Collector Nation - Inside VeeFriends: Building a New IP in the Modern Collectibles Market with Zachary Owings

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

In this episode of Collector Nation, Ryan Alford sits down with Zachary Owings from VeeFriends to explore how one of the most talked-about brands in the hobby is being built from the ground up. The conversation dives into the Topps partnership, product strategy, and how VeeFriends is navigating the balance between collectors, investors, and flippers. Zach also shares insight into the future of the hobby, including why fictional IP may play a bigger role than sports cards and how new collectors are entering the market. This episode is a deep dive into where collectibles are headed—and what it takes to build something that lasts. 🔑 Topics Covered VeeFriends brand strategy and growth Topps partnership and distribution Collector vs investor mindset The rise of fictional IP in collectibles Market dynamics and demand 🤝 Connect Ryan Alford 👉 https://www.ryanalford.com 👉 https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanalford Zachary Owings 👉 https://www.instagram.com/zacharyowings 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyowings VeeFriends 👉 https://veefriends.com

Gary's Trojan horse is V-Friends. Define for me at its core what V-Friends is. V-Friends was always Gary's way of how can he break through walls that his content as a human can't break through. In a world of no new IPs are truly being built, Gary and V-Friends are trying to do that. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network, whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs. You take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey, what's up guys?

Welcome, Collector Nation. We've got Zachary Owing's lead global partnership and also relationships with Vee friends. I had to say it once, Zach. I'm going to call you Zach. Look, all my buds, I have like five friends named Zach. I don't know how it is. It's my most popular friend name. One that I grew up with.

And so I just got to call you Zach. Either way, you're crushing it, man. Appreciate you coming on the show. I'm very honored to be here. And, you know, growing up, I used to think Zach and Zach was like an exclusive name. And that as I've gotten older, everybody's fucking named Zach and Zachary.

So I'm really pissed at my parents in a real way that they could have gave me a little bit better of a name. But I'll make it better when I have kids to give them a more distinct, unique name. But it's a real pleasure. And I'm pumped up for the conversation. Yeah, man. Last thing I'll say about names, but every Zach I know is cool as shit.

So, and so far, our interactions with you and VFriends has been nothing but that. So take that for what it's worth. What's cooking in Manhattan today, man? It's a semi-cold, gloomy day in New York, but it's a busy day in the VaynerMedia VFriends office right now. We're kind of simultaneously launching two kind of new pre-sale. products all while, you know, we have Tops Chrome kind of floating in the balance, which is coming out June 10th. So we're super fired up about that. It's going to be year two.

Tops is really on board with us now. We're getting a broad release of Sapphire this year. So we're working hard and we're really trying to build it and really build, you know, distinct new categories that we believe in and see, you know, all while, you know, we have the greatest partnership in IP and the collectible space can have right now. And that's what Tops. So we're fired up and we're honored and excited to talk today. Damn. You said about 12 things right there, Zach, that could lead me down like seven different rabbit holes. I'm like, okay, usually somebody says something.

I cue in on like one thing. You said like 12 things. The top's relationships big. I mean, they have all the sports licenses that matter now, it seems. Yeah. I'm just going to call a spade a spade. Yeah. And now they've got your franchise, you've had killer releases with them.

I mean, I couldn't even get the shit last year. Like, I mean, I was like, you know, I got a few boxes. I was like, hey, I'll be able to go back and no. I couldn't even find it. I ended up getting in the secondary market, but crushed it with them so far with the Chrome releases. What's it like working with tops? It's great. But I think, you know, where people, you know, I think what people don't understand about the

Tops relationship is that we're two different businesses. We are the licensee. We are not Tops. Tops does not own V-Friends. Gary does not own Tops. There is no, there is no business. Because, you know, it's, you know, people were kind of coming at us last year.

Not you, but like other partners were like, well, you know, you guys have the license. You should have got me more product. And it's like we, we can only do so much with a licensee. And, you know, and that was really like, lack of a better term was like a beta test for Topps to see if V friends actually had the juice and the demand and the collectors to actually be a Topps license. We obviously smacked it out of the ballpark as a team. Gary's sitting at the helm of anything in the collectible space.

We feel like we're in a position to do a lot. And then obviously Gary and Michael Rubin's relationship, you know, at the highest level is, you know, in a great place. So working with Topps is amazing. They're the best partners. And we're happy to have them, you know, push. us and kind of leading us into this next frontier of the hobby into VFriends. And as we continue to, you know, develop products with Tops, hopefully in more categories,

like I said earlier, we have Chrome and Sapphire, you know, hopefully in a couple of years, that'll expand to more things because that's more distribution and more stores. You know, the biggest thing for us and what's been really hard, growing VFriends is really the footprint, you know, because everything we've come out with has been actually so, successful that it sells out so fast. So when you go back to the store in a month, the product isn't there. And so we're trying to still balance, like, how do we play this volume game? And as we grow demand, obviously tops, you know, a tops box sitting on the shelf won't last very long in the world we live in, especially if it's like an appropriate price. Two, you know, how we think

about, you know, our products outside of tops, you know, our super stickers, our pins, our treasure chest, you know, we're coming out with literally a collectible coin product as we, as we speak, because collectible coins are the fastest growing live shopping product. And we're like, okay, well, how do you keep that with the volume of like, we don't want to ever overprint demand. We need to keep demand in the system all while we're continuing to grow the pot. And we feel like our Trojan horse in the best way possible is our Topps license. We think that's only going to do great for our.

our brand and having V friends attached to that is great. And we think more people who don't know V friends or maybe don't like V friends or don't like Gary, we'll give it a second look when they see that. And we get the buy accident customers that then become massive collectors. Yeah. But very insightful there, by the way. I'm sitting there going, wow, this is a very thoughtful answer. And very, and I followed every bit of it.

It also brought up another 12 things. But let me, uh, let's start with this. just, Zach, I had to go there since you brought up tops, but I've known Gary a long time. You know, Gary's been out there. He's like the king. He started probably the, I guess I call him the godfather of like personal branding, you know. I mean, I don't know who. If you're giving it to anybody else, I probably would, you know, go, you're full of shit.

He's built, I mean, obviously a global brand around his name and then all these offshoots. define for me at its core what VFriends is and where you guys are sitting in the hobby space and, you know, and dovetail that maybe into, you know, Gary's brand, et cetera. So I'm going to take the second thing you said first and then I'm going to go into the other ones. Perfect. VFriends is a very niche community and product. Let's call it what it is. It is a new IP and a world of there's zero new IPs being built.

Marvel, Disney, DC, and these aren't like, I'm not being negative towards them. They have a business. They're doing projections. If they know Lilo and Stitch number two is going to sell rather than this new IP, why wouldn't you do that? If I can guarantee you $2 billion in sales to do this or you have no idea what is going to happen in XYZ IP, what are you going to do? It's just business at the end of the day. in a world of no new IPs are truly being built, Gary and V friends are trying to do that. We're trying to do almost the impossible in a lot of ways.

And Gary compares VFriends to trying to be Pokemon. Pokemon's the most successful IP of all time sitting at $100 billion. It's going to be hard to ever come close, but we feel like if we can get close enough to the sun, we will have a good enough market share to have a real business and be able to do really what Gary wants to do, which is back to the word, because my favorite word these days with V friends and talking Gary is always Trojan horse. Gary's Trojan horse is V friends. Like you just said, Gary's kind of the godfather of personal branding. Gary's content is always motivational, how to run your business, process, you know, take your feelings out of it, do right by your employees.

You know, if you're depressed, stop doing the shit, get away from the negative people. Like that type of content and the stuff he talks about. For some people it works. When I discovered Gary, I was like, damn, this motherfucker's like saying some real shit. Like I should like look myself in the mirror. Some people close to me when I first followed Gary and before I even worked for him, I was putting people on there and people like, why would you follow this dumbass? And so like, okay, Gary doesn't work for those people.

But there's some people Gary will work for. So V Friends was always his way of how can he break through walls that his content as a human can't break through. And we feel like the collectible of the friends, whether it's patient panda and notorious ninja or motivated monster or kind warrior, we feel like if we can build enough with tops, with our comic books, with other collectibles we come out with, with the TV show, with the children's book, with toys, that we feel like we'll slowly start to break through the walls that his content can't break through. And that at the end is like what we want to be.

We want to be somewhere where we can help inspire people, motivate people, help parents to become better parents, help kids understand that like, shit, I should be kind to my brother and sister. I should be kind to my parents. I should thank them for buying me the $500 baseball bat that most people don't have the money for. And I understand that that's a privilege and I should be thankful for that. So that's really what V friends is trying to be. I know Gary likes to compare it as like Pokemon meets Sesame Street. I think that is the best analogy. But at the end of the day, we're just trying to be V friends. We're trying to create our own kind of, I would say niche or market share within the hobby because the hobby is only growing bigger and

bigger. And I think as we continue to develop, you know, it's not a hobby anymore. This is a business. There's billions and billions and billions of dollars floating around. And private equity is like three seconds away from starting to buy Michael Jordan and PSA 10 Cinderella super fractors as an investment. you know, as their one, two, three, four percent investment portfolio because their performance is 400 percent a year or over five years and the SMPs 20 percent. So we're so close to having so much money pour into that. So we think a rising tide lifts all boats and we think Vee friends will

be part of that. Plus, we also feel like with Gary and Tops and with building real cool collectibles and getting people to fall in love with the characters via the comic books, we're in a great position to succeed. Yeah.