Harmony of Hustle
Jump into the World of Justin Shoemaker aka "The Waterboy" . From Business, to music, this is the inside look of the world of the hyper-driven and their Harmony of Hustle.
Harmony of Hustle
The Business of VeeFriends Topps Chrome
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We explore the true business model behind successful Whatnot streaming and why treating it as an entertainment platform rather than just a card-selling venture is critical for long-term success.
• Understanding you're in the entertainment and gambling business, not just selling cards
• The importance of $1 sudden death auctions to build audience even when taking initial losses
• Why the first stage of growth is market capture rather than profit maximization
• Strategies for finding inventory deals on eBay and through bulk buys in collector communities
• Building a personal brand identity that makes you recognizable in the collectibles space
• The surprising value of going slow when building a business
• How creating scarcity and urgency drives engagement and sales
• Managing inventory with both showcase pieces and affordable options
• Creating value for viewers through deals and giveaways
• Documenting your business journey to build connection with your audience
When I reach 1,000 followers and consistently get over 100 viewers, I'll auction my Dana White auto, Skelly Sketch, or Gary V auto card for $1. That's how serious I am about building this community.
Connect with me!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/js_shoez_/
X: https://twitter.com/Shoeinvestor2
TikTok: tiktok.com/@thewater_boy_official
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@justinshoemaker9582?si=DSsbCeNl1kgH3EKK
LinkedIn: Justin Shoemaker
Business Background and Streaming Goals
Speaker 1If , for whatever reason , it's not working , just let me know , okay , and then I'll switch back to my wifi . But the wifi has been at my house has been acting up , so I went and went ahead and went ahead and started it using my hotspot , so hopefully it works out pretty well , all right . So my name is Justin Shoemaker . I own a water treatment company out in Virginia DC , maryland . I've been running it for about three years . Prior to this , I helped build a solar company . We took that from 600,000 to 25 million in about 11 months , and then before that I was in the military . So really , what I'm trying to do now is I'm falling in love with whatnot . Virtual shopping is taking over and I really want to make this one of my main things . So I've been putting a lot of my own company resources into this to really build it , and in this podcast I talk about business stuff . Hey , good morning , cloudy , and I'm going to be talking about kind of the first month on whatnot things that I have learned , and so , for those of you who are looking at potentially doing this as a full-time business , you can also , uh , learn and hopefully get some good value out of this and uh , yeah , make this something that you know . Maybe you can have a business on , or side hustle on , um . So that's really what today's going to be I'm going to be talking about . There's just some lessons learned , um , and some maybe things that can help you , and at the end of it , I will be giving away a meticulous you things that can help you and at the end of it , I will be giving away a meticulous so I have my other camera up right here for the YouTube channel uh , the meticulous magpie . So let's talk about the business of whatnot , um , and why it's super exciting and something that I've learned from this that I have I'm bringing from my past business is understanding what business you're actually
Understanding Your True Business
Speaker 1in . Okay , now , a lot of times we'll start something and then we think that that's just the business we're in , and I'm going to give you an example of this . So , um , let's use like a hairstylist , right , and let's say you have a hairstylist agency and you want to grow that agency . Well , you might say , oh , I'm in the hairstyling business , but really what you're in is in the talent and recruitment business , or I should say the recruitment and training business . Why ? Because you need people with a specific skill , whether that's the hairstyles or whatever to grow your business .
Speaker 1So , when we look at like live shopping and we look at whatnot , what are we ? What business are we actually in ? If we are selling on whatnot , what is the actual business that we do ? It is not selling cards , in my opinion , at least from what I've seen . Uh , watching some of the biggest streams out there right now , we are in the entertainment and gambling business , and to me , yeah , live selling , but what's the actual business , in my opinion , is gambling , gambling and entertainment . I truly think this is an entertainment business , and the reason why is look at some , at least in the V friends , we're looking at some of the biggest streams that don't have like the big brand behind them , like the V friend stream .
Speaker 1Um , and I'm going to I'm just going to plug am right , am stream is is crazy fun . Why ? Cause it's a lot of action . Okay , yeah , breakthrough game . So that's perfect , thank you . So feel good , the breaks are a hundred percent gambling . Right Now .
Speaker 1What I have found is , if you want to build something successful , people want to be entertained . Right , look at the biggest industry in the world . It's always entertainment . I'm sure a lot of people here follow Gary V . Why is Gary Vee's content which is business content so much better and why did he get so much bigger than maybe some of the other people out there ? Because Gary Vee's entertaining , right , they're fun and they're entertaining . So if you're going to try to do this for real , that's how you want to see yourself , as you want to see yourself as , not just as like a breaker or someone that's doing auctions . You're actually someone here that is entertaining people , right , you're putting on a show . That's why they call them shows . So when we look at this as a business and I want to be very clear if you are trying to sell VFriends cards and you want to make money like you want to do like quote , unquote , flip life then this is very different than what I'm talking about here as far as building up the shows , because what you could do hypothetically is buy a shit ton of cards , right , buy them in breaks , buy them in auctions , have some patience , grade them and then flip them on eBay . All right , that is a longer term game , but you can make a ton of money doing that and that is a good business .
Speaker 1But specifically talking about the live selling , live streaming thing , I look at it as the same way that I built my companies . All right , and there's really a few stages of growth . And the first stage of growth is market capture Okay , and it's learning , and I call it the what the fuck stage . Right , it's the first stage . Is what the fuck stage ? Which where you're going to be trying to get as much eyeballs on what you're doing as possible and you're going to take a loss , and this timeframe could be one month , two months , a year , two years , all right , there really is no set time limit on it . And if you try to set time limits on it , that's where you make mistakes . And that's where I made mistakes in my water company . I tried to rush this like crazy . It never worked out .
Speaker 1So , in the realm of whatnot and building that market share , the way that I've done it is by running these $1 sudden death auctions
Entertainment and Gambling Model
Speaker 1. Why ? Because they're so much fun , all right , it doesn't . And if you're a small streamer , if you have a big inventory , you're you're going to take an L , especially on the first few streams . So I was watching . I think it was slow , go um . Or someone streamed the other day . He only had like 13 people watching , but you know he wanted to run the $1 auctions and he got crushed . And I , you know , was one of the guys that crushed him because he ran like a couple of refractors and he only had a couple of bucks to it . But that's how I started , too , right , a lot of you guys that are in here oh , is that you sneaker ? Okay , great , so sneakers in here . Sorry , I couldn't remember who it was . I knew it was earlier than this . Right , that's how I started mine , right , I literally got crushed on every single auction I ran .
Speaker 1But you kind of have to and you need to write it off as a marketing cost , because what you're doing is you're building the community , you're getting people to have fun and those first 10 people in the stream are the ones that are going to share the stream . And that's how you start building that cadence Like , hey , you'd run an auction , you get some killer to good deals and people are happy . This is why , personally , I am such a huge fan of the auction game , because , if you look at it in two different parallels , what will grow to the best natural extreme ? The thing that gives the people the most value , and the , the , the place of that people feel like they , they , they actually have the most fun . I can tell you personally , as I've been in , I've spent thousands and thousands and thousands of breaks . Um , when I go into these big break spots and you don't hit it , you feel like shit . Or if you do a big break and then you get your mail day in and you have like four cards and you spent like $600 , that doesn't feel good . And if you think about building the audience , you really can only do that so many times before they get burnt out and then their money runs dry , right .
Speaker 1Whereas with the auctions , everyone gets deals , which is what's so great , right , when you get slaughtered on a , on on a card , or you know someone gets a really good deal like a , a Y2K for a couple hundred bucks , or someone got one of my my big mangas for like $5 one time right , like crazy good deals . Guess what that is value and people are going to want to come back . All right , you look at one of AM's biggest streams . He gets crushed on big cards all the time and people want to come back . All right , you look at one of AM's biggest streams . He gets crushed on big cards all the time and people want to come back . Right , he also wins on some , on some small stuff , right , and what you'll notice , especially on the auction game for you guys who want to start is it does balance out .
Speaker 1And if you can keep the action high , keep people entertained , right , with small like and this is something I had to learn . Small right with small like , and this is something I had to learn . Small , 15 second short time frame , sudden death . Well , guess what ? You might get crushed on some bigger cards and obviously for some of the bigger , bigger cards , let it run longer , don't do sudden death on those , but you keep running that and you get people into having a fun like swipe . Swipe , you know swipe mentality . I mean , I've done it like . I can't tell you how many times I see people just having a good time swiping , buying , buying some random card that comes up that I might not even be that interested in , but I kind of want it . Shit . I see it at $1 or $3 , I start swiping and what can happen is you can start getting single base cards and single refractors . Coaches .
Speaker 1On my last stream , I'm going to be fully transparent on everything that I do on these podcasts so you guys can learn . But on the last stream that I did on the 10th um . I think that stream cleared about 1600 bucks in total sales and I think of that I probably made about 1300 after fees . Um , not bad , considering that whole set was mainly refractors and singles . I had some black cats that ran and I had a Y2K that ran , so that was pretty good , but overall most of it was just small base singles . Okay . Yet I actually made more money on that stream than I did on some previous streams where I had bigger hits . What happened ? I had more people , I ran , way more sudden death stuff and I got better at the showmanship .
Speaker 1All right , you know one
First Stage: Market Capture
Speaker 1of the things that you know if you've ever been in a sales industry , and this is why , if you guys , um , if you ever get a chance , I highly recommend everyone tries to get into sales at some point . Um , I love the industry . It's what changed my life forever as far as income . Uh , but you learn so much about human behavior and one of the things that is so key in sales is the idea of scarcity right and emotional buying right . You want to create scarcity and urgency in an auction . How do you do that ? Well , if you guys have big cards . Show all your big hits all right , show your big hits in the back and then start running the small stuff , right , small stuff gets people excited , gets people buying . And then show your big stuff , like , put it on the , put it on the table . Hey guys , are we ready to run this ? Get feedback from the chat . Yeah , sudden death is great FOMO .
Speaker 1And here's what's crazy about sudden death , guys , because it's so fast , like , people will set max bids in and then people will snipe at the end and a lot of times , if you get four or five people that snipe at the end , it's actually going to inflate the price . Now , what's the risk of this ? You're also going to get murdered , okay , but that's what's great about this , right ? Like at the beginning . And the way I look at this is your first year needs to be a wash . Like . You need to have the mentality at least like , listen , I'm not making any money for the year , I just want to build a huge community , okay , and I want people to love my streams . So when people get good deals , like , there's no point in being salty about that . And I want people to love my streams . So when people get good deals , like , there's no point in being salty about that . I'm sure we've seen the streams where people get really upset when they put a big card up and they they get a 38% hit on it . It's cool , right . That's what's going to bring people back and that's awesome , all right .
Speaker 1Also , the giveaways right , stagger your giveaways . Um , you know , if you have low inventory , because obviously you have to build up to it Like I don't have the biggest inventory as some of these other single guys out here that's cool . Right , at the end of the stream , put up a big givey , or you know , tease a big givey , or I just have , you know , intermittently , put some bigger giveys up , but always have giveys running . It keeps people engaged . It , you know , lets people have something to look forward . Keep teasing , keep teasing those big cards and then what happens ? The people that really want that card will stay and as you keep running your small ones , then you pop that big one on there . Run it Right . All right , guys , we ready . Everyone's been pent up , right , you build up this sense of urgency because people have been waiting like fuck . Finally he ran that card I've been looking at . Finally he ran that huge card and then , boom , it runs All right . Also and this is and again I'm gonna talk about what I'm I'm doing so you guys really know how this is working in real time . So , again , if this does blow up right , which I think would be super cool , if , like I can , if I can blow up this channel and , in the next three years , be one of the biggest V friend streamers on the platform , I think all this content can be super helpful because then we can disperse it and everyone can see it happen live .
Speaker 1But I have two massive cards right . Um , well , I have three . I have a lot of big ones , but let's talk about , let's talk about these three and this is the shit I'm talking about . So I got one that's not super rare . Most people can buy it . They want to spend it Gary V auto . Dana white auto . Dana Dana White , otto and the Skelly Sketch All right , by far probably some of the three biggest cards in my collection . I mean , obviously I have like another five manga coming and some other stuff , but anyway , dana White card super hard to pull , everyone wants it .
Speaker 1So there's a couple of ways that you can look at this , and the way I'm looking at it is what's , what am I optimizing for in this business ? Is it to have the biggest collection this year or is it to build the biggest audiences ? Here it's to build the biggest audience . So what do I need to do ? I need to incentivize the people that come onto the shows to help me promote my show , build word of mouth . So what does that mean ? I set these term goals . If you guys have been in my stream , what do I say ? If I get to a thousand followers and I get to over a hundred views on a stream , I'll run a Dana at a $1 auction . Or I'll run my Skelly sketch at a $1 auction or the Gary Otto , right ?
Speaker 1So you find these really , really big things that you want and then you do a celebration for it . But always you have to . You actually have to optimize for the goal . I think that's where people get messed up , right ? Everyone tries to have too many things they're trying to do and they don't optimize for the goal . If the goal was right now to optimize for more money , I wouldn't do it this way . I would grade these cards , I'd put it on eBay . But that's not the goal . The goal is to build the audience . So if your goal is to build an audience , you have to give a shit ton of stuff away and you have to also just understand , like , this isn't the season of earning , this is a season of learning . So create these big opportunities right , like I know .
Speaker 1For me , I got lucky . I got this data card . I bought privately first weekend to VFriends . I got a huge steal on it . Right Now I would love to keep it , but what would I rather ? Have more the thousand followers , and then guess what that's going to scale up to what ? 2000 , 3000 . That goalpost continues to move .
Speaker 1And then what happens is year two , year three . That's when you can actually start looking at making some money . Because what happens in year two ? Guys , what's coming up in year two ? V friends top Chrome to followups yeah , but in our community , right , we got what V friends tops Chrome two is coming up in in 2016 or 2026 , right , everyone starts from somewhere .
Speaker 1The reason why am and I want to use am because I think he's the best example of this , because he gets the most streams besides v friends . He's been running this type of stuff in the sports card world for years , so he's able to come in and just slap a shit ton of money in and create and literally create the biggest collection and show , right . Right , I just started early . I think I was the first one after AM to do singles , so that helped position me in a good spot . But , guys , there's so much more opportunity , right , there's only really two of us doing the single stuff right now at a big scale , and there's a ton of people in the community that have a huge collection , so now's really the perfect time , right , if you want to do it , now is the perfect time , because if you , you know , take this to the national extreme , like put this on a long enough time horizon over the next eight years , if you started today , you'd be one of the top , biggest streamers on the platform . Because if you look at and just so you guys can see this go , look at the sports card streams , on whatnot , just go tap in there , go to the Pokemon one , go to the the , go to the Yu-Gi-Oh ones . There's a ton of people all making money . So this the great thing about this , guys there's no competition with each other , right , we literally all can just help build this up together . And I need you guys to understand something so important this V friends thing is going to be huge , like I'm making a huge bet on Gary and the VFriends thing .
Speaker 1Personally , I do think in the next 10 years , this will be like a Pokemon , like a Yu-Gi-Oh . I think it'll be way bigger than Yu-Gi-Oh Pokemon . It might be tough , but I do , just because of how good our community is . I do think it could absolutely happen . So in the next 10 years , why would we not want to be at the front of that ? Right ? Because you look at , like TikTok and Instagram and all that stuff , if you start now or let's say , you started a podcast now , like I did , I started a podcast what ?
Finding Inventory on eBay
Speaker 1Three years ago ? Way harder to grow this podcast than it was . Maybe if I did this 10 years ago Now , I didn't have a business three years ago , so it wouldn't be very prevalent , so whatever . But this is just like that golden opportunity .
Speaker 1So the name of the game , depending on what your goals are , is build that market share . So that's what I'm doing , right , that's why you'll see me in these streams . Hey , at 1K followers , at 100 views , I'm auction to continue to grow that . And then what's going to happen ? What I'm going to , what I'm going to do is just and this is some inside baseball guys .
Speaker 1Once we get to like November , december I love my Skelly collection , don't get me wrong . I'm hoping to have it graded Then it's all probably going to be gone . It's all probably going to be gone Just putting it out there , the whole thing , probably , because at that point hopefully I'll have at least a couple thousand followers , hopefully a good , solid team of guys who are always coming to my streams right , like the diehards . That's what we want to build . I want to build that community of people that love me personally , love the stream , want to support it . I want to have that consistent flow in . I want to sell the collection because that way I want to go ahead and be able to one buy some NFTs so I can get some early access to things and then get a shit ton of cases of V2 Chrome and then that way I can be one of the top breakers and auctioneers of V2 Chrome and then , from that , grow that probably continue to sell , sell , sell , sell . Then year three comes tops , chrome three comes out , do the same thing , Right , and then at that point I could probably hold some stuff and my hope is selfishly , I would love to be able to do this more full time and then not have to worry about my other water treatment business as much Um , cause I can tell you , as a business owner in the home services , this is way more fun Um being able to turn on the camera , hang out with a bunch of people uh , that are generally cool people collecting sweet cards .
Speaker 1Like I am a collector at heart , right . So this makes it really hard for me . That's why you have to have really clear goals , because if I didn't want to build the whatnot thing , I would be hoarding every single V friend I have . You guys , if you guys watch my streams , you can see I have like a huge bourbon collection over here . I'm a collector , right , I love to collect Um .
Speaker 1So obviously trying to optimize for building the business is a little bit more tough for me , but I absolutely , absolutely fucking love um growing businesses Um , and I gotta tell you I would love to do this um full time . So that is you know where I'm going , but what I've learned from the water treatment company and the mistakes I made there , the slower that you can actually build the thing , the oh , odd , the dang audio went out again . They were back . We're back Um , yep , I know , sorry , my , my internet is a little wonky over here , um , but the slower you can actually build the thing that you want to build , the better it's going to be . Um , and I got to tell you . That's a lesson that I learned the hard way my water treatment company , and so now , with the whatnot thing , I have literally no rush to build this . Like , I'm so cool with this going as slow as possible . Uh , because it's it's been , it's been great .
Speaker 1So now let's put , let's put , some tactical game on for you guys . Um , cause , like , for you guys who want to do that singles and do what I'm doing , I want to give you some game . Number one please , guys , get on eBay and I need you to filter by auctions . All right , I just won today . Let me pull this up , by the way , because I'm , I'm , I'm , I'm in this shit . Guys , I'm a practitioner , I'm going crazy . You guys are going to see all the stuff that's working and not working . You're going to get it all for free . I'm putting it out to the community . Those that want to fucking come crush it . Let's go crush it . Check this out , guys .
Speaker 1This is actually in the chat . I just want to see Mindful Minikawa Manga Put the number in the chat what you think that should go for . Just without looking it up , if you were to buy it as a buy now , $25 , $30 . Cool , on an auction , $30 . Yeah , what it should go for Generally $28 . Y2k , mindful , minikawa , alright . So $15 to $30 . Yeah , I got it for 750 , 750 , 750 guys now on an auction . If you again , when you have a bit of an audience and you build that connection dude , if I ran that right now on one of my streams at $1 sudden death , that thing at a minimum is going for $15 , right . If you got a Minikawa Maxi in there , it's going for $30 to $40 . If he's going to punch a bunch of people bidding because people are having a good time , it might go for higher , right , savage . So go on eBay . You're going to sort by auction , sort bay . You're going to sort by auction , sort by ending soon , all right , sort by ending soon and literally go hit the heart on there so you can save every single auction .
Speaker 1Now , the , the , the . The trick is you got to look for deals , right ? Because what I'm trying to do is I want to make sure that it's like it's like a business buying inventory . I want to buy inventory that I can then resell for higher or at least , if I get crushed , I'm not losing that much money because , like , like we talked about , the idea is not to make money , it's just to stay in business and build the community . So let's say that Minikawa on a stream now goes for $9 . I'm cool with it .
Speaker 1I made two bucks on it . The person that bought it is super , super happy , right , like it's a , it's a , it's a circle that works out well . Also , you'll find some banger deals and you can get a ton of base cards . Um , actually I'll say eBay is a little overpriced for the base cards , but uh , you can absolutely uh find these steals on there . So it does take a lot of work .
Speaker 1Like I , I spent all night , so when I'm in bed , that's all I . All I do is scroll eBay and I just start saving stuff and then you know if things are too expensive or it's not a good deal . You pass on it . You got to be very particular with that . Also , I will buy my really expensive cards from there and make these like crazy offers to try to get them . That's how I got my my of five skeleton .
Speaker 1I got an of 25 things like an OG ox for like 40 bucks , right , because some people just don't you know , no , they might just be casual collectors and then you want to offload it and you know , as a singles guy , what do I need and what do you guys need ? One you need big hits . You want to have big hits on the wall so you can show it to them . But what you guys also need is stuff that you like single , small , single , small cards . So I me , as I'm , again , I'm trying to show you in my game what I'm doing . I'm trying to build both up because I need to make sure when I do a stream , I have big cards to throw off , because that's that's the dichotomy of , and , I guess , the difficulty . There's always difficulty in different industries , right , and different whatnot platforms . So you have your break .
Speaker 1You're going to have , uh , constraints as a breaker , constraints as an auctioneer or a singles guy . Our constraint as a singles guys is how do I keep good inventory that people want to buy and then how do I have the small stuff to kind of pad that out , okay , so one thing I did get really good on eBay was like a complete base set , completely organized . So for you guys who want to save my next stream . I'm going to be auctioned off a complete V friends base set for $1 . How cool is that ? Right Banger shit . That's stuff you want to find , um . But for you guys who need to start building that collection if you don't have it already , um , if you're not in the V friends discord , there is a marketplace
Building Your Personal Brand
Speaker 1there and I have been basically just promoting that . I'm buying in bulk . So if any of you guys are in the discord , you probably see me doing that .
Speaker 1Um , when , when you're doing these bulk buys , you're going to need to negotiate for low cost per card . Um , keep in mind you are going to be . For this to make sense , you do have to buy under market value . So you're going to get a lot of people telling you know , because obviously they're going to want to get full price for their cards . Maybe , right , me and Marshall . I'll be honest with you not to be not to be mean , but I want to buy at least at a 60% discount , right , and I'll buy in bulk to get even more . So I ideally if you , if you have the money to do it I try to get my base card price at around 30 to 40 cents a card . Now , to do that , I gotta be buying upwards of 800 cards plus . Otherwise it's really not fair to the seller . But the benefit is you get a huge deal on the card .
Speaker 1The seller gets a way to liquidate their collection quickly , because that's what you're offering You're offering speed . Could they sell those cards for more ? Yeah , I think the fair market rate for a base card is between 90 cents to maybe a bit above , a bit above a dollar . However , that takes a lot of work . Uh , you got to post individuals on eBay or on whatnot . And people let's be real , a lot of people are not . Unless you're doing $1 auctions , there's not a lot of market people who are just like , okay , I'm going to go through and I'm going to buy these individual cards , right , it's just doesn't happen that often . So it's really really , really slow . If you have a big base collection , it's really hard to liquidate . So that's the service that you , that you offer . Okay , and there's a lot of people that I've gotten to agree to those terms .
Speaker 1Um , and that's where I need to be , because here's the thing too , as a $1 auctioneer running sudden death streams , I also want to make sure the community can get a good deal . So if I know that I have , I'm getting these cards between 40 to 60 cents . That's kind of where my sweet spot is , and then obviously I'll go higher for like numbered cards and mangas and things like that . But if I can keep my overall cost low , then I can just give away stuff to the community . I can run bulk auctions , right . Like if you guys have seen my streams , you'll see it . All the time I'll run 20 , 30 cards for a dollar .
Speaker 1And there was one time I think I did what was it ? I got crushed . I did , I think , like 30 cards at a dollar I don't think anyone's paying attention and it sold for like four bucks or something . So , literally I think it went for like less than I don't know what . It was , probably like five cents a card if you broke it down . But cool , right , that person that got that's gonna be back for life . Um , yeah , exactly , it'll be back for more and that's . And the thing is that would hurt a lot more if I spent a dollar on all those cards , cause that'd be like a $40 loss , right . So , and you want to make sure that you can at least stay healthy .
Speaker 1Um , I think to date , on whatnot and eBay . I think I've sold probably seven to eight K's worth of cards and I'm probably 13 in 12 in , so I'm probably around I'm probably like in the red , three , four K , I reckon , um , especially cause I did buy like the iconics and stuff like that . Oh , not the iconics , the , uh , the sketch and whatnot , but you know those things hold value , right . So you know , the nice thing is you know what these really big , always , if I really had to , it was in a grind I could grade them and sell them . But , um , yeah , it's exactly , it's a long-term game , but that's kind of the , that's kind of the game , right .
Speaker 1So you know , for guys who are starting , if you don't have a bunch of inventory , definitely , definitely do that . Uh , definitely use discord , stay on eBay to get some steals , um , because , and then just understand , you're bringing that back to to flip to the community and just have a good time . It's all about the fun . Remember , we're in the entertainment business . I think that's the biggest takeaway is , you're not in the card selling business , you're not in the collectibles business , you're in the entertainment business . You're in the show sales business . So the best shows are the ones where you have the most fun Consignmentsments .
Speaker 1Are you trying to buy , sell your own inventory ? Yeah , I mean , I wouldn't mind doing consignments . Um , yeah , that'd be fine . Um , I'm down for whatever . Uh , I mean , right now I just want to . I'm trying to build , build the channel . So I'm trying to just collect as many , because if you guys see , uh , back here , my , my inventory is now completely empty . I mean , that last stream that we did , I think we had what ? Probably 600 cards that we that we let go . Maybe not that many , but yeah , could be a good way to have a ton of inventory and help others all since . Yeah , yeah , yeah , I'm , I'm down .
Speaker 1What's my opinion on signatures ? I pulled an up 10 beetle yesterday on V friends and if they are trying to get Gary to sign it in Chicago , obviously not signing the actual card . Um , yeah , aaron , I do buy extras . Um , I try to buy extras of my rare stuff too , like my skelly stuff Also . Sorry , let me .
Speaker 1Let me answer MJM's question . I'm going to talk about something else that's worked out really well that I think you guys should all try to do . Of the of 10 beetle , I don't think I'd have him sign the actual card . I mean it could be good because it is a Gary Otto right and that technically turns that into a one of one . But you know , I've seen where some people kind of run into some issues with that where , like , because it's such a low print number , once you get the Gary on there it can like skew the value of that card . It could do it positively or negatively because it's such a rare card I personally just great . I don't think I'd have , I don't think I'd have Gary sign that one . I normally try to have them just sign like bases , so like , for example , joel who's I don't think he's in here , but Joel won that blue cat , that blue eyes base cat , and then Gary signed it with a blue pen Stuff , like that's great , Mainly because there's so many of these cards .
Speaker 1You know you're not devaluing the rarity of it in a way , like I would never have him sign my , like my , like my really rare of five stuff , I wouldn't have him sign it , just just in case . I want to , you know , maintain like the rarity of that card , of that value . So but now again , it could , it could increase it . Um , I just know having the actual card themselves being being that rare , had had a lot of value . So I kind of want to keep to that . Yeah , again , personal opinion , but that's just from what I've seen and talking to some other people in the industry .
Speaker 1Now , autos in general , like any auto that you get , um , like the , the actual entrepreneur autos and things like that autos in any card industry tend to hold the most value . Um , so if you have an auto and you grade it and you can hold it , those things will tend to appreciate like crazy , especially cause it's like the first , you know , the rookie card version of all these Um , so long-term holds . There's a lot of a lot of value there , um , oh . But one thing I was going to say uh , for any of you guys out here uh , start branding yourself . Like everyone here needs to have some sort of a personal brand . It doesn't matter what right AMs is , that he buys a shit ton of spots and he has some of the craziest uh auctions ever right , that's his brand . Mine is I'm the skelly guy . Uh , hold on , how can we help , besides supporting the streams and sharing what you do from us ? Not just that's it , just keep sharing , let everybody know word of mouth , that's it . That's it . If you can share the streams , I'll love you forever , um , and keep showing up . So the branding is huge . So I want to talk about how this worked out for me in real time so you guys can use it .
Speaker 1I also actually generally love the Skelly card . If you guys , I have a skeleton tattoo here . I love the . I love the Halloween theme stuff and you know , being a skilled skeleton , skills have changed my life , so I have a lot of . I have a lot of love with the skilled skeleton . I also have a lot of , uh , I have a lot of love with the skilled skeleton . I also have a lot of love with the entrepreneur spots as well , uh , which is why I'm all sad the entrepreneur shop , the entrepreneur spots , don't go for as much , um , cause I have a lot of , obviously , alignment with that .
Speaker 1But I realized early on that the V friends community was actually a lot smaller and tighter than I , than I first thought it was . Um , it's actually still , you know , it's a bigger way , bigger than ever , has been for sure , but it's still . It's still a pretty tight knit community , right ? So everyone kind of knows everybody , which is perfect , um . So I made a , I made a decision very early on to buy every skelly spot I could for basically the first month of of V friends and I wanted to because I wanted to have some sort of brand identity inside the community and that was being the Skelly Maxi , right , and I think I've accomplished that . What that then transitioned to is me having a massive skeleton collection , which I love . So I love the skellies , especially having rare skellies . But what that actually did now is artificially inflate the price of any skeletons that I auction . So this is something big for you guys .
Speaker 1Now , people who like skeletons have some brand identity and alignment with me . People know who I am . If I go into I also get the first dibs on any skeletons right . I get tagged all the time on on good deals , on breaks or stuff on eBay . So now I actually have , uh , people helping me get that collection up . But what's really cool is now in auctions . If you guys have ever been into my shows where I'm running , running these deals , I have , um , you know I'll run skeletons and they go probably above 20% over market because they're coming from my personal collection .
Speaker 1And what was really humbling which the fact this happened so early on , which made me feel amazing uh was people now have been asking me to sign my , my skellies for their personal collections . Like , how fucking cool is that ? Right , it's . Uh , it makes me feel really , really good , obviously , um , but you know , I think that's something that everyone here should also do . Um , everyone here has different characters super passionate about . I would a thousand
The Value of Going Slow
Speaker 1percent promote that , especially if you're again , this is assuming you guys are trying to get into the live selling stuff . Start promoting that . Start branding yourself . Everyone should have a brand .
Speaker 1And does everybody here know , like , how a brand orientated and why brand is important ? Like at like the core level , not just like , hey , we need to have a brand , but what is it , what a brand actually is For the brand ? But you're thinking your is for the brand , but do you ever think in your life people would be asking for your autograph ? No , absolutely not . No , no , that was that , was that was lucky identity , familiar identity , yeah , it is . Yeah , all those things . So the brands obviously originated . Um , so I think that's absolutely correct .
Speaker 1But I think what brand does is it influences behavior . That's what brand at its core does . It influences behavior of a person , because brand started back in the old cattle days . So if you had a bunch of cattle and you own them , you would brand them right . Why is that important ? Because if a random cow went on to the neighbor's farm , if it had a brand , he'd say , oh , this is Justin's cow . Let me take it back to Justin . I influenced that behavior . If that cow went there with no brand , he's probably going to steal the fucking cow All right , and I just lost the cow . So what does it do ? It does it influences behavior , all right .
Speaker 1And a good brand is , you know , when a message aligns with the values of the people that you're , you're speaking to . So you look at the Dylan Mulvaney thing with um , bud Light from a marketing standpoint really good marketing , a lot of eyeballs , got a lot of attention . Terrible branding All right , because they didn't understand who their core brand was or their core customer base was at the time . And so the alignment of the brand with someone who's a transgender with Bud Light , their core audience kind of disassociated with that . So that's why Bud Light saw a huge pushback right . And then they went with Shane Gillis and people that are more in line with their brand . Bad branding , good marketing results in a loss , right .
Speaker 1So for us , when we think about brand , we want to create these positive associations with things that we want to move , like somebody asking for a gift , maybe , but yeah , no , it influences the behavior , right ? So me , you know , we get more tactical . You know what is our brands , what ? What do they represent ? You know ? I think you know . Look at the Gary V brand represents a lot , right , and and and brands have multiple things .
Speaker 1But if you're not into entrepreneurship , if you don't like tough love , if you , you know , if you hate cussing , if , like , that's big stuff for you , then you probably wouldn't have much alignment with the Gary Vee brand , right ? Or there might be certain things you align with really heavy , or content you align with heavily , and that's the brand you fall behind , and there might be stuff that you don't , right . So there's all . There's the y allow you to stand out and it's going to allow you to influence the behavior and have the people around you that you want , right ? Obviously , my brand , or the brand that I'm trying to build , is I want to have the biggest , baddest Skelly collection and then I want to have my streams be the most fun , most engaging streams on the platform .
Speaker 1So to do that , I need to do a lot of low . You know low . Second giveaway sudden deaths , fast movement , high energy , big bangers at the end that we can roll . And I got to keep getting up inventory and I got to continue to do that over and over and over and over again and put as much value out there as I can and then that will build that , that super strong brand identity . And that's not going to happen overnight , right , it's going to continue to happen over and over again . But the longer you continue to build that positive reinforcement in two , three , four , five years , that's what everyone's going to know you for and then it's super easy , right . And yeah , slow and steady is the name of the game . And I got to tell you , the slower you can go , like I used to be fascinated with going , how fast can I go ? And the reason why I fucked up and I got into that mindset was I , I helped grow .
Speaker 1I started off as a door knocker and then became the vice president of a solar startup and grew that thing to 25 million in less than a year . So completely conflated what I thought was possible . You know , I didn't understand . Marketing conditions were perfect for it at that point . I didn't understand . I had already a team built there , the CEO that started the company was already well-funded , um , and so when I started my water company , I said , okay , I'm going to build this into a $10 million business in the next five years . Right , I was like , oh easy . And so I said , okay , year one , we need to do a million bucks . And we did a million bucks . We did 1.1 our first year .
Speaker 1But you know what happened ? We didn't make any money because I spent so much just wasted energy and time trying to build it as fast as I could , to hire a shit ton of people in buying all these trucks , spending a ton of marketing , just so I could say I made a million dollars , but it didn't matter . It didn't fucking matter . They made no money . I , literally , I actually lost a shit ton of money . I think I lost $90,000 that year . Right , not fun . So you know it .
Speaker 1And then this last year is when it took me two years to figure this out , by the way , guys like I'm a slow learner , um . And then two years ago , um , you know we , we had to make that tough decision where we basically cut the team down to the best people . So now it's me and two guys and we are selling about the same we're doing about what are we gonna do . We're doing about 70 to 90k a month right now , so it might be a little under a million this year , but last year was the first , or last month was the first month I actually made a profit in the business . We made 30K in profit last month , with less people Going even slower , with one piece of marketing spend . You know what I'm saying ? Like so the .
Speaker 1I think social media really really ruins it as far as like , oh , I want to make all this money because it looks cool , right and it feels good on your ego , like you know , being fully transparent . Um , my ego felt great when I had a huge team but I wasn't making any money . Yeah , exactly , it is a highlight reel and that's why , like , with whatnot , it's actually super free and be able to like understand that the slower I go , the bigger the brand can actually be , because you don't make the mistakes . And if , for any of you who are , like trying to start a business , like I had and guys , you can , if you guys are trying to start like an actual business outside of this , like , let me know , I've done it all . I've done solar , done the . Uh , I have my own home service business , obviously , and I do some consulting for for other companies on the side , so I'm super into business . So if you guys are trying to start a business like , please , I'm here to help . Just just let me know what you guys need .
Speaker 1Um , but what one of the things that um I I really learned from from from that was if I had just gone slower from day one , I'd be in a way better spot now . And it's so much more freeing when you're able to just go so slow . Um , and Alex Ramos , he says it's the best . He's like the fastest way to 5 million is not the fastest way to 20 million , um , and it's so , so true . And you hear these things right , and if you're going to start a business , you , if you've listened to Gary for any any number of days or my content , um , you know you'll , you know these lessons like . I knew all this stuff . All this stuff I'm saying now , I already knew it , but I didn't have context . That's the problem and that's the difference is you guys , I think a lot of people get afraid to make decisions .
Speaker 1They can't jump at an opportunity because they're afraid that you're going to make a mistake . That's part of the game . Right , you're going to make mistakes . There's no way , no way around it , and unfortunately , you kind of have to learn through fire , um , and having context is so huge . So , you know , I've , I've learned , I've heard these lessons before , but I didn't have the context to apply them .
Speaker 1Um , and I think that's been the biggest thing . That I'm now less afraid of is I'm okay making mistakes because you know it's how you , it's how you grow , right , it's how you're big . I mean , I like going to the gym , how do your you know how do your muscles grow ? They got to fail , right . So failure is the prerequisite for success . I think the key is how do you keep your cost down and not lose your ass while you're making those mistakes ? Also , there's no way , the way whatnot you hear isn't going to beat . Get you out of here . Context is you guys massive . You're the king of mistakes . Modern deals Well then , you're probably the king of knowledge too . Absolutely ,
Q&A and Final Thoughts
Speaker 1yeah , all right , god dude , what questions you guys have .
Speaker 1We have like a few minutes left here . I want to . I want to see if you guys have any questions , or I can just keep riffing , um , but I want to give you guys some value as well . Um , you guys have been listening to me riff for the last 50 minutes . Um , oh , so little plug . If you guys want to see kind of how my mindset has changed and what , literally listen to me . Go from day one of the business to now .
Speaker 1Um , I've been documenting the journey on my on my Spotify podcast , so this this will go on Spotify as well . I got two episodes I got to edit , um , but it's called harmony of hustle . You can see it right up here . If you search that on Spotify , you'll find it . Um , and you can literally go from day one of my water company to today . So , um , I search that on Spotify , you'll find it , and you can literally go from day one of my water company to today . So I think I hope that'd be entertaining for you guys . Yeah , of course , any ideas on taking things off ? What not once audience established event swag store one offs ? Yeah , yeah , I own a water company . Yeah , I think , yeah , I think that's always the play right . I think it's going to feel good . I think that's always the play right . I think , um , it , it's gonna like feel good . I think it's gonna come down to you know what ? What innately .
Speaker 1Do you actually enjoy doing um events ? I've ran a ton of events um . You're most events lose money , just being honest with you um , so a lot of times those are more for like brand recognition and building culture . Um , unless you're like super , super established I , I mean I used to . I know a lot of the Grant Cardone guys and the Andy Elliott guys and on some of Grant's biggest like 10X conferences , he's actually lost a shit ton of money on those .
Speaker 1Now , it's not , you know , it's a little different , but like a water project alkaline to liquid death , fiji I'm working on something like that right now . Like , uh , I'm working on like something to sell um at retail , but I do like whole home water filtration , commercial water filtration , so like reverse osmosis units . Um , carbon softeners , stuff like that . Yeah , but yeah , no , I think feel good .
Speaker 1I mean , I think swag is huge . I mean swag is something I'm going to be building out once I have a big enough audience of people that could actually buy it . Um , because that that just goes to brand right here . I'm going to get this giveaway live too . Um , that just adds . That just adds to your brand identity . Um , and I love , I love swag . So , personally , that's something I'm always going to have have a solid system to get rid of our hard water , our cutter oh , that's nice , that's great . Yeah , we don't . We definitely don't have that here . We don't have that here . Um , yeah , I mean , listen , guys , and I'll tell you starting a business is not all it's cracked up to be . That's why I love the whatnot thing .
Speaker 1Um , I'll tell you , having a team of people is so stressful . Sometimes . I love belt like this is it's just me and you guys . It's so much more fun . I don't have to worry about employees or anything . I can just literally just worry about making sure that the stream is super fun . It's great , super great . My son and I are trying to do that . Yeah , dude , feel good . That's amazing . My two virtual assistants Do you have a VA company Virtual assistant is good . It's a definitely competitive and see , that's a talent . That is a talent and recruitment business , right , yeah .