Creating his own Breaks - The Booming Hobby Series w/ Jason Koonce

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So that was my first big money making was just straight grading.

And after a few years, the next level was, how can we put fuel on this fire?

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month,

taking the BS out of business for over six years in over 400 episodes.

You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks?

Well, it starts right about now.

about now.

What's up, guys?

Welcome to Right About Now.

Hey, you know, we're getting back to business here.

We've been in the middle of our trading card extravaganza, as I call it.

It's opening the eyes and the ears to the world of the hobby.

And I got introduced to Jason, our next guest, through a mutual friend.

And we had a conversation that was supposed to be, you know, like five minutes ended up being like 55 or two hours.

I don't even know.

Now I'm gonna just call him a brother from another he is jason koontz he is the founder and ceo of otia

i'm gonna let him give that acronym and what it all means he's just a sports card past present future junkie what's up jason what's up man so happy to be with you today ryan hey i appreciate it i uh i loved our convo a few weeks ago and uh darren prints a mutual friend was like you got to talk to jason you got to go to the expert i'm like well

we'll get him on

Get on the phone.

Like, we're just going to shoot the shit, talk about maybe what we could talk about.

Next thing I know, I don't even know.

We're talking about our kids and traveling and sports cards and

everything.

Two hours later, yeah.

Exactly, man.

Where's home?

Michigan.

We're just a big Michigan Wolverine fan, so we're about 10 minutes north of Ann Arbor here in Michigan.

Go Blue.

Go Blue, man.

One Team International Agency, OTIA.

We're going to dig into it let's set the table on the past a little bit jason's in the in the trading hobby uh sports entertainment a little bit of everything um maybe tell us a little bit about osha and you know your legacy in the cards well i mean this kind of started as a kid you know like most people when they're nine ten years old they're collecting cards they're going to their shop you know like i was pretty into business from a young age you know like nine ten years old i'm going out shoveling snow seven eight hours a day building up a couple hundred bucks So I had that part down in the making money.

And then the unfortunate part was I would end up at the card shop blowing all my money on packs.

And, you know, at the end of the day, kind of leaving with, you know, just a bunch of stories of, you know, opening packs all day and back at it the next day.

And in the summer, mowing lawns in the winter, shoveling snow.

So, yeah, I mean, literally for the last...

30 some years, this is kind of all I've done is sports cards, autographs, memorabilia.

You know, the big thing kind of changed for me, especially at a very young age is, you know, 30 years ago when you went into a card shop, there wasn't the internet.

There wasn't, you know, they kind of had you,

they were under control.

Like they set the prices.

It was, it is what it is.

It's a lot, we'll get into it, but it's a lot different with card shops today.

Like they need to be much more on point and follow, you know, the pricing and everything.

But so yeah, for a first year or two, it started off.

Like I'm stuck in these card shops and there's not a lot of negotiating.

What really caught my eye was when I discovered card shows, when it was more of like the negotiating, the bulk deals and going from table to table, the flipping, the hustling.

And I started doing this really young, like nine, ten, you know, 11 years old.

And, you know, I haven't looked back since.

So, yeah, from starting off there to where we are today, it's been pretty wild to see this grow over the past 30 years.

You bring up a great point, and it kind of has some meta connotations.

And I don't mean like the company, I just mean like the way the internet and information and knowledge has empowered so many industries and so much change.

Because I remember growing up and going to the

God,

how big of dickheads were the card shop owners of the 80s?

I mean, I hate to sort of put everybody in the bucket, but

everyone in my town in South Carolina were jerks.

You know, like you go in there, they, like you said, they're not, they didn't negotiate.

They hold all the cards, literally, and they just all seemed like they didn't give two shits if you were there or not.

Yeah, you can't, yeah.

And that's basically it.

It's like they had a monopoly.

Like, whatever prices they said is, if you wanted it, and you had nowhere else to go, it wasn't like you were, you know, the next card shop's probably a few hours away.

So, if you wanted to buy cards or

no internet, I mean, early, early on for me, like, you know, like AOL message boards in like 95, 96, I started to dabble on the internet, but it was like, you know, just so new compared to what we have today.

Yeah.

And you, you know, trying to get a value on something.

I remember going to the Beckett book, you know, page 78, going to find the value of my 87 tops, Cal Ripken.

It was 87 cents today.

It's 91 cents next month.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

And everyone's going off the Beckett.

And honestly, like, I haven't used a Beckett in 20 years.

So that just shows if anybody's tuning in that, you know, collected cards as a kid, like, Beckett was like the Bible.

You know, everybody went off a Beckett.

And now, you know, everyone's got real-time pricing apps with all the technology that's come to life with the market.

Yeah, Beckett is long gone as far as pricing goes.

It opened it up, but it did change.

I'm glad it forced the local trade, you know, trade shops or card shops to be

more consumer-friendly.

And we're blessed.

We had the largest dealer here in South Carolina and upstate in Greenville, Maddie Rich.

Awesome guy, salt of the earth guy, and runs a beautiful shop that, you know, and takes care of his customers.

And I don't know if he represents every single person.

I'm sure you still have your

some you like, some you don't, but it does, it has sort of leveled the playing field between consumer and shop owner because everyone's,

I've had it, we've been having these card shows like at my space here.

You know, we've got 5,000 square feet.

We've been doing little trade nights and stuff like that.

And even my nine-year-old,

you ain't getting nothing by my nine-year-old.

Like, he's over here.

They're all walking around informed.

They got their apps out.

It's like, everybody knows exactly what the cards are selling for the last 24 hours.

Right?

And that's one of the cool things.

Like, the big advantage I had kind of in the 90s was like, right now, like you said, everyone's got pricing data in front of them.

But really, back then,

you know, it was really like who had the best memory of what stuff was worth in real time.

So you could, you know, you could buy a deal at one booth and

walk 15 booths over and flip the deal and make money.

It's just, it's such a different world.

I mean, it's literally,

and another thing we'll talk about is in the

mid-90s, and this is kind of where I got lucky, the internet coming into play,

grading.

Grading is like

just almost demandatory now.

And I remember being at shows in the mid-90s, and the head guy at PSA, which is the main grading company at the time, was a guy named Steve Rocky.

And he would come booth to booth and try to convince you on why you should grade your cards with PSA.

And you have a lot of these old-time dealers that are like, fuck,

I don't need your opinion.

I don't need you.

And nobody really got it.

Yeah.

And I was this younger guy who just like,

I was like, this is going to be big.

And I just kind of bought in.

And

I started grading at like 15 years old, really young and just eventually became one of PSA's, I was PSA's biggest submitter for several years.

But

timing, I mean, I worked my ass off, but like, I have to put some of the, you know,

the timing, you know, it's like if I was coming big into the market right when grading was taken off, right when the internet boom was taken off, like this was the perfect storm for cards in that era for me.

How was money made then for you and sort of, you know, the arms and legs where you made money in the industry, you know,

and maybe as the industry as a whole versus today?

Yeah, so it's a massive difference.

I mean, I've always

shifted my business to kind of go with what's hot at the time.

And, you know, grading was so new, but the margins were so, and, you know, they're still today.

I mean,

a perfect example, we'll take a, you know, Michael Jordan rookie card.

You know, now today, in an eight, that's like a seven, $8,000 card, and a nine, that's $20,000, and in a 10, that's 200,000.

So the same multipliers, you know, took place in the late 90s.

We weren't dealing with higher, as high a dollar figure cards, but the multipliers were there.

So, you know, to buy cards ungraded and grade them, you know, you could 10 to 100 extra money.

So it almost didn't matter.

Like if you found stuff and had a good eye that was not graded and were able to get it graded and high grade, we were working on like dream margins.

And it didn't even matter when you messed up because

you made it up all five other deals that did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and I was

just kind of born into like a gambling family, I guess.

So I've always been a degenerate, but this was a way to like early on.

channel my degenerate gamblingness into something that was like heads I win really big, tails I break even or lose a little bit.

So I kind of just went all in, and there wasn't a lot of competition.

Like there was only a few people doing this.

You know, it was so new.

And now, like, you go to a show, 10,000 people, everyone's trying to find stuff to grade.

And the reality is, especially when it comes to like vintage cards, you know, back then, high-grade stuff was everywhere that you could buy.

Now it's all dried up, it's all graded.

So that was my first big money making was just straight grading.

And after a few years, the next level was, okay,

how can we put fuel on this fire?

And it was, everybody's thought once the card was graded, like it is what it is.

Like a nine, everybody saw a nine in a holder and they just assumed, okay, like that's a nine.

They didn't realize the human element of this that, you know, on a Tuesday, the grader made a gift may giving it a nine, but now on Friday, he's in a better mood.

It's off the weekend.

It's close.

Maybe it's a 10.

So now I kind of took a different approach to like walking around these shows, looking at stuff that was already graded in like high grade.

And I'm analyzing like all these nines in real time and I'm accumulating just like massive quantities of nines that I thought were on the fence.

You crack them.

So I'm like crap, I'm cracking it.

And like Jordan, for example, like I've hit a lot of 10 Jordans, but I mean, I've cracked out hundreds and hundreds of nines.

So you have cards that are like right there on the bubble.

They're like 9.7, 9.8.

And you crack out 15 or 20 of those, you get 110, you know, you just.

you kill it.

So like I said, same time, like late 90s, there's three or four people doing that.

Now there's 3,000 people doing that.

And that was really what kind of put me into a different level of financially, like early on.

And the whole grading.

Is that still doable today?

Yes and no.

You probably still do it, but the multiplier is not as high, probably.

So you got to remember, like, if you come across like a Jordan rookie, unless it was freshly discovered from a new collection, there's a good chance that thing's already been looked at 10 times.

Like, if it's a nice nine, there's a reason it's in a nine.

People like me and then everybody else in like the last 25 years, they've all looked at that card and like, you know, like, they're like, can this nine go to a 10?

So like the game's already been played.

So there's just no inventory out there.

So I would say it's, I guess it's there technically, but when you take the competition and also add in the fact that,

I mean,

I don't do it anymore.

Let's put that.

So like, but what about newer cards?

Do you still have the delta?

I mean, like,

in a well, so here's the other thing is the grading fees.

When I was grading cards in the late 90s, I was paying like five, six bucks.

And now if you go to grade a high-dollar card with PSA, you might spend 10,000 because they're basing it off of value now.

So it's just all the fun has been taken out of the game.

So I probably, since 2017, haven't really, you know, I went from grading 25 to 50,000 cards a month and being PSA's biggest submitter for several years to maybe grade like 2,000 cards a year now, if that.

I mean, I'm looking at it a little bit that way, but also just having fun with my boys so trying to find both i think we're finding the line we have we're having more fun than making money i'll say that so far but yeah i do see a clear path with what i do know and the people i know like jason koontz that there could be money to be made you know so it's yeah but and it's okay with it that's fine it's more just

It's a lot of work at these shows, man.

Like,

holy shit, with every kid and every person, person like you said it's not like that i don't want anyone to be informed so i can take advantage of someone man it's it's almost exhausting the constant deal making like it's because everybody thinks they know exactly what something's worth and and they do but i don't know when everybody's a pro it's a little annoying you know it's different now i mean it was so easy for so like almost too easy to the point where when covet hit you know everybody kind of had time to like pull out their old cards and get back into it And I think a lot of smart people realized, you know, a lot of business minds, like yourself, they all came in and they're like, this business is like, it was so unprofessional.

And, you know, and everybody saw these opportunities.

So, like, within the last couple of years, we've seen so many apps come out, so many business changes.

You know, nothing changed from 2019 back, like it was basically the same.

And now there's just so much innovation, which is, it's good, but it's brought in a lot, a lot more smart people, a lot of business people that have come in.

They've, you know, added fees to different stuff, and like you said, taken some of the fun away.

But it's turning into, it was already a real asset class.

One of the major things for COVID was

I've always been bullish on cards, probably 70% of my net worth is in cards and memorabilia.

But there was always in the back of my mind, like, am I crazy having this type of money invested in this?

And I was confident, but really, when COVID hit, like, the confidence boost for me went from like 70 to 100%.

when if you asked me what could tear down our business is if you took away sports, you know, off TV, basically everything that happened in the beginning, if you took all that away, I'm like, the card market's going to crash 99%.

And there was like this six-week gap where I guess not just cards, but the whole world was kind of in limbo.

And I was panicking.

You know, I had a lot of money, but all on paper and in inventory.

And then out of nowhere, like you just see the market just like go like this and then just take off.

and that for me was it was good on multiple levels financially but also just like the feeling of knowing okay like this has been cemented as a real asset class and nothing's gonna I don't want to say nothing but like this is it is what it is like people this is now you know watches gold coin I mean this is like a real asset you know and you see people shifting money out of the stock market into some of these massive like million dollar cards because they believe in sports cards more than they do the stock market or some of the other you know bullshit going around so that's been really exciting for me to see just being in it from the very beginning to where we're at now is pretty awesome just to you know kind of can get confirmation that we're here to stay watching now because i'm and this is me like with the kids and kind of looking at the industry the youtube factor you've got these influencers and guys opening packs not talking about like selling and whatnot talking about just the opening packs on YouTube.

You got king of cards, Kyle, kind of building his little brand up.

This is not unique to trading cards.

This is the smart people in any industry who figured out, you know, the attention is money and you, hey, the internet is your oyster and the social media is your oyster.

What's your take on all of that and the impact on the industry?

So two things.

One, to me,

Personally, it's so wild to think that, like going back to the early 2000s, we didn't have cameras at shows.

We didn't have iPhones, obviously, but like the thought of filming at a card show was so, like, it was when people asked you what you did for a living,

it was embarrassing to tell them you bought and sold sports cards.

Yeah.

Usually they would hear sports cars, and then you wouldn't correct them because, like, that's cool.

And

so it's like, it's completely shifted.

And to, you know, people say, I can't believe you don't have content from the show.

It's like, dude, we were not in a content world to begin with.

And then on top of it, we didn't want people

to thought in our mind.

No secret.

You were letting those trade cigarettes out.

Yeah, like, well, the secrets and just like, you know, it's like, you're not going to pick up chicks telling, you know, telling people you buy and sell baseball cards.

So, you know, fast forward, fast forward 20 years, everybody's doing it.

Now it's cool.

So to me, that's just such a shift to see it go from like zero to 100 as far as a cool factor goes.

So that's part one.

The second part of your question is what do I think about it?

And like

all these guys, you know, a lot of these guys are newer too.

Like they saw the, you know, there's a chance to make out there's content, there's clickbait, you know, there's stuff, there's ways to make money through the content, obviously.

So, you know, a lot of these guys, they're not experts.

They've come into the hobby in 2018, 2017, 2019.

So they don't know a lot.

They know enough to kind of talk about it.

So some of the information is just the blind leading the blind as far as like, these are new people talking about cards.

With that being said, I think the guys that have good intentions, it's good.

It's all positive.

The guys that are negative, like whatever, like, you know, it's clickbait, you know, it's whatever.

I don't think that's someone's, you know, if someone's new to the hobby, like that's their first experience.

It's not good.

So all the guys that are putting out good content, I think it's growing the hobby.

I like seeing it.

I know a lot of those guys.

They're good.

They're good people.

So I think it's a net positive.

overall.

I think it gets watered down a little bit when you got guys who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

But I think the really big guys at least have an idea of the hobby and stuff.

So it's just mind-blowing to me.

I'd rather watch some new guys video for 15 minutes just to kind of, I'm always trying to stay in the loop.

Like even with the new guys that work for me, I'm always picking their brain because I don't keep up on them.

There's so much new stuff coming out daily.

Like it's crazy.

I know the vintage better than most.

Some of the newer stuff, it's hard to keep up with.

So I'm trying to sponge all this in.

Yeah, it's different, especially coming up when you did.

Like you said, it was just the last last thing you'd think of uh wanting to amplify is uh

either by reputation or by uh like giving your uh i don't know competitors your you're kind of like behind the scenes speaking of crazy stories so that like here's a perfect example 1986 for basketball you know like the holy grail of basketball 80 you know jordan's rookie In the early 2000s, boxes of that were about 12 to 15,000, and now they're like 150,000.

We were buying those and cracking them.

And the people that were selling them to us, or me and, you know, people I was working with, is they thought we were just getting smoked.

They felt bad.

They'd sell us these boxes.

We were opening them, and they kind of felt like we were just these young guys getting screwed.

They didn't realize how clean 86-foot basketball came out of the packs, and we were grading this stuff and making a fortune.

And

we just played the dumb role for like two or three years of like, yeah, I just really like opening this product.

But like a box that I paid $12,000 for, oh, like worst case scenario, the ROI was about seven grand.

A good box ROI was about 200 grand.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

So like, and I, I opened three or 400 boxes of 86 flare basketball and nobody would pay more.

So like they would buy them and we would just, you know, so some of the David Adams car world, baseball car, all these guys would sell us.

They'd get 86 floor basketball.

They'd sell it to us.

We would kind of show the image of, like, hey, we're these dumb guys cracking 86-foot basketball.

And, you know, Jordan wasn't even the most expensive card in the set.

Like, a lot of people were building sets, and some of these commons were like 10 or 15,000 in a PSA 10.

You could get one common in high grade, and it would cover the entire box.

Geez, crazy.

What you're saying is, you guys are taking some collection of cards and repacking them into 4, 8, 12, 20, whatever it is, into a different rebranded name, and you have a higher percent chance of ROI than you did maybe from manufacturer and maybe even a larger hit rate or something you know like with the better cards I mean I'm trying to short phrase that but is that yeah exactly well and liquidity I mean like so generally like let's just say the the repack is you know each repack is one graded card and you know like let's say the repack costs $200 and you know like over the over the span of the repack like the the lowest card in there is going to be 40 which you have to have $40 cards in there because in that same repack, you want to put cards in there that are $1,1500.

But you're pulling something that's instantly liquid, or there's instant liquidity versus out of a traditional pack,

99% of the cards are all commons that are just going to get chucked.

And then, let's just say you do pull a good card, then it needs to go off for grading.

There's the weighting.

Repacks are quicker.

There's generally like a floor and a ceiling.

So you kind of know like, what's my minimum,

what's my max.

The only thing with traditional packs is you do have that lottery ticket, which has kind of been the game the last couple of years.

Every so often they're going to have a, you know, I'm sure you saw the Paul Skeens card, you know, debut sold for 1.3 million.

Like that's one person that hits that.

So for one person that hits that like million dollar lottery ticket, there's all the other stuff that just, you know.

Yeah, you only hear the good news.

You only hear the good news.

That's the stuff that doesn't get talked about.

So I just think that,

and you do see it, like the repack is just getting a lot more money.

A lot of these guys that like to spend money on high dollar, they still open some packs.

Like I still open packs.

For me, it's just pure entertainment, though.

Like if I, me and my son, me and my kids sit down and we open a box or a couple boxes and spend a thousand bucks, I'm not planning to get any of that money back.

I'm just like entertainment, donation, having fun,

and

give them the cards and let them do it.

So I think when you're going with that mindset, it's okay because it's the same as

going to a sporting event or going to whatever.

But the problem is, is you got people that they don't look at it as entertainment.

They're looking at it as like making money opening packs.

And during a long haul, that's just not going to be sustainable.

No, don't, don't do that.

Go buy singles and resell them or put them in your collection.

I do the same thing with my kids.

We open, I mean, three nights a week, you know, but I'm looking at it purely as time time with my kids where they actually want to hang out with me.

And we have fun, and it's a surprise and delight moment if we get something great.

And if we don't, I'm,

I'm not, uh,

you know, forfeiting their future, you know, like, it's like,

it's like, ah, it'd have been nice to have gotten something out of that, but I had fun either way.

And that's, that's, that's part of, you know, why I'm doing this series is to remind people, this is a lot of fun.

It has a lot of great attributes for you know fathers sons mothers daughters whoever's into it doesn't matter because there's a trading card and a hobby you know variation for everyone

but

at the same time it is an asset class

now and needs to be I don't know put on the pedestal that it's earned through a lot of the you know Time that you've put in, Jason.

I mean, you know, being one of the pioneers and people that have been through it all, you know, it sort of deserves its moment in time.

You know, you guys are selling on whatnot more than anything else.

That's what I'm hearing.

That's what I'm assuming.

This technology and live selling thing, you know, being in marketing and business, I've been preaching that for about seven years and telling people that it was coming.

It was before COVID, by the way.

I was at a FedEx event, people looked at me sideways, and I'm like, you just wait.

Sure enough, it's a fascinating part of the industry.

This industry, other industries.

Where do you, what say you about live shopping?

Well, I wish I would have met you five years ago because I was on the initial call with Grant, the guy who started Whatnot.

And I still have the email that I look at like once a month because it's ridiculous.

Basically saying, hey, I got this idea for a live selling platform called Whatnot.

I want to talk to you, like, you know, investor.

So I had a chance at like, you know, pre- Oh, Jason, I wish I had known you, man.

I would have, if you'd have gotten that call, I would have gone in with you.

I just, I was still like, I think if I was younger, I would have understood it more at the time.

My question to him was, I said, I go, so you want to run a 30-second auction at one in the afternoon on a Tuesday?

And I said, yeah.

And I said, just that saw, that was ridiculous to me, but I didn't really process it the way now, obviously, and I'm one of their, I think their number two seller on the entire platform.

But at the time, if I would have stopped and thought, like, you know, even on eBay, all the bidding is in the last few hours and even sniping the last second, like the first six days of a seven-day eBay auction is irrelevant.

So this was just like, I mean, I've had plenty of hits.

I've had plenty of misses.

This was a miss for me.

So it's just kind of funny now looking back when I was just so

anti or bearish on just not bearish.

I didn't understand live streaming.

And now I think we're still really early.

I think live streaming is like the fourth or fifth biggest thing in my lifetime to come about.

Like the internet, crypto, you know, Bitcoin, you know, it's like social media, live live shopping.

Like to me, live shopping is like the third or fourth biggest thing where people are going to get really wealthy.

And in the next couple of years, AI, obviously, but like you're going to see everybody, like Walmart, Costco, like they're all going to have lives.

Either they're going to be pushing stuff through other platforms, or they're just going to create their own.

And

I'm very bullish on live shopping.

And it's still early.

I mean, mean i still think is as far as it is like 95 of people still don't know anything about live shopping so yeah i think the

you know trading cards and the hobby is well

a lot further down that like conversion path you know for their i don't know target audience but it

it's going to meet this professionalism that you talked about earlier that's where i see it that's where i'm i kind of have my brain thinking is like,

as the business as a whole, where I think about, okay, well, if Brian Alford's going to get in on this thing, it's going to be in this professionalism, marketing, content, but there's a delivery with the live shopping, which you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

So it's not that it has to be overcomplicated or too sophisticated, but I do think there's rooms and dials to be turned with all of that experience.

Oh, it's huge.

We have seven studios that we've built out, and we're constantly making them better.

But like a lot of the people live selling, like they're still live streaming like out of their garage.

Yeah.

You know, like, so we have, we're kind of a little bit ahead of that, but we also, you know, we don't, we have, it's really hard to find good live streamers.

I mean, I think live streamers are going to become famous, like personalities, and, you know, people are going to hire them.

Because if you can sell, you're going to be, you know, it's like the late 90s, you know, sports cards on TV, the shop at home days.

Oh, my God.

I don't know if you know the

watches they've done.

I've got some videos that we play, that I've am actually having cut up right now that are more spoof stuff, but

for our

the breaking rad Instagram channel, but it's but it is that though, but he's he was great, but it's like

she's in the video.

He's like, if you don't buy this,

how are you going to wake up in the morning?

The next day, you're not even going to be able to look in the mirror.

He was the greatest salesman of all time.

He was amazing.

So that was the part we, I mean, we could talk for 10 hours.

So we did, I did a, I did a ton of selling on the main two guys that were selling on TV.

I was providing them with a ton of inventory and they were buying with reckless, you know, because they were selling on TV and killing it.

But so, yeah, Don was hilarious, but the TV days were wild, man.

You'll walk into that bar and they'd be like, there's Rick.

He knows how to make a decision.

He goes all in.

If you miss out on this, you're not going to.

If you miss out on this, you're going to be able to look yourself in the mirror tomorrow.

And I was watching it going,

I don't want to miss out.

And then I'm like, oh, shit.

I'm like, I was like, he was awesome.

He was so good at it.

But

I'm learning from him.

I'm getting serious over there with my kids.

They would do like limit five per caller.

And then like, you'd have people calling in and like have their mom calling for them.

And yeah, you know,

hey, can we can we can we order uh you know just but have them ship to the same address, but it's a different person trying to get more, you know, yeah, exactly.

FOMO, man, that's what it is.

Fear of missing out.

That's what live shopping is, though.

It's like every great marketing characteristic, like built into one.

You've got the last 10 seconds, so FOMO.

You got you're racing against the clock.

You don't want to miss out.

It's just

everything kind of coming together.

The thrill of getting the deal.

I mean, when we're watching stuff, like I said, like sometimes like stuff goes over market.

Yeah, stuff goes over market.

A lot of times stuff goes under market.

So like there are plenty of times where I see you, I'm like, holy shit, like that was a $100 card that just sold for $40.

Like that guy's, you know, which is good.

Like that guy's going to come back and keep buying like crazy.

That's the arbitrage today.

That's the arbitrage today because I get in there and I've done both.

You know, like I tend to not be the guy that goes over just to win, but but like sometimes i've got a wrong number on a card because there's so many damn cards i'm like oh that's probably 20 overmarket or you know but that's arbitrage getting there and stealing some you know 100 cars for 40.

knowing the market i mean this is this is where in in real time when you're running a 30 second auction you need to make those gut calls and if you do know the market and something's selling for 80 like

You know, and he's spending a lot of money.

And I mean, we do that too.

I go in there and pick stuff off.

Sometimes the collector in me comes out, and then I end up overpaying for some stuff that I just want for my person.

But kind of the fun in it, like, you know, when am I going to see this again?

But there's a, yeah, there's, there's definitely just a ton of money to be made.

You just have to just spend the time and just get educated and really, you know, don't jump all in and just, you know, spend a ton of money.

Like, just put a lot of hours and understanding everything before you,

you know, go big.

Yeah.

And that's sort of my superpower.

Like, I'm the most curious person on the planet.

I go down the rabbit hole.

Like, and I'm down the rabbit hole in this business.

Like, I'm way down it right now, like, just observing, watching, and

curious, don't know it all, learning from guys like you, watching the market and stuff like that, because there is stuff to be made.

It's just like anything else, though.

It's not immediate $12,000 to $200,000 boxes like it used to be.

But like anything else, he who goes the furthest often wins.

Jason,

where's it all headed for you, brother?

I mean, you're relaxing, you know, got great people working for you.

You're taking care of them, they're taking care of you.

When Jason looks down the road and goes, man, you know, you're taking care of your kids, your family.

I mean, like, where are we headed with all this?

Yeah, I'm in this where my kids are all, I'm like, yeah, I think our kids are in the similar age, you know, I'm like 10, 10, 8, 7, 6.

So it's like, I am trying to pull back a little bit, you know, like, and when I say pull back a little bit, it's like going from 80 hours a week to, you know, 50 hours a week.

I enjoy this.

Like, I enjoy business.

So, yeah, when I try, like, I don't know about you, when I go on vacation, after day three, I'm jonesing to get home.

It really takes, it's hard.

So I see me doing this forever.

I'll keep shifting with it.

And I think, you know, talking with a lot of these younger guys and just molding, I've always done that.

But I just love it so much that it doesn't feel like work.

And so, yeah, I think we're going to be doing this for a while man it's just I'm blessed to be in a spot where I have good managers underneath me so when I do want to you know I'm like hey today's I got kids sporting you know I got soccer games I got basketball like I'm not doing anything right now I'm gonna go do that so that's I do feel like I set myself up for that you know the 15 years leading up to where we're at today I do get a lot of hate when people they think like they see where I'm at now and it's like they think this happened in the last year or two.

Not the case at all.

And it's it's you know, and it's just uh the world we live in today you know everybody wants you know money overnight and it's just it's not the reality and you know even like even in the middle like going going broke in the middle of this like you know really really learned to put me in a different mindset so yeah i mean i'm gonna be doing this for a while keep keep growing obviously if you're not growing it's not fun it's it's it's exciting to to watch

i i love you know playing the next three to six months out and then i email it to myself

and then six months, you know, like kind of seeing how far we made it, if we surpassed it.

And a lot of times, like, and I keep all these emails and I'm just like, I'm looking back at goals from like 2022.

And it's like, holy shit, like, not only did we hit that goal,

you know, it's like, like, 100 million in sales in a year was like a big deal for us.

And, like, and we hit that, and this year we're going to surpass that, hopefully by a decent amount.

But that was something that seemed crazy.

And now we're there.

So it's like, now I got to set new goals and

keep moving.

I think people that are wired in this weird sickness entrepreneur that we all have,

you're always moving the goalpost.

And for better or worse, it's a blessing and a curse, I think, because I think there's some people that get to the goalpost and they're happy and they can just chill.

I think someone like, you know, who's really dialed in, they get to the goal, they enjoy it for about 10 minutes and they say, okay, let's move that goalpost back again and see, see what else we can do.

So that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Just I'm trying to enjoy life a little more and work a little less.

But like I said, even less for me is still

a lot of damn hours.

They say the journey is everything now.

And I think, yeah, the longer I do what I do,

it proves to be true.

And it's in almost everything because even like you said, like my kids get excited about opening a box.

we get excited, and you open the packs, and you get it.

You might get the Jaden Daniels best card ever auto.

10 minutes later, it's what's next, you know.

Like, and it's not because they can't get enough, but it's just it's more.

I look at it more like you said, it's that the journey, the excitement of, oh, you know, building up to wanting that card or wanting that goal in business or all those things.

I think the true,

the truly motivated are just looking for the next journey and the next challenge.

100%.

100%.

Hey, man, where can everybody keep up with everything you guys are doing?

Where to find you, the company, etc., etc.

Yeah, so the website's just four letters, ota.com on social media, OTIA Sports, on whatnot,

OTA RIPS.

Yeah, I mean, those are, it's pretty much all under one umbrella.

If you Google the OTIA Sports or OTIA,

you'll find us and you'll join some of our live streams, you know, and enjoy the shows and have fun and bid responsibly.

Yes.

Got to put that disclaimer on there.

Jason, really appreciate you for coming on the show and it's been great.

I consider you a friend now and look forward to future opportunities.

Ryan, thank you so much for having me on.

It was a lot of fun.

Hey guys, you know to find us, RyanisRight.com.

Hey, we're number one for a reason.

It's because you're here.

Go check us out on YouTube.

We've got a fast-growing page over there.

there watch all the content you'll find links to all of jason's stuff otia rips all the stuff they're doing over on whatnot and on the website we appreciate jason for coming on and we appreciate you we'll see you next time all right about now

this has been right about now with ryan alford a radcast network production visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities thanks for listening

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