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

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

SUMMARY In this episode of the "Trading Cards and Collectibles" podcast on the Radcast Network, host Ryan Alford welcomes Brian Ludden, co-founder of Ludex, as his new co-host. They discuss the evolution of the trading card hobby, the impact of technology like the Ludex app, and the importance of community among collectors. Brian shares insights into market trends and the app’s features, while both hosts highlight how collecting connects people of all ages. The episode wraps up with an invitation for listeners to join the community and share their own collecting stories. TAKEAWAYS Evolution of the trading card hobby Role of technology in enhancing the collecting experience Community aspect of trading card collecting Personal stories related to family involvement in the hobby Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trading card interest Development and features of the Ludex app Data insights and market trends from Ludex scans Importance of informed decision-making for collectors Social interactions and relationship-building through trading cards Future of trading cards and collectibles in relation to technology and community engagement  

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 us, we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect. Do they buy? Do they sell?

Is it new? Is it old? I can make someone an expert in five seconds when they scan a card. What parallel? Boom. It's pink laser. Whatever it is, you become empowered. Welcome to the trading cards and collect.

Podcast on the Radcast Network, from chasing Grails to Colin Bluffs and 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 Rights. I got some of my favorite shoes. I've got one of my best buddies now.

Brian Luddin from LuddX, who is with me, joining me now, co-hosting with me here. I was like, 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 bad ass tech companies in the whole hobby. I'm like, Ryan, we got to do this together, man. So he's here. What's up, Brian? What's up, buddy?

How are you doing? Thanks for having me. And I look forward to, you know, so many, so many of these conversations that we're going to have that you and I would have organically that, you know, now we can share with the public. And they might find it boring, but I know you and I love to rip. So it's perfect. No, we're going to make it good. Hey, they want the organic stuff. And that's what's been, you know, awesome about Ryan 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 Right About Now, 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 like this guy. And been to shows together, hanging out, the Loddx Lounge. So it's been cool, man. And that's what I love about the hobby,

man. There's something about it that it brings people together. It has, you know, the nostalgia and everything like from growing up. But I don't know. The good guys just shine through like you. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's the same like bringing people, quality people in the, in the hobby, in the industry, whatever we want to call it. You know, getting you in here with a business mind, marketing mind, branding mind.

I mean, that's what that's how this industry is going to elevate, right? And the beautiful thing about this industry that I found out is. A nine-year-old kid could talk to a guy that was worth $100 million and trade cards. It's like 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. I want 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 a story. 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.com. 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'll feature you on Collectibles show. Yeah, the whole standards, every norm that we kind of norm that have that sort of falls. Like, not 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. Like, 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 if I ran in the, you know, an executive that I know, my son's going to sit there and try to act on his best behavior so that, you know, his dad doesn't, you know, kill him when 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. 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 though like, hey, you know, is Earl 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 the beautiful part of it. I mean, 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 I think that carries on. And I've seen him migrate from 9 to 14.

And the comfortability that he has with adults, it permeates, it's teachers, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, 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 of that. And I love where it's going. I mean, getting guys like you in and our brand, which the tech side of it and what fanatics is doing and how card shops are evolving. I, this is just the beginning of another growth spur, in my opinion, for this industry, may be 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 a programming note, you know, Brian is an official co-host now with me on the show, trading cards and collectibles, powered by LuddX.

I'm going to let Brian talk more, If you haven't heard of Lodex, 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, empowering collectors. Brian would do more justice to that. But Brian and I have met, and I'm like, Brian, we got to do this together. So Brian, every Friday would 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 getting into 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 Lodex is knee deep in all of this and so many layers, which 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 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 Lodex is doing and how they're empowering collectors.

So, Brian, I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that and everything, politics 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 would have 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 everyday. Yeah, it's an idea, right? And like, if you want to take an idea to, to market and be successful, you have to be nimble, you have to check your ego and pride at the door, you've got to make mistakes and then fix them quickly. And you've got to have a team around you that I'm 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 wouldn't say I'm just not a good employee. That's the easiest way to say it. I was not winning any awards or getting a parking space, you know, at the front door. Yeah. No employee in the year awards. Yeah, no, I know. I know I wasn't even on the ballot. I don't think. They acquired my company. I was there for three years. And during that time, when COVID hit, I saw prices of cards 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 he started buying the OGs, like the Jordans. And basketball started

coming up. And then it became headline news. And so I go get my junk wax stuff. My son's nine, like I mentioned, and we're looking at this stuff, and I'm like, eh, there's not a lot here. So we buy a new pack. I open the pack. I'm like, what the hell is this? Like, 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 punt this thing, man. Frustration's going this way. 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 wasn't, man. And I went to a few people. And they're like, no, that doesn't exist.

That would 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. And then I got my wife on board, who was the president of Lodax and co-founder. And she just runs for Lodax. She does everything that I saw.

at. It's a lot. She does a lot. I can attest to that. Not you, but myself, too. I'm a wife. There's a lot of things better than me. That's why we married him, right? Yeah, exactly. So then, you know, it took a while. So I put a deck together, raised some capital from friends and family. And I was, I was blessed being on the trading floor with 400 guys. Your reputation, everything down there. That's it, right? You make a trade with someone, I can lose a quarter million dollars in 15 minutes and be like, ah, that's up. Like, I have, that has to happen. That trade is good. And so I was able to raise over $5 million in 45 days, which was pretty insane friends and family. And that got Luddx started. And I would say, you know, as Luddx, what we want to be is we want to be the first line

when people enter the hobby, they want information, I want knowledge. I can make someone an expert in five minutes, five seconds when they scan a card. What parallel? Boom.

It's a 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 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, I don't know if I should get in this industry or not. Let's help people, right? And yeah, so it's like really it's about Luddux helping people. So scanning the card as simple as it gets. You take a picture of a card.

We tell you what it is. You can put in a digital, your portfolio, your collection. We're going to have sharing collections soon. You can list it on eBay through Luttex. 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 segmented, fractured. I could not believe, Ryan, that Beckett magazine was still relevant.

Yes. And look, Brian, here's the deal. Call it serendipity. Whatever 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 way of doing that and starting to really think about, okay, what do we have here? What if we opened?

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 LuddX and I go, and one braining sharp, this looks like the most put together of them. I hope the tech lives up to it. And it did. It was easily 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 already, you know, because at that time when I met, Brian, we were in it. I mean, we're in it now, but it's fact, 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 them,

Lodex app, if you go, because when you swipe up, it shows you your most commonly used app. Lodex is sitting there, 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 an interesting technology, man. I didn't realize how complex until I talked 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 Lodex 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'll probably be interesting to people. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's everything you said. It's, it's, 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, I got to get there.

I had no choice at some point, right? 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 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 Linux to be a new brand in this industry. Like there was no tech revolution. Nothing's happened in this industry. I want our brand to be top of line.

So if we 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 it to be the best. And it's not an arrogance thing. It's a brand thing. Like, we have to be, if we go out and set ourselves to be a leader in this industry 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, It's 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 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 prism in front of them. He's like, it 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 red. 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 app picture taking and 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 we can make money in this industry? Third, what's the competitive landscape look like?

And four, can you raise capital? I mean, during COVID, it was easy, but it got really, really hard. to raise capital, valuations, especially in the VC, early seed VC, just, I mean, they 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 Loddx and this didn't work. Well, what's the data tell us? Why didn't work? Okay, fixed. You know, and so I kind of try to stay non-emotional and trading for 25 years using my own

capital. I think you'll 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 Lodex 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.

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. But you guys will be the first to know. I'll tell you, it's usable right now. Like there's a little things, and we've talked about Ryan's team's work on it. But it's, it's nine-tenths 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 10x, 20 X, 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, I mean, I think we put like 2,000 graded 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, Ryan. Like, eBay ballpark,

if you look at their numbers, is doing like $4 billion in GMA for sports and trading cards. It takes three minutes to put a card on it, and they're still doing it. Exactly. Yeah. Imagine that.

We have Maddie Rich, who's actually on the show, was the guest this week. is awesome. He's got a really great. I'd say nine out of 10. If you compare LCS's, he's doing as good a job as anybody. However, there's a lot of room and opportunity for card stores in the hobby. It's, you know, we've got all this tech. We've got all these advancements in some ways. 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 kind of 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 Rangers Stadium. Yeah, that's a great opportunity. I mean, you know, some of this, sometimes things just work out, you know, and I threw out the first pitch last Friday at Ranger Stadium. the ownership group and invested in Lovacs and the Neil Leibman, one of the owners, said, Brian, will be the best partners that you have. And he's led us at a Luddlest card day. We sponsored with Beckett. We partnered with Beckett.

We gave out 8,500 packs of cards to everyone that came in. And then I got to throw out the first pitch. And then he, Neil's like, I want to open up a card shop. And I want it to be right there in the same. 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, across the street from World Life, which that campus, if you're ever down there, you have the Cowboys, Rangers, Hotel, bars. It's just amazing. So let's talk, man. Let's talk

data. We've got some interesting points. This is going to be probably, we'll be leaning a lot more into this. Obviously, we want you guys listen to show. You know, know our background. This is how this stuff comes to life. This is what Letix 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 to talk a lot more about what this data enables.

It's 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 its surface to go, okay, that's a collector that wants to know all the cards that he has and the values they have. But 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?

Whose values are going up? And that's just the very top line. You can cut it 100 different ways. That's what's going to be exciting about what we can bring to life, integrating that Lodex technology into the show. Yeah, and there's a couple of things my team put together. is, well, you said it right. Like, when we have, you know, 300 billion or more scans that have been scanned in Lodd's,

we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect. Do they buy? Do they sell? Is it new? Who are you obsessed with? Yeah. We wouldn't believe some of these numbers when I bring them out of,

like, how many Tom Brady cards is one guy has? It's like 40,000, you know, like, four passionate people about everything. But here's some, let's relevant. If you look at the NFL, so the three highest movers as of yesterday. And there won't there, there's one surprise in here, I would not have guessed. So number one, Daniel Jones. Yeah.

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 Luttefs 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. So that range yours a little.

So when you gave those stats, so top three, Daniel Jones, Justin Herbert and Roma Dunzee. And if for anybody that does He doesn't know, you should know, but that's Chicago Bears wide receiver. He played at Washington with Michael Pinnock's, and he is Caleb Williams' favorite target, and he should be, and I'm high on Caleb Williams. I know he's up and down, but I think he's a dude. Yeah, I hope so. 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 uh sync up and get some QR yeah exactly it's gonna be easy to solve you know like one i mean sometimes i'm like you said i think sometimes they 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 is 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 if Beckett, then they'll go to CCG. And like eventually, I think it's kind of PSA will, in the, it's short term, long term, midterm, whatever it is, always holds a premium. But I think you're going to see those other company is starting to 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 a month going into buy graded product for repacks, digital, digital packs, whatever you call them. It's a massive, massive part of the industry.

Yeah. We'll talk more about that in the future. Here's what Genex back. Brian and I are recording this every Wednesday for the Friday release. So every Friday, Brian and Ryan here on trading cards and collectibles powered by Luddex. And look, Luddix isn't about sponsorship. This is about ingredients within the show because we're going to bring these stories to life so that we enable and empower you and you're collecting and kind of seeing like behind the scenes. And look, you get to live vicariously through Brian and I when we get to all these shows. And we'll bring it to life and, hey, you need to come on the road and see us.

You know, it's just, we let our hair down. We'll just say that. And what's left of it? I've got some, buddy. You got some. I've got mine on the hat here. And I was being on something. And look, hey, send you a message.

I'll strong arm Brian into 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 love you, Brian. Appreciate you, 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 evolves and see how this evolves. And, you know, taking feedback in questions from people and watching this is awesome because we want you and I are people. And we want to interact. So this is about totality of the industry. So thanks so much for this opportunity. And I look forward to every Wednesday.

L-U-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 Lut-X team. Hey, I'm on the team now. Brian, I'm on the team now. This is us. It's not a lot. It's not a you. Yes, go to the app store.

Get that. Lodex.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 Ron. and every Friday. We'll see you next time on the show. Thanks for tuning in to 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.com or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Olford. Now get out there and collect yours.