to do and the first one
is you open up an llc you just open up an llc in
your state and you get that over with and that's
the only thing that's really going to cost you a
bunch of money um because it's the most expensive
part and then you go get an ein which is free
which you've done from the irs totally free and
that gives you a social security number for that
llc makes it legit now that you have an llc and
a social for it or an ein you can walk down to a
bank or a credit union and you get a bank account
or you can even open one up online like if you
don't want to go down there that's fine so now
you have a way to take money your llc is official
um then what you're going to want to check and see
if there's any like locals like city permits
you need to run a business out of your house
because sometimes those are required sometimes
you know um you just want to pay them in
and then last step is you just want to keep good
records you want to make sure that you know where
the money's coming from where the money's going
out and the way that you do that in my mind
is if it's a business expense if it's something
you're spending to run your business then you
spend it out of the business account if
it's a personal expense like toothpaste
and a hoodie you know what i mean like
spend it out of your personal bank account
and if you ever need money for your personal
bank account from your business you just simply
transfer it over call it an owner's draw and
you're good because realistically if whatever
the business makes is what you make you you and
the business are going to be on one tax return
and so leaving money in your business account is
not going to stop it from being taxed that year
that's what i thought when i first started and
oh my gosh was i so wrong um because there are
so many mistakes that i made there are so many
mistakes and that was one of the big ones but
yeah that's that's how i would like set it up if
you're looking towards becoming an lc that's what
i would do okay that that makes sense and i think
and i think for me to um you know come next year
i have to look at or at least for my llc that
i just created i think i do have to still even
though i haven't got any income in because i'm
putting um i'm investing money into the business
so i'm not and i don't expect to be making income
anytime soon for those things you still have to
declare those things in a 1099 right you still
have to let the government know that you're i
mean even even with the filings as well that
you have to let them know like hey you know
this is the money that i put into the business the
business didn't make any money so that at the very
least that you you have everything tightened up
and and pretty much pretty in a bowl so that the
government doesn't come back and say hey we needed
this paperwork you didn't send us this paperwork
are there i mean i'm guessing there's got to
be you know repercussions to that if you're not
making sure that your paperwork is clean and good
and up-to-date because um surely the irs would
come and find you they're pretty good at it um you
know who's really good at it though is states and
local governments like sales tax like states are
even they're way better at it than irs they will
hammer you first if you're not paying like state
taxes um but i i like the way you put that you
know um making sure they know what you've done
making sure they know that you're trying to make
this business legit and what you've put into it
by quarterly filing and even if you put money
into a company and you're not making any money out
of it you can show a loss on your tax returns up
to five thousand dollars for the first year so
you can literally dump five thousand dollars of
your money into this business to try and make it
work and show a five thousand dollar loss at the
end of the year and it will offset your income
and that's okay but you have to keep track of it
exactly exactly and it's only so it's only a five
thousand limit in the first year does that change
after the second third fourth it changes when
you start to have more gross receipts so if you
like um if you make more than
forty thousand in a year in income
but you're still showing a loss you can show
more than five thousand but you need to have
more money coming in in order to push
above that five thousand dollar limit
okay so if you only have made ten thousand dollars
you can show up to a five thousand dollar loss if
you only made 39 000 you can show up to a 5 000
loss but then it starts to tear up after 40.
okay gotcha gotcha that makes sense so then um
you know one of the things i actually thought
was really cool with ebay because um at first like
when i was connecting my account through ebay you
know you could only well for me i was only using
paypal because that's all that i had available but
to me but now they want you to move completely
just to you know an actual bank account so it is
really nice that if you do have an llc and you
get you know an actual account for the business
that you can completely separate it and i mean
we talked about this before using hash card i
finally got mine in a few weeks ago it takes a
little bit of time to go through the process yeah
but it's so nice because then you can just operate
exclusively out of it and you don't have to
worry too much about the accounting because you
can go back in and just see all the activity
now i have activity form from before then because
i wasn't always llc but i mean you know as long as
you have good records of things then you should
be fine but um you know as far as what you use
i think we talked about this before you do tend
to use quickbooks though to to like manage all of
those like uh oh you know all your transactions
travel or anything that's necessary mm-hmm i
really like the way you said that jess like you
have this [ __ ] figured out you're killing it and
i am really impressed and i think you are setting
out a fantastic example like i love it so yes now
that that's said i use quickbooks to manage all
those transactions because there's so much that
comes in and out of the account eventually um
you're just like and so i have a bookkeeper
marissa and she goes through every month and
logs into all of my different quickbooks for
all my different companies and make sure that all
the transactions are put in the right places and
then at the end of the year i take those reports
and i give them to my tax guy my cpa and then he's
the one who looks at those reports and helps me
save as much money as possible when telling the
irs how much money we owe them because that's
really your job it's your job to tell the irs
how much you owe right and so yeah the more you
know about the tax code the less you have to pay
did you have to do a lot of studying of the
tax code initially when you first got started
i had to study i spent a lot of time on the
irs website i spent a lot of time reading i put
myself through a five thousand dollar class from
uh from the author of the book tax free wealth
who is um rich dad poor dad's tax guy and so i
learned from him and through him i started to
learn like the surface level stuff i started to
understand entities i started to understand why
taxes exist in the first place you know just as
a government incentive and i started to help me
get a better big picture understanding and once
i had that big picture understanding i was able
to understand who i needed on my team as a tax
professional to get me to where i wanted to go
because i've had four different cpas for these
businesses trying to find the right person and
so it wasn't until i knew what i needed that i was
able to find the right person so i had to educate
myself a little bit first before i could find
steven who was my current cpa who we're now like
best friends we talk all the time that's awesome
and you know i'm really glad that you say that too
you know you had to kind of do some trial
and error yourself because even for me
if i'm going online trying to find someone to help
me with content to um you know just delegate out
things that i don't want to do and i'm not really
good at for example design i'm terrible at design
i can't do it i try my best but but in order and
but in order to even communicate properly with
what i wanted what i need them to send them
in the right direction that i wanted them i
had to learn a little bit about design and and
get a few you know um you know test runs under
my belt in order to even communicate for the
most part um you know which is really crazy but
it's one of those things that you have to think
about as a business owner um you know as you're
just kind of going through that now of course
that doesn't that isn't really relevant to ebay
so much you know because the only designs that
are necessary are just the pictures really
um but but yeah i i love that i love that
um you're right and and as far as no so much
they need to know like you know differences
between vectors and pixels and do you want
this in png or do you want a jpeg like do you
need a transparent background why like what what
aspect ratio is it going to be tall wide square
like there's a lot so i feel you i get it but
that's what elon musk does you know he's not a
rocket scientist but he employs rocket scientists
and the way he does it is by learning enough on
the surface to be able to have a conversation
with an expert and being able to articulate his
vision you need to know enough to be able to
articulate your vision and once you can
effectively get across what you want done
then your workers can be like oh yeah i can
make that happen yeah that's so true i mean uh
you know for for elon to be so i mean i that's
probably part of the reason why he's been so
successful is because he's been able to like you
said learn enough to communicate effectively gosh
i mean because i've had so many um experiences
with you know my normal job and how i work seeing
people not know what they want talking to
especially to a technical person if you don't
know how to speak their language you you are on
two completely different fields and they're going
to completely misinterpret the need and then it is
just not going to you know work out right and you
know all the back and forth it can be a lot it can
definitely be a lot yeah yeah thank you thank you
um and you know i'm kind of curious about about
you too because you do you know run your um you
know you do have a channel you do have like an
instagram you have a huge following it's really
great i freaking love your website by the way
i didn't tell you this the last time but i love
your website i don't know who designed it but they
did a really good job appreciate it kim yeah let
me shout her out kimberly erp she is my website
designer she's an artist first and foremost and a
web designer second she's really good at wordpress
she's super affordable and i was re it took me a
long time to find her to be a long time but i'm
very happy with the work she puts out she's good
yeah seriously i love the graphics and i like how
it looks really seamless um and and i mean for the
content that you do on instagram i mean like when
you do your reels for your like podcast clips do
you also contract that out i mean i guess i guess
for a lot of the things do you contract out um i
don't edit anything i only drive the ship i only
drive the ship and i only do what only i can do
and i learned that lesson the hard way because as
things start to come onto your plate you know i
can't do it all like sure i could design the the
listing images sure i could edit the clips and do
captions and split everything up but um it's not
for long it's a lot tried i did it long enough to
understand the process and now i put a system in
place like um like literally like wrote down like
a template of how i want things done and then i go
um i hit up enrique and enrique manages overseas
contractors people in colombia and india and kenya
and africa and all these different places who get
paid like five to eight bucks an hour and they're
killing it in their country but for us it's
really affordable they speak english they have
skills and so you know i reach out to them and
i do an initial like interview check out their
resume and i train them up and then i delegate
and so i have a whole slack channel built out with
like 20 different contractors that i work with
and one's a video editor one's a graphic
designer one does my podcast one does social
media management one just does posting and you
know so i have all these different people and so
what happens is i'll jump on like a zoom call like
um uh to do a podcast or just to help somebody out
on zoom and i'll record it and then that zoom um
file goes into dropbox and then i don't touch it
again my designer my editor will pull it and chop
it up into youtube clips for me we'll chop it up
into a youtube video it'll turn into a podcast
it'll be turned into tick tock clips and it goes
into a drive folder where my social media managers
and people just pull from it and post as needed
for me a blog writer goes in and pulls it rips
the audio and then turns it into a blog post
and it just all happens behind the scenes and
i don't do any of it anymore and uh it's called
splintering content i learned it from garyvee
and it was one of the biggest time savers i ever
implemented for myself that's amazing that's
amazing so then so then when it comes to like
creating content each week how many hours do
you think you spend like you not not your team
max you know i don't i don't like and that's like
me sitting down with like my my journal and like
you know drawing out the stuff that i like to draw
out and like really do like the original content
and so my original content i post maybe once
or twice a week and everything else is just
recycled filler from the splintered content that
i have and just getting the message out there i
i really love that otherwise i would just be
overwhelmed you know it's a lot you know just
instagram they want what three you know stories a
day a post an igtv two reels like are you kidding
me dude i'm not gonna do all that oh my god but
i mean yeah i don't disagree with you it's just
i mean i don't even want to call it pay to play
it's like it's like pay with your time to play
that's your payment i mean that's your
payment with facebook anyway they're free apps
facebook instagram tick tock all of them
they're free and you pay with your attention
they monetized it so they will sell
your attention to people like me who
has a business that wants to
advertise to people like you
and that's how you pay and um a lot of people
just don't a lot of people don't know that
gosh yeah i know i know there's always you're
right every app is not truly free because even
even beyond that even beyond that you know when it
comes to users that are you know downloading um uh
apps on their devices uh google has a number
has a number of what you are worth to them
um so so i mean you know as far as as far as
like advert i mean i guess it just comes back to
advertising and what in your data because that
that's that's a huge thing oh man i remember i
went to a conference a few years ago where they
were talking about that and how like the biggest
resource right now is just sheer sheer data
and and you know when people buy and sell the
data and and how they're making money so free apps
i mean free apps they come at a price because of
your data too so it's it's it's really interesting
to think about because you're like oh man you know
i can get all these apps for free you know like
what's the benefit to them well there is a benefit
to them they're really 100 100 even when you're
building a website you know you want to put a
facebook pixel and a google tag on there so you
can collect the the user's metadata because if
you know who they are and where they're visiting
from you can and they make a purchase you can
target other people just like them and so the the
data game is uh it's like this secret behind the
scenes like war between big companies sharing
and selling people's data it's bizarre it is
it's funny it's like the man behind the curtain
but everyone knows that he's there so but i mean
it's it's definitely really interesting to think
about because especially you know within the
world of like pokemon and markets and and tracking
this and tracking that you know even even from my
perspective someone who's trying to put marketing
like marketplace data together so that people can
use that data to figure out okay what's the trend
right now and then what's coming up in the future
i mean i you know having that data all together in
one place is like incredibly incredibly tremendous
like data couldn't be more important and
i think um you know it doesn't seem like
it there is that much resemblance but we
had a similar time actually back in the 70s
we were going through a very similar time yeah
because what's happening right now is like we
have so i'm we're going into a rant right now
but we have so much data right now we don't even
we haven't even fully analyzed it we haven't
even fully gleaned like all the insights that
we could and something similar happened back in
the 70s you know when computers started to become
cheaper and more accessible um you know to
everyone data back then you know people had
data but weren't gleaning all the insights you
know squeezing out as much as it could um from
back in the day which ai could potentially change
that for us so oh my gosh yes most definitely and
it's just it's the sifting and sorting part
collecting it's not that difficult i mean you just
you know you just divert the stream you make
a copy you put it on on a server somewhere but
sorting through the data and aggregating it and
turning it into something that we as humans can
interpret it's very challenging and i you're right
the only way is ai and i would be so surprised if
like the nsa and other big agencies were not
using ai to to scrape their data oh absolutely
i mean there's there's no way that one
person i i've seen huge data sets and
they're small probably
compared to what they've got
there's no there's just no way it would be it
would be too much too much work for one person
or for humans to do it but then on top of that
you know the fact that there is a degree of um
you know humans are flawed we are flat
things and robots will do exactly what
you tell them so they're going to be
more reliable but they obviously have
you know a limit um because of where we're at but
there's a limit to the complexity of the tasks
they can execute and there's no critical thinking
and so yeah you're right there's only certain
things that humans can do but a lot of those
things those menial tasks are replaced by robots
you know a lot of people think too that that's
like it's bad it's going to take away jobs and i
i disagree i disagree 100 with that it's going to
create new jobs different types of jobs it's going
to push people away from the the menial repetitive
blue collar tasks into more of the knowledge work
type of tasks think about it back in the day
when henry ford brought out the car there were
horse-drawn buggies everywhere everywhere what
have what about all the farriers they're going
to lose their jobs because they're not going to
have horses to re-shoe well those farriers went on
to go work in the production plants and make more
money and have a better more stable living like
it shifts it's not it's not a zero-sum game
you don't take one away and add something
it's that it's so it'll be interesting to see
what happens with that especially like trucking
um stock trading finance lending oh my god
fine finance in general is changing so much
it's going to be nuts but back to your app with
the data i'm really curious how are you collecting
all of it like how do you manage all that are you
using just like a bunch of different apis or what
um yeah it's going to be a collection of apis
i mean right now the only api that makes sense
to use that's available to me right now is going
to be the epa ebay marketplace api um but in the
future i do plan on expanding that to multiple
marketplaces because you know we've got mercari
we've got facebook marketplace we've got
whatnot i don't know if you use that i
haven't used that but i've heard good things
about it um whatnot is just essentially um
an auction house type place but what the sellers
can do is they can have like live streams
uh during the auction to like talk about the items
it's really interesting because because the app in
itself like it's built in marketing which i really
love yeah it's called just whatnot literally that
one word um very interesting i i think um the
people behind that are pretty clever in my eyes
how they built that um they built it for virality
yeah um but uh but yeah so that's that's what i'm
that that's what it'll be uh for right now um ebay
marketplace is going to be the biggest uh because
i want to be able to you know how can i aggregate
data in such a way where i can actually give
you know market cap numbers as close to
accurate as i can market cap numbers with you
know the volume of sales the sales today the sales
yesterday um the sales in the last seven days what
were those items um how many of the same item was
sold you know that's really interesting to me that
not as many people talk about because you know if
i'm looking through data like terapeak data from
ebay or whatever and i'm seeing certain kinds
of cards being sold within the same day within
over the course of a few days for certain types of
items i'm like that's really interesting you know
and then that's just a nugget of something
to investigate and something to look at so
really interesting stuff yeah okay um have you
heard uh i i just found out today so i haven't
been able to look at it too much i don't think
i have access to the beta but ebay right now has
is coming up with a beta um tool that uh users can
use it's a price guide uh for cards for for sports
for pokemon for magic all those trading cards
very interesting i don't have access to it i think
you just go on the app and you just look at
your my ebay and you see um and you'll see
like collector price guide or something like that
um and then you'll have access to it but that's
really interesting because now ebay in a way has
become a competitor of mine because it's pretty
much the same thing right and and the great thing
for them is that they already have the data so the
making the product just makes so much sense you
know mm-hmm yeah i see what you're saying um i
can see how they would compete compete with you
on like the price data and things like that you
know market data but man to be able to look at
my entire collection in one place and see like
the current market value of all my cards would
be something that has never been possible before
and i think that would be so great i
would be oh my god i would be so excited
it's it's oh it's gonna be so great one of these
days we'll have to get together um so that i can
show you uh some of the uh the wireframes that
i've got going on right now i just started putting
data on it oh it looks so it looks so great it's
still oh it's you know maybe maybe after this i'll
show you the one or two pages that i have built
well i can give you the inside scoop on that but
it'll it'll be really great it's going to look
really nice um i i can't wait to like officially
put it out i technically like i don't know that
i would say that i've technically launched it
i'm kind of waiting until the end of of august
like officially launched because i also had to do
a br uh rebranding because i found out that when i
first did the llc when i first looked at cardfolio
it was the trademark was in progress but it didn't
show like so so that previous uh trademark was
shown dead and then i literally looked like two
weeks ago two two and a half weeks ago and and it
said that it was live now so what industry
is that previous trademark in do you know
um it is an app for credit cards i'm not fully
aware yeah yeah well then you're then you're
good because trademarks are industry specific so
if like uh a trademark someone has like scorch
markers a bad example we'll say vaniter if someone
has a manager in the automotive industry i can
still use vanitar for the business and education
industry and it still works so trademarks are
industry specific so yeah yeah absolutely 100
and so you could have cardfolio for the financial
institution and cardfolio for the trading card app
too like i would highly recommend you look into it
hey buddy my son just ran in with a big spoonful
of peanut butter oh that's the best let's just say
hi really quick and then mike let's say hi say
hi buddy hi oh nice to meet you oh he's a cutie
i noticed the background was a little bit
different i'm like ooh he's serving us ankles
i don't know i know i know i had my camera set
up and i only have three pictures hung up in my
office that i got the other day oh dude i got
this cool one of of vegeta though the other day
but i don't know where i'm gonna put it it just
tells you when i was a kid you know what i mean
is that is that off display yeah yeah yeah
yeah i like being able to hang stuff on the
magnets i think it's a way to do it oh yeah
um yeah i used to run home every day like in
elementary school to catch dragon ball z at 5 30
and it was a big part of me growing up pokemon
and dragon ball seat those two things and so now
as an adult being able to spend my money and um
collect those things again it's special it's
special oh yeah oh yeah it's funny because i
was having a conversation with someone the other
day talking about like you know when you're a
kid you you're in the toy aisle and you're
thinking oh you know when i'm grown up and i
have all this money i'm gonna spend it on this
this this and this so like a big thing for me
as a kid was legos right and so of course you know
i passed by the legos and it still has this like
pull for me but the reason why i just don't go
and spend money on legos is because okay great
i get the lego i spend however much it is i
open it up i build it and then what do i do
with it like i don't have a place where i
can show it or put it like that's too much
it's too much so i don't buy it because i got i
got to know where to put it i feel you i 100 feel
you um there's so many things that i want to but
it's like do i really need more stuff or do i want
to stick to the stuff that's super super important
right i know let me ask you this question
i was thinking about well i didn't think about
it i've already kind of started doing it but
putting together a youtube channel where i just
go dive deep and talk about individual pokemon
cards the artist the origination of the artwork
like maybe my favorite pokedex entry compare the
size of the pokemon to the size of the human
like in real life and just dive deep into a
single card you know the pronunciation the typing
and like just interesting unique things and um
maybe just like a couple minutes five
minutes going deep into individual cards
from different sets that are fun would you
watch something like that i probably would
i i i i probably would because that
that stuff is fun it's a dumb idea
no it's not dumb and i think i think a lot of
kids out there would watch it too um you know
because sometimes you just want something in the
background that's that's nice and if you have like
a number of them you could just you know put it on
an autoplay and it's like okay how tall would i be
compared to gengar you know yeah like exactly
like yeah and i mean i don't know i think i think
those things are fun um and i mean what's really
what's really cool too is there's a lot of really
interesting artists that you know not many people
talk about like like those masaki promo cards
those are super interesting to me i freaking love
the art on those i i definitely want to own them
one day they're a little expensive but for me
anyway but or what i'm willing to spend i guess
rather but but yeah i mean i think that that
would be really interesting get a deep dive on
like you know arita that'd be really cool um
i don't know how many people actually cover um
the artist like i know a lot of people can know
and cite their names but they don't really talk
about the artists and like their career and
what they did and what pokemon they designed
and for how many sets and stuff like that i don't
know artists or companies too you know and uh i
don't know i just think it's interesting
to kind of like dive a little bit deeper
but i want to ask you so you talk about stuff
in the background like obviously you put on like
lo-fi on youtube and just like listen to it in the
background how did you know how did you know that
is what i said oh i had this idea i was like all
right well i listened to lo-fi in the background
anyway and it's usually just like chilled cow
or some of these other websites where are some
channels where they just you know it's just a
simple animation yeah you know it looks nice it
looks nice but i was like okay um i could do that
too like i'm gonna grab some royalty-free music
and and do that too but what would be my visual so
i set up a table and i set up my camera and i did
like a four-hour pokemon card sorting i just took
all my collection that i needed to sort through
every single card and organized it so it's like
someone's sorting cards of like actual pokemon
cards in the background and it's just music and
it's just made to be put on in the background
so i just finished editing it i'm gonna put it up
there i'm gonna see how it does just for fun send
me a link oh do it that that'll be so much fun i
thought about doing something similar um because
you know you've seen the like the anime girl
that's like doing her homework i thought like
you know what if you just get cards and you sleeve
them and it's just like an endless animation of
someone's slaving pokemon cards you know thank you
yes yeah like how important would that be to look
at like you're just sitting there and you're like
oh snap i remember that gengar [ __ ] that was
cool yeah yeah how many did you store it for for
four hours like was it straight four hours for it
no um i had the tripod set up and i took breaks
and i did it over the course of a couple days
but i just rolled out a big chunk of leather
that we had on this plastic table and i put
all my cards out and we're moving right into
this new place so i'm like okay i need to
get everything sleeved properly not in these
competition sharp pointy ass like sleeves but
nice penny sleeves and then put away and sorted
through you know like all of my full art and you
know my secret rares and my rares my halls and
reverses and everything and so i just laid them
all out and started going through it and um it
was fun i it was it was chill it was a good time
i mean that's awesome i love that you know
what's funny what's funny to like collectors
is is at that's tedious and monotonous and
the same [ __ ] but but at the same time
it's the weirdest like relaxed you know no
pressure like let me just do this for fun
yeah it's such a weird thing collectors like
we are weird sometimes we like somewhere yep
i started buying like misprints like i really
like miss prince like i'm really into it
because i really like um i did a lot of research
on how cards are made and so i have a picture now
in my mind i understand how the cards are made
so i can look at a misprint and can tell you what
what point in the process that misprint happened
like ah color jet on the printing wheel like did
it happen before and after like it's it's really
interesting and so like i chase after these random
ones like um dark arbok has a misprint in the
date and like you know some japanese cards like
have like hollows i just love that [ __ ] and so
to be able to grab something like that study it
learn about it and then talk about it
on a youtube channel just brings me
happiness and i'm straight up just doing
it for fun and i have you done that yet
is that video out yet not the one on the gengar
or the arbok but no i haven't recorded okay well
i'm i'm here for that too because i don't know
much about the printing process but i i love miss
prince too there's a lot of really interesting
ones like the uh you know the blue dot
um the blue dot of vulpix i've got a few of those
in the shadow list um yeah i'm waiting for them
to get back from cdc already it'll probably
be 12 months from now but you know anyways
um because at the time they were the only ones
that was taking um subs uh because that when i
had put it in i had sent two subs one in april one
in may and by then psa had already stopped taking
bulk orders i mean they're not even taking bulk
orders right now if i'm not mistaken they said
that they would open up uh services in july but
it's still very limited and it's very expensive
so i was going to cgc why do you think they do
that why do you think they don't grow is it to
keep a control at a bottleneck on the market
so it doesn't get inundated with graded cards
or do you think it's just they just
don't know how to run their business
so um so i could see why you would think you know
either one would be a possible answer and i think
i think it's a little bit of in the middle but
maybe more so leaning towards bottlenecking
because what's happening is they're right now
grading they're they're up to date they've
graded everything through september of 2020 i
believe so they're working on october 2020 that's
how far behind they are and there are millions of
cards behind one of the thing that i l one of the
things that i liked about psa before is that they
were the one grading company that was a publicly
owned company so they had quarterly meetings and
you knew how many cards they had on backorder so
that's how i know you know it was like it was like
a meeting in october yeah october of last year
they mentioned they were such and such millions of
cards behind um you know just just for bulk orders
and and and so with that said um they thought
that okay so if i price hike things a little bit
we can open up services more but then keep people
from submitting cards right because they thought
that surely you know these price hikes this
is going to be too much it's not going to make
there's not the economics behind it people will
not send so many but but that's not necessarily
been the case so with their with their price hikes
it hasn't it didn't slow them down enough so then
that's why they pulled back all together
on that just so that they can get caught up
um so so with psa because they're now
owned by a private company so they're not
a publicly owned company um so the numbers are not
transparent anymore uh from from that perspective
versus you know compared to having the quarterly
meetings uh nat turner i believe he is now the ceo
um it just happened like maybe a month or so ago
i don't know within the past few weeks or a month
or so and uh he's he's taken the reins over the
previous ceo and um they also sometime this year
earlier this year acquired a ocr company i don't
know how familiar you are with ocr technology not
a whole lot okay well long story short it's just
um it's just pretty much a computer extracting
words from a page so if they were to scan a
page you know documents or anything like that
yeah so what they're doing is they're taking that
technology incorporating that into their business
um to at least help with the identification
and the verification or authentication stage
there aren't that many details um you know so
this is just me speculating but but they did
so they do now own an ocr company um so it's
really good expertise to have i still think
there are humans in involved in the grading
process because i think there is a level of
you can't delegate everything to computers
um and so and so i think the market would
be really hesitant too potentially if
everything was now completely computerized
um but but uh yeah they still are incorporating
graders because they went through a huge um a huge
fanfare of hiring a whole bunch of people onto the
market so so i think long story short i think that
they're doing a lot of things i i think they're
doing a lot of things to hopefully get up to speed
you know if you're behind millions of cards who
knows is how much of it is pokemon even who knows
i know it's going to be a ton of nba stuff
like it's it's kind of disgusting seeing the
yeah the demand on sports cards it's it's
disgusting to see the volume of psa 10 cards
for certain certain players and then and then
the and then just it demanding such a high price
you know i don't know if that is truly the demand
or if it's manipulation because if you know these
markets really well you know even even someone
who's in the antiques if they know how these
markets operate because this is you know pokemon
magic sports cards you know modern sports cards at
least very speculative so you know you could
very easily go in and manipulate markets um
it's insane to me yes yo you 100 can manipulate
markets especially if you're buying a certain car
like say you buy all the rookie jordan
psa tens you know you buy all of them
all of them every single one of them you
buy hikes the price like dude like logan
paul did it with uh first edition cards um he
bought them all yeah like he was buying as many
as he could it drove the price up you know and
everybody else feels a little residuals of that
and not to say it was market manipulation
but it's smaller than we think i think mm-hmm
i think it's a little smaller than we think
but it's really interesting nonetheless
talk about the stuff and so i'm really excited
for for cardfolio so i can keep track of my
freaking [ __ ] i know i know and and now i got
to do some real mad research on trademarks now
because i was going to trade it i was going to
change it to card fox um because you know it's
still the same yep i mean you know it doesn't hit
the same like in my head i still say cardfolio
um but i'm gonna have to do some massive research
and honestly probably talk to a lawyer do you have
any money to spend on trademarks um so i had one
in progress and then i went ahead and cancelled it
um just because you know i saw well hey like this
is now a live trademark you know they they didn't
communicate to me hey by the way you should
look at this first consider this first before
um you know you know canceling this because uh
we had started the process but i don't think
they put any paperwork together um but i think i
might go ahead to and talk to a lawyer just to get
their input because okay do you want me to dm you
the name of a of a trademark attorney that i know
oh yes yes please please do please do
i appreciate that with her name after
afterwards she's super cool and uh maybe at least
can provide you some insight but yeah i know that
some people get trademarks they trademark
the whole business before they even start
they get it all set up and squared away with the
searches and everything and you know it can cost
upwards of a couple thousand dollars sometimes
yeah sometimes it's worth it if you're building
something tangible and something that you really
want to do the right way sometimes it's worth it
i i agree with you i mean i think um so you know
i've made a lot of mistakes or at least a lot of
things i would have maybe done differently um
as as i've been working through this project i
mean probably the first thing would be scope
like can you just do something a little bit
easier girl you gotta have to be so ambitious
why why are you like this you know but um but
yeah i think i think one of those things is is
really understanding that probably would be you
know next time around it'll be easy next time
around this would be so much more simple um but
on the to the same token though the nice thing
is that you know as i've been going through
and validating you know demand and do people want
this do they not want it do they care about it do
like you know what about it what about it is
so interesting or intriguing to people you know
understanding that i don't mind putting it out
there a little bit because it's still small enough
where you know i don't think anyone is going to
necessarily like take the name per se um you know
i just have to make sure i have to secure the
proper like domains and stuff like that i mean
that that's always going to be something pretty
necessary to do in the beginning but yeah but
but you know on the other hand too you could
spend thousands of dollars doing it all the
right way and then realizing you're not in the
right business like it's not the right thing
so so trying to you know like take steps
forward you know on on both sides of it
is it's hard it's hard for sure but um at some
point you're just gonna have to take a risk
and so that's kind of where i'm at now so i i feel
pretty confident about it and validating um demand
um that i feel pretty confident and then at
some point once i'm really ready really ready to
actually have something to put out there i'm gonna
have to do your uh splinter strategy which is
i'm gonna have to have people um i mean so in in
the app world it's called having a go to market
strategy um so those are things that i am planning
for and like okay i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do
this and do this but i just do not have the time
to the capacity to do all that myself to dev and
to manage and to market there's no way but being
involved in the process putting together the plan
and the strategy and then finding the right
people to execute that's something that i can
do yeah correct and then you just need to find
the right people and that's a matter of being on
your network asking other people going on fiverr
upwork you know wherever you can find someone to
help you make that vision real like i love it yeah
well said it has to be your vision and people have
to know exactly what you want to accomplish or
they can't get it done right but yeah you're
right you can't do that until you have a product
to sell like what are you going to go to market
with right now you know right as soon as you
have that thing oh yeah jess that's so exciting
i know i'm so excited it's gonna be so great
it's gonna be so much fun i i i love it it's
gonna be a great project um and and you know i'll
i'll definitely let you know uh for sure when i
have something but you know we'll we'll have to
stay we'll have to stay after this and i can do a
quick screen share of a little bit of what i have
so far so that'll be really fun um but you know
what we haven't really talked about so so we've
talked about a lot of things we've talked about
a crap ton of things and and i think i think a lot
of people probably got a ton of business value out
of this just because it's so relevant it's like
what they're doing like all of us are buying and
selling cards at the end of the day probably
not you know for me for example not really a
main focus of mine but you know for some things
you have to kind of know when to dip out and
and and or when to stay the course right but we've
talked about business we've talked about data what
we haven't really talked about is your collection
oh and your story because i already know your
story but people don't know the your story
of when you were a kid and when you had cards
and then when you so if you want to kind
of tell people a little bit more about how
you are as a collector and and when you got back
into collecting versus when you were a kid and
you know i love that when i was i was just like
the memories start to drip into my brain like like
paint like it just comes in and i'm like oh my
gosh it was so fun because in 2000 that's what it
all happened that's when it all happened in 2000
and i was 12 years old i was 12 years old 11 12 13
like at the peak of pokemon i was a pre-teen and a
teenager it was the perfect time for me because i
was playing game boy games and i got blue version
we had red version i had the cards i had a whole
first edition set that i collected i was hardcore
into it like i even collected the the japanese um
you know the the new starter pokemon from silver
the cinder quill and totodile and all that stuff
i had all these japanese promo sets like oh
like it was so sick so i ended up collecting
i would go to the mall every day with my buddy
cameron we get dropped off at the mall we'd go
to wizards of the coast we would open fossil
and jungle packs um it was yes it was like the
peak of my childhood right waiting in line at the
movies to get the pokemon promo cards the mewtwo's
ancient mew like oh it was the best thing
ever and so i actually had that little red
pikachu binder and i collected all the whole
base that first edition had them all in order
sleeved like they looked good they looked really
good and uh it was a beautiful collection and i
made an appointment at the local collection place
down the street where i was living at the time
because i wanted to sell my collection i was ready
to move on i was ready to buy yoyos and tech decks
and skateboards and stuff and grow up a little bit
and so i sold the entire thing for 300 bucks maybe
it was like 360. i don't remember but i got some
cash and i thought it was pretty cool i'm like
hey look at that like look at me i'm 12 years
old look what i did i wish i still had it but
but i still played the games religiously i've
played just about every single pokemon game
i've completed pokedexes i've got shiny charms
like i love the game but i'm the type of person
who's a i'm a min maxer that's my style i like
to ev train from level one the perfect genders
the perfect traits like i like to do that i
like to min max and get the best of the best
and um now that i'm an adult and i have adult
money finally and you know pokemon's starting
to have a resurgence and it's back on my radar
and i'm like oh my god like i would love to buy
some memories and so now that's what i do i
chase after those memories and i chase after
those things that like i just really like i just
really participated crobat is my favorite pokemon
so out of all the pokemon out there crobat's my
favorite and so i'm starting my my collection
now as an adult just collecting all the crowbars
i just want all the crowbars a master set crobat
the reason was is because when we were when i
was playing like ruby and and um the first game
was like rayquaza and stuff did i say that right
i've heard people pronounce it differently you
know what that's how i would have said it okay so
anyways at the time crobat was the fastest pokemon
in the game but he's no one could beat his base
speed and so if you had a crowbar as your starter
he could be a total griefer you could give him
toxic confused ray double team and giga drain
and so you would be unhittable they would be
confused um wait they'd be heavily poisoned
and then i would be draining their hp from
them and i just caused problems for everyone
that i battled and i had a blast with it
and it was just one of my one of my things
and so consequently that's how crobat
became my my favorite pokemon is from
usual fights and whatnot but that's awesome that's
a that's a freaking powerful setup you got there i
i i think i stopped playing after yellow so i
don't know rayquaza but dude that's so serious
do you remember playing blue and red version and
then like there's the ssn trick and there's the
truck and there's the stone like maybe you could
get strength and you could move that boulder out
of the way and maybe there's you hidden under
there or or you know maybe there's some trick at
cinnabar island or maybe there's really polka gods
you know and the misingo stuff and like dude i was
deep deep deep jess and so now i'm like i get
little twang or a little they have pangs of like
nostalgia from that and it feels good it feels
good we'll share that with my kids and it's cool
oh that's awesome so so they're playing
like uh so they're playing the old games
on the gameboy oh yeah oh yeah oh that's
awesome yeah i've i played uh sun and
moon with my daughter we collected everything
together and you know it's awesome we still go
to the store we still open up packs together we
still look at the collection together and whatnot
have you been playing uh pokemon unite nope
on the switch yet nope i haven't done it yet
i haven't actually killed and i haven't played
pokemon unite and i haven't played pokemon snap
oh okay okay gotcha yeah out of those three sword
shield snap and unite which one should i do first
um i like unite i haven't
played any of the other ones
uh well what's really cool about uh pokemon united
it's just for free for download um and then it's
uh i haven't played any league of legends but it's
exactly like league of legends just for pokemon so
it's got matches ranked matches you know you get
your pokemon you do your setups your builds and
very fun sometimes your ass kicks kicks sometimes
you kick their ass like it's fun you know i wish i
knew like whether or not i was just like beating
up little kids like sometimes that's how i feel
but then also sometimes i feel like it's just a
bunch of people my age playing pokemon unite so
but yes i love that i'm gonna have to check it
out because man i've been playing the trading
card game online but i haven't yet to play pokemon
unit and i'm excited oh that's nice have you have
you ever done like a competition like a card
legit tournament or anything like that never
a tournament or anything no no no but having an
understanding of how the game is played really
made collecting more enjoyable because trainer
cards are now more enjoyable for me to look at
um you know what i mean because i'm like oh how
could this work into a strategy and i actually
read it instead of just look at the art and
it's added another layer to it that's been fun
oh yeah absolutely um i mean trainer cards are
definitely under appreciated i will say so it's
kind of nice but you know and and honestly to me
i kind of feel like i do need to at some point
really pick back up on the trading card game
because i maybe played like one or two times
i don't really know how to play i can't remember
it's been so long and like a few years ago i tried
to learn magic's gathering so i have magic and
pokemon in my head and i don't know which ones
the which one's not the one do you know what
i'm saying so uh hearthstone oh gosh i haven't
even gotten into flesh and blood yet i need to i
need to learn flesh and blood i have some boxes
that i need to open up um and i'm considering
buying some metazu i might get some metazu today
dang really yeah i've heard about it but i have i
know like nothing i just saw like a couple posts
on instagram whatever yeah i i know nothing
either i'm not too wild about the art not too
wild about it because some some of it looks kind
of funky to me and i was never like a dungeons
and dragons person yeah yeah apparently there's
a lot of nostalgia with with dungeon and dragons
like those early monster books and i don't even
really know much about what i'm talking about
right now but apparently that's where a lot of
the inspiration comes from but i mean a handful
of times oh really yeah yeah yeah i i still don't
even know that much but it's one of those things
that okay so the market's talking about it people
are buying it there's a little bit of hysteria
uh right now because there's like not enough
price history to like really justify some of
these prices i'm like okay what's going on here
you know but but with that said that doesn't
mean that i don't want to taste it and get a feel
for it and and make my my own opinion on it um so
you know i don't know we'll see rudy from alpha
investments i don't know if you know him he's
a great youtuber i learned so much from him he's
mostly magic the gathering but he does talk about
pokemon and stuff like that because he used to
be a financial professional and so now he applies
that he has a business and he he speculates
um full-time you know i like that in magic
and in pokemon yeah i made a very good video about
the financial implications of buying a master case
of xy evolutions the other day i finally recall
oh interesting oh nice okay and um i was like
why did i spend five thousand dollars on
this box pokemon cards that's unopened like
let me explain and i went through the whole thing
about i bought a pack of xy evolution i could show
like there's 216 of these in here you know the
reason i bought it is because it is the only way
that you can pull a charizard it's the only
way you can pull a charizard a base set artwork
charizard at least is from xy evolutionists
unless you're going to spend an arm and a leg
right and so yeah like i'm just banking
on the fact that xy evolutions is going
to be the next base set in 20 years so so
you're going to keep that sealed for now
until i'm rich enough to open it and it won't
affect me or until it is um you know just yeah
and something is needed but yeah it's a long-term
play i don't really know honestly but i mean some
of these cars that i have now and my my prized
possessions are over 20 years old and then like
i don't know we'll see what happens hell yeah
hell yeah i'm a buyer and holder that's what i do
yeah yeah i i i definitely i i can
understand that for sure no doubt
which by the way see in the chilling rain we
should open up the patch well as in you i i'd
like to see what you got here i'd like to see
how lucky we are big money big money big money
okay i don't know which are the big cards for
children i don't even either i don't even know
either to be honest with you we're just gonna see
what we get and maybe your viewers can tell us
which one's good yeah we'll see where's the camera
at here okay ready i'm gonna go one two three
four flip it okay let's see oh yeah it is
okay cool we got some energy i can't even
read it because it's mirrored and backwards and
out of focus but we're going to do it anyway
all right another trainer card all right
awesome wow trainer cars are plenty on this one
what was that scoreboard no doubt
oh that's diglett no doubt that's cute yeah i like
that cool artwork i really like that artwork i'm
a big fan i dork out on some of the art i really
like it a lot hey same i i love it there's some
good stuff no doubt all right some of these i
recognize oh there's oh you got the reverse and
hollow okay cool i don't know what that
is but hey i like the art there's so many
there's like 900 pokemon now jess what
out of all the regions i can't keep up
i can't keep up the only one
i know is the canton region
yeah it's actually a secret rare no not secret
rare just ultra rare with the white star
or shifu cool all right well well i would say we
you won that's a good one i'm gonna check it out
i like it plus dude just the the the crack of
that pack right there and just holding them uh
and that smells it's got a it's got a new card
smell oh yeah it there's nothing like it there's
nothing like it well well i appreciate your time
today i'm so happy that i was able to get you on
um oh my gosh i know that there's going to
be so many nuggets in here for people so
because i want to be respectful uh let everyone
know where they can find you so they can reach
out and say hey yeah if you're interested in
anything i do or you want to like learn from
me about business or you just want to learn from
me on my youtube channel my social media just go
to vanader.com um just like my name that's my
website i have everything there and you can hit
me up on instagram or tiktok you can always dm me
or email me i'll help you in whatever way i can
if i have the time to help you i will and that's
my goal that's my goal awesome awesome that works
i appreciate it well thank you so much for
everyone being on today i so much appreciate
it will i see that you are in the comments i don't
know if you're still on but thank you always nice
to see you dude and anyways guys thank you so
much i appreciate it peace out appreciate you