Building the Future of the Hobby, One Scan at a Time (Brian Ludden of Ludex)

If you want to take an idea to market and be successful, you have to be nimble, you have to check your ego, you've got to make mistakes and then fix them quickly, and you've got to have a team around you. When we have 300 million or more scans that have been scanned in a lot of times, we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect, they buy through the cell, is it new, is it old. I can make someone an expert in five seconds when they scan a cart. What parallel, full pink laser, whatever it is, you become empowered. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Chasing Grails to Colin Bluffs, I'm going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. What's up guys? Welcome to Trading Cards and Collectibles. I'm here in Greenville, South Carolina in the studio. I'm always surrounded by some of my favorite collectibles. Josh Luber was so nice to send me a couple of toys here. Love these ghost rites. That's one of my favorite shoes. I've got one of my best buddies now. Brian Ludden from LudEx. It was with me joining me now co-hosting with me here. I was like, I got how we get Brian in this show. You know, Brian and I have become good buddies in the hobby and he's got one of the fat ass tech companies in the whole hobby and like, Ryan, we got to do this together, man. He's here. What's up, Brian? What's up, buddy? How you doing? Thanks for having me and I look forward to so many of these conversations that we're going to have that you and I would have organically that now we can share with the public. They might find it boring, but I know you and I love to rip. No, we're going to make it good. Hey, they want that organic stuff and that's what's really been awesome about Brian and I get to know each other. It's been as organic as it could be. My kids get back in the hobby. I decided to have a hobby series on and write about now on my business show. You may have heard of it, may not have, but if you haven't go check it out and Brian comes on and we did like a pre-talk before it and then I'm like, I don't know like this guy and then the shows together hanging out, the LudEx lounge, so it's been cool, man. That's what I love about the hobby, man. There's something about it that it brings people together. It has the nostalgia and everything from growing up, but I don't know, the good guys just shine through like you. Yeah, and I think it's the same like bringing people, quality people in the hobby, in the industry, whatever you want to call it, getting you in here with a business mind, marketing mind, branding mind. That's how this industry is going to elevate, right? The beautiful thing about this industry that I found out is a nine year old kid could talk to a guy who's worth a hundred million dollars in trade cards. It's like that everyone's the same when it comes to collecting cards and it's really, if people haven't gone to a show or seen what happens at trade night, it's really impressive. I love it. Collectibles.show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing and ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at collectibles.show. What's you to send in your favorite pulls of the week? And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back, but it's not just about the value. It's about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share stories, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles.show, send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring into life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week once we get rolling and get some videos in where we share that on the show with us. We want to feature you on collectibles.show. Yeah, the whole standards, like every norm that we kind of norm that have sort of falls, like, it's not in a bad way, but like these barriers, like my 12 year old son just wouldn't walk up comfortably and talk to someone like Brian Ludden. Brian's is a sweetheart and he is very available to be a successful executive that he is. However, being honest, my 12 year old is not going to just comfortably in any other business setting or in a mall with I ran in the executive that I know, my son's going to sit there and try to act on his best behavior so that his dad kill him and we get home if he embarrasses me or something. But no, but you know, sitting at the national, my sons are like, you know, I don't think disrespectfully, but they're like, you know, walking up to Brian and shooting the shit and like just feeling like they can have a dialogue and not, I don't know, have those normal boundaries that are both necessary sometimes, but also limit the organic nature of the discussion maybe because they can talk to you like, hey, you know, or lack are still coming, you know, like, oh man, he's a beast or like, you know, like almost like just like one of the boys, you know, hanging out, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the beautiful part of it. I mean, there's there's things that like I would never tell my now he's 14, but at the time nine year old son to go talk to random adult strangers and have, you know, try to try to make money and make trades and and I think that carries on and I've seen him migrate from nine to 14 and the comfortability that he has with adults, it's it permeates, it's teachers, it's it's it's coaches, it's you know, family, whatever it is, it's a really great life lesson for these kids to learn how to communicate with adults. It also shows them a huge like how to deal with money and become an entrepreneur and like, it's I just I love the industry for all that and I love where it's going. I mean, getting guys like you in and our brand which the text side of it and what fanatics is doing and how card shops are evolving. I did this is just the beginning of another growth spur in my opinion for this industry, maybe funneled by or fueled by repackers who are buying they can't buy enough. Yeah, I think prices will be good and I think the hobby will be healthy for quite a while. Yeah, the hobby's booming. We've been talking about that on the show and just the programming note, you know, Brian is an official co-host now with me on the show, trading cards and collectibles powered by LudEx. I mean, let Brian talk more if you haven't heard of LudEx, you should have and you're going to hear it over and over because of the incredible technology data insights and ultimately how they're enabling and powering collectors. Brian will do more justice to that, but Brian and I have met and like, Brian, we got this together. So Brian and every Friday will be this kind of back and forth. We'll have guests on Tuesday. Brian might jump in occasionally, but a lot of me just kind of interviewing those guys, but then on this show, Brian and I are getting in to just sort of the behind the scenes of the business, especially his, you know, I mean, this is definitely a part of my business now, but LudEx is me deep in all of this and so many layers with Brian will talk about, but I'm excited for us to give you kind of behind the scenes of access to someone like Brian and his knowledge of what got him in the hobby, but then now the data and all the ability that you have to sort of empower your experience in the hobby and it's going to be great. It's going to evolve, you know, what we are today, four or five, six weeks, we're going to see, get your feedback, get Q&A, but I think it's going to be really fascinating. Some of the data you'll hear and can see when you start to understand what LudEx is doing and how they're empowering collectors. So, Brian, I'd love for you to, you know, talk a little bit more about that and everything LudEx is doing. Yeah, thanks, buddy. It's, you know, companies evolve and as an entrepreneur, you know, that like, what do you think? If you ever saw the deck that I raised money at for the first round, there's not much in there that happened, you know, but it's about every day. Yeah, it's an idea, right? And like, if you want to take an idea to market and be successful, you have to be nimble, you have to check your ego and pry it at the door, you got to make mistakes and then make them fix them quickly. And you got to have a team around you that I lucky to have a super talented team around me. But yeah, I mean, this industry, you know, I got into it. I was a derivatives trader for 25 years. I started my first company. I was 29 and I ran that until about 2018. We got acquired by a big algorithmic trading company. And I would say, I'm just not a good employee. That's the easiest, easiest way to say it. I was not winning any awards or getting a parking space, you know, at the front door. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't even on the ballot. I don't think, but I acquired my company. I was there for three years. And during that time, kind of went COVID hit. I saw prices of cars going up. And the rumor was that the NBA guys were sitting in their pot of where the playoffs were played in Orlando. And they started buying each other's cards and they started buying the OGs like the Jordans. And basketball started coming up. And then it became headline news. And so I go get my my jump wax stuff. My son's nine, like I mentioned. And we're looking at this stuff. And I'm like, there's not a lot here. So we buy a new pack. I open the pack and like, what the hell is this? Like it's it's got lasers. It's pink. It's purple. And I'm now googling like what this is. And I'm like, man, I go, Nick, let's punk this thing, man. Frustrations going this you know, like fun's going down. And I'm like, there's got to be an app out there in today's world that can help us. And there was a man. And I went to a few people and they're like, no, it doesn't exist. That'd be cool to invent it. And I said, I'm going to invent that. I'm going to go do that. And I would say that if it was a recipe, it was equal insanity versus delusion versus hunger to succeed and run a new company. So, um, and then I got my wife on board who's uh, the president of Lodax and co-founder. And she, she just runs for Lodax. She does everything I didn't really that I suck at. And that it's a lot. She does a lot. I'm going to test that not, not you, but myself too. I'm a wife. There's a lot of things better than me. Yeah. That's why I'm married, right? Exactly. So yeah. So then, you know, it took a while. So I put a deck together, raised some capital from my friends and family. And I was, I was blessed, um, being on the trading floor with 400 guys, um, your reputations, everything down there. That's it. Right. You make a trade with someone. I can lose a quarter of a million dollars in 15 minutes and be like, ah, that's not like I have that has to happen. A trade is good. Um, and so I was able to raise over five million dollars in 45 days, which was pretty insane, extremely family. And that got Lodax started. Um, now let's say, you know, as Lodax, what we, what we want to be is we want to be the first line when people enter the hobby, they want information, they want knowledge. I can make some of an expert in five minutes, five seconds when they scan a card. What parallel? Well, it's pink laser. Like, whatever it is, you become empowered. And the way I look at it as a consumer, when consumers buy, they buy, and you know this because of branding, but they buy because they, they have knowledge, they have wisdom, they're empowered, and they can make a decision. If you take any of those away, now you're like, and I don't know if I should get in this industry or you're not, let's help people, right? And yeah, so it's like really, it's about Lodax helping people. So scanning the card is simple as it gets. You take a picture of a card, we tell you what it is. Um, you can put it in a digital, your portfolio, your collection. We're going to have sharing collection soon. You can list it on eBay through Lodax. So there's so many things that we could do with this, but at the core, it's about empowering people and giving them knowledge that was really hard to find. It was very structured, segmented, fractured. I could not believe, Ryan, that Beckett magazine was still relevant. Yes. And look, Brian, here's the deal. Paul, it's Aaron Dipiti. What do you want to do? Call it, but the fact that I got introduced to you from Jeremy, and you can attest this, you know, validate it. When the boys and I came back into the hobby, and after we had opened, I don't know how many hobby boxes and had cards, you know, like two or three months in, you know, going overboard, like I like to do. And cards everywhere, you know, about middle of the lay of doing that, and starting to really think about, okay, what do we have here? What if we open? I did the whole thing, too. I went down the rabbit hole of, okay, it can't be a magazine still. So luckily for me, Brian had already had this epiphany several years earlier, and I went through the four, five, six apps doing different things. None of them quite clear, but landed on Ludax, and I go, and one braining shot, sharp. This looks like the most put together of them. I hope that the tech lives up to it. And it did. It was usually the best in class from a scanning perspective, collection, collect, and just display of information, but the scanning, you know, it was the best of all of them. And so it was, it was already, you know, because at that time when I'm, Brian, we were in it. I mean, we're in it now, but this is what we were opening every day. So that was the number one app on mine and all three of my sons before I even met Brian. Like once I had that interview with him, LudX app, if you go, because you know, when you swipe up, it shows you you're most commonly used apps at LudX sitting there in number one. So the irony that it ended up being Brian that Jeremy introduced me to. And then, you know, but using the app in that experience, it's it's an interesting technology, man. I didn't realize how complex until I talk to you, I should have known. I mean, I'm in tech, but you know, knowing everything that it took in the variations and all that, it was crazy, but it's clear that LudX has figured it out a lot more, but it seems to be a moving target. I mean, because there's new cards every day, you know? So like, I'd love for you to talk about like that scanning portion of it. They're probably interesting to people. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's everything you say. It's, it's, it, there's the same a lot of entrepreneurs. If I knew how hard it was going to be, I wouldn't have started it. But once you got down the road, you're like, yeah, I had no choice at some point, right? Like, yeah, but it was, I mean, we went about it a little differently than some of our competitors. The level of technology and I think the money we put into it was, you know, larger than some of the competitors that were first to market. And everyone was trying to solve the same problem in their own way. And I just know that from the beginning, the brand guy, like, I wanted LudX to be a new brand in this industry. Like, there was no tech revolution. Nothing's happened in this industry. I want a brand to be top aligned. So if you touch a podcast, I want it to be the best. Our card shop in Texas is going to be the best. You know, our tech, I strive to be the best. And it's not an arrogant thing. It's a, it's a brand thing. Like, we have to be, if we go on set ourselves to be a leader in this industry for, for the foreseeable future, we have to start day one to do it. And it was, you know, there's a lot of pain in it. But honestly, the parallel training is super hard. There's not a lot of great images to train. So we had to build our own proprietary algorithms to figure it out. And then I would say probably more, the something that I didn't think about Ryan was, people are taking pictures with their phone, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a glare in the back. This guy had a silver prison in front of him. He's like, he keeps coming up red. And I'm like, what color shirt do you have on? He's like, red. I'm like, well, AI is all right. Like, and it's unbelievable. Like, you know, we had to train out light stickers, top loaders, all that stuff. So we have three patents, we have three patents pending. And a lot of it is around the the app picture taking a couple of another one that's proprietary. But yeah, so it was a difficult task. I didn't know the market was significantly larger than I thought when I started looking into it. And I'm like, well, first of all, can I make money three or four different ways? That's my first. Second thing is the industry big enough that that we can make we can make money, you know, in this industry. Third, what's the competitive landscape look like? You know, and and four, can you raise capital? I mean, they're in COVID. It was easy, but it got really, really hard to raise capital valuations, especially in the VC, early, CBC, just underneath plummeted. So there were challenges on top of challenges. But the one thing I don't, I don't really give a shit about challenges, right? Like, it's just another, it's just data. I look at the whole, everything is data. So you start Linux and this didn't work. Well, what's the data tell us? Why didn't work? Okay. So, you know, and so I kind of try to stay non emotional and trading for 25 years using my own capital. I think you learn that you're going to screw up a lot. Like no one's made worse trades than I have or more of them than I did. And I think that votes well to start a company because when I know I'm wrong, I switch it fast. And so, you know, so yeah, I think, you know, for Linux with the technology and where we're going and what we want to do with it, I'm excited. And pretty much everything we do from now on will be announced on this show. Yeah. And I would say in the next three by the end of the year, we're going to have two or three really big announcements that I think will revolutionize the industry even more. Well, you guys will be the first to know. Yeah, it's usable right now. Like, there's a little things and we've talked about Brian's things work on it. But it's, yeah, it's it's not intense of the way there. It solves issues already. You know, a couple little quirks that you guys are never working on. But it's let's just say, I mean, if you even had those quirks, it still saves you like 10 x 20 x the 100 x the time. It's just again, you just wouldn't even deal with it. You know, most people because it's just too tedious. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, I think we put like 2000 greater car PSA cards on in an hour last week. And it is, it is powerful. Yeah, it's, it's one of those things that will just help men like think about this, right? Like eBay ballpark, if you look at their numbers, it's doing like $4 billion in GMA for sports and trading cards. It takes three minutes to put a card on and they're still doing it. Exactly. Yeah. Imagine that. We have Maddie Rich, who's actually on the shows, I guess this week is awesome. He's got a really great, oh, I'd say 9 out of 10. If you compare LCS's, he's doing his good job as anybody. However, there's a lot of room for an opportunity for card stores in the hobby. It's, you know, we've got all this tech with all these advancements in some ways. And, and, and you know, I'm not trying to like rip out the nostalgia and the analog nature of some of this, but let's be honest, it's a, it's kind of a, most shops are stale at best and just, it doesn't have to be that way. And I think it's time for evolution and I'm excited about, you know, what you guys are doing at the Ranger Stadium. Yeah, that's a great opportunity. I mean, you know, some of this, you know, sometimes things just work out, you know, and I threw out the first pitch last Friday at Ranger Stadium. The ownership group invested in LCS. And the Neil Leedman, one of the owners said, right, we'll be the best partners that you have. And he's let us have a lot of his card day. We spotted with a Beckett, we partnered with Beckett. We gave out 8500 packs of cards to everyone that came in. And then I got throughout the first pitch. And then he kneels like, I want to open up a card shop. And I want it to be right there in the stadium. It's 5,000 square feet. I want it to be the best in the country. And I said, good, we're aligned because it will be the best in the country. And it's in the old stadium looking out at the old Ranger Stadium cross the street from well, life, which that campus, if you ever down there, you have the Cowboys, Rangers, hotels, bars, it's just amazing. So let's talk, man, let's talk data. You got some interesting points. This is going to be probably, we'll be leaning a lot more into this. Obviously, we want you guys listening to show, you know, know our background. This is this is how this stuff comes to life. This is what let X is doing. This is what Brian is the CEO is doing every day. So we want to bring that side to life. But now that we've got that out there, you're going to see a lot of talk a lot more about what this data enables. Just cool. I mean, it's like, because when you have hundreds of thousands of scans happening every day, you can go, okay, well, you can keep it like on surface to go. Okay, that's a collector that wants to know all the cards that he has in the value of. Okay, but once you start doing that, Brian's sitting on a lot of data that tells you certain things. Trends, who's getting scanned the most, who's going down? Who's going up? Who's values are going up? That's just the very top line. You can cut it a hundred different ways. That's what's going to be exciting about what we can break to life, integrating that Linux technology into the show. Yeah, and there's a couple of things my team put together is, well, you said it right. When we have 300 million or more scans that have been scanned in Linux, we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect. They buy, do they sell? Is it new? Is it? Who are you obsessed with? Yeah. We want to believe some of these, you wouldn't need some of these numbers when I bring them out of like how many Tom Brady cards is one guy has? It's like 48,000, you know, like passionate people about everything. But here's some, let's relevant data. If you look at the NFL. So the three highest movers as of yesterday. And there won't there's one surprise in here. I would not have guessed. So number one, Daniel Jones. Yeah, he's down. He's doing it. He had to get out of that cesspool in New York, but he's up 35% over the last two weeks. Makes sense. And the scan activity on Linux is up 42%. So people buy it, people scan it and prices go up. Next is Justin Herbert. And he was down a little bit last year. Towards the end, he's up 19% and his scan activity is up 14%. And Justin had a bigger like he, people are scanning a lot of Justin cards that that wrote years a little. So when you gave those stats, so top three Daniel Jones, Justin Herbert and Roma Dunzee. And if anybody that doesn't know, you should know, but that's Chicago Bears wide receiver. He played at Washington with Michael Pinnix. And he is Caleb Williams favorite target. And he should be, and I'm how Caleb Williams. I know he's he's up and down, but I think he's a dude. Yeah, I hope so. I hope that's my squad. So, you know, I'm hoping someone comes out with some QR code that goes on the back of these new cards so we can easily get them. And I'll worry about the other, you know, trillions of cards that have been printed without those. But like going forward, let's let's sync up and get some QR codes. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be easy to solve. You know, like one, I mean, sometimes like he said, I think sometimes I don't want to solve it. It's like, because either they think they don't have to or I don't know what it is. But you know, but hey, someone's going to solve it for them. I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, I love my boys at PSA. And I mean, there it's still a PSA world. And we'll talk about different topics like that or it, but it's like, you could get some evolution in this grading stuff too, you know? Yeah, I think the repacks will, the repackers will have a say in that also. I mean, if it's PSA rates prices and it takes longer, they're going to go to BGS and then the packet, then they'll go to CCG. And like eventually, I think it's kind of PSA in the short term, long term, midterm, whatever it is always holds a premium. But I think you're going to see those other companies starting come up a bit just because of how difficult it is to grade cards and how many people are looking to buy these things. I mean, there's, you know, I know, for sure that there's probably, I know 30 to 40 million dollars a month going into buy, um, created product for repacks, digital, digital packs, whatever you call them. Uh, it's a massive, massive part of the industry. Yeah. We'll talk more about that in the future. Here's what Gina's back, Ryan and I are hoarding this every Wednesday for the Friday release. So every Friday, Ryan and Ryan here on trading cards and collectibles powered by LudEx and look, LudEx isn't, isn't about sponsorship. This is about ingredients within the show because we're going to bring these stories to life so that we can enable and empower you and you're collecting and kind of seeing like behind the scenes and look, you get to live if I curiously through Brian and I when we get all these shows and we'll bring it to life and hey, come here, you need to come on the road and see us, you know, it's, it's just, we let our hair down. We'll just say that and we'll look what's left of it. I forgot somebody. You got some mine on the hat here and I'll be honest with you and look, hey, send me a message. I'll, I'll strong on Brian and to sending you or putting you in a drawing, we'll get you some gear. They got some of the best hats. I love their hats and I love you, Brian. Appreciate your man. It's going to be fun doing this show together. It's only going to get better as we take a look inside the hobby. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm excited to see how this, like I said, see how companies evolve and see how this evolves and, you know, taking feedback from, in questions from people in the, you know, watching this is awesome because we want you and I are people, people, and we want to interact. So this is, this is about totality of the industry. So thanks so much for this opportunity and I look forward to every Wednesday. Oh, you, D, E, X, go to the App Store, download the app, get your scans going, man. This is how you track your cards. It's about knowing the value, but it's about having your collection in the digital form so you know where it is. Look, I make you sound like I'm selling it. No, I live and breathe and do this every day with my kids. I'm in it. And I'm in it with guys like Brian and the LudEx team. Hey, I'm on the team now. Brian, I'm on the team now. I'm just, this is us. Yes, go to the App Store, get that LudEx.com. For more information, they're doing some refreshes on the website. Got a lot of content. You can also see on the app, everything, the links back to eBay, some of the other partnerships that are going on. You don't want to miss it. They're at the center of innovation in the hobby. And so are we trading cards and collectibles, Brian and Ryan every Friday. We'll see you next time on the show. Thanks for tuning into the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectables.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Oldford. Now get out there and collect yours.