Should You Keep it Sealed? The Deep Pocket Monster Playbook on Content, Community & Growth

The business side versus the collecting and sort of being a kid again and like the fun of it all. Are you able to do both? I'm very, very blessed I realize this to be in a position where I can do the Pokemon stuff without having to say yes to every opportunity and I can be very picky with who I work with or how we publish things. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing trails or calling bluffs, you take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. For a long time, collecting was pretty simple. Buy cards, hold them, maybe go to a show. Now it's content, it's community, it's experiences, it's something much bigger. Pathlands, spent years building businesses and communities. He's also been on one of my other shows. But more recently, he's taken that same approach into the hobby with deep pocket monster and card party creating some of the biggest brands in the space. So today, we're getting into what happens when you apply real business thinking to collecting. Pat, great to see you again and welcome to Collector Nation. Thanks Ryan, it's like a little reunion for us actually. I know. I feel like, hey, we do have some streamers in. I, you'll get a kick out of this, Pat. Collector Station, my retail store opened, grand opening was a week and a half ago. Oh, congrats. So, uh, yeah, we got streamers for our rekindling, getting back together and the store opening. I mean, my studio is in the middle of the store. Making streams come true. Exactly. We're already here in the dad joke part of the. I know they, that's my brand. I just believe me, that's me too. Bill is over there like going, oh, God, we got another one. Oh, no, that's all I do. Oh, Pat, what'd you want to do, man? Well, you know, I've had a business that I've had for nearly 18 years now in the entrepreneurial business podcasting space. And that's still trying to along, doing really well, managing a team there in a community, like you said. But since 2020, I've been diving pretty deep into the world of collecting specifically Pokemon. Thanks to my kids actually during COVID, they got me into it. And then I saw an opportunity on YouTube to bring something to the space that really wasn't there. More storytelling, more, um, just cinematography, those kinds of things. And it's kind of taken off. And we're currently at 2.2 million subscribers on YouTube on the main channel, De pocket monster in 2024. I started a daily series, shout out to Alex catch him. AKA Alex can't catch him for getting me on that. And now we are at 616 days straight. A little 60 second short form video open a pack every day. You might have heard the jingle. Should I open it or should I keep it sealed? That is me and that is gone worldwide. It's it's gotten crazy actually. Yeah, the answer to that question. Well, I'm proving that I should usually keep it sealed. But for entertainment purposes, I open it and it's usually not a good idea for me. But it's always fun. It's always fun. And of course, like you said, Card Party are live event that started in 2023. We now have three this year seeing Diego for a lot of day. And Dallas first time in the middle of the country. And we are attracting, you know, 10,000 people, thousands of tables getting sold out. And you know, we bring a entertainment sort of element to the convention space, taking the best of what we found in the business world in terms of how events are run. But then taking all the business and boring stuff out and putting the Pokemon collectibles and the YouTubers and TikTokers in there. And it's just been a blast. It's just it's just amazing. The comments that we get from people who are there. They talk about it like it's camp. Like they go and they see other friends again. They compete. They have adventures. They have fun and have memories that they can collect and take back home. Because that's what it's about. Not just collecting cards, but collecting memories and friends. Is it still for you? I think I know the answer to this, but still thing is being interesting. Like the business side versus the collecting and sort of, I don't know, being a kid again and like the fun of it all. I mean, is it, are you able to do both? Yes. However, I'm very, very blessed to realize this to be in a position where I can do the Pokemon stuff without having to say yes to every opportunity. I can be very picky with who I work with or how we publish things. We can take our time to tell these stories. I know a lot of other creators don't have that luxury. But you know, we want to tell the best stories that we can. And really the big idea here is just to have fun. If I'm having fun, then the audience is more likely to have fun following the stories as well. So, you know, it's cool because with the Pokemon thing, I didn't need to make it make money. And because of that, it's generating money, right? It's generating revenue from the way that I've always taught business, which is surfers. Go out there, provide what you can to a certain community. And in some way, shape or forum, that'll always come back. Now, it's not just going to fall in your lap, having business experience and entrepreneurial experience. I know how to utilize those communities and build them in a way that serves everybody and everybody can win as much as possible. But yeah, I'm having fun, man. And I hope that the audience is too. I think they are. And what's really cool is the comments. A lot of the comments on the YouTube video now are from people who don't even know anything about Pokemon. They don't even care about Pokemon. But they love the story. And for me, in the world that we're in now, what I'm seeing just in general in the information age, I mean, we're away from the information age now. Information is way too plentiful. There's way too much of it. So we need to bring human elements back into the things that we do in order to connect with audiences and build communities. And that's something I've always done. But I feel like it's now needed and wanted more than ever. You know, with all the AI slots that's out there, everything is seemingly either so perfect or so fake. Being vulnerable, being out there and just kind of putting yourself out there and connecting is really the way to go. So it's kind of cool because I can do that. Be myself and grow the business at the same time. I love that you said that. I said that the same thing. I mean, I started the card store and it doesn't have to set. I don't have to sell anything like you know, like I don't have to make short-term decisions. It doesn't have to do. And I said, that's why it will probably do well. It's because you don't need it. It's a, I mean, the hobby is hard to be into where you got to make a living like every moment. Like if you're making it and paying your mortgage or whatever, like I was like, I can only imagine. Because you sort of need it to be this organic thing. And it can only be, you know, you start wanting to force the issue a bit. I think when you've got to rely on it. And so I think it can be a wonderful thing if it can be secondary. And ironically, we'll probably become bigger. Like you said, it became to where it became a business because you could allow that to happen. And you could be, you know, yourself and not and take your time in doing what felt right versus what felt right for business. Right. Right. And, you know, with that business experience behind me, I know how to create content. I'm used to putting myself out there. I've already jumped over those hurdles that I initially had years ago when I was scared and nervous and didn't know how any of this worked. Now I can hit publish and record and kind of have an idea and have a leg up because I've done that before. But I'm always experimenting and I'm playing and I'm trying to see what works and see what doesn't. And again, I do have that luxury to see what works and see what doesn't. And if something fails, I'd take it more as a learning experience and I didn't really lose anything. I've gained a lot. And that's pretty cool. And a unique position we're in. We're at a point now with D-Pocket Monster, especially where we're getting a lot of attention from other brands and other companies that want to get in front of this audience. And I have to really understand that I got to be very careful with who I put my name with and what I say. I mean, I could control markets if I wanted to. And that's a very scary position to be in. I have certain collections that if I wanted to, I could pump them up. And that's bad. So with great power comes great responsibility. Thankfully, I have an audience and great people around me who will call me out if I ever go down the dark side. And I want you all to do that. Talking with Pat Flynn, the superhero of Pokemon. No, that's, we are the hero. The community is the hero. I'm just the team captain, right? I got the C on my shoulder. And you know, I'm going to pass you the ball sometimes, and you're going to score. But we're all going to win together. That's how I see it. No, I know. You're, hey, I know you're with Skywalker on the good side. You know, we're not on the dark side. You know, I know you're, but hey, sometimes I get persuaded to, you know, Darth Vader could be persuadive too on some levels. But we don't have Flint's original Obi-Wan Kenobi. He, we're no man. You don't have to glaze me up, man. No, I know. I don't, but you are, dude. That's why you're so successful, man. I mean that. Thanks. Well, he's anybody up. I just tell the truth. That's why people are Ryan is right. That's what it is, because I see it and I know it. And I've, I know people that know you, even better than I know you. And they speak so highly of you. And your community knows it. So they need to hear it here. What, um, you mentioned it. What is the separation of good, better, best content these days in the hobby? Yeah, I mean, the best content is content that's relatable. That's, that is the key word. It's relatable, right? Because we're all looking for something to connect with. And if you're not creating something that's relatable, or if you are maybe so far removed from the community that you're building or creating for, then it's not going to hit right. And I don't want to mention any names, but there have been a lot of creators in the Pokemon space that have done things that from the outside, it's just like, why would you? Are you, can you not see how this would be perceived? And I understand in the moment, and, and, you know, we don't often realize or recognize how people may react. But one of the superpowers, I think, myself and especially my team and my producer, Dan shut out to him. He's very aware of how, you know, we can get in front of how an audience may react to certain things. So we can then change our decision-making on the front end, right? A lot of these, you know, trade-up challenges, for example. It's like, well, of course, if I do a trade-up challenge, it's going to be completely unfair. That's completely unrelatable. There's nobody, you know, and then we're putting pressure on the vendors as well. Like, this is just not going to be perceived in a really great light. There are ways to still do a similar challenge and wrap it in a way, but we have to try to consciously understand what an audience is going to say before we do the thing. And that way, we can build for what would be the most, again, relatable, most doable. And I know in many of my challenges, I'm still at the point now where it's like, oh, well, that would never happen to me. At which point, my response is like, well, I was once in your spot, too, and nothing stopping you from creating and serving an audience. But I know I'm in a position where I have to be very careful with like, hey, look, celebrity's coming by. Like, give me free cards for my challenge. Of course, I finished the challenge, but I don't always finish the challenge. And this is why I love when I fail. I don't try to fail. And I also try to win. But when I go through my challenges and I fail, I'm like, yes, I'm bummed because I'm competitive. But at the same time, I'm like, this is good, because this is real life. And I'm not always going to get what I'm hoping for. And this is a great lesson that I could teach. You know, there's layers to the things that we do in our storytelling that I love. And I'm starting to lean into even more, the sort of not just like, oh, it's some guy going on a Pokemon collection. But it's the struggles of trying to find the thing that you're looking for. And sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. And this is real life. And again, the relatability keyword is really what it's all about. So this is what we think about when we're creating content. How can we make this thing relatable? For example, we did a challenge where we were trying to collect every Gengar ever. And this was one of our best videos in the last couple years. Gengar, a very popular Pokemon that was purposefully chosen. And it's also one of my favorites. But we were trying to tell the story. And it's like, well, I could go out there and just try to find them all. But what's the connectedness to that? Like, yeah, we all want to complete our sets. But like, what could be another layer beyond this that would be even more relatable? Well, I had recently purchased a collection that had a number of Gengars in it. And it was in this binder that looked really ugly. And it was like somebody's collection. I bought it because they were having financial problems. And I wanted to help them out. And so we created the story of like this incomplete collection that was in this nasty looking binder, juxtapositioned with my perfect collection of all these complete sets and my Vault X binders that were neatly laid out and neatly labeled. It's like, we can all relate to that thing that was like incomplete in our life that we want to finish. But then me being a perfectionist became a part of the story. My perfectionism became the villain in the story, actually, because we all deal with that as well. And so as I was trying to complete this Gengar collection, you know, I would get Gengars that were hard to find, but they weren't perfect. They were like, scuffed up. And it's like, I had to deal with that in my head. And it's like, we can all relate to that as well. And I realized that even though I ended up finishing this collection, but the binder was full of these cards that were kind of worn and torn, those wearing and tearing, they have stories behind them. They have history behind them. And it was the history that made up this collection and made it more complete than if I just bought every card perfect or found them all in packs. So again, I'm getting a little bit detailed here in the kind of the thinking and the levels that we have, but that's where I find fun. I mean, these are my favorite stories and books that I read, the ones that have levels to it like that. And that's something that I think we can bring to the space that nobody else is really thinking about. For sure. A good story. I've opened five packs of a city of heroes. And the fifth one, I pulled that Gingard, the big hit. Yeah, that's it. I still have to pull that. I was like, okay, there we go. That's good. All right. I think I'll not open anymore. And do you record when you open or do you just? I do a lot of times, but I was going to jump in here and like, she's going to be like, because likely I've been pulling some bangers and I haven't been recording. Oh, man. Dude, that's what like the golden rule of of content creation in the collection space is like always be recording because you never know. Uh, no. And then the one time I got to get on the court, you're going to get, you're going to get the big hit. Yeah, I mean, again, a bunch here. I court a lot of sports stuff too. I pulled like several downtowns and like other things, like, of course, I think I'm convincing myself it's because the camera's not on. So I'm like, I don't know which one's better. I'm getting good cards. It's just stroating your pack is really what it is. Exactly. We're talking with my good friend Pat Flynn. You know who he is. Talk to me about the state of the hobby. What's happening in the hobby right now? Like what's your, uh, I don't know. Maybe you're 30,000 and you're one foot view. Yeah, I mean, I, I will share this from my own perspective. I, and everybody has her own perspectives about it. And I respect that. I'm not coming here to bring the state of the union, you know, to the, to the space here. I'm just, this is, this is my thought. It's, it's tough right now. It's tough because of how just big everything is and how little product there is. And that, you know, brings the prices up and brings the scalpers out. And, you know, it makes it very difficult for people to get into the hobby. Which is why, you know, some of the things that we do on Deepak Monster, we try to go when, when everybody zigs, we zagoon, as we like to say. And what we try to do is we try to do things that are more accessible. It's not always possible. But what I mean is, for example, we did a very big challenge called the Pokedex Challenge, where we tried to collect one of every Pokemon inside of one giant binder that was made for us by Veltex. So it was kind of like comical how big this binder was. But what wasn't comical was just how easy doing a challenge like that is anybody could go and try to find all 1025 Pokemon. Because at that point, it doesn't mean, it doesn't matter how rare the card is. It's matterful to you if that is an empty slot in your binder. And so you could go to a card shop right now and go to their bulk bin or bulk box is in the back. And probably start loading in a few dozen new Pokemon that you didn't have in your Pokedex Challenge. And that makes it easy for people to come in. So that's like typically when I share with people who are like, where do I start? I, it's a great way to learn about the Pokemon and to find your favorite as well, and to learn what sets are out there. It's a wonderful example of how you can get started. So it's not impossible to get in the space. You kind of have to get a little creative with it. And I love to lead by example. The prices are crazy. The idea of modern being even more expensive than a lot of vintage cards right now kind of blows my mind. You're always going to have the home run hitters, like the Umbreon, Mumbreon card from evolving skies and things like that that are just crazy. And the vanco stuff is insane. And there's now a lot of things on the other side of the world where investments are happening into the space. And now we're seeing Wall Street Journal articles. It's insane. It is. And this is where, again, the channel comes in to try to provide a different take on it. We don't come from a money first perspective. Obviously, we do share prices and things. And that's part of our collection journeys to try to wheel and deal. And those prices are important. But we're not an investment channel. We're more of a challenge channel. And here's what you could do on your own if you want. And it's cool because we're seeing a lot of parents and kids bond over their own challenges. We're seeing a lot of people get into the hobby and find their own Pokemon to collect all of one of all that Pokemon, just like our Ganger Challenge. So it's pretty cool, but it's not very fun for a lot of people. And this is supposed to be a fun space, right? And this is, again, I can only do what I can do on my end and tell stories to try to bring some of that into light. I mean, there's so many aspects to it, right? Good for business. I mean, in one way, I think your show's entertaining, regardless of you're such a skilled storyteller that it could be about, I don't know, or used cars and it'd be interesting. But like we did a whole video about energy cards that was one of our most popular videos because we turned the story into it. Exactly. No, you did. And I mean, that's that's the beauty of it. But the hobby's good. It makes the YouTube. I mean, it does bring attention. So it's like it's kind of like, I like it to be, I wanted to be more accessible and made more available as well. But I mean, when the hobby's good, anyone that's in the hobby typically benefits. Yeah, it's true. Although that being said, because we've been on this sort of bull run for so long now, it feels, everybody who's in it feels like they're smart. Not that they're not smart. But it's just like, it's almost like a shaded success coming from those who enter the hobby right before this bull run. And I've heard a lot of other investment channels. I do follow those channels. I do support them and want to hear them out. A lot of them are like, yeah, it's easy to be smart when we're in this market right now. But let's see who's going to be here still after the next downturn, after the next bear market. Who's going to be sticking around after? And that's a really interesting thing to say. I want success for everybody. But it's very easy to say, you know what you're doing when everybody's kind of winning. Yeah, that's true. So, you know, what I do love about all of this coming, do you see that downturn coming? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's always inevitable. These are these are ebbs and flows of not just markets, but life, you know, there's ups and downs everywhere. And it's seeing yourself through those downs and finding your way on the other end where success comes. You know, there's a lot of investment advice that makes sense here too. You know, it's like do the opposite of what everybody else is doing when there's a downturn, that's typically when I see things for sale, right? And when things are high, I try to do my best to audit my collection and go, okay, what's the Marie Kondo saying? It's like, does this spark joy for me right now? Yeah. And if I look at my collection, I'm like, why do I have this? Then it might be a good opportunity for me to sell that and try to maybe pick up something that does matter to me more. I don't know, these are great times, right? If you're not, the interesting thing about collecting is if you're not also selling, you're kind of just hoarding. And you know what I mean? And you know, I'm not the first person to say that, but that was true. That was said that really struck me because I don't like to just sell because I like to keep things. And but at the same time, I could only see Pat Flynn never wanting to sell it, like keeping everything. There's another layer to this where it's like, I'm in a position again as a creator with a lot of people where it would be very easy for me to sell or manipulate or do all these things. Yeah. So I avoid it for that reason as well. But maybe that's just an excuse I'm making. So I can hoard everything that I have. That's about to say, but you're such an authentic collector. I can tell that you don't want to sell it. Yeah. I mean, there was another one of my favorite cards is this card right here because I knew we were going to talk about some of this stuff. The Silver Diago from Phantom Forces. Oh, wow. This card here is so hard to grade. And there's only like 55 PSA 10s. I have 10 of them. Oh, my God. So talk about like hoarding and stuff. Yeah, help yourself, Pat. No, I love it. It's the only silver, all silver Pokemon card is from 2014's Phantom Forces. And it's just such a rare and cool looking card. And I remember there was one that was sold on eBay or no. I think it was on Golden or Heritage. I can't remember. It was on a recent auction for like 18K. And I got hundreds of messages because people knew that I collect this card. They were like, this was you, it wasn't it, Pat. You're just pricing up your own cards so that the rest of your collection goes up. I was like, no, that actually wasn't me. But that made me realize just like, it could have been. I could have bought that and priced it up to 25K. And then now my whole collection's up. And it's like, probably shouldn't buy these in auctions then because of this. You know, I don't know if I'm going to buy anymore. But it's just, again, it just shows you just how crazy this kind of space is when you get to these kind of higher and levels. And I'm just entering into that level now. Whereas there's been a lot of people who are way more knowledgeable and better at that than me who collect these trophy cards. And then we recently had the illustrator sold on Logan Paul's stream for 16K. And it's just like, what is these are these are crazy numbers that are happening right now. And it just makes me question a lot of things. And it just makes me reflect on, well, what am I doing here? Am I doing it for the right reasons? And not that they aren't. But, you know, I wouldn't even sell these diogas even if they were 100K each. So, you know, I guess that in the end just really shows you that that's just an important card that I want. But that's what makes collecting. So I don't know. It's a human trait. Because I'm learning that everybody clicks something. It's like, it's built into our DNA at all levels, it seems. Yeah. What else do you collect other than sports cards and Pokemon cards? Shoes. Yeah, do you see my, my, my mags back there? Yeah. I do. The back to the future ones. That was going to be a great. That was a Halloween costume. I just had some 101 Josh Allen's made. I don't like you. Air ones. Bell is going to grab my one of the show and T. This, uh, so yeah. So custom shoes and cards. I did, I used to click cards. How cards? That was an expensive habit. I bet. And watches. Yeah. Okay. So you, you're all in on collecting. Oh, wow. Those are cool. Game, worn patch. Built in. Oh, yeah. And Josh Allen's like, yeah. 17 on the test. These are just totally custom. 101. They're all solid white. So everything you see that has color. I mean, it was, uh, hand painted on here by an artist that we have locally. That's cool. Drop her name, Bella. So we, um, yeah. AP customs on Instagram. And shout out to AP customs. I'll need to get you up for some Pokemon customs. Perhaps. Yeah. You need to, we should get you something. You know what? You need to come down here and we'll have them done in the store. I'll pay for them. And you come sit next to me and do it interview. How about that? Let's do it. Let's do it. Uh, uh, some dit wing. I get some diglett shoes. Exactly. You just give Bella the order when we'll make it happen. You have the diglett things crazy with my thumbs. I don't know if you, you know that story. I don't know that story. Oh, so on, should I open it or should I keep it sealed right? My camera's really close to the cards. And so my thumbs are there. And I have weird thumbs. I have club thumbs. They look like I call them making fox thumbs because that makes it sound better. They're gross, dude. They're, they're wider than they are taller, whatever. And people started making fun of me for them. Like throwing puke emojis in the chat and every all this stuff. Like making fun of my thumbs. Like they're like, I can't watch this guy because of his thumbs. And so younger me would have been like, oh my gosh. I can't go online anymore. This is, this is gross or I have to cover them up or whatever. But business pat Flynn today was like, oh, my thumbs are getting a lot of attention. How can I lean into that? Because what makes me weird makes me different, makes me stand out. And so I started to just address them and call them diglett thumbs because there's a Pokemon that looks like them. And people went for it and they were like, now when I go to conventions and I sign cards, diglett is the number one card I sign. And I even have some people ask me to trace my own thumb on a diglett card and draw a diglett. You know how I can Thanksgiving you chase me and make a turkey. Now they're doing that with my thumb. I love this. It's like, again, a great story of embracing your weird. I've always taught that. That was in my book, super fans that I wrote in 2019, even before the Pokemon stuff, embrace your weird. This is the stuff that makes us more relatable as people and makes us more human. And now, without even prompting it, whenever anybody opens a diglett who's watched the channel, they think of me. And it's crazy because now I'm doing marketing in a genuine way that's me and it's relatable and it's like, now I've even had emails from people who say they also had club thumbs and they were very embarrassed, but now they're not anymore. I'm like, what's cool? We're doing like self-help with my thumbs here. Should I open or should I keep it sealed? This is crazy. But yeah, again, just showing up being relatable, trying to be human, not trying to be perfect. Perfectness. Not anything any of us can connect with anymore. We're talking with Pat Flynn, the master of diglett, the club thumb expert. What makes this hobby community so strong? And I mean, you've talked about what's made your stick with how you go at it, but it's a crazy community. Crazy is a good word for it. Yeah, but crazy can be good, right? Crazy, dedicated, crazy in terms of how much they love the thing that they do or the links to they'll go to find the car that they need, all this kind of stuff. It's crazy how much it brings people together. And people of all walks of life, all backgrounds, all ages, we have this common thing. And that's what's beautiful about Pokemon. It brings us all together. It's just the medium at which we're connecting. It's again, a lot deeper than just the cards itself. The letters and the messages that I've personally gotten from people who said it's helped them come out of very dark times, save their lives even. My favorite emails also are the ones that come from families who are like, hey, my son and I had a really hard time bonding over something until we started watching your channel together. And now we watch every Monday on the live streams. It's just amazing. I do, I wasn't going to mention this, but I think it's a great example. There's a kid, Zavian is his name. He's going through some tough times medically. Right now, his father reached out to me. His father's name is Matthew and was like, hey, we're going to be at Rady's Children's Hospital in San Diego. Might there be a chance that you could come by and swing by. And this was just last week. And I swung by and met his family. And like, I really got to know how important the channel and Pokemon was to keeping them happy, joyful during these tough times. And I do that as much as I can. I don't publicize it. That's not what it's for. You know, I don't bring cameras in those spaces. And it's just a private moment. But to get to know who the people are, who are watching, and what it's done for them is really meaningful to me. And I get so much value out of that that I can bring into the next piece of content that I create. And I can't do that for everybody who asked, but I try to do it when I can. And it just shows you that there are levels to the thing that we're doing here because it's not just about the cards. It's about what they mean to us, the memories that are made with them, the friends that are that that we bring along the way. And, you know, people connecting with each other because they happen to have the card that they need. And who would have never met otherwise, who would have just passed each other at the mall and never said anything. Now they have a reason to connect. And this is the thing that we're all craving and needing now, is that connection that's kind of the theme in this conversation I'm feeling that we're always coming back to. Yeah, man, which is pretty cool. I love that you told that story. I appreciate you sharing that. I know that I mean, he's for the right reason. But that's that's that's the real path when, you know, doing real things in real life. It's not just behind the camera. And you went there. I think, I think of like in this one, I want to talk about card party a little bit. It's like the show experience and the real life of all that. I mean, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, Dan Bliss, who does a lot of the biggest sports card shows. And I like Dan and I was, I kind of pushed him a little bit on, you know, just the show need to evolve into more of an experience and not just, you know, the front row. Yeah, front row. Yeah. And I think the cards need to be front and center. But I mean, maybe talk about your perspective or in the sports and Pokemon are different, but still show, there's still a collector communities and similar crossover, like as far as what happens and what that show experience can be. And then maybe blend that in with what you're doing with card party. Yeah. So I went to a couple of card shows when I got into the space and not that I didn't feel welcomed, I felt like registrations easy go in, get to meet vendors and buy sell trade. And then you go home and it's like a cool, I got what I needed. But I was thinking about what it would have been like to bring my kids there. And I would have, they would have, he would have just like tagged along on the side of the side, right? There was really nothing for him to do. And I started thinking like, why isn't there an event that really brings some more entertainment value into this into this space or so much that could happen. I started getting all these ideas like I too, when I get these ideas, I just go, go kind of all in on it. And I had been speaking at events for over a decade. And I've been to many, many, many events. And I started thinking about my favorite events. And they were the ones that had like other activities and things to do on top of like the theme of the event, right? And typically they were kind of more, you know, more formal business informational events. But they were set up in a way that was still great and entertaining because of the connections that were that were happening in these little activities and, you know, fun keynotes and things like that. So I said, well, nobody's done it yet and nobody's going to do it. I might as well do it myself. I'm going to build the event that I'd want to bring my kids to and bring families to and have some fun at. I want an event that's not about me. And maybe not even about the cards necessarily. That's just the the draw that brings them in. But I want it to be about the other creators who are here. This was our bit. One of our big first hypotheses with this event was like if we feature the creators at the event, the other YouTubers and TikTokers, Instagrammers, if we make them the hero of this story, they will be likely to promote it because they're getting featured. And I'm not just talking about the a-listers. They always get featured anyway. What if we reach out to the people who are grinding every day creating videos? They have small but loyal audiences. What would happen if we recognize them and brought them in, put their name on the website, brought them on stage to play some games with us? And it worked. They brought in more people than the a-listers did because they were finally getting that recognition that, again, most people crave and these people have been working so hard and hadn't really gotten that. And so they were they were great. The fans being able to meet them and not just meet them behind a red velvet robe but like see them in the crowd and see them in the wild and see them on stage. Maybe even getting the audience on stage as well with them to connect. And so what we ended up designing was yes, it's a card convention, sure, but we call it card party because it's about the party part. It's about the connection and the fun that we can have. And so the games that we play on stage are very similar to like prices right. If you imagine prices right but without grocery items and instead it's cards and boxes and things like that in the collectible space, then you have our show, Family Feud and Dealer No Deal and all these games that we make up and play, getting the audience involved, yelling at the contestants to try to get the right answer. It's just so much fun. And we bring a little bit of stage show element to it. My producer Dan is a big WWE fan and he's like, we need to make these entrances for these creators feel like, you know, an entrance to, you know, like the entertainer's coming out and it's like brown and it's like, let's just design something that's fun, interactive and engaging. And we've learned a lot. The first year we used to do this thing called Snorlax Time where our team would come out and Snorlax costumes and just start throwing packs and collectibles into the audience and then what ended up happening was it was just got way too dangerous. So we found new ways the next year to kind of make it happen. I had a friend who had an event where he ran this was a business event, but he ran Guinness World Record attempts that the whole audience could get involved with like most people to float down a river on a tube or something like this together. And I was like, how did you do that? And he's like, oh, well, here's here's the number of the guy and we ended up doing a world record at the first card party. Most people opening a trading card game pack simultaneously all at once. And it was over 1,100 people. We all had to put our packs in the air for five seconds, open it and then show the cards and the judge and the adjudicator was there. And then we got the record and we got it presented to us from the guy who was there. And everybody who could go home or everybody who who went home could say they were a world record holder. You know, when it was a cool thing, a cool gift to give to those people who were there in those first couple runs, we decided to stop doing the world record though because it cost $30,000 to do in that sort of setting. It's kind of ridiculous. And yeah, that's how they make their money. But we decided to use that money to do other things that were much better and more interactive. And you know, in the card collectible space. But yeah, we have a couple world records now. But most of all, we've had people come back every single year to meet their friends. I mean, like I was saying earlier, people call it like camp. It's like you see your friends and there's a little friendly competition that happens to you when you get to the again, these are just ideas to make the event fun. When you come to card party, you get put on a team red or blue. The second year, it was ruby or sat or it was ruby or sapphire or gold or silver. And you get put on these teams similar to like Harry Potter and you earn points for like Slytherin or Ravensclaw or you know, Hufflepuff, whatever. Gryffindor needed to say that because y'all would feel left out if I didn't say that. And then you earn points by opening packs, depending on what you get on inside, on stage, the creators and the audience competes for their team. And then at the end, you win a trophy card if you're part of the winning team. And again, it just adds another element to it that makes it more fun and different. We also hire real artists in our space like fan art people who create cards that are then collectible cards at our event. And you have to go to the different places at the event to get them. For example, there's often like an arcade or a crane machine and one of the cards you have to go to that sponsor who has the crane machine. It's great for the sponsor, but it's great for the event too because it forces people to go out there. And that's one of people's favorite parts of the show is collecting these cards. And you know, they have some people come and they get the card party for and they're like, oh my gosh, I have the cards from Card Party 1 and it's pretty cool. And it's designed by people like us. And you know, again, we're adding more and more as much as we can every single time. It's we get like unique songs made that I write for for Card Party and those have been played tens of thousands of times on Spotify now. Just like, what can we do that's different? And a lot of these ideas are coming from the audience members themselves. So, you know, we try to add that fun, you know, the edutainment. It's not even education here at this point. Although we do have, you know, breakout sessions where myself and my producer were teaching YouTube. We're teaching how to do YouTube shorts. We have a couple other creators come up to teach some stuff on their end as well. So we do have those kinds of things. But we've replaced like the boring keynotes at business events with the game show element and it's just been an absolute hit. We have three events this year. We should have like 9,000 people in San Diego. We sold out a thousand tables before the end of the year. And we're already planning into 20, 28, 20, 29 at this point. So, then I'm assuming you believe that card shows in general could come a little further towards the entertainment space. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's a mention versus card shows. I mean, you got card shows that happen, you know, three, four times a year, you know, like Dallas card shows what once a quarter now. I don't know. Well, you have collecticon is 25, 28 times a year or something like that. And that's they've carved out a great space. They have this machine going and it's great. And if you know, you want to go to like a giant convention with cards and meet people vendors and you know, work on your that's great. I love collect con. It's amazing. But it's not the event that I would want to create. And I do feel like a lot of other events can benefit from thinking more about the experiential things that can happen there. That's really how you create super fans. It's not from being transactional, it's being experiential. And that starts before people arrive. You know, one thing we do is we send a video. I film a video for all the attendees before they arrive already welcoming them to the event. I don't know if any other event founders doing that. It's very easy. Go, you should do that. Like I'm not saying, like steal these ideas, please, because it just makes the hobby better for everybody. You know, I create a separate video for the vendors so they know it to expect. You know, this big giant notion board that we have that has all the things you might need about where things are happening and when we give that people ahead of time, we, I don't know, just we put ourselves in the shoes of people coming and we want to make, for example, registrations super smooth as smooth as possible. So this year we invested in a little security machine that you just kind of walk through because I was at Disney World and I saw that and I was like, guys, we need this to make registration easier. How much is it going to cost? Well, $25,000 worth it. Yeah. Absolutely worth it. If people can just walk through and then if there happens to be anything found in the detectors, then they stop versus like, let's look through everybody's bag. Great. Like we need to make it safe. Absolutely. But we also don't want to have people waiting in line before they get into the show for hours. So things like that are really important to us. And only now, finally after three years, have we finally seen some profit from the event? We were under over 100K in that first event because we didn't sell into the hotel rooms that we blocked out because people thought it was like those other events that you can kind of just come in for a day and leave. But people finally realize like, oh, like this thing goes until midnight, 1 a.m. and the hallways people trading on the floors inside the lobby. Like I want to say at the hotel. So next year in Florida, we sold out the hotels very quickly because people now knew, oh, it's kind of like a cruise. You kind of book your space there and you're there with the same people and then you leave. It's not, I mean, there are locals who come in and out every day. But you know, we lost money on that one too because we were learning. We're experimenting. But again, I thankfully have that kind of money to lose so that I can hopefully gain, you know, get some gains down their road. And we're finally seeing some profit now. And part of that is because, you know, sponsors are like, oh, okay, cool. This is a legit event. We weren't sure in the beginning, but yeah, we want to go big with you. So, you know, we're starting to see some more money come in, which is great. And a lot of that's just going back into the experience for people at the event. I love it, man. You're doing so much cool shit and you're still, I mean, dude, y'all are, man, it shows. I think you got time for like a quick rapid fire. Yeah, rapid fire. Let's go. All right. You may have hit one or two of these, but we'll hit them anyway. Favorite Pokemon card. Favorite Pokemon card. I have it here just in case you had that question. It is my Mario Pikachu. Oh, that's why 2016. I bought the whole set in a PSA 10 in 2020, just because I love the card. I had no thought of it ever going up in price. I bought the entire set already graded in a PSA 10 sequential. There's four of them, the Luigi and then the half-arts of each four four hundred dollars. Oh my God. That card right now recently sold for 33k, which is kind of ridiculous. But again, there's no thought of me like going, oh, no, are we at the top? I should, I'm not selling this thing. I don't care what the price is. I don't care if it goes to zero. I love it. Most memorable poll. Most memorable poll. We were opening vivid voltage. And when I say we, it was my kids and I. And we pulled the rainbow chonkachu out of that set. That's the chase. It's not a very expensive card today, but it was what we were looking for. We pulled it together as a family on our dining table. And it was like the craziest thing. The kids were screaming, shouting. It was one of the most fun moments. I ripped probably a hundred thousand dollars in boxes with my kids over like six months. And we had many of those moments. It's the best. The best. Ripper sealed. What would I do or what should you do? What should everyone else do? I don't know. I love my sealed collection. I have a, I have a pretty extensive sealed collection, not just in Pokemon, but in one piece in Lorcanas as well. And I just, I don't have a problem keeping those things sealed, even though there could be something amazing inside. I just love the, again, the sort of Schrodinger's kind of pack or box of what's inside. And, you know, I know as soon as I opened it, it's going to be nothing. But hey, if it's sealed, there's still a chance. Never know. Yeah. So I love still, even though I open packs almost every day on the on the channel. One card you'll never sell. One card. Well, I talked about the Pokemon, the Pikachu already. But the other one will be my Van Gogh Pikachu. I just, again, I picked that one up really early. It's just an amazing piece of art. I love that. There was also another set of Pokemon cards that came out. It was a Pikachu with another card. It was a set of cramorants. It was in a postage stamp collection box. And these are Japanese style paintings on these cards. And the art is incredible. Those are, that's a collection I'll never sell as well. One thing people get wrong about Pokemon. One people, one thing people get wrong about Pokemon. If you like a lot of people when they get into the Tobi, they want to collect everything. And I like to say the riches are in the niches. I say that in my business space. Even though no it's pronounced niche as it doesn't rhyme as well. And what I mean by that is part of collecting is the discipline of saying no to other things so that you can better the collection focus that you have now. You can always collect other things later. But if you spread yourself too thin, like most of us want to do, we collect everything. You're never going to make any progress. You're going to spread yourself and your budget thin. You're going to not know the exact resources you need to finish that set or that series of Pokemon or that particular species of Pokemon. One thing at a time is often the best thing. Maybe adding a second thing in there. But the riches are in the niches. And riches doesn't necessarily even mean riches and dollars. It's riches and joy. Riches in adventure. Those things happen when you have focus. You know, I'm from the south. We can say riches are in the niches. Riches are in the niches. Bad. It's been a blast, man. I love catching up with you. I'm serious about getting those shoes, man. I want you to come here. I know you're busy, man. We'll figure it out in the next year or something. I want to do it. Thank you. We're in the south of you. We're in it's Greenville. We're between Charlotte and Atlanta. It's one of the fastest growing small cities in America. A lot of culture. A lot of cool shit. Well, there's a lot of card stuff going on in Atlanta. I know quite a bit. If I'm ever over there, I'll hit you up. I'll send a carve down. You know, you don't have to move. It's been a blast. Drop everybody. I think a lot of people listening, probably know where to find you. But let's drop those deeds here, everybody. Sure. Deep pocket monster on most social media platforms. Deep pocket monster official on Instagram. TikTok, of course, is there too, but YouTube. And of course, the shorts channel. You probably find me. Should I open it or should I keep it sealed? If you look that up, you'll find my thumbs somewhere. Appreciate your brother. It's been a blast. Thanks, man. Hey, guys. You're going to find us thecollectornation.com. You can download the app and the app store. You can go to the website. It's all there. We'll have links to all of Pat stuff. She's doing some great things. And look, I'll pick up one of his business books if you're in business. I'm going to listen to that episode from three years ago. It's still over a little bit now. Pat's a beast. We appreciate him. We appreciate you. We'll see you next time. Acollectornation. Thanks for tuning into the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us atcollectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at RyanAlford. Now get out there and collect yours.