The Collab King: How Fans Really Judge Your Licensing Deals

The fan who became the voice of anime collaborations speaks out.

Meet Caleb, the "Collab King" whose content on licensing and IP collaborations reaches millions. From predicting which anime partnerships will explode to calling out lazy logo slapping, he reveals what fans REALLY think about your licensing deals.

In this episode, discover:

• Why limited editions matter more than brands think
• The red flags that kill collaborations before launch
• How secondary markets actually help your brand
• Why Fantastic Four's licensing was genius (and sustainable)
• The $10 Old Navy shirt that beats $50 collabs
• How to get brands to send you products before launch
• Why overproduction is the new "Beanie Baby" killer

From getting leaked warehouse photos to opening a collectibles store, Caleb shares the fan perspective every licensing professional needs to hear.

🎯 Follow Caleb: @CalebXSwag

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Transcript

There's nothing more valuable to a brand than that level of awareness. Five years ago, when I first picked this up, licensing was very new to the anime world. Every partnership was awesome. I think a lot of brands now are seeing it as like cash grab opportunity. It's kind of losing the sauce a little bit. 

 Every spreadsheet, every contract clause, every strategic decision we make in licensing ultimately comes down to one thing. 

 Overproduction is what's killing these brands. 

 What's the biggest mistake that you see companies making when trying to tap IP fandom? 

 Don't be afraid of the secondary market. If I see a shirt that just has the Naruto asset on it with your branding on it, I know you didn't put much work into it. 

 Did Caleb just say he gets sent free stuff? 

 I would make a video if someone sent me a pen. If you want Prada, create things that they're working on ahead of time. 

 What's your thought from a fan perspective? Logo slapping versus a more thought out, authentic kind of collaboration. 

 Oh, man. 

 Fans drive every licensing decision we make, yet we rarely hear directly from them. My guest today is known as Caleb X Swag on Socials as well as the Collab King. He represents the other side of every licensing agreement. The passionate collectors who camp out for limited editions and can spot inauthentic partnerships from miles away. Today, we flip the script and hear licensing through the eyes of the people who matter most, the fans. Enjoy. 

Before we dive into today's show, I wanted to share something really exciting with you. For the first time ever, I'm opening my vault of nearly 20 years of licensing experience through my online course, Learn to License. Whether you're just starting out or looking to level up your licensing game, this is everything I wish I'd known when I began my journey. 

From deal structures to finding the right license, knowing if you're ready and how to pitch like a pro. It's all there. The fundamentals that separate successful licensors from everyone else. Visit learntolicense.com and let's get you from curious to confident. Now let's jump into today's episode. 

Caleb, you know, after two decades in this industry, I've negotiated deals worth millions. I've structured partnerships between global brands and beloved properties. I've helped bring countless licensed products to market. But here's what I've learned. Every spreadsheet, every contract clause, every. Every strategic decision we make in licensing ultimately comes down to one thing, and that's the fan. The fan who essentially lights up when they see their favorite anime character on a pair of crocs, the fan who camps out for limited edition collaboration. 

 And that's why I'm really excited to talk with you today, because while we often talk about brand managers, lawyers, retail experts, today we're hearing from someone who represents the other side of every licensing agreement, which is the fan. So, Caleb, thanks so much for. For joining me today. 

 Of course. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Great little intro there. Loved it. 

 So, Caleb, you call yourself the. The collab king, and your content really focuses specifically on licenses and IP collabs. Tell me what sparked your fascination with licensing. 

 Yeah, you know, I've always been a huge fan of the, like, I just call it, you know, the collaborative effort, you know, brands coming together. I think it stemmed a long time ago with music. I always loved seeing, you know, an artist feature another artist. So, you know, you have the song and it says featuring someone else. I think it started there, you know, with my fascination with that. And then, you know, as a collector, I think I understood from an early age that if something was a collaboration, that there was a time limit on it. And I thought to myself, you know, these are actually limited. Like, no matter how much they say the. The mainline product is limited, the collaboration was generally always limited. So as a collector, I always gravitated towards those limited releases, which turned out to more. 

 More times than not be some kind of crossover or collaboration. So I've always been a giant fan of that. And then, you know, that became kind of the main point of my content collaboration. I was already researching collabs and, you know, licensing and IP for so long, and I thought, you know, why don't I just make videos about this? I already. There's already so much information that I look up. So, you know, I've just always been a fan of the collaborative effort, I guess. 

 And is that something you mentioned, Caleb, that you love? Collabs are very much, you know, for a limited amount of time, and that can generate a lot of interest, a lot of people, you know, rushing out there to get the product. Do you think that generally fans love it when there's, you know, some scarcity within the product or it's a really limited edition opportunity that makes it so much more valuable for them. 

 Yeah, you know, I think at the end of the day, if somebody spends, you know, $100 on an item, they want to walk away with that item knowing that it's still worth a hundred dollars. I think people in the collectible space are really afraid of that depreciating asset Feeling of you buy something and it is immediately useless the second you have it. I think at the end of the day you still need to collect what you love. You need to buy what you love. But it always helps to buy something and know that it's still going to hold its value. And I think that the licensing world, the collab world has always stayed true to me. As far as you know that kind of holding true. 

 And you've been quoted industry publications as a specialist in the anime brand collaboration space. How do you evaluate which anime brand partnership will resonate with fans versus ones that might feel a bit forced or inauthentic? 

 Oh man, that's tough. You know, I think, you know, five years ago when I first picked this up, licensing was very new to the anime world, especially with brands. So back then it was like every partnership was awesome, you know, very thoughtful, very good, very limited and all the products were incredible. I think a lot of brands now are seeing it as like, as a cash grab opportunity or an opportunity to kind of build their brand without any. I think a lot, I've seen a lot of brands right now not really have any of their own identity anymore. They're kind of becoming a licensing or anime or an IP brand which I think kind of, it's kind of losing the sauce a little bit. 

 You know, I, a lot of times, I guess it, there's a lot of factors, I guess if there's a, a collab that I think is good. I think when one comes out of a brand that hasn't done anime collaboration before, like we just had like Nike and Yu Gi oh is about to drop in a few weeks, I think that's going to be a big deal. But at the end of the day, I think if somebody can go to Walmart and buy a graphic tee and it is no better than the one that these brands are putting on a T shirt and they're charging, you know, $50 for something, I kind of just shake my head like, dude, I can't help, I can't. I'm not gonna promote this in any way because I could just go to Walmart and buy one just as good. 

 We in the industry, we kind of call it logo slapping, brand slapping. So what is the difference from a fan perspective? Because we talk about a lot in the industry, we make a real effort. Let's not do logo slapping, let's not do brand slapping. Let's make this product really something special. What, what's your thought from a fan perspective Logo slapping versus a more thought out, authentic kind of collaboration. 

 Yeah, you know, I think, I know as well. I'm sure this is like it is in most industries, but you know, I, you know that they give the brand like a set amount of assets that they're allowed to use for a collaboration or for, you know, an apparel drop or whatever. So I understand, you know, that you could just take those and slap it on a shirt and co brand it and call that a collaboration because it is, you know, that's kind of like the bare minimum. My friend Jordan Bentley, the owner of Hyperlin, which is, you know, one of the leaders in anime apparel, you know, one of the first to do it. And he always said that his true creativity comes out when there's parameters involved. 

 So he loves the fact that there are, you have to use these assets, you have to use the first three main characters, you have to use this color orange. And I think he thrived in that space and I think that's coming from a fan of the space that he's able to do that. I think sometimes when you get a brand that doesn't, you know, sometimes that, you know, they drop a collaboration or they have a promotion every single weekend, I don't think they have time to really put in a lot of thought into their collaboration. So I think they just go for the logo slapping. But personally I, I'm not the biggest fan of just seeing the, at this point I could, I know the Yu Gi oh assets, you know, I know the Naruto assets. 

 If I see a shirt that just has the Naruto asset on it with your branding on it, I know you didn't put much work into it. So I think at this point, you know, you have to really be extra creative in the space. 

 I guess the more hardcore the fan, the more they're looking for something that's really unique. You know, they don't want to be walking down the street in a T shirt with the particular brand on it and then see the same person because it's been sort of mass sold at Walmart. They want to feel like something special. 

 Yeah. You know, I saw this awesome T shirt this last weekend at an event that I was at and I know that the guy got it from Old Navy. You know, it was just so well done. But I'm like, I, you know that's an Old Navy shirt. I know that. Obviously I didn't call him out or anything, but I'm like, dude, it's just such a well done shirt. And to be produced by Old Navy at sure, a mass production, but at the end of the day, it was $10, dude. It was awesome. So, you know, sometimes these, you know, you got to also factor in like outdoing and out creating these giant brands who can get an ip, throw something on a shirt with a little bit of, you know, their creative team at it, and then still be able to outprice them. 

 So I think brands are kind of running into that issue too. 

 How much of the licensing process do you think fans understand? Do you think that they understand what happens behind the scenes? All of the work that goes into getting the product, from negotiating licensing agreements to having style guides, to going through product approvals, you know, to selling it into retail or selling direct to consumer online. Like, do you think that the average fan understands and appreciates that process? 

 No, absolutely not. You know, sometimes I'll see a collaboration with an IP that does not get made ever. Right. You know, because the holders are very particular with who they collaborate with. So you know that they have a very strict hold on what assets they use and what products they're. They're allowing their client, you know, their partner to make. And of course I, I'll do something on it, I'll make a video on it, I'll announce it and then, you know, the top comments are, oh, this is such a lazy collaboration. This is just xyz when at the end of the day, man, it's awesome that this brand was even able to collaborate with this license or IP in the first place. You know, so they don't see that. But also, you know, also different countries have different rules as well. 

 So, you know, everyone's like, oh, why does Japan get, you know, all the best merch? It's because, you know, they're, the licenses are local to Japan. I'm sure that they give special, you know, attention to the brands out there. They give them some extra abilities to kind of move things around a little bit easier. Instead of over here, they sometimes just give us a file of assets and say, you know, put this in front of a logo. That's all you can do. 

 I read, I had a laugh the other day because I read that there was an interview that you did at a convention. You were asking questions like, which anime has the stinkiest fan base? That's really funny. Why do you think you got so much traction from that kind of content? And tell me sort of like how you came up with that. 

 Oh man. You know, I was. I was at a convention probably three and a half years ago and interview content hadn't really happened yet in the anime space. You know, it was big in other spaces. So I was kind of just like, dude, we should try. They had this gigantic escalator. So my brother was there and my other friend and I was like, we should, you know, figure out some kind of content to do up this escalator. So we'd hop on the escalator, we'd find somebody on the escalator next to us or you know, in front of us and we would just try to ask them questions. So I was just asking them random anime questions and then my brother just says, you should ask which fans are the stinkiest. I was like, that's a crazy question. Why not? So that's. 

 That's what I asked. And that kind of. That actually was the first interview video I ever did with fans or cosplayers or whatever. So thankfully, you know, that one did like 10 million views across all platforms. And three and a half years ago, that was pretty big. So pretty awesome. 

 Still pretty big today. 10. 

 Yeah, you know, I'm. I would never complain about 10 million views. 

 So what was the answer? What. What anime has the stinkiest fan base? 

 You know, I personally, everyone in the video said My Hero Academia, which is. I don't know if you're familiar in the anime space. That's what they all said. But I've never really run into a stinky My Hero Academia fan. So the. I don't know if they were just saying that because. Or what the deal was. So I don't know, maybe everyone was just bandwagoning the My Hero fandom for some reason, but I've never run into a stinky My Hero fan. Just to clarify. 

 Interesting. I do know My Hero Academia pretty well actually. One of our clients has a My Hero Academia license. I'm fear aware they a collection a month or so ago. It's done really well for them. So I do know My Hero Academia quite well. I can't speak about whether their fans are stinky or not, but you know, that's. It's interesting that was the answer that. That came about. 

 So funny. 

 Caleb, when you're analyzing potential collaborations between a property and a product, what is. What are the key factors that really will make it successful, do you think? And what red flags will tell you that the partnership's not going to work? 

 Oh man, that's. You know, at this point, sometimes I'll Be, you know, it's so weird because sometimes I'll make an announcement of something that's been done a million times or you know, that I think won't do well. But the, you know, the announcement will do insanely well. I think the ones that haven't been done yet are always going to do well. Or the brands that kind of, that haven't been in the space yet will always do well. Like Converse just recently did Naruto. That's big. That was their first partnership with Naruto and they haven't had a history of doing a lot of anime in the past. You know, Nike's about to do Yu Gi oh. They haven't had a history of doing any Yu Gi oh in the past. I think they've done some anime in the past. 

 So you know, those ones will always do well. Especially with these giant brands. Crocs two and a half years ago when they did Demon Slayer for the very first time, that was a big deal. Especially with, you know, with some other circumstances. That was their first anime collaboration. But still, you know, here we are seven or eight collabs later and I do another video and it's doing, you know, millions of views. So it's like, you know, maybe the steam never runs out, who knows. But I think, you know, I think we're kind of running at the end. I think we have, we're seeing a lot of buyers fatigue when it comes to apparel in my opinion. T shirts are really starting to crush people. 

 I think one of the things that I see that's a red flag is like a multi, a very large collection. Sometimes when a brand drops like a 10 piece collection, in my opinion that's just too much or 2530. It's just kind of, I think they're feeding into that buyer's fatigue a little bit too much. And we only really ever see that with apparel because you know, it's easy to double, triple, quadruple, 5x designs onto a T shirt or onto a pair of shorts or something. But when you come to actual like figures or products, basketballs, accessories, you know, those are always like the one or two items. So I'm always after the accessories. I think I'm just, I think we've seen quite a bit of apparel. 

 Tell me about the process that you followed to make sure you're staying ahead of, you know, emerging properties. You know, thinking about what might be the big licensing gold mine next. Like how do you identify a trend before it explodes? 

 Yeah, man, that's, you know, I, I usually follow like a whole bunch of Twitter feeds, things like that, to kind of just see what's happening and what's kind of going on. You can definitely tell these days, like, the Demon Slayer movie comes out next month. So, you know, we're expecting to see a bunch of Demon Slayer licenses. That's just kind of how it goes. Fantastic Four did like the biggest licensing run that I've seen in a long time for like a big box office movie. Like, I haven't seen that much, you know, IP promotion in a long time. So, you know, if you have something like that coming out, like a movie coming out or a new season, you can definitely expect to see some kind of collaboration and you just kind of hope that one of these big brands lands on that. 

 So I love seeing, you know, any big brand kind of just land on it these days. But yeah, usually the trend I follow is like, okay, what's coming out? And then what are they going to try to tackle? 

 Let's talk about Fantastic Four. 

 Yeah. 

 You know, released a month or so ago in cinema, there was a lot of product. Yeah. Because there's a lot of product out there. Is that something that appeals to you and fans on your level or do you feel like it's, you know, there's too much of a smothering of licensed product and nothing really becomes special after having so much volume out there. 

 You know, I think Fantastic Four was a special case because it's a, it's going to hit theaters one time and then it's going to be over. So I think like a giant run like that is fine. And I still think it was like a very manageable amount of stuff. You know, you, they brought into they got into the food world a little bit, you know, like Kellogg, Snapple, into the, like, fast food a little bit with, you know, Little Caesar. So I love seeing like those things that are just kind of like I said earlier, out of the blue, kind of out of right field a little bit. It's like, oh, do Pop Tarts. You know, it's, you know, it's nice to see a new Pop Tart. I'm fine with the Fantastic Fours on it. Pizza boxes. You know, this is really fun. 

 But what I didn't see was like a, just a ton of apparel, to be honest. Like, I was seeing all the other stuff that you don't normally see, which I think was very eye catching. I think we're getting to a point, though, you know, with these, like, popcorn buckets and stuff, where we are going to probably see a little bit fatigue there. It's like the galactus popcorn bucket, which I don't know if you saw. Like, they're the biggest one that. That I think, you know, AMC has ever created. It was like, $80. It was absolutely huge. And then you have, like, a bunch of other, you know, accessories and popcorn buckets. It's kind of like why. I don't know why you guys are trying to create competitor popcorn buckets when they've just announced the biggest and baddest one ever. 

 So, you know, sometimes, like, four different theaters will create, you know, four different popcorn buckets. I'm like, I don't think we need a. That's where I think the fatigue is going to come in a little bit. But as far as seeing all the other stuff, I love seeing it. 

 Is there a bit of a mad rush to go and get these popcorn buckets for resale? People get them. There's limited. Limited edition. They think, I can double this. I'm going to buy it and I'm going to sell it for twice as much. I'm going to try and buy 10, sell them all twice as much and make a profit off it. 

 Yeah, absolutely. I think that's. I mean, that's. We kind of run into this issue. That's. I wouldn't even call it an issue. I think that's a very controversial topic. You know, the whole. The whole scalper talk. I don't know if you're familiar with everyone just calling everybody scalpers. If you buy something and sell it, you know, you're bad. Which is funny because it helps the industry so much. Like, the secondary market, we can go into that later, is like, one of the most important things for the survival of any of these brands. Right? But. But yeah, I. I love seeing the. The value of these things double and triple. That means that the collection was awesome. That means the galactic. 

 If the galactus bucket is $80 and on eBay, the last sold was 200 bucks, that means they did a pretty good job, in my opinion. So that obviously is going to force collectors, it's going to force resellers to keep an eye on these things and focus on sort of this primary market a little bit more just because of that value. 

 And. 

 And I think it's awesome. I love that these. These things are kind of like, fluctuating in price. 

 Honestly, a quick pause here. If what we're discussing is really resonating with you're going to love what I've put together in Learn to License. This isn't just another course. It's two decades of real world licensing experience distilled into actionable strategies you can use immediately. I've worked with everyone from startups to Fortune 500 brands and the patterns for success are surprisingly consistent. The course covers all things that you need to consider when it comes to licensing those who are just starting out. So visit learntolicense.com your future licensing deals will thank you all. Right, back to our conversation and focusing on the food and beverage side. You mentioned Pop Tarts partnership with Fantastic Four. How important to you is it for the product, for you to experience the IP right to the point of consumption? 

 Because I see a lot of licensed product out there where the character or the IP is just on the pack and then you take it off and then you've got this product that it's exactly the same. There's nothing, it's not like in the shape of a character. It doesn't have any patterns sort of printed on it. I didn't see the Pop Tart one. So I don't know if they had like maybe a special print of Fantastic Four on the actual product. But how important is that from a fan's point of view? 

 You know, I think it just makes it all that much cooler. You know, I think the, you know. Yeah, like you said, I don't know if it had prints of the characters on the Pop Tarts either, but the fact that it was on the main packaging, I, I personally think is good enough. Like, you know, they're not doing anything well. I guess they were doing special stuff with the pizzas at Little Caesars, but it's not like, you know, they have characters printed on the Little Caesars. 

 It's, you know, a lot of times I think, you know, Pokemon and Hershey's just did a thing where the packaging was on the Hershey's package and then the kisses were wrapped in like a little Pokemon packaging and then there was a Pokemon on the bottom which is like, dang, you know, they took it like one extra level. I think they probably could have just done the main packaging and just dropped a bunch of, you know, silver wrapped Hershey's Kisses in there. But, you know, they took it one step further. So I think anytime that a brand is willing to take that other step, I think it's incredible. So the more in depth you can get with the License, the more layers you can have. 

 I'm. 

 I'm all on board. I do anything, like, lazy. I'm going to call it out, you know. 

 Yeah, totally. And I feel like in food and beverage and to a certain extent, health and beauty as well, you can go that extra mile where perhaps it's a special flavor or a particular scent that's relevant to the ip, you know, you can create, you know, a Fantastic Four, a flavor that's specific for that particular product that somehow ties in with something that happens in the movie. 

 Yes, I absolutely love that. I think, you know, for AMC or something, they. They didn't do. They didn't create any special flavors, but they had special glasses there. And then I think they just renamed, you know, like Fanta to, like, something that the. The thing says, you know, because he's orange and orange. So it's not like they got like a special flavor of Fanta, but they want the extra step to just give it a special name. And I thought that was pretty cool. 

 So, as a content creator, I imagine that you're on TikTok and Instagram also having a look and seeing what other people are doing. What, what is. What does it take for you to stop scrolling? If it's a. If it's a licensed collaboration, what is it that you need to see in order for you to stop the scroll and be like, wow, that's amazing. 

 Oh, man, that's. You know, nowadays, back in the day, I. I didn't really scroll a whole lot. I was on, like, you know, I was on leak pages, I was on, you know, websites, blog pages way. But I wasn't really necessarily scrolling social media to kind of get the jump on the news. But part of this, part of my social media is kind of making sure I'm the first person to it. So a lot of times I was just like, on blog posts trying to find what the next thing was. So I'm scrolling through articles through, you know, the Crunchyroll News, hypebeast Essential Japan, which is like a really awesome website that kind of just like makes articles of everything going on in Japan. Twitter, sometimes Twitter feeds. But, like, a lot of times I was on those really early websites. 

 Now I've been very lucky that brands are actually just sending me their assets way ahead of time. Like, hey, we're dropping this next month, just FYI. And I'm like, okay, it looks sick. But I think when I'm scrolling, you know, there's a lot of factors. I think some factors are kind of just like, okay, if I was going to be a general consumer, would this be something I would want to purchase? How likely am I going to see anything like this again? I think that might be the biggest one is if I'm scrolling, what's the likelihood I'm going to see something like this be produced again in like a month or two? 

 I think this, there's someone listening to this episode right now who is really inspired and, you know, maybe has a goal to be a content creator themselves. And they thought, hang on, did Caleb just say he gets sent free stuff? How, how did you get to the point where companies are just sending you product and saying, please post about this? 

 Oh my goodness, man. I started social media being like, dude, I would be so happy. I would make a video if someone sent me a pen. You know, like when you get that first package is the most epic thing ever. And I sort of structured my stuff around that. You know, I thought, okay, what is going to be a long run, very monetizable niche that I could get into? And I think product consumption is probably one of the better ones. And I started and I made the decision to do things that are upcoming or that are very current. So things that are drops or products that are going to be coming out. I think if you people ask me all the time, hey, how can I work with Crocs? It took me forever to be able to work with Crocs. 

 They. 

 How do you work with Crocs? I was like, I don't know, get them a million views on a product that's going to come out next week. That's. There's nothing more valuable to a brand than that level of awareness. So, you know, if you want products or getting, you know, those things, it's just kind of like, you know, work with these brands or kind of just create things that they're working on ahead of time and, you know, they'll just sort of fall into place for you. 

 So if you want to work with Crocs, for example, a good recipe would be do some really great content with it, go out and buy the product, do some really great content with it, generate a lot of interest and then put that back to them and say, hey, yeah, I'm creating content. Everybody loves it. And maybe you can get on a distribution list where they'll send you product before it goes live. 

 Yeah, you know, my friends and I, we. My. One of my good buddies, and his name's not Shivam, shout out to him. He's in the Pokemon space. And at the time where he was coming up in the Pokemon space, opening packs in content was really big. And we talked, you know, and I said, yeah, you know, products showcasing products is really big. Unboxings are really big. And we kind of said to each other, you know, I think the barrier to entry at that point was one, you'd have to buy packs. You know, every episode you're going to do four or five dollars a pack. Me, if I'm going to unbox something, it's going to cost $10. I got to factor in shipping if I'm going to unbox a $50 T shirt. That gets brutal. 

 So how do we cause brand awareness without physically buying the product? So, you know, were able to just sort of do green screens or were able to just talk about the product, you know, and just kind of go for an informational basis. So that's where I, at the beginning, I wasn't doing. I started doing product unboxings. It was just too expensive. So I just started talking about the products without physically having them. And then, you know, you kind of hang that over a brand's head, which is nice. 

 So in those circumstances, you can kind of, you know, talk to camera, do the background removal kind of thing, and maybe put an image of the product in the background. You're essentially talking about it. That's a way you can do it without having to have the physical product in your hands. 

 Yeah. And I, I highly recommend that for anybody whose content at the beginning is costing them money per episode, because that's going to just take a toll on things. And you have no idea when you're ever going to be able to make a dollar back from content. So I would recommend, like, if there's a way that you can bring forth some brand awareness or bring forth some product awareness without spending a dime, then I think you're on the right track. And if they're generating views, then there's just no way that the brand's not going to see it. 

 Let's talk specifically about your audience, because I'm really interested. You have a hundreds of thousands of followers across various different platforms. TikTok, Instagram. What is it that they're looking for when they're reaching out to you, Caleb? What are they asking for? 

 You know, a lot of times. Well, when they're reaching out, it's very. It's nice because sometimes some people will actually get the jump on something that I haven't seen yet, and they'll send it to Me, which is incredible. I'm like, holy cow. You know, this is a very early photo. Sometimes people will work in a warehouse and they'll snap a picture of something that they're 100% not supposed to. And they say, hey, you know, here's a leak if you want it. And I'm like, holy crap, that's. This is pretty intense, you know, so that's the first thing. So I'm very blessed that they, you know, they would reach out and just sort of like offer to help give me news on things. But the other one is, you know, how do I purchase things? How do I buy xyz? 

 Can you send me the link? Can you send me that? Or they just ask for like other photos if my stuff is for sale. So a lot of product related video or questions I would say come through. 

 And what, how do you tackle that? You know, you post about something and someone, one of your fans is messaging you and saying, where can I buy this product? Have you been given that information from whoever is provided with the product? 

 Yeah, you know, I will, I'll give them, I'll. I try to be as helpful as possible. If someone asks for a link, I'll try to give them the link. If someone asks for a release date, I try to give them a release date. A release time. I try to give them the release time. So I, you know, I definitely try to respond to those as helpfully as I can. If I see a lot of reoccurring questions, sometimes I'll just make a separate video on that entirely, like release date or sometimes, you know, product information will come out like a day or two before the actual release. So, you know, I just try to be as helpful as possible in this space. 

 Let's talk about posts that maybe doesn't perform well on with your audience. Are there any kind of collaborations or any posts that you've done where you feel like your audience is, you know, maybe not interested or they just haven't engaged as much and do you know, sort of like why that might have been the case? 

 You know, it's funny because sometimes you just don't really have a handle on that. You know, there's some times where I'm like, this thing is so dumb, like whatever I'm talking about and it will do a million views. There's some, there's some collaborations that I think are the coolest thing ever that I will post about and they will get zero traction. So that maybe sometimes I'm like, maybe my taste is bad. I have no idea. Or sometimes, you know, you just have no clue what the general audience is going to respond to. And I think, you know, if everybody had that answer, then these brands would just be absolutely crushing it every time. So that's a, that's tough. Sometimes I just have no clue what's going to pop off and what's not. 

 Sometimes it's just creating content, putting it up and just seeing what sticks, what performs well. Yeah. Is there any particular IP or brand that always consistently does well on your channel? 

 Oh man. You know, ever since Crocs did anime, Crocs always did good. The Crocs content always did good for the longest time. Casetify, which is that phone case brand out of Hong Kong. They did tons of really epic stuff and you know, they usually do well. Pokemon stuff always does well. You know, they're so big now and their collections have done so well, so they always kill it in the space. So you know, those three do it. Yu Gi oh does really well. Yu Gi oh always does really good. So there's a couple just like ips that do that I know will do well. Naruto will do well. One piece will do well. As far as the brand goes, it's tough to say sometimes on the brands, you know, like Crocs, Adidas, Nike, all those gigantic brands are always going to do well. 

 Anytime there's a luxury brand involved. I think more people are just interested in the information because I know that a lot of people aren't going to have the money to buy that. So I think they're more interested in the like wow factor that X brand is collaborating with, you know, xip. But yeah, I would say, I guess Those brands and IPs, I guess do. 

 You do ever get sent product and you open the product, you're like there's no way that my audience is going to, that is going to be interested, not going to resonate with them. Sorry, I'm not going to cover it. 

 Absolutely. There's some times where the product just absolutely sucks. And I know that it sucks. And if I made a video on it, I think my audience would definitely call me out that it was either seated, a paid advertisement or just like some kind of favoritism. I don't know. You know, I try to find. I've tried to keep out of the hard opinions when it comes to these things. I'll only drop a hard opinion if I truly mean it or if I think that it would benefit the opinion of the product itself. But I really try to just keep it to information. So sometimes if a product sucks, that's fine. Maybe I think it sucks, but the general audience, or maybe like if 10,000 people out there will think it's one of the coolest things ever, I'll just keep it strict to the information. 

 This brand is collaborating with this anime or this IP, it drops this day. That's a 20 piece collection and it's this much. And you know, that is, that's all the content needs to be. 

 Yeah. 

 And there are some times where I'm like, this actually sucks. 

 Really? Okay, interesting. And then you also spend a lot of time at conventions. Like, I'm assuming you're at Comic Con recently and is that something where you get invited to because you're at this level of being a content creator? 

 Yeah, I know. I'm very fortunate to be able to go to these things as either a guest or an influencer or a content creator or even just now it. Now it's, I love it because I've been able to get in on the industry side of things, you know, e. Working with brands on the industry side. But at the beginning, you know, applying for content creator, applying for influencer and getting accepted was incredible. And then it was, you know, hosting panels, it was be, you know, covering products, getting actual brand partnerships to go to these conventions. So yeah, it's a, there's been a lot of work into the convention scene, but I'm very thankful to be able to, you know, go to those. 

 How do you prepare for something like that? Because it's obviously a massive event and there's only one Caleb, right, who's running around trying to get as much news and content as you possibly can. I mean, do you have a team that helps you or is Comic Con that kind of event? You basically don't sleep for five days? 

 You know, I just don't sleep. I really just kind of go at it and I am, I try to just stay as sharp as possible and just say like, okay, if something jumps out to me on a content that I think would make good content, I have to make it, I have to edit it and get it out as fast as possible. I've been jumping around about, you know, getting editors or something, you know, to help me out a little bit because there's times where I will just, I'll film a piece of content, I'll get it onto my phone, I Had to switch over to my phone to edit exclusively just because I can do that while I'm at lunch, while I'm walking around the convention, while I'm sitting there at a panel or something. So I had to switch to my phone. 

 But, yeah, I try to just grind non stop. This last weekend was the Pokemon World Championship, and I would try, you know, the content pumps so heavily during the weekend of that, so I try to just. If I film it, I'm trying to edit it and get it out as soon as possible, like within the same couple hours, if I can. 

 So that's really important to your audience is they're. They're basically on the platform saying, where is Caleb? What's he up to? And I, I want a steady stream of news coming through from the event that he's at. 

 Yeah, my biggest fear is my audience being like, dude, this is old news. You know, this is so last week. This is so late. 

 Two hours, two out. 

 I want to be the first one to talk about it. So if it's being talked about, I want to be the first one to do it. 

 Well, speaking of the first one, there must be some collabs that. That are yet. That you're yet to see. You know, are there any kind of collabs that you're like, oh, this would be amazing if we could make that happen? 

 Oh, man. You know, being a Montana kid, so I was bornlicensing in Montana. Carhartt is one of the just staple, you know, kind of workman brands out here. Everyone knows Carhartt. Everyone wears Carhartt. I think Carhartt kind of made it in the mainstream the last couple years. They have yet to dive into anime. So I would love for their anime debut to happen one of these days. And I've told, you know, some studios, like, get on Carhartt, talk to them, and they're like, it's hard. I'm like, keep pushing them. So I am. I'm waiting for the Carhartt release. 

 Yeah, I mean, that would be really good. Maybe you could reach out to them and say, look, you're. You're missing out on something here. 

 Yeah, I sh. You know, I, I think at this point it's kind of weird because I feel like I honestly could make something like that happen, which, you know, I. Maybe I'm not ready to accept that yet, or I haven't accepted the fact that I could maybe even have some influence with, you know, even on the brand side at this point. 

 Yeah, well, let's see. I'm. I'm sure they would be very interested to hear what you have to say about that. Let's talk about. Let's go back to licensing. Let's talk about licensing professionals that might be listening to this podcast. What's the biggest mistake that you see companies making when. When trying to tap IP fandoms? What advice can you give to licensors to make sure that everything they're doing is really authentic? 

 Authentic, you know, don't be afraid of the secondary market, I think is a huge issue that brands are falling into right now. I think people are very intimidated for some reason by ebay, right? When really ebay creates a secondary market, just creates an automatic feedback to your product. You know, if you release something that's $10 and you look on eBay that it was $100, congratulations, you have created insane hype around your own product. I think if you adjust to that and say, okay, that hundred dollars should be our hundred dollars, we need to 20x the amount of product next time and make sure that those ebay prices are lower. That's what ultimately kills these brands. That's what Funko, I believe, is running into. Everyone says everything's the next Beanie Baby. That's. That's essentially what killed Beanie Babies. 

 They overprinted one day and they essentially just killed their brand. I think overproduction is what's killing these brands. And I think that's number one. You know, if you are forcing these. And I think licensing is a lot harder to obtain. So I think it's pushing these brands into a position where they have to create a large amount of product in order to break even and make money on these. When, you know, back then, when you can obtain an IP for a lot cheaper and you could create something that's very hype, you could put a lot of creativity into it and you weren't focused on, oh my gosh, I have to give this brand royalties. I have to have the upfront cost of X amount. I have to create so much products, so many different pieces in order to break even. 

 I think that we're running into a lot of issues with that, just the overproduction and then also the fear of the secondary market. 

 Speaking of the secondary market, with technology advancing with blockchain and so forth, there are rumblings in our industry that there might be a way for licensors and IP owners to get paid royalties on the secondary market. How would you feel about the IP owner getting paid a royalty every time the product is sold on? 

 You know, I man that'd be a tough thing for. I think that'd be tough. I think that would, I think that'd kill the brand, to be honest. I don't think it would. I don't think it would work out. I think less, less brands would probably just stop using it, to be honest. I just, I don't see how that could. I just don't see how that could be a beneficial thing in my opinion. 

 Because it would essentially add more costs at every stage. 

 Yeah, every step there's an extra cost. I mean, people are mad that ebay takes, you know, more than 10%. I just don't under. I just don't see how chopping that up and adding more percentages to that is going to make either the buyer or the seller happy in those circumstances. 

 Tell me about what's next for you. I'm really eager to hear what your long term goals are as a content creator. You know, you have such a great growing social presence. Where do you see yourself in six months, a year, five years from now, man? 

 You know, I would love to work with some more either. I don't know if I want to work with a ton of IP directly, but I would love to work in licensing a little bit, whether that be maybe just some consulting on with brands or companies. I'm also opening a collectible store in my hometown. We have an Astro Boy collaboration coming out. So I'm excited about that for the drop. And then I guess, you know, I want to do collabs, I want to do limited products. Through that I've got some avenues where I'm really trying not to focus on the mass production of things. I want to make things limited. I want to make things like kind of take it back to its roots a little bit. Kind of IP needs to loop back to the main brand. 

 I think companies are just losing their identity by becoming licensing and ip. They're just throwing it out to say like we collab with this brand, this brand. And yeah, so I would love to just kind of work on a more industry level more than a content creator level, I guess down the road. 

 Tell me more about your physical store. I mean, that's fascinating that you're doing that. When is it set to open? What kind of product will you have there, man? 

 So we're, it's with my high school, you know, best friend and we're opening it on hopefully in September, so the first couple of weeks of September there. So a little less than a month now. But on my end I'm Trying to turn it into more of a collectibles outlet where I'll handle the socials, I'll handle that, the E commerce bit. I'll handle, you know, the brand partnerships. And then my friend is going to handle the trading card space. So we want to make it into a collectible down to the trading card. So he knows a lot about trading cards. Trading Cards has, you know, one of the biggest collectible markets ever. It's, you know, it's also, people are finding a lot of investment avenues through trading cards, so we want to just kind of tackle both ends of that. 

 Yeah, we have a, a client you might be familiar with, Keepsake, who's a bornlicensing to licensed client. They recently launched the Invincible trading card collection. Really, really successful for them. When they launched San Diego. Right? San Diego Comic Con. Exactly. You know, lines out the door. It was unbelievable, huge success for them. They'll be at LA Comic Con, New York Comic Con, and they're going all in with this brand. It's just been so well received. So maybe you'll have some of their product in your store as well. 

 I talked to them at San Diego Comic Con, was really impressed with their product. Love the cards, love the products they had. So 100% would love to, you know, pump them a little bit if possible. I think their products are great. 

 Awesome. Good. Well, Caleb, if people want to connect with you, how can they find you? 

 Yeah, so most. I, I don't know how I came to the name, but you know, Caleb Swag is kind of just like the name I came up with. So Caleb x swag on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, all that jazz. And then the store is called Swag Mart, so you can look that up on Instagram as well. 

 Perfect. Is there anything else that you're up to, Anything that's coming up that you need us to know about? 

 Nothing crazy. You know, we can get controversial if you want. But I really, I'm really about the anime industry right now. You know, I'm really trying to, you know, I can't really say, you know, screw the influencer industry because I'm in the influencer industry, but I really want to help the anime industry as far as like the voice actors and the directors go. I think that, you know, they kind of, they do their job in the studio and then that's kind of their job. Right. But we recently, my friend Bryce Papenbrook and I, we started a little, I wouldn't call it an agency, but we kind of middleman, a few voice actors to getting brand deals. 

 So were able to get, you know, Chris Sabbat, the voice of Vegeta, the voice of all might, and my hero, all these amazing characters, one of the godfathers of anime. We got him a really sick partnership with Crocs when they did Dragon Ball Z. And then we just did one with Johnny Young Bosch, who is, you know, he was the, one of the first black Power Rangers. And then he, one of his characters has a Croc. So we did some stuff with him and we've done some other brand deals like that. But I would love to see, you know, some of these industry folks kind of make it to the forefront a little bit. And, you know, I love those kinds of partnerships and I think that's one of the best ways to promote these products. Like, just have these people do it. 

 Wow. So you've got your content, you're negotiating talent agreements, you've got a physical store. I mean, how do you decide where to go from here? 

 You know, I have no clue. I'm just trying to tackle every single day. Just as the day goes. I don't know what's going to happen. Who knows what's going to happen today? Who knows what kind of email is going to come through. So I just tackle it day at a time and, you know, hope for the best. 

 Well, I'm a big fan, Caleb. I'll be watching. Looking forward to seeing what you're doing next. Thanks again for joining us on the podcast, David. 

 Of course, man. Thank you so much. I had a. Had a great time. This is a, you know, truly passionate about this industry. Licensing and IP is one of the coolest things ever. I think every brand out there should at least do one. At least do one. So I love it, man. Thank you so much. 

 Thanks, Caleb. 

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Born to License podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you're eager to learn more about licensing, I encourage you. Take a look at my course, Learn to License. I've condensed almost 20 years of learning in my licensing career to help others understand how licensing works. And as a reward for sticking around, here is a discount code for you to put in. That code is bornlicensing to license 25. I hope to see you there.