Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Creating his own Breaks - The Booming Hobby Series w/ Jason Koonce

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.Resources:Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford interviews Jason Koonce, founder and CEO of OTIA, about the evolution of the sports trading card hobby. Jason shares his journey from childhood collector to industry leader, discussing the impact of technology, card grading, and live shopping platforms on the market. The conversation highlights the growing investment potential of cards, the importance of community, and the influence of social media. Jason offers insights for both new and experienced collectors, emphasizing the enduring excitement and camaraderie within the hobby.TAKEAWAYSThe evolution of the trading card hobby, particularly sports cards.Jason Koonce's background and journey in card collecting.The impact of technology and the internet on the trading card market.The significance of card grading and its influence on card values.Changes in consumer behavior and market dynamics over the years.The role of social media and content creators in shaping the hobby.The rise of repacking cards and its implications for collectors.The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trading card market.The importance of community and camaraderie among collectors.Future trends and innovations in the trading card industry.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So that was my first big money making was just straight grading. And after a few years, the next level was how can we put fuel on this fire? This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to right about now. Hey, you know, we're getting back to business here. We've been in the middle of our trading card extravaganza, as I call it.

It's opening the eyes and the ears to the world of the hobby. I got introduced to Jason, our next guest, through a mutual friend. We had a conversation that was supposed to be five minutes into being 55 or two hours. I don't even know. Now, I'm going to just call him a brother from another. He is Jason Kuntz. He is the founder and CEO of OTIA. I'm going to let him give that acronym and what it all means. He's just a sports card, past, present, future junkie. What's up, Jason?

What's up, man? So happy to be with you today, Ryan. Hey, I appreciate it. I loved our convo a few weeks ago and Darren Prince, a mutual friend, was like, you gotta talk to Jason. You gotta go to the expert. I'm like, well shit, we'll get him on. Get on the phone, like, we're just gonna shoot the shit, talk about maybe what we could talk about. Next thing I know, I don't know,

we're talking about our kids and traveling and sports cards and everything. Two hours later. Exactly, man. Where's home? Michigan. We're just big Michigan Wolverine fans. So we're about 10 minutes north of Ann Arbor here in Michigan.

Go blue. Go blue, man. One team international agency, OTIA. We're going to dig into it. Let's set the table on the past a little bit. Jason's in the in the trading hobby, sports entertainment, a little bit of everything. Maybe tell us a little bit about OSHA and you know your legacy in the cards. Well I mean this kind of started as a kid you know like most

people when they're nine ten years old they're collecting cards they're going to their shop. I was pretty into business from a young age, nine, 10 years old, I'm going out shoveling snow, seven, eight hours a day, building up a couple hundred bucks. So I had that part down into making money. And then the unfortunate part was I would end up at the card shop blowing all my money on packs.

And at the end of the day, kind of leaving with just a bunch of stories of opening packs all day and then back at it the next day. In the summer, mowing lawns in the winter, shoveling snow. Yeah, literally for the last 30-some years, this is all I've done is sports cards, autographs, memorabilia. The big thing changed for me, especially at a very young age is 30 years ago when you

went into a card shop, there wasn't the internet. They were under control. They set the prices. It is what it is. It's a lot. We'll get into it, but it's a lot different with card shops today. They need to be much more on point and follow the pricing and everything. So yeah, for first year or two, starting off, I'm stuck in these card shops and there's not a lot of negotiating. What really caught my eye was when I discovered card shows, when it was more of like the negotiating, the bulk deals and going from table to table, the flippy and the hustling. And I started doing this really young, like nine, 10, 11 years old. And I haven't looked back since. So yeah, from starting off there to where we are today, it's been pretty wild

to see this grow over the past 30 years. You bring up a great point and it's kind of some meta connotations and I don't mean like the company and it's mean like the way the internet and information and knowledge has empowered so many industries and so much change. Because I remember growing up and going to the guy how big a dickheads were this card shop owners of the eighties I mean I hate to sort of put everybody in the bucket but they were everyone in my my town in South Carolina were jerks you know like you go in there they like you said they're not they didn't negotiate they hold all the cards literally

and it just all seemed like they didn't give two shits if you were there or not Yeah, you can't yeah, and that's basically it's like they had a monopoly like whatever prices They said is if you wanted it and you had nowhere else to go It wasn't like you were you know, the next card shop is probably a few hours away. So if you wanted No internet, I mean early early on for me like, you you know like AOL message boards in like 95-96 I started to dabble on the internet, but it was like you know just so new compared to what we have today Yeah, and you know trying to get a value on something. I remember going to the Beckett book You know page 78 going to find the value of my 87 tops cow Ripken

It was 87 cents today. It's 91 cents next month. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's going off the Beckett. And honestly, like I haven't used the Beckett in 20 years. So that just shows if anybody's like tuning in that, you know, collected cards as a kid, like Beckett was like the Bible. You know, everybody went off of Beckett and now, you know, everyone's got real time pricing apps with all apps with all the technology that's come to life with the market. Beckett is long gone as far as pricing goes. It opened it up, but it did change. I'm glad it forced the local trade shops or card shops to be more consumer-friendly. We're blessed. We had the largest dealer here in South Carolina and upstate in Greenville. Matty Rich, awesome guy. Salt of the Earth guy and runs a beautiful shop that takes care of his

customers. I don't know if he represents every single person. I'm sure you still have your, some you like, some you don't, but it has leveled the playing field between consumer It does. It has sort of leveled the playing field from between consumer and shop owner, because everyone's I've had it. We've been having these car shows like it my space here. You know, we've got 5000 square feet. We've been doing little trade nights and stuff like that. And even my nine year old, you ain't getting nothing by my nine year old. Like he's over here. They're all walking around informed. They got their apps out. It's like everybody knows exactly what the cards

are selling for the last 24 hours. Right? And that's one of the cool things. Like the big advantage I had kind of in the 90s was like, right now, like you said, everyone's got pricing data in front of them. But really back then, you know, it was really like

who had the best memory of what stuff was worth in real time? You could buy a deal at one booth and walk 15 booths over and flip the deal and make money. It's such a different world. I mean, it's literally, and another thing we'll talk about is in the mid-90s, and this is kind of where I got lucky, the internet coming intos, and this is kind of where I got lucky, the internet coming

into play, grading. Grading is like just almost mandatory now. I remember being at shows in the mid-90s and the head guy at PSA, which is the main grading company at the time, was a guy named Steve Rocky, and he would come booth to booth and try to convince you on why you should grade your cards with PSA and You have a lot of these old-time dealers that are like fuck. Yeah, I don't need I don't need your opinion I don't need you and and nobody really got it Yeah, and I was this younger guy who just like I was like this is gonna be big and I just kind of bought in and I started grading at like 15 years old really young and just

eventually became one of PSA's I was PSA's biggest submitter for several years, but Timing I mean I worked my ass off but like I have to put some of the you know The timing you know It's like if I was coming big into the market rate when grading was taken off Right when the internet boom was taken off like this was the perfect storm for cards in that era for me. How was money made then for you and the arms and legs where you made money in the industry and maybe the industry as a whole versus today? Yeah, so it's a massive difference. I mean, I've always shifted my business

to kind of go with what's hot at the time. And you know, grading was so new, but the margins were so, and you know, they're still today, I mean, a perfect example, we'll take, you know, Michael Jordan rookie card. You know, now today in an eight, that's like a seven, 8,000-hour card,

and a nine, that's 20,000, and in a eight, that's like a seven, 8,000 our card and a nine that's 20,000 and in a 10 that's 200,000. So the same multipliers, you know, took place in the late nineties. We weren't dealing with higher, as high a dollar figure cards, but the multipliers were there. So, you know, to buy cards ungraded and grade them,

you know, you could tend to a hundred extra money. So it almost didn't matter. Like if you found stuff and had a good eye that was not graded and were able to get it graded and high grade, we were working on like dream margins. And it didn't even matter when you messed up because we made it up on five other deals that did. Yeah. So, and I was just kind of born into like a gambling family, I guess. So I've always been a degenerate. But this was a way to like early on channel my degenerate gambliness into something that was like heads I win really big, tails I break even or lose a little bit. So I kind of just went all in

and there wasn't a lot of competition. Like there was only a few people doing this. You know, it was so new. And now like you go to a show, 10,000 people, everyone's trying to find stuff to grade. And the reality is, especially when it comes to vintage cards, back then, high grade stuff was everywhere that you could buy. Now it's all dried up, it's all graded.

So that was my first big money making, was just straight grading. And after a few years, the next level was, okay, how can we put fuel on this fire? And it was, everybody thought once the car was graded, like it is what it is. Like a nine, everybody saw a nine in a holder and they just assumed, okay, like that's a nine.

They didn't realize the human element of this, that, you know, on a Tuesday, the grader may give it a nine, but now on Friday, he's in a better mood, it's off the weekend, it's close, maybe it's a 10. So now I kind of took a different mood, it's off the weekend, it's close, maybe it's a 10. So now I kind of took a different approach to like walking around these shows, looking at stuff that was already graded and like high grade, and I'm analyzing like all these

nines in real time, and I'm accumulating just like massive quantities of nines that I thought were on the fence. You crack them? So I'm like crack, I'm cracking it. And like Jordan, for example, like I've hit a lot of 10 Jordans But I mean I've cracked out hundreds and hundreds of nines. So you have cards that are like right there on the bubble They're like nine point seven nine point eight and you crack out fifteen or twenty of those you get 110 You know, you just you kill it. So like I said same time like late 90s there's three or four people doing that now there's three thousand people doing it and

that was really what kind of put me into a different level of financially like early on and the whole grading. Is that still doable today? No, yes and no. Like it's a- You could probably still do it, but the multiplier is not as high probably.

So you gotta remember, like if you come across like a Jordan rookie, unless it was a freshly discovered from a new collection, there's a good chance that things already been looked at 10 times. Like if it's a nice nine, there's a reason it's in a nine. People like me and then everybody else in like the last 25 years, they've all looked at that car and like, you know, like they're like, can this nine go to a 10 or like, so like the game's already been played. So there's just no inventory out there. So I would say it's, I guess it's there technically, but when you take the competition and also add in the fact that, I mean,

I don't do it anymore, let's put that. So like- But what about newer cards? Do you still have the Delta? I mean, like in a- Well, here's the other thing is the grading fees. When I was grading cards in the late 90s, like I was paying like five, six bucks.

And now if you go to grade a high dollar card with PSA, you might spend 10,000 because they're based enough of value now. So it's just all the fun has been taken out of the game. So I probably since 2017 haven't really, I went from grading 25 to 50,000 cards a month and being PSA's biggest submitter for several years to maybe grade like 2,000 cards a year now if that I mean I'm looking at it a little bit that way but also just Having foeman my boys. So trying to find both. I think we're finding the line we have we're having more fun than making money I'll say that so far

But yeah, I do see a clear path with what I do know and the people I know like Jason Coons That there could be money to be made, you know, so it's been there's okay with it. That's fine it's more just It's a lot of work like at these shows man, like Holy shit with every kid and every person like you said It's not like that. I don't want anyone to be informed slacking, take advantage of someone that man it's, it's almost exhausting the constant deal making. Like it's because everybody thinks they know exactly what something's worth

and they do, but I don't know when everybody's a pro, it's a little annoying, you know, it's different now. I mean, it was so easy for so, like almost too easy to the point where when COVID hit, everybody kind of had time to like pull out their old cards and get back into it. And I think a lot of smart people realized, a lot of business minds like yourself, they all came in and they're like,

this business is like, it was so unprofessional and everybody saw these opportunities. So like within the last couple of years, we've seen so many apps come out, so many business changes. Nothing changed from 2019 back. It was basically the same. Now there's just so much innovation, which is good, but it's brought in a lot more smart people, a lot of business people that have come in. They've added fees to different stuff and like you said, taking some of the fun away.

But it's turning into, it was already a real asset class. One of the major things for COVID was, I've always been bullish on cards, probably 70% of my net worth is in cards and memorabilia. But there was always in the back of my mind, like, am I crazy having this type of money invested in this? And I was confident, but really when COVID hit, like the confidence boost for me went Why crazy having this type of money invested in this? I was confident, but really when COVID hit, the confidence boost for me went from 70% to 100% when if you asked me what could tear down our business is if you took away sports

off TV, basically everything that happened in the beginning, if you took all that away, I'm like the card market market's gonna crash 99%. And there was like this six week gap where, I guess not just cards, but the whole world was kinda in limbo. And I was panicking. I had a lot of money, but all on paper and in inventory. And then out of nowhere,

you just see the market just go like this and then just take off. And that for me was, it was good on multiple levels financially, but also just like the feeling of knowing, okay, like this has been cemented as a real asset class and nothing's gonna, I don't wanna say nothing, but like this is, it is what it is.

Like people, this is now, you know, watches, gold coin. I mean, this is like a real asset, you know? And you see people shifting money out of the stock market into some of these massive, like million dollar cards because they believe in sports cards more than they do the stock market or some of the other, you know, bullshit going around. So that's been really exciting for me to see just being in it from the very beginning to where we're at now.

It's pretty awesome just to, you know, kind of can get confirmation that we're here to stay. Watching now, because I'm, and this is me like with the kids and kind of looking at the industry, the YouTube factor. You've got these influencers and guys opening packs. Not talking about like selling and whatnot. Come out just the opening packs on YouTube. You got King of Cards, Kyle Kyle kind of building his little brand up. This is not unique to trading cards. This is the smart people in any industry have figured out that attention is money and you pay the internet is your oyster and the social media is your oyster. What's your take on all of that and the impact on the industry. So two things, one, to me personally,

it's so wild to think that, like going back to the early 2000s, we didn't have cameras at shows, we didn't have iPhones obviously, but like the thought of filming at a card show was so, like it was, when people asked you what you did for a living, like it was embarrassing to tell them you bought and sold sports cards.

Yeah. Usually they would hear sports cars and then you wouldn't correct them because like that's cool. And so it's like it's completely shifted. And to get you know people say I can't believe you don't have content from the show is like dude we were not in a content world to begin with, and then on top of it, we didn't want people to, you know. It wasn't even a thought in our minds.

No secret, you weren't letting those trade secrets out. Yeah, like, well the secrets and just like, you know, it's like, you're not gonna pick up chicks telling people you buy and sell baseball cards. So, you know, fast forward 20 years, everybody's doing it, now it's cool. So, to me, that's just such a shift to see it go from like zero to 100 as far as a cool factor goes.

So that's part one. The second part of your question is, what do I think about it? And like, all these guys, you know, a lot of these guys are newer too. Like they saw the, you know, there's a chance to make authors content, there's click bait, you know, there's stuff, there's ways to make money through the content obviously. So a lot of these guys, they're not experts, they've come into the hobby in 2018, 2017, 2019. So they don't know a lot, they know enough to kind of talk about it. So some of the information is just the blind leading the blind as far as like these are new people talking about cards.

With that being said, I think the guys that have good intentions, it's good. It's all positive. The guys that are negative, like whatever, like you know, it's clickbait, you know, it's whatever. I don't think that someone's, you know, if someone's new to the hobby, like that's their first experience, it's not good. So all the guys that are putting out good content, I think it's growing the hobby. I like seeing it.

I know a lot of those guys, they're good, they're good people. So I think it's growing the hobby. I like seeing it. I know a lot of those guys. They're good people. So I think it's a net positive overall. I think it gets watered down a little bit when you got guys who don't know what the hell they're talking about. But I think the really big guys at least have an idea of the hobby and stuff. So it's just mind blowing to me. I'd rather watch some new guys video for 15 minutes just to kind of, I'm always trying to stay in the loop.

Like even with the new guys that work for me I'm always picking their brain because I don't keep up on them there's so much new stuff coming out daily like it's crazy you know I know the vintage better than most some of the newer stuff it's hard to keep up with so I'm trying to sponge all this in yeah it's different especially coming up when you did like you you said, it was just the last thing you'd think of wanting to amplify is either by reputation or by giving your competitors your behind the scenes. Speaking of crazy stories, here's a perfect example. 1986 for basketball, like the Holy Grail of basketball, you

know, Jordan's rookie in the early 2000s, boxes of that were about 12 to 15,000. And now they're like 150,000. We were buying those and cracking them. And the people that were selling them to us or me and you know, people I was working with, is they thought we were just getting smoke. They felt bad. They sell us these boxes, we were opening them. And they kind of felt like we were just these young guys getting smoked. They felt bad. They'd sell us these boxes, we were opening them, and they kind of felt like we were just these young guys getting screwed. They didn't realize how clean 86 Flur basketball came out of the packs, and we were grading this stuff

and making a fortune. And we just played the dumb role for like two or three years of like, yeah, I just really like opening this product. But like a box that I paid 12,000 for, I'll make worst case scenario, the ROI was about seven grand. A good box ROI was about 200 grand. Holy shit.

Yeah, so like, and I opened three or 400 boxes of 86 Flir basketball and nobody would pay more. So like they would buy them and we would just buy, you know, so some of the David Adams car world, baseball car, all these guys would sell us. They'd get 86 for basketball. It'd sell it to us. We would kind of show the image of like,

Hey, we're these dumb guys cracking 86 for basketball. And you know, Jordan wasn't even the most expensive car in the set. Like a lot of people were building sets. And some of these commons were like 10 or 15,000 in a PSA 10. You could get one common in high grade, and it would cover the entire box.

Geez, crazy. What you're saying is you guys are taking some collection of cards and repacking them into, you know, four, eight, 12, 20, whatever it is, into a different rebranded name, and you have a higher percent chance of ROI than you did maybe from manufacturer and maybe even a larger hit rate or something, you know, like with the better cards. I'm trying to short-phrase that, but is that... Yeah, exactly. Well, and liquidity. I mean, like, so generally,

like let's just say the repack is, you know, each repack is one graded card. And, you know, like, let's say the repack costs $200, and you know, like, over the span of the repack, like, the lowest card in there is gonna be 40, which you have to have $40 cards in there, because in that same repack, you wanna put cards in there that are, you know, 1,000, 1,500. So, but you're pulling something that's instantly liquided, you know, or there's instant liquidity, versus out that's instantly liquidity, you know, or there's instant liquidity

versus out of a traditional pack, you know, 99% of the cards are all commons that are just going to get chucked. And then let's just say you do pull a good card, then it needs to go off for grading. There's the weighting. Repacks are quicker. There's generally like a floor and a ceiling. So you kind of know like what's my minimum, what's my max. The only

thing with traditional packs is you do have that lottery ticket, which has kind of been the game the last couple of years. You know, like every so often they're going to have a, you know, I'm sure you saw the Paul Skeen's card, you know, debut sold for 1.3 million. Like that's one person that hits that. So for one person that hits that like million dollar lottery ticket, there's all the other stuff that just, you know. Yeah, you only hear the good news. You only hear the good news. That's the stuff that doesn't get talked about. So I just think

that, and you do see it, like the repack is just getting a lot more money. A lot of these guys that like to spend money on high dollar, they still open some packs. Like I still open packs. For me, it's just pure entertainment though. Like if I, me and my son, me and my kids sit down and we open a box or a couple boxes and spend a thousand bucks, I'm not planning to get any of that money back. I'm just like entertainment, donation, having fun, and you know, give them the cards and let them do it. So I think when you go in with that mindset, it's okay.

Cause it's the same as, you know, go into a sporting event or go into whatever you're. So, but the problem is, is you've got people that they don't look at as entertainment. They're looking at as like making money opening packs and during a long haul, that's just not going to be sustainable. No, don't, don't do that. Go buy singles and resell them or put them in your collection. I do the same thing with my kids. We open three nights a week, but I'm looking at it purely as time with my kids where they actually want to hang out with me.

We have fun and it's a surprise and delight moment if we get something great. If we don't, I'm not forfeiting their future. It's like, it'd been nice to have gotten something out of that, but I had fun either way. And that's part of why I'm doing this series, is to remind people, this is a lot of fun. It has a lot of great attributes for fathers, sons, father, sons, mothers, daughters, whoever's into it. Doesn't matter because there's a trading card

and a hobby, you know, variation for everyone. But at the same time, it is an asset class now and needs to be, I don't know, put on the pedestal that it's earned through a lot of the time that you've put in, Jason. I mean, being one of the pioneers and people that have been through it all, it deserves its moment in time. You guys are selling on whatnot more than anything else.

That's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm assuming. This technology and live selling thing, being in marketing and business, I've been preaching that for about seven years and telling people that it was coming. It was before COVID, by the way. I was at a FedEx event, people looked at me sideways and I'm like, you just wait. Sure enough, it's a fascinating part of the industry, this industry, other industries.

What say you about live shopping? Well, I wish I would have met you five years ago because I was on the initial call with Grant, the guy who started Whatnot, and I still have the email that I look at once a month because it's ridiculous. They're basically saying, hey, I got this idea for a live selling platform called Whatnot. I want to talk to you, investor. So I had a chance at pre- Oh, Jason, I want to talk to you, investor. So I had a chance at pre-

Oh, Jason, I wish I had known you, man. If you'd have gotten that call, I would have gone in with you. I was still like, I think if I was younger, I would have understood it more at the time. My question to him was, I go, so you want to run a 30 second auction at 1 in the afternoon on a Tuesday? And they said, yeah. And I said, that was ridiculous to me. But I didn't really process it the way now, obviously, I'm one of their, I think their

number two seller on the entire platform. But at the time, if I would have stopped and thought, even on eBay, all the bidding is in the last few hours and even sniping the last second, like the first six days of a seven day eBay auction is irrelevant. So this was just like, I mean, I've had plenty of hits, I've had plenty of misses. This was a miss for me. So it's just kind of funny now looking back when I was just so anti or bearish on just not bearish, I didn't understand live streaming

and now I think we're still really early. I think live streaming is like the fourth or fifth biggest thing in my lifetime to come about, like the internet, crypto, you know, Bitcoin, you know, it's like social media, live shopping. Like to me, live shopping is like the third or fourth biggest thing where people are going to get really wealthy and in the next couple of years, AI obviously, but you're going to see everybody,

Walmart, Costco, they're all going to have lives. Either they're going to be pushing stuff through other platforms or they're just going to create their own. I'm very bullish on live shopping. It's still early. I still think as far as it is, like 95% of people still don't know anything about live shopping. So yeah, I think the trading cards and the hobby is well, a lot further down that conversion path for their target audience. you know for their I don't know target audience but it It's gonna meet this professionalism that you talked about earlier. That's where I see it That's where I'm I kind of have my brain thinking is like yeah as the business as a whole where I think about okay Well, if Ryan are offered is gonna get in on this thing. It's gonna be in this

professionalism marketing content, but there's a delivery with the live shopping, which you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so it's not that it has to be overcomplicated or too sophisticated, but I do think there's rooms and dials to be turned with all of that experience. Oh, it's huge.

We have seven studios that we've built out, and we're constantly making them better, but a lot of the experience? Oh, it's huge. We have seven studios that we've built out and we're constantly making them better. But like a lot of the people live selling, like they're still live streaming like out of their garage. Yeah. You know, like, so we have, we're kind of a little bit ahead of that, but we also, you know, we don't, we have,

it's really hard to find good live streamers. I mean, I think live streamers are going to become famous, like personalities and you know, people are going to hire them and, because if you can sell, you're going to be, you know, it's like the late nineties, you know, sports cards on TV, the shop at home days. Oh my God. I don't know if you know, Oh yeah. What's his name? Don. I've got some videos that we play that I've, I'm actually having cut up right now that are more spoof stuff, but for the Breaking Rad Instagram channel,

but it is that though, but he was great, but it was like, he's in the video, he's like, if you don't buy this, how are you going to wake up in the morning? The next day, you're not even going to be able to look in the mirror. He's like, He was the greatest salesman of all time. He was amazing. So that was the part we met.

We could talk for 10 hours. I did a ton of selling on the main two guys that were selling on TV. I was providing them with a ton of inventory and they were buying with reckless because they were selling on TV and killing it But so yeah, Don was hilarious, but the TV days were were wild man You'll walk into that bar. They like there's Rick. He knows how to make a decision. He goes all in You miss out on this you're not gonna Look yourself in the mirror tomorrow, that was like, and I was watching going, I don't want to miss out.

And then I'm like, oh shit. I'm like, I was like, he was awesome. He was so good at it. But I, I'm learning from him. Getting serious over there with my kids. They would do, they would do like limit five per caller. And then like you'd have people calling in and like have their mom calling for them.

And yeah. Oh my God. Hey, can we, can we, can we order, you know, just but have them shipped to the same address, but it's a different person trying to get more, you know. Yeah, exactly. FOMO, man, that's what it is for you're missing out. That's what live shopping is though.

It's like every great marketing characteristic like built into one. You've got the last 10 seconds. So FOMO, you got your racing against the clock. You don't want last 10 seconds. So FOMO, you're racing against the clock. You don't want to miss out. It's just everything kind of coming together. The thrill of getting the deal. I mean, we often stuff, like I said,

like sometimes like stuff goes over market. Yeah, stuff goes over market. A lot of times stuff goes under market. So like there are plenty of times where I see it, I'm like, holy shit, like that was a hundred dollar card that just sold for 40 bucks. Like that guy's, you know, which is good. Like that guy's going to come back and keep buying like crazy. You know, like today that's the arbitrage today. Cause I get in there and I've done both, you know, like I tend to not be the guy that goes over just to win. But like sometimes

I've got a wrong number on the card because there's so many damn cards. I'm like, oh, that's probably $20 over market or, you know, but that's the arbitrage to getting there and stealing some, you know, a hundred dollar cars for 40. Knowing the market. I mean, this is, this is where in real time, when you're running a 30 second auction, you need to make those gut calls. And if you do know the market and something's selling for 80%, like, you know, and he's spending a lot of money and I mean, a lot, we do that too. I go in there and pick stuff off. Sometimes the collector in me comes out and then I end up overpaying for some stuff that I just want for my person. But that's kind of the fun in it. Like, you know, when am I going to see this again? But there's a, yeah, there's,

there's definitely a, just a ton of money to be made. You just have to spend the time and just get educated and really don't jump all in and just spend a ton of money. Just put a lot of hours in understanding everything before you go big. Yeah. And that's sort of my superpower. I'm the most curious person on the planet. I go down the rabbit hole. Like, and I'm down the rabbit hole in this business. Like I'm

way down it right now. Like just observing, watching and curious. Don't know it all. Learning from guys like you watching the market and stuff like that. Because there is stuff to be made. It's just like anything else though. It's not immediate $12,000 to $200,000 boxes like it used to be, but like anything else, he who goes the furthest often wins. Jason, where's it all headed for you, brother? I mean, you're relaxing, you know, got great people working for you.

You're taking care of them. They're taking care of you. When Jason looks down the road and goes, man, you're taking care of your kids, your family. I mean, where are we headed with all this? Yeah. I'm in this where my kids are all. I'm like, yeah, I think our kids are in a similar age. I'm like 10, 8, 7, 6. So it's like, I am trying to pull back a little bit. And when I say pull back a little bit, it's like going from 80 hours a week to you know, 50 hours a week. I enjoy this like I enjoy business So yeah when I try it like I don't know about you when I go on vacation After day three, I'm Jones and to get home. It really takes it. It's it's hard

So I see me doing this forever I did it'll it'll keep shit I'll keep shifting with it and I think think, talk with a lot of these younger guys and just molding, I've always done that. But I just love it so much that it doesn't feel like work. And so yeah, I think we're gonna be doing this for a while, man. It's just, I'm blessed to be in a spot

where I have good managers underneath me. So when I do wanna, I'm like, hey, today's I got kids sporting, I got soccer games, I got basketball, like I'm not doing anything right now. I'm going to go do that. So that's, I do feel like I set myself up for that, you know, the 15 years leading up to where we're at today. I do get a lot of hate when people, they think like they see where I'm at now and it's like,

they think this happened in the last year or two. Not the case at all. And it's, it's, you know, and it's just the world we live in today. You know, everybody wants, you know, money overnight and it's just the world we live in today. Everybody wants money overnight and it's not the reality. Even in the middle, going broke in the middle of this really learned to put me in a different mindset. I'm going to be doing this for a while. Keep growing. Obviously, if you're not growing, it's not fun. It's exciting to watch. I love planning the next three to six months out, and then I email it to myself, and then six months,

kind of seeing how far we made it, if we surpassed it. And a lot of times, and I keep all these emails, and I'm just like, I'm looking back at goals from like 2022 and it's like, holy shit, like not only did we hit that goal, you know, it's like, like a hundred million in sales in a year was like a big deal for us and like, and we hit that and this year we're going to surpass that hopefully by a decent amount, but that was something that seemed crazy. And now we're there. So it's like, now I got to set new goals and keep moving. I think people that are wired in this weird sickness entrepreneur that we all have, you're always moving the goalpost.

For better or worse, it's a blessing and a curse, I think, because I think there's some people that get to the goalpost and they're happy and they can just chill. I think someone who's really dialed in, they get to the goal, they enjoy it for about 10 minutes, and they say, okay, let's move that goalpost back again and see what else we can do. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm trying to enjoy life a little more and work a little less, but like I said, even less for me is still a lot of damn hours.

They say the journey is everything now. I think the longer I do what I do, it proves to be true. It's in almost everything because even like you said, my kids get excited about opening a box. We get excited and you open the packs and you get it. You might get the Jaden Daniels best card ever auto 10 minutes later. It's what's next. You know, like it's not because they can't get enough, but it's just, it's more, I look at it more like you said, it's that the journey, the excitement of, oh, you know, building up to wanting that card or

wanting that goal in business or all those things. I think the true The truly motivated or just looking for the next journey and the next challenge 100% 100% Hey, man, where can everybody keep up with? Everything you guys are doing where to find you the company etc. Et cetera. Yeah, so the website's just four letters, ota.com on social media, OTIA Sports on what not, OTIA Rips. Yeah, I mean those are,

it's pretty much all under one umbrella. If you Google the OTIA Sports or OTIA, you'll find us and you'll join some of our live streams, enjoy the shows and have fun and bid responsibly. Yes. Got to put that disclaimer on there. Jason, really appreciate you for coming on the show and it's been great.

I consider you a friend now and look forward to future opportunities. Ryan, thank you so much for having me on. It was a lot of fun. Hey guys, you know where to find us? Ryanisright.com. Hey, we're number one for a reason. It's because you're here. Go check us out on YouTube. We've got a fast growing page over there.

Watch all the content. You'll find links to all of Jason's stuff. OTIA, RIPs, all the stuff they're doing over on whatnot and on the website. We appreciate Jason for coming on and we appreciate you. We'll see you next time or right about now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.