The Blueprint: How To PROFIT From Bowman Draft Baseball Cards

Before we start, a quick word from our sponsor, Ebay Live. If you've never checked it out, eBay Live is eBay's live shopping experience built for collectors. It's where you find rare, exclusive and hard to find items through live auctions and special drops you can only get there. What makes it different is the energy and the community. Real sellers, engaging hosts like sports cards, nonsense and streamers that make it fun and interactive. It's all Beckett by ebay's protection and authenticity guarantees, so you can shop with confidence. Just download the ebay app and hit the ebay Live button under the search bar and jump in. Now back to your show. The worst offer that I've gotten Corbin Carroll, Zebra Rookie Green Auto the return that I got offered was a Austin Riley Topps Paper rookie card base. Not a vintage stock, not a black, not a light blue base. Welcome to the Hobby Handbook, your weekly dose of news, deals and data from the world of sports cards. Hosted by Alex AKA Clever Cuban Cards. New episodes every Thursday. Look for more Clever Cuban Cards content over on TikTok and YouTube. Check us out live on Whatnot every Sunday and Wednesday. All right, welcome back to another episode of the Hobby Handbook. We are here. Have a really, really great guest today, but before that have a few business updates and things that I want to talk on. The first was we did our first ebay livestream and I think that I'm going to be chatting with Mike and the guys at SCN today when you guys are listening to this episode as well about it. But I want to talk about some highs and lows and overall what my experience was. I think it was really, really positive. We had a solid room. It was generally between 80 and 120ish throughout the night, which is basically what I get on Whatnot, which I'm very, very pleased with. It was an SCN takeover. We are going to be doing another SCN takeover next Wednesday. That is Wednesday the 28th at probably 6 o'. Clock. I'll we'll schedule that and I'll have some info on that very, very soon. But we'll be doing another takeover. That's just going to be a baseball stream though. But it was really, really good. It took a lot longer than I feel like it should have. I feel like the fact that ebay's ebay, when you ascend, when you do extended bidding, which basically is if somebody bids with less than a certain amount of time on the clock, it resets the clock back to a certain point on Whatnot. I have the customizability to make it 3, 5, 7, 10 seconds for extended bidding. So I have it set to seven seconds. EBay, you can only do 10 seconds and I feel like that plus maybe just some, you know, platform quirks or, you know, me being a little slower starting my next auctions etc made it much slower. It took us three and a half hours to do our stream, which normally would have been about two hours. So that was definitely longer than it should have been. But we'll see what next Wednesday looks like and we'll have more info on that coming out. Make sure to follow clever Cuban cards on socials. But I want to talk about some highs and lows because like anything, like any of our live streams, we had cards that sold for really big dollar amounts that maybe don't necessarily comp for that much and cards that may be sold for really low dollar amounts that comp for a lot more. Some examples, we're going to start with the highs, then we're going to talk about the lows. So we had a Otani Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Cosmic Star clusters. It's a 20 to 40 card. It did $95. People sometimes get into the excitement of live auctions of bidding. They want the card and they're willing to pay a price. Jamar Chase. We had a Select Die Cut Rookie that did $50 and it's a 10 to 15 card. I had an Aaron Judge Chrome Aqua Lava I think it was. There's a direct comp. I bought it from somebody else for like 40, 50 bucks. I think it was the direct comp on ebay was somebody bought it for $20. I bought it from them for more. It sold for 97. So you have instances where cards sell for really, really high. But the flip side of this, and this is the reality of live auctions and this is the reality as to why I personally do not talk comps when a card is live selling, etc. Because there are also plenty of lows. We had a Julio Jones Red Prizm that was a PSA 10. The last PSA 9 sold for $75. The PSA 10 sold for 63. A Ronald Acuna Extraterrestrial Talent Black numbered out of 10 from Cosmic and an SGC 95 sold for 77. The lasted 138 and Ohtani tops Holiday Refractor out of 499 sold for $44. The last two, $166. 100 and then $66, not one 66. Just to be clear. Ida Yuri Perez Tops Platinum anniversary Rookie auto sell for 10, does 20 to 25. Pretty consistently. Paul Skeens, budding talent that sold for 13 out of the Bob Ross set does 35 all day. Travis Kelsey, Contenders Cracked Ice PSA 10 sold for 49. The last three are 75, 70 and 106. And my take there is, are there other cards that sell high? Yes, there are the cards that also sell low. At the end of the day, generally it averages out. I know that when Mike does his live auctions, if he has a car that sells really, really high, he takes the approach of, hey, that one-of-one Yu-Gi-Oh over comps. I'm give you some free stuff. My general approach is I try to give everybody some free stuff because what I don't want to do is make somebody feel bad for paying a price. You know the person that paid $50 in the Jamar Chase, it's a $15 card. Yu-Gi-Oh they overpaid based on other comps based on other that are there. But you know what they value? They value the card at that values change and that that person. And what I like about the way that I run my auctions is that we, we pre list every single card. I put pictures there so you know exactly what card it is. And you have the time to do your research and you have the time to look and see. Okay, what's coming up. I'm going to understand what cards there are you pay. I know we're not breaking where you're playing the gamble of, oh, what am I going to get? You know exactly what cards you're getting and exactly what price you're paying for. Is it potentially that sometimes cards go over comp. Yes. And cards also go undercomp. But I don't want somebody to feel bad about paying quote unquote over comp. Because all card is worth is that somebody's willing to pay for it. And in that moment, it was that. And the thing too is for a card to get up to that price, for it to get to $50 for that Jamar Chase, somebody had to bid $49 against you. So there were at least two people in that room that were willing to pay that price. So to me, that's where the variance of card values come in. What's really, really cool about the ebay live comps is these are all now ebay comps. You can see them on card ladder. You can see them on Absolute auctions. That's really, really sweet. So I'm very, very excited to see what's what's to come seeing that we're doing things on ebay. One of the things that was a big takeaway and a big thing that I think that we are going to be taking advantage of now in a good way is that as I was pre listing the cards on ebay, I realized and I made some content about this last week, every single card that is listed shows up on regular ebay search. So you know, if I were to list, you know, this is card that's on my desk, Matt McLean, pristine blue numbered out of 75. Normally when I list that card I'm just literally going to type Matt McLean pristine blue, pristine numbered out of 75 reds as an ebay title. That's not that great. You want to have the year, you want to have the team, you want to have your, you want to have the card number, you want to have all the details, you know, sealed, you want to have the, all the tags that it's serial number that it's all the things that you want to list out when you are creating an ebay listing as like a buy it now or best offer. And the thing is that then gets really, really time intensive which is why I have finally invested in a card scanner. And now I posted a video about this today and or better yet, I posted a video yesterday and then I also had a more in depth video that went up on YouTube today and a lot of people that say, oh, it's not a card scanner, it's a light box. Which like technically it is. If you guys are watching live, you can see boom, lights are on. How it works is the card goes inside here and you kind of there's a little hole that it scans through right there. You toss your phone on top and you're able to scan it using the app called Haystack. Now it's an expensive light box. It was 400. I know. And from talking to Haystack they basically said, hey, we are, hey, we are currently making this in the US ourself. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses Setup required. Compatibility and Availability Various 18 this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one year old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom big or small. We're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and@nordstrom.com we are struggling with scaling up the operation in a way that's going to enable it to cut down the price and also scaling up the operation in a way that is allowing us to have enough that are available for the general public. So you can still use a regular lightbox. You can go to Amazon and buy a 30 light box. It might not work as well because the whole thing with it is it's designed so that you know, it's got this little, it's, it's at the exact right angle so that it's truly a like flat top down picture of the card so there's no warping, none of that. So it's designed, it's got a, you know, a Bluetooth shutter that you're able to take pictures with so you don't have to tap the phone screen. I like to tap the phone screen at least right now, but still working on the, the, the, the work process and the workflow. But what's really big and why I made this investment. One, it will keep the scans in the exact order that I put them in so that then it's working from a me doing the, you know, my, my listings. I run them in exact order. But two, and where it's very, very important is when I'm selling cards on ebay live. This will get all the ebay information. It will do the serial number. It will add all of the relevant ebay tags so that then I can import those to my store and turn them into an ebay live listing. Still working on getting myself clever Cuban card set up. Until then we'll be doing stuff on the SCN page. I'll have more information on that soon. I'm very, very excited. I know that there are lots of good options in terms of scanning in this and that and I'm still looking into all this and that. But I'm thus far generally pleased with the haystack from what I've seen. Need to see what it's going to cost in terms of, you know, like a longer term business plan. But we'll work that out. Speaking of selling cards, something that I have officially created. If you are looking to sell cards, I need inventory. Specifically I need like slabs, nicer singles, etc, you know, 5 to 150, $200, you know, expense more expensive on the slabs, lower on the singles but we'll still look at solid singles. If you are looking to sell cards and you, you know I'm not going to pay 100% call, sorry, I need to make money. If I'm going to do the work of selling the card, I'm not gonna. You're not gonna make 100 of the work for zero, you're not gonna make 100 of the profit for zero percent of the work. If you though would like to sell me cards, I set up an email account. Sell to clevercubingmail.com what's going to happen is you will get if you email sell the clever cuban@gmail.com you will get a automatic reply saying hey thanks for reaching out to us. Attached or you know, linked in that email is a spreadsheet. Open that spreadsheet up. You need to make a copy of the spreadsheet. That is the template that everybody will use. You can't fill that out. If I get a request that says hey, can I have access to. The answer is no, you need to make a copy. You can do that without any access. Make a copy of the spreadsheet and then fill it out. Put in the cards that you're looking to sell. You know, comp the cards out and give me what the comp value of the cards is and then what you're looking for on it. If I'm interested, we'll get back to you. If I'm not, then I'm not interested and move on to the next seller list on ebay etc. But I am looking to buy cards. I need more slabs. That has definitely been the hardest thing for me to keep up with. So if you've got cards that you're looking to move, feel free to reach out. Sell the clever cuban@gmail.com if you want to sell us cards. Speaking of cards, yesterday was the pre order for Tops Stadium Club one of my favorite sets of the year. Very, very excited for that. Very intrigued to see what the product looks like. They did, they did change the format. It was way cheaper than last year because it's only one auto per box versus two autos per bo. But get a hobby box for 120 bucks, that's pretty good. 120 bucks for the hobby box, guaranteed auto. I was able to manage to buy a full case So I got 16 boxes that we'll be doing live on stream on release date. And then I also got myself four boxes that I'm gonna do for some content. So 20 boxes in total. I saw some people like Jim from THX Cards that we had on the podcast a few months ago was saying that he wasn't able to get any boxes, that they sold out too quickly. I was like, dang, I was able to get 20 and that just, I just, you know, click add to card. I mean, on the website at 11 o', clock, refresh, refresh, refresh, refresh. But I was able to get up, get 20 boxes, full case and then I did a second order with four boxes. So really, really excited for Stadium Club. I feel like that is going to be a really solid set. Always a lot of fun. Sixteen box is going to be a lot for Rip and Blip. So we're going to have to figure out how to do that quickly, but should be a good time then. The last thing that I wanted to touch on before we jump to our sponsor, Arena Club, is I don't know if you guys saw. Topps has announced that they are officially ending the Montgomery Club membership program. If you aren't familiar with Montgomery Club, it was a exclusive membership that basically you would buy at the start of the year, normally in January at some point, and you would get guaranteed access to certain products. So you would be able to then get, say, okay, I'm going to be able to get museum collection. I know that I can get a box. Previous years you were able, you were guaranteed to be able to buy Cosmic Chrome. I was able to buy a case of Cosmic Guaranteed had no concerns about being able to do that. That was no longer the case this year. They definitely trimmed down the number of offerings and, you know, the quantity as well. Like museum collection. You can only buy a single box. You Goldin buy a case generally. I don't, I don't even think that there were any cases available now that I think about it. So I feel like I honestly was probably not going to do Montgomery Club anyways because I felt like it had been devalued enough. And I feel like Tops clearly was just saying, hey, you know, we aren't necessarily seeing the value in this, so we're just going to end the program. So if you are somebody who has done Montgomery Club is doing it was thinking about doing in the future, just know that it's not going to be there. They did at least give a nice little consolation of like, hey, as a thank you for having had Montgomery Club this past year. I am going to get access to a tops three basketball set. You know, on, you know, I'll be guaranteed a box that I can buy. I don't get it for free. I have to buy it. But be curious to see what the price comes out on that and whether or not decide whether or not I decide to buy a box. But just interesting that they're getting rid of it Again. I didn't feel like the value was there, so it's okay. Ish by me. But it is, it is sad to see it go because it used to be a really, really cool offering. Now, before we jump into our interview, I do want to talk about Arena Club for a little bit. I thought it'd be fun to go through. I've been. One of my favorite things that I've been doing on Arena Club is doing a lot of trading in my showroom, which is where, you know, basically my vault that all of my cards are kept in. I have. Let's see how many cards. I've got 54 different slabs in my showroom right now. I get a lot of different trade offers. I get some really good trade offers that are really fun. Like I've got one in my in mux right now that I'm thinking about. It's you know, a Charizard and a another card for a Pikachu. You know, I like Pokemon. We know that. But I've gotten some really good trade offers and I've gotten some really bad trade offers and I thought that it'd be fun to talk about some of both. Some of both of those. And if you are interested in make trading with me, come on over to Arena Club. You can find me clever Cuban cards. Really, really cool to trade. Always down to do. So worst trade offer that I got. Absolutely. Maybe the second one is the worst. Two really bad trade offers. The first one, I have a Puka Gold Choice Prizm PSA 9 numbered out of like 10 or something like that 8. It's like 175 plus dollar card. It's probably worth more than that because that that sold towards the beginning of the season. And he's been the best wide receiver, maybe the second best because JSN might be better, but one of the best wide receivers in the league. I got offered to give away that Puka. In return, I would get a $20 Victor Womenyama Select, a PSA9 retail Blue Prizm a 2 Attack of Iloa Tri Color Select Die cut and a PSA10 which is a 1520 card and an Anthony Richardson blue Hyper optic Rated Rookie PSA9 which is a ten dollar card. So we're talking like at most $50 for 175 card. The worst offer that I've gotten. Corbin Carroll Zebra Rookie Green auto numbered out of 99 in a PSA 10. It's about a last sale on it was 350. I think that it's more like a 400 card. The return that I got offered was a Austin Riley tops paper rookie card base. Not a vintage stock, not a black, not a light blue base in an Arena Club 9 5. A PSA 10 is a 20 card. This is what, 10, 15 bucks. Yikes. That got declined. On the, on the flip side though, there were some really great trade offers that I got. I had a really cool mew that I traded for a Lugia. The mew was like a forty dollar card. The Lugia alone was a fifty five card. Plus I also got another fifteen to twenty card and another ten card and then a card. The trade that really worked out for me had I pulled out of a football slab pack an Adam Ventierre Downtown. Really, really cool PSA 9. It's a $235 card roughly. I got an offer. I had somebody reach out in Arena Club messages because they have the opportunity to DM people now. I got, you know, the first reach out and said hey, I'm interested in this adamantarian. Would you be interested? Would you be open to moving? And I said sure. Looked at what they got. They had a really cool Ken Griffey Jr. Stadium Club Refractor at a 1999 Stadium Club. I think it is in a PSA9. At the time the Adam Venturi was still, you know, the comp on that one's pretty consistent. That was like a 230 card. At the time the Griffey had done about 280. The one before it to 235 I think it was. So I said hey, I'd be interested in the Griffey and said hey, I'll do that. I thought it was a really good deal. The last Griffey after this trade that I did, there was a sale. 370, big one-of-one I'll take it. Absolutely. So really, really fun to be able to do some of these deals. If you want to trade with me, Orient Club, come on over, check it out. And if you want to grab a slap back so you can have some stuff to trade, use code SCN20. Rebecca will chime in if that's correct. I think it's SCN20 at checkout to get 20 off your first CN. Okay, well, say it again. Just. Just SCN. Just what the heck. My code is clever Cuban20 just. You guys have a better code than I do, I guess. Use code scn. Yu-Gi-Oh we always get it wrong, Justice. Yu-Gi-Oh always get it wrong. So use code SCN to check out. That'll get you 20, 20 off your first slap back. Enough of that. Let's hop on over to our interview. We have Zach of Zach's Bowman hacks. Should be a ton of fun. All right, so we have Zach of Zach's Bowman baseball hacks, Is that correct? Yep. Zach's Bowman hacks. Awesome. Zach Bowman hacks Zach, for people that aren't familiar with you, give them a quick intro of you, the type of content you make, what your kind of background with cards, the hobby, et cetera is absolutely yes. So I am a licensed special education teacher and I am on a year of professional leave this year and working primarily in sports cards every day and working on kind of developing what I'm hoping is a long term sustainable model for where I can work in cards full time. And Bowman baseball cards are my favorite kind of sports cards to collect. I, like many people, got back into card collecting in January of 2021, mid pandemic. And I loved cards as a kid. Growing up, I collected cards all the time and then kind of fell out of it once high school had ended up, but got back into it and then after trying out a few different avenues with cards. And by the time Bowman draft of 2021 came out, I was clear, at least with myself, that okay, this is my favorite thing to do. Okay, cool. So curious, were you always baseball and you just kind of eventually settled in with Bowman, or did you dabble in things other than baseball? I dabbled a little bit in some basketball cards and maybe like one box of score football or something at one point. But Yu-Gi-Oh settled on. And I like basketball, I watch basketball, but baseball has always been my favorite sport and it's the one that I know the most. So with basketball, like when I would open up packs, be like, okay, this guy, who is this guy? I would like, I don't know, much less familiar for me than baseball players in general. And then I've always really enjoyed kind of like the prospecting just like fantasy baseball or like checking out my favorite teams or things like that. So I figured out there was a way to kind of do that with baseball cards that really took over for me for what my favorite Part, Yu-Gi-Oh That's awesome. Because the reason I ask is, like, I obviously have landed on baseball primarily as well, but, like, when I got back into the hobby, I was doing a little bit of everything and kind of just doing, you know, what was popular. And I was able to find in terms of, you know, retail product, because back 2021, you know, you go to the store and you're not finding anything on the shelf. Nope. So ripping what you could and this and that. And I. I also asked because I know you're from Minnesota and, you know, obviously, 2020 Anthony Edwards rookie year, things like that. But definitely. I mean, both baseball guys definitely enjoy that. But, Yu-Gi-Oh there are specific prospect in 2021 Bowman draft. Like, you were really into that kind of, like, got you deep in there or what was it? Oh, that's a great question. So, actually, the first prospect that I really dove totally into was Emmanuel Rodriguez. Who A Twins prospect. Prospect. Great prospect. And he was the first one. And he was actually in the 2025 or 2021 Bowman Chrome set. And that was the first time that I really, like, made a point out of chasing a prospect, as they say, where I was, like, jumping in Twins breaks. I was looking for his singles. And my buddy Ryan, who, he'd collected Bowman cards for a long time, and he also lives in the Twin Cities. We played in Wiffle Ball League together. But he had seen me on the Real Sports Card Facebook page jumping into some breaks, and he was like, okay, if you're getting into Bowman, we need to talk about Bowman, because there's some things you should know. And he was the one who initially, to me, was really hyping up Emmanuel Rodriguez. Like, he's so underpriced for how good he is. I really think he's a good buy. And I looking into him like, Yu-Gi-Oh he looks like a monster. So he was the first prospect I really got into. And then in 21 draft, I went in pretty heavy on Jay Allen for the Reds, who has not worked out at all yet, but I still have a good, good chunk of his cards in my basement. And then he was a big one from that set for me. And then. Yu-Gi-Oh Although 21 draft, it was still, like, more. I was opening up too many boxes and just, like, seeing who I got and then paying attention from that rather than deliberately picking out players to go after. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh it's. Bowman is such an interesting one because I feel like. And obviously you're a huge Bowman guy. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not as big of A Bowman guy, which people are really surprised about because I am somebody who, I love prospecting. I have been the commissioner of a dynasty baseball league that is in its 13th year running straight. Like we have been doing this since like my sophomore year of college. Yes. And that like it is, we, we have, what is it, 45 man minor league rosters. Like, we are deep. And I love prospecting, yet I don't do a ton of Bowman cards. And I feel like for me the J. Allen example is such a prime thing. It's like I have guys that I really, really like. But then like so many, the, the we all know the majority of prospects don't work out. Yep. You look at prospect list, you look at prospect rankings from and we talked about it a few weeks ago of like looking back at like the 2017 ranks. So many of those guys were just not anything. And I feel like so often like there's so much hype and excitement and if you pick the right guy and you, you know, buy at the right time and sell at the right time, it's a really, really cool kind of, you know, up and down roller coaster market that you can engage in. But there's also so much risk involved, especially when you're opening boxes, which is. I know what you did with Bowman draft before we talk about you ripping your full case plus a Zebra jumbo to because I watched you do all of that. What were your over like going into this year's Bowman draft? Was there a specific reason why you said I'm going to try this out in terms of, you know, was it something about the class? Did you think that you found specific like value? Was there really good sleeper pick, something like that? It was really more. I thought there were two things that I could do to give me a much safer Fleer than if I were to just go to the store and open up a box or a case. And it was somewhat of an experiment, but one that I thought I felt pretty confident in. But one was so I used a ton of those red rookie redemption baseball cards to cash in for fan cash and I was able to get them for like 71 each, which equated to a hundred dollars in fan cash, basically. So I used all of that on all of those draft purchases. So I was able to get like 29% off all of those, like the case and then the Zebra jumbo box. So it took what would have been like a $5,000 purchase down to 3,500, which is still obviously a huge chunk. Huge chunk. And it also eliminated the sales tax, which I'm still not sure why, but that saved me an additional like 200 some dollars. Yu-Gi-Oh But the biggest thing with it was I decided to pre sell draft the paper single cards that I knew I would get from that case. And which meant the reality that I'm living right now, which is I'm spending a week sorting and shipping massive amounts of these cards, which is incredibly tedious. But I ended up making net after fees and after shipping an additional like $1,100 just on those draft paper singles, which, which is like those are usually the cards that are the ones that get set aside and breaks they their own break spot. Like people are not into those cards. But like the singles can do pretty well and especially for the pre release all that I figured they would do all right. So that and I was hoping to get about $800 on that. So that ended up going a little bit better than I was expecting. But so that got basically what I needed to get back to around $2,500 from the 24 autos, all the refractors, the chrome cards. And I also have a connection with the gentleman here who only. He collects only the complete base sets and he's actually been doing this since the 50s. He's been collecting like the complete tops base sets since the 50s, all the Bowman sets. And he found me on ebay a couple of years ago and had said like, hey, you look like you probably just want like the numbered cards and the cool cards. I just want the base cards. Can we work something out here? So I put together, I collated all the sets for him for Bowman, Bowman Chrome, Bowman draft and then top Series one, Series two and update every year and then give him those base sets and insert sets. So I knew like that would probably get me around like $350 or so too from doing that. So it was, I was thinking like, okay, I'd need it to just not be 23bad base autograph cards cards and this should work out. But so it wasn't so much the class as it was like I think this is a process that I could do with most draft releases. But I do also like the class a lot too, which so that is interesting because I've heard a lot of people be so so on the class. And I think, I think a lot of it is, it's, it is a slightly pitching heavy class, which there's like, granted Paul Skeens has changed the trajectory of what a pitching market looks like in baseball, but still pitchers are pitchers compared to you know you're in. I know you've got Eli Will. It's. And you've got your. At least your. There are good hitting prospects, don't get me wrong. But I think I've heard a lot of people say that they aren't as huge on the class or maybe just that they don't feel like the value is there for what Tops is charging on the boxes which to your point, you are able to save a lot of money on those boxes by doing those red rookie redemptions by saving on that sales tax. By the way, if you are thinking of, you know, creating a full time card business, get yourself registered and so you don't have to pay sales tax on anything. Yu-Gi-Oh I can't. Yes. Thank you for saying that. I absolutely need to do that at. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't. Well, honestly Zach, last it was. It was not until, what is it jan. July of 2024 for me that I got registered. I had been doing, you know, I bought six, seven months of Whatnot inventory for myself and you know, my single streams and I was paying sales tax and everything on ebay and, and, and Nashville, we don't have any income tax. So I do not, I don't. Generally I don't complain about our sales tax being 10 but it's a 10 sales tax. Yu-Gi-Oh So if I'm buying, you know that, that five hundred five thousand dollar case off of Tops, that's an extra five hundred. That's an extra box that I'm paying just in sales tax. Yu-Gi-Oh When. If I'm using that for the business like you don't need to pay that. My buyers are paying sales tax as well. So one, you should do that. But it's. Thank you. Yu-Gi-Oh it's. Yu-Gi-Oh I need to do that for sure. That will save. Yu-Gi-Oh A big chunk on and it costs some money. It's 300 bucks a year at least in Nashville to you know, Register LLC etc. But I think it's worth it. How much time you said you're going to spend like you know, the better part of a week. How long is it taking you to sort through just the sets, not even counting selling your other cards, etc. What is your time investment looking like here? Yu-Gi-Oh So for the chrome sets and the insert sets that I put together, those I was able to do in probably like an hour and a half or so. Just putting together the base chrome set and the insert sets. The draft paper is so much more time. I can like fully sort a case of draft paper in about Six or seven hours, although I think I'm getting faster at it the more that I do that. This time it was, I think it was closer to five hours that I got this one totally sorted. But that does not include like the shipping time. Yu-Gi-Oh Which is going to be. Yu-Gi-Oh no, it's today and tomorrow probably. But it is always tough with. And I get this question a lot in terms of me, my card business because I obviously talk a lot about how much money I make and, you know, show the behind the scenes and this and that. Yes. One of the questions that I get all the time is like, how much time is this stuff taking you? Like, Yu-Gi-Oh you can tell us that you're paying yourself X amount of dollars, but like, what's your hourly rate? Yu-Gi-Oh and it's tough because on one hand, like, I'm sure that you look at the amount of hours that in theory you have to put into Bowman Draft and you say, dang, the, the amount of profit that I'm making directly off of this case for the amount of hours that I'm putting in is not a great hourly rate. Let's be honest. Yu-Gi-Oh Nope. But it's also this, like. And this is for me, it's. This is, you know, sourcing of inventory. I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with my wife while I'm sourcing inventory. I'm sure you can, you know, sit in the living room with the kids or be doing things while also doing this work. 100%. And so it's a weird balance that like on one hand, yes. It's taking you hours and hours and hours to make a little bit of money. Yep. But it's also like a different type of work. It is. It just is. No, and that's totally it. It's like I would probably be hanging out and watching a show like after the kids go to bed for an hour or watching a Timberwolves game after the kids go to bed for an hour and not sorting cards. I might be like, I don't know, like doom. Scrolling on my phone or something. Like, I, it. I don't consider that time that I'm. I could maybe be putting towards like other business ventures or something like that. It's really like, I enjoy it and it is a different sort of like in my mind classification too for. Yu-Gi-Oh And I really like the part about like with those base paper cards, like, I can then go around and use those profits to buy maybe one or two cards of a guy that I really like, which can get a really solid return down the road for a very minimal amount of additional time too. So Yu-Gi-Oh I, in my mind, I don't, I don't know. I, with my current schedule right now, if it's time spent during the day, I do feel some of that pressure. But like every night, like after the kids go to bed, like usually one or two hours of like I'm doing card stuff, I'm either scanning cards or listing cards or sorting cards or shipping cards. And like it doesn't, it just doesn't phase me too much. Like, and if that's like overtime work, like it doesn't bother me at all. Like the way that, you know, writing IEPs after school hours would bother me. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh no, absolutely. And it's, it is as you continue to grow your business and this and that, one of the things that I like, like I enjoy buying cards. If you don't like buying cards, you are probably not going to be very, very successful trying to turn cards into a full time job. But like I enjoy buying cards, I enjoy sorting cards, I enjoy making all these things. But it also to some extent then becomes a like, what are the things that I have to do versus what are the things that like I can in theory outsource to somebody to then free up that time to do other things. Yu-Gi-Oh You mentioned, you know, scanning cards. I know that you're selling of your sets is something that is, has helped you a lot. But also then you're looking to sell the individual singles that you hit. Yes. What do you use now? I, we, we recorded this before I recorded the intro. So regardless, you wouldn't have heard it but I talked about, posted a video yesterday about getting a, it's. I call it a scanner. Some people are getting in my DMs about. Oh no, it's not, it's not a scanner because you have to, you're using your phone to take the pictures. It's scanning cards in my mind. I don't care what you say. That the haystack one that you. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So what do you use though? I'm curious. So I use the Ricoh 8170 and then I now have a Car Dealer Pro subscription. So I've been, that's been my setup and I've spent, I got both of those towards the end of December. So really this month up until draft came out has been me kind of figuring out what my process is going to be for. Yu-Gi-Oh Which cards I choose to scan, when I'm going to spend time uploading them, shipping them out but that system has worked Zebra well for me and I know I've been in a couple breaks with Haystack and like Grand Salami uses Haystack and it's fantastic. The card images are Zebra sharp, so I can. Yu-Gi-Oh See why. Yu-Gi-Oh I been a good fit for, for me. So like, for, for your Bowman Draft case, the, the Ricoh is perfect. Perfect because being able to do the auto feed where you just put a stack in and it will, you know, scan all of them at once is amazing. Yes. For me, the challenge that I worked through in terms of my business and it took so long to maybe figure this out and I'm still working through all this and that, but for me, I'm scanning for pre listing my cards for my live streams, whether it's on Whatnot, ebay, etc. Yes. And the thing is I have 20% of the cards that I sell, so one in every five cards is a slap and I need to keep those cards in an exact order in which I scan them in. Yes. So while I guarantee you the 160 top loaded cards that I sell would go way faster on the RICO then having to take the pictures of 40 slabs and then recollate them into where it's supposed to be, I'm like, I feel like I'm going to lose the time there. Yu-Gi-Oh And so doing it on like a one by one, whether it be a flatbed or like a scanner, like the Haystack, I think is what I ended up netting out on. But I feel like the haystack was a little bit faster from a, you know, the flatbed, having to kind of do the whole like. And then you got to flip it over again and do it again like versus like boom, done, boom done. Like I found it to be quicker, but Yu-Gi-Oh it's amazing how many different technologies and things are out there. Yes. How do you feel like it has. Do you feel like in that last month since you got the Ricoh and kind of got the car dealer pro membership, obviously the influx of Bowman draft inserts and singles and parallels and all this and that definitely helped in terms of mass amount of inventory to upload and sell, how much more efficient do you feel like it was for you? And do you do. Do you also feel like you're seeing the sales results on the back end as well? Yu-Gi-Oh I'd say everything up prior to Bowman Draft it like the word, like revolutionary for what it's meant for my own card selling, I think is not an overstatement like it. I have felt so Much more efficient. And so I work a monthly card show here in the Twin Cities where like I've had three 500 count boxes of cards that are set up as like one to ten dollar bins. People can dig through them. Yu-Gi-Oh that sort of thing. And like my eureka moment with that was like, so there's one time a month when I'm hoping that a couple people will sort through these rows and find these exact cards or I can take them out and scan them and get them on ebay and collects and suddenly everyone can see them all of the time. And so I started doing that and I just pulled out like I don't know, maybe one 3200 count row worth of toploaded cards and started posting those. And I'm also trying to keep them in order because they all get their little SKU numbers which Yu-Gi-Oh that's important but. Yes, but the sales for that have been crazy. And it's mostly because my own ebay selling prior to getting the scanner and car dealer pro, I, I just wasn't listing cards that were worth below $5 because the amount of time to like take the picture, not worth it, not worth it, just not worth it. And I would rather like throw them in this bin that I've got for the card shows and hopefully somebody finds it but you know, and then I'll keep my stack. So now I feel like I've got four years worth of cards that I can go through, you know, try to get them listed. And Yu-Gi-Oh I've had to push pause on that because I've got, I think it's 170 orders to like get fulfilled this from draft and others and. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So I need, I need to get caught up on that. But I'm so anxious to get back to like scanning and uploading and all of that. But Yu-Gi-Oh that's the, the like so many people like my business is built on the foundation of. I don't want to list the $5 card. Yu-Gi-Oh truly like and, and I have the, the benefit of being able to have an audience for live selling where you're able to like just, you know, and granted I, I list the card, I take, I take the picture, I do the title but like being able to just put it on screen and guaranteed it's going to sell. Whether it's for a dollar or $50, it will sell. Yu-Gi-Oh But the people not willing to do that, you know, some people look at it and they say oh well those people, like if you're somebody who enters a ton a Ton of breaks. You end up with a bunch of bulk. Like just get a scanner and do it. It's not as simple. It's also not as simple as just getting a scanner and doing it because you also have your shipping and fulfillment and customer service that. That is so time intensive. 170 orders to get out this week. That's a lot of orders. It's a lot of orders. It will probably be my whole day, rest of the day today, all day tomorrow. And then I'm hoping to be done sometime on Friday. So can spend some time prepping for a card show on Saturday. But Yu-Gi-Oh we'll see. I don't know. I've finally. And. And part of this was I had to go through and sort this full case of draft paper leading up to it too, which I finally finished this morning before we hopped on. Nice. So Yu-Gi-Oh so now that's ready in theory. But Yu-Gi-Oh that time part is huge. So that's going to have to be the balance that I figure out too is like scanning cards is so fast. It's so. And I went through with draft and I actually pulled out all of the Refractor cards that I got and I think I pulled out the top names and posted those by themselves. But then I also scanned all like 212 base Refractor cards that I got and posted them for between like 250 and $5. And they've just flown out the door. But I was able to post those all in about 45 minutes. And now it will take me a good couple of days to get them all ship. Yu-Gi-Oh And. And that's where you, you know, as you scale and start to hopefully see profits in this and that, you either A, figure out faster and better systems and or B pay somebody to do it. Like I pay somebody 175 bucks a week to do all of my shipping and then I don't have to worry about it. For me, you know, in all reality, it's four or five hours. That's not that much time. Yu-Gi-Oh But four or five hours out of my week when I could spend those four or five hours doing something else that like shipping. Anybody can do it. It's literally taking, especially with the way that I run my business. It's. You need. You need to pull card number 18 and put that in the package. That's it. It's not you. You don't need to. Okay, is this the right player's name? Is this the right parallel. It's literally you take the number and you put it like any you don't need to know anything about cards in order to do my shipping. Yes. So for me, anybody can do it. Yu-Gi-Oh And for, you know, the person who does my shipping, you know, four or five hours a week at 175 bucks, that's a. Are you kidding me? Yep. That's a great deal. $35 an hour. Yep. That's. That's pretty good to get to just play with sports cards for four or five hours. Absolutely. So great idea. But it's a matter of scaling and that's one of those things for my first year that I did my card business, you know, selling singles, doing my live streams, etc. I did all my own shipping. I was not somebody that, you know, I had to see and get the profits to a point where I was able to say, okay, cool, now I can. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required. Compatibility and availability. Various 18 this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one year old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom big or small. We're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and@nordstrom.com outsource this because hopefully by regaining this time I can then go do more and make more money with that. Where do you feel like you are at in terms of your kind of journey and figuring out whether or not you can turn this into a. From a profitable hobby to a profitable like career. Yu-Gi-Oh Yes, I think so. I feel much closer to it after these past few weeks of really figuring out how to. Yu-Gi-Oh Turn profits with low end cards. Because that part besides like draft paper, because that's kind of been my thing for a while. Yu-Gi-Oh it's like I said, it's just not something I've delved into and I just. There are so many people who are looking to unload their like big. Lots of cards and a lot of time, a lot of times it's just Zebra low and stuff where it's going to be really hard to get a return. But there's also a lot of people who are wanting to sell a pretty good value lot where they just don't want to put in the time to, you know, as the time is a lot to sell the stuff that's like two to ten dollars. But I've found in fact a lot of people here in the Twin Cities who have been like, hey, I just want to like unload these cards, like could you give me this for them and then I'll look through them or something like that. So like that part, I feel like that helps give a nice Fleer I really still suspect that in my basement is maybe close to a year's worth of low end income. If I really sit down and spend the time. Yu-Gi-Oh Which is both embarrassing but also exciting. Yu-Gi-Oh part of those bad decisions that my past self made. But then also just some of the, like I, I am so quick to jump on a lot that I think is undervalued and then Yu-Gi-Oh that just kind of builds up too. So there's that and then really this other big piece of it for me. And March and April are going to be very interesting for this. But I've been trying to make some very deliberate investments in specific prospects. So what I'm really excited about, March, April, spring training. I've been with my Bowman prospecting, really trying to target players who I believe will get called up this year or see a big spike this year is what I like. And kind of with the model that I'm working with is that the low end cards can really provide, I think a nice solid Fleer And what I do with draft paper, I have 19 cases worth of draft paper coming from various breakers, which is a lot of sorting. It's so much sorting. It's going to be so much sorting, but by them in bulk. I've been able to get them for like $50 a case and it's just like that, that I think is going to give a really solid Fleer and then also these lower end lots that I get and then the higher upside plays will really be with the prospects that I'm targeting. And that's what I, I've been a lot more aggressive about picking up cards of specific players which, and again like Bowman, it's always risky. It's always. And like pitchers also, you know, the injury risk with pitchers is always there and really high. But one of the things I target a lot of pitchers in my prospecting because one of the things I really like about pitchers is you can get a guy who is dominating in the high minors at double A or Yu-Gi-Oh who has a $5 base autograph, like a guy like Ethan Peko for the Houston Astros, like, you can get. Whereas, like, if it were a hitter who were performing that well at Yu-Gi-Oh it's really hard. But if the player gets called up, like, there's still going to be a nice spike. But then if a pitcher gets called up and does well, like we saw with like, Tre Savage, Cam Schlitler, Chase Burnt, like all these guys this year, like, the markets can go insane. And I also feel like pitchers move a little quicker oftentimes through the system. Like, it's not at like, unheard of to see a guy go from high A to the majors as a pitcher. Yu-Gi-Oh As a batter, that's a lot, lot rarer. It happens. But. Yes, but I agree. And like, what happened with Treasure Savage this year, like, that just doesn't happen with hitters in the same way. And, and I think just like the nature of our modern baseball game, everything favors the pitchers. You know, like, it's. The spin rates are up, the Velocity is up, and pitchers have this advantage when they get called up that the major league hitters have never really seen them before. And it's. Whereas hitters have the opposite. They're suddenly trying to catch up and hit the best pitchers that are on the planet who they've never seen before. And like, even like Roman Anthony had a little bit of a slow start before he started crushing it. Like, it's. So I just think hitters, Hitters, I'm almost always trying to sell either when they see a bump during the season or at call up, whereas pitchers now, this is really hard for me to do, but pitchers, I am now, like, trying to deliberately hold some of their cards until they're actually pitching in a game. Because, like, Chase Burns, this was so crazy, but like, he gets called up, he's playing the Yankees, he strikes out the side in his very first major league inning. And in that moment, his market went insane in that moment. Like, his final stat line for that game wasn't actually all that great, but he struck out the Yankees. Yu-Gi-Oh So I don't know. So like, things like that, I just, I'm trying to put myself in a position where I have a pretty safe Fleer but there's this upside potential that I can try to capitalize on too. But so like, really, like, for me, I have realistically, probably until like July or August to really figure out whether or not, like, technically I have to let my school district know by February 1st if I officially want to come back. But I. I feel like I will have a good idea of whether or not, like, I am on to repeatable systems here by July or so. And Yu-Gi-Oh Yes. Where that goes. Do you feel like there's any. I know one of the questions that I get a lot is like, where do you sell your cards? And for me it's, you know what, not now, eBay, live, etc. Yu-Gi-Oh Is there any specific, like, marketplaces or places that you feel like have been particularly successful or not successful for you as you're trying to scale up your business? So ebay has been the most successful one for me, and that's just. That's the one I've gone after the most. I also. These monthly card shows that I do have been really nice. And one of the nice things about being Primarily Bowman is 90% of the time when I'm setting up at a card show, I'm the only person setting up Bowman cards. There just aren't that many people like selling primarily Bowman cards. Um, so that's been a nice niche element to collects has re. I just really started selling on there over the last three weeks, but that's been going pretty well so far. And I know that's one where it kind of builds up over time, but. So I've talked with Alex, Big Z a fair amount. He keeps telling me, like, dude, you need to sell on Whatnot. Like, I really need to. And I know, like, you've had a lot of success selling and Whatnot and kind of it's definitely something I want to try at some point. My goal kind of for now in February, has been to feel like I get my system for like, car dealer pro, eBay, collects up and running. I'm caught up. And then I want to start kind of exploring Whatnot too, because it sounds like it can just be great. Well, I. I think you're right for doing that. One of the things that I think that obviously Biggsy has done great with everything that he's done. And I. But I know that one of his challenges that he has talked about is the, like, ebbs and flows for himself of like, he gets in Whatnot inventory, but then he sells it all and then it's like weeks until he's able to do his next stream. And I really think I. I think that for me, I actually, when I, you know, 20, 23, three. So a full year plus before I started Selling on Whatnot. I was, I went through the process, I was approved to be a seller. I, you know, was ready to go live. Like I could, I could do it, but I just never did it. And I'm honestly kind of glad that I did not. And I waited until I was a bit more established and I had a better, like had a better footing in terms of inventory and you know, my content creation goals and all these Topps of things. Because I think that, I really think that having a system and process in place is incredibly important. Being consistent, showing up, it matters. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So Yu-Gi-Oh I watched an interview with. I can't remember her name, but she works a lot. I don't know if she's in charge of the ebay live development or not, but she was an interview with her where she was talking about like what we want from our live sellers is we want it to be like when a person gets off work and they want to go to their favorite bar and hang out with their favorite bartender, that's what we want to have like that kind of consistency. So people know when they get off work on Thursday, they want to go hang out with like Alex on his live stream and they know like, and that that really matters. And I also feel so. My kids are 4 and 2 right now and I. It is so hit or miss for me whether or not at the end of kid bedtime in a given day, whether or not I'm going to have the energy to like hop up on like TikTok Live or do like whatever projects I've been dreaming about doing all day. And I want to make sure that I'm in a place where I can dedicate like that kind of consistency to really be like, okay, I can commit to this. I'm going to give it my all. Like you know, be it Thursday nights at 8:00 or Sunday or something like that. And I, I think I can get there. But it's going to help a lot if I can get caught up on. Yu-Gi-Oh I think one you are, you know that, that statement of wanting it people like I, I will be, you know, I stream tonight when I go live at 6 o' clock central time. Yu-Gi-Oh Generally I have 10 to 15 people that are just sitting in the room waiting for the stream to start. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I have not clicked go live yet. I have people that, because they know Wednesday, 6 o', clock, Alex is live and they come, they hang out. Like there are plenty of people who don't buy any cards. They just come and they chat and that's fine by me. Yu-Gi-Oh I think that having that consistency is great. I also think that you are very, very accurate. And you know, it's, it is like I said to my wife when she was leaving today, I was like, hey, reminder. And she normally is on it, but like reminder. I stream at 6 so like you need to be home at a decent enough time to you know, take over baby duty because we have a nine month old and congratul. Yu-Gi-Oh So she is, you know, six o' clock is generally we're starting, starting the bedtime routine but like that is. You need to take that over and that's just built into our like weekly cadence. But it is a thing and having the energy to go do it. Like I get off of stream and I'm tired because it is two hours of. You need to be on and entertaining. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh It's not just, you know, I get into I. At the end of my streams, I always try and rate a new Whatnot seller versus somebody that's, you know what if you ask Whatnot they say to raid somebody big because it's more likely that their followers will then follow you. And I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh I get that. But like I, I mean this in the nicest ways. I don't need more followers. Like I have. We're fine. That's not what you rather help somebody else out. But the thing is some streams that go in and they're running a great show and other streams are going and literally they don't even notice that they just got rated with 70 people because they're not paying attention, putting on an entertaining show, etc and it's like you need to be something that like people come in and they're like, well, this is fun. I want to stay here and I want to participate in this. Yes, yes. So I think that you're right. I think that you've got the inventory. It sounds like with all the stuff in your basement, I think that you could definitely do it. But it's a matter of being able to be ready for it, consistent. And you know, I think you're, I think you're approaching it the correct way. So kudos to you. Thank you. Yu-Gi-Oh And I feel like right now one of my goals with this whole year was just like really finding myself craving that ability to kind of be somewhat fluid with my time and you know, knowing like my. So I've gotten older, I've become slightly more like on the introverted side just where like I recharge and get my energy and I love Engaging with people on like live streams and like going out, hanging out with friends, all of that. I just like, I get my energy recharged from like that downtime by myself and making sure. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. I can. There are a lot of times where like I will be Zebra happy to just set up and scan like 300 cards in a night and just sit down and go through the monotony of like getting those all posted. But like that's what I want to do and that can help recharge me. So knowing that I can do that and get like the cards out there and then like I'm done, I can recharge, I can do whatever. That's. It's a good fit right now and I really like the potential of Whatnot and things. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The. I agree with the. One of the best things about being self employed is I work from home and I'm in the house generally alone from eight to four. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yes. It's amazing. Yu-Gi-Oh And that, that has been my setup. My. Yu-Gi-Oh I posted about this but like my wife recently lost her job and my kids lost their daycare. So like right now, chaos it has thrown. It has changed the plan for what my day looks like a lot. But also trying to lean into that part of it too with like okay, it's kind of nice to get to have this extra time with the kids and like my parents are in town and are around and like they're taking both kids today too. So. So we can do this and I can spend the rest of my day shipping cards out and hey, one of the things that I do all the time is. And Grant, I pay my wife for it. But I, I'll put her to work if we're on vacation. I don't have my shipping guy but I'm, I bring cards to sell. I'll be like, hey, you want to make 100 bucks and ship some stuff out? She's like, absolutely. Like I can go buy myself some earrings and not have to worry about where it's coming from. Out of our budget. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh Like her out with things. Yu-Gi-Oh I know. I'm thinking about proposing that when she. If she'd be interested, could be fun. Yu-Gi-Oh So the last thing that I wanted to talk on with you was with that kind of, you know, we talked about the card selling side of turning Zach's Bowman hacks into a full time gig. Etc. Etc. How do you feel like content fits into that for you? Because honestly I had, you know, you are up and coming You. I've been getting a lot of your content lately, which is a good sign for you that it's hitting, you know, people's algorithms for you pages, et cetera. What is your. How do you feel like content fits into the long term picture for you, if at all? Yu-Gi-Oh I think it does. And I, right now I've thought about trying to get into the. I would love for that to be part of the equation right now. I think like grand total, they made like a dollar and 36 cents off TikTok so far. So it has not been, it's definitely been like a for love of the game sort of thing so far, which has been great. But I also think like it could be a really enjoyable avenue to either like, be it like selling some products on there, like top loaders or like count boxes, things like that. Like, that could be a lot of fun. I would like that to be part of the equation and for that to kind of also help boost some of the Fleer too. I'm trying right now. I'm not counting on it in some way, but I also know like there's the potential for that to be a really nice part of the equation too. So my goal right now is just kind of keep like trying to create content that people find helpful or entertaining and just continue to grow and see where that goes. But also I do want to dabble into some of like the, you know, selling some TikTok shop items and just seeing what happens with that and giving it a try and doing it in a way where, Yu-Gi-Oh it feels, it still feels like authentic and all that. And also, Yu-Gi-Oh I do think a lot of people don't. I don't know. I've had people reach out to me and be like, hey, I have a desk that is covered in cards and I do not know where to start. How can, like, what should I do? And I'll be like, okay, you should go to your LCS. You should get this 5,000 count box. You should get some labels like, and we've talked it through, but I don't know, like that's how I was when I got back into it too. I had a desk covered in cards and I didn't know where to go. Still do. Yu-Gi-Oh Exactly. Still do, 100%. So, Yu-Gi-Oh those things, I just, Yu-Gi-Oh I'll feel good about it if it feels like things that are genuinely helpful for people. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I, I would. I think that that's great. I think that I also would be, I think one just the content side and I know that, you know, we talked about Big Z about this one before. He's mentioned, I think he mentioned it when he was on the podcast here that he's like, people, one of the things that helps is people buy my cards because they watch my content, they go to my page and they say, oh, like, hey, you know, I'm going to look to see what he has available for sale. Oh, he's got this cool, you know, twins guy that I like. I'm going to buy him. Yes. Having that brand. I think that as more and more cards are printed, I think that as more and more people are trying to do live selling, are trying to, are getting, you know, card scanning is becoming more and more, you know, accessible to the masses. There's going to be more and more cards that are listed. People are doing those. You need to find ways to set yourself apart. Yu-Gi-Oh And I think that content is a great way to do that. Yu-Gi-Oh I think that without a doubt, the, like, the potential utilization of TikTok shop stuff is definitely really, really cool. I think that it's a, as you said, wanting it to be authentic and finding kind of the fine line of like doing the right things while also not feeling like every other video that I'm making is a TikTok shop video. Because I feel like that can be tough sometimes as a viewer. Yes, it can be a turn off. Well, and I, it's just, and this is about TikTok in general right now, I feel like TikTok has leaned very hard into the TikTok shop, understandably. I'm sure they're making a lot of money off of it, but I feel like one in every three videos on my for you page is a Tik Tok Shop video. It's like, and I just scroll past it. But what that, what that does from a like content algorithmic standpoint is that then says to TikTok, Hey, Zach's not making TikToks that are engaging and therefore I'm just going to scroll past it, which then hurts your metrics on everything else. So I, despite having almost 70,000 followers on TikTok, I barely do anything TikTok shop wise. What I do though is I make sure that I have a showcase on my profile that like people can go in and say, okay, cool, like I'm looking for bubble mailers or a thermal label printer or whatever and they can find those things. Or on my website I have, you know, links to an Amazon storefront where people can buy it and I get, you know, a little bit of A, you know, a 3% kick back from Amazon or whatever for those affiliate links that like, finding ways to do it passively, I think has been the big one-of-one for me, really. Just focusing on putting out content that makes people feel like they can trust the clever Cuban cards brand and then come out and say, hey, you know, I'm going to buy a card. I'd rather pay $4 for this card on Alex's Live than $3 for it on ebay because I'm having fun while doing it. Yu-Gi-Oh absolutely. And that trust piece, like that. Huge. It's huge. It's massive. And that's not. Yu-Gi-Oh that is something that I always want to keep centered with what I'm doing and with the content that I'm creating that it's geared towards. Yu-Gi-Oh Giving people information that they can trust and then also not making it feel like I have the viewer's best interest in mind with what I'm, you know, it's the. And I say this all the time in regards to people buying cards for me. And, you know, in my intro today, I talk about, talked about some of the highs and lows of sales from our first ebay live stream, etc, but like, it's the having people know that they can trust you is, you know, I think worth more than anything. Whenever, whenever I get people that are like, oh, my God, like, this card arrived damaged or like this card didn't arrive. Things happen, mistakes happen, etc. What's the most important thing in my mind is that you make it right. And I say, you know, I say to people when I'm buying cards for them or whatever, and I'm like, my reputation in my name and brand is worth more than every single card that is in this house right now. And there are tens of thousands of dollars of cards. Absolutely. In this house. And it is worth significantly more because if you lose that trust and you lose that, like, standing that people have and perception of you. Yes. It's all going to go away. Absolutely. Yu-Gi-Oh Absolutely. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh No, I. I completely agree. No, I had somebody who actually follows me on TikTok came to the card show I was set up at this past weekend and I got. They bought some cards for me and I got a message from them afterwards saying, like, hey, this Nick Kurtz card has a badly damaged corner. And I was like, you. You're kidding. I can't like. And he showed me pictures of it and yep, it was damaged. And I just, I'm somehow, I missed it. I made a mistake with it. So it happens. It Happens the volume that we work with. I say it all the time. Whenever I get messages about damage cards, I'm like, guys, I sell 2,000 plus cards a month. Yu-Gi-Oh I cannot. I try. I look it over, but I can't. I cannot look at every single card under the, you know, big overhead light. Looking closely, take. I look at it quickly in the top loader to try and see, okay, is there a absolutely cooked corner? Right. But I can't look at everything. It happens. And what. Let's find a way to make it right. Absolutely, Absolutely. And that's Right. And I think that's. Yu-Gi-Oh So that's what I'm gonna give him his money back and take the card back and see. But it was a card that I bought in a big lot and it was in a nice, like, top loader thing or like, I think it was in a one touch, maybe even or something like that. Like, oh, it looks all right. And then. No, not all right. But Yu-Gi-Oh making it right. That's what. Mistakes are going to happen. Just like in life, you know, makes mistakes. You got to make it right. We move forward. Yu-Gi-Oh As Hannah Montana says, everybody. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has those days. Absolutely. That is. That is a theme song in our house. We play it often. It's true. Yep. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Zach. If. If people want to, you know, check out your content. I know Zach's. Zach's Bowman Hacks. Yu-Gi-Oh Where can they does your ebay page under the same name collects. Where can they find you there? Yep. Sepia. Zach's Bowman hacks on TikTok. It's Zach's Bowman Hacks on Collects ebay. I still have is Z E U S T I S01 but I think I need to just switch that handle. So it's suggestion. Yu-Gi-Oh Get a link tree and just put it in your TikTok profile and then you can. People can find your ebay collect all that jazz. Just gonna make a quick note of that. Thank you. Yu-Gi-Oh That's what I'm here for. It's a great idea. I appreciate it. Great. Well, Yu-Gi-Oh I appreciate you coming on, Zach. We'll have to have you back sometime in the future maybe. Maybe as a precursor for another Bowman release at some point in the future. So that sounds great. Thank you so much for having me, Alex. It's great. Yu-Gi-Oh We'll talk soon. Sounds great. All right. Thanks again to Zach for coming on. The podcast was a ton. A ton of fun. Even though I'm not a huge, huge Bowman guy, I do enjoy Bowman, so it was fun to hear his perspective and I hope that he continues to find success in scaling up his card business. It's always really, really cool to see people chasing the dream and hopefully realizing it. That is it for today's episode. I'm hoping next week to do a little bit of a Q A focused episode. Maybe mailbag, stuff like that. I'll post a video on socials, but in the YouTube podcast, you know, Spotify, whatever. Comments if you have a question that you would love for me to talk about on the podcast, drop it down below. Would love to be able to answer your questions. That's the whole point. This is called the Hobby Handbook after all. We're supposed to be educating and helping you. So what are your questions? Would love to hear those. Make sure to tune in to next week's episode so that you can hear your question answered. We'll catch you guys next week on Thursday. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers. Give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides and structured reports. Get started@chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and Pro plans.