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

If you want to take an idea to market and be successful, you have to be nimble. You have to check your ego. You got to make mistakes and then fix them quickly. And you got to have a team around you. When we have 300 million or more scans that have been scanned in a lot of we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect. Do they buy? Do they sell? Is it new? Is it old? I can make someone an expert in five seconds when they scan a card. What? Parallel boom. It's pink laser. Whatever it is, you become empowered. Welcome to the trading cards and collectibles podcast on the RADC Cast Network. From chasing grails to calling bluffs and going inside the hobby, are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. What's up, guys? Welcome to Trading Cards and Collectibles. I'm here in Greenville, South Carolina. In the studio, I'm always surrounded by some of my favorite collectibles. Josh Luber was so nice to send me a couple of toys here. Love these ghost rights. Got some of my favorite shoes. I got one of my best buddies now, Brian Ludden from ludx, who is with me, joining me now, co hosting with me here. I was like, I got how we get Brian in this show. You know, Brian and I have become good buddies in the hobby, and he's got one of the badass tech companies in the whole hobby. I'm like, ryan, we got to do this together, man. So he's here. What's up, Brian? What's up, buddy? How you doing? Thanks for having me. And I look forward to, you know, so many, so many of these conversations that we're going to have that you and I would have organically that, you know, now we can share with the public. And they might find it boring, but I know you and I love to. To rip, so no, we're gonna make it good. They want. Hey, they want the organic stuff, and that's what's really been, you know, awesome about Brian and I get to know each other. It's been as organic as it could be. My. My kids get back in the hobby. I decided to have a hobby series on right about now, my business show. You may have heard of it, may not have, but if you haven't, go check it out. And Brian comes on, and we did like a pre talk before it, and then I'm like, I'm gonna like this guy. And been to shows together, hanging out the Ludx lounge. So it's been cool, man. And that's what I love about the hobby man. Like it's, there's something about it that it brings people together. It has, you know, the nostalgia and everything like from growing up. But I don't know, the good guys just shine through. Like you. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's the same like bringing people, quality people in the, in the hobby, in the industry, whatever we want to call it, you know, getting you in here with a business mind, marketing mind, a branding mind. I mean that's what, that's what this, how this industry is gonna elevate. Right? And yeah, and the beautiful thing about this industry that I found out is a 9 year old kid could talk to a guy who's worth $100 million and trade cards. It's like the, it's like the, everyone's the same when it comes to collecting cards. And it's really, if people haven't gone to a show or seen what happens at trade night, it's, it's really impressive. I love it. Collectibles show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing and ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at Collectibles show. I want you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some ten thousand dollar hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back. But it's not just about the value. It's about what you're collecting, what means something to you. Share a story, share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week that was your favorite player and you nailed it. Hits at Collectibles Show. Send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring them to life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week once we get rolling and get some videos in where we share that on the show with us. We want to feature you on collectibles Show. Yeah, the, the whole standards, like every norm that we kind of norm that have that sort of falls like not in a bad way but like these barriers. Like my 12 year old son just wouldn't walk up comfortably and talk to someone like Brian Ludden. Like Brian's is, is a sweetheart and he is very available to be a successful executive that he is. However, being honest, my 12 year old is not going to just comfortably in any other business setting or at a mall if I ran into, you know, an executive that I know. You know, my son's gonna sit there and try to act on his best behavior so that, you know, my, his dad doesn't, you know, kill him we get home if he embarrasses me or something. But no, but, you know, sitting at the national, my sons are like, you know, I don't think disrespectfully, but they're like, you know, walking up to Brian and shooting the shit and like just feeling like they can have a dialogue and not, I don't know, have those normal boundaries that are both necessary sometimes but also limit the organic nature of the discussion. Maybe because they can talk to you go like, hey, you know, Erlacher still coming. You know, like, oh man, he's a beast. Or like, you know, like almost like just like one of the boys, you know, hanging out. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean that's, that's the beautiful part of it. I mean there's, there's things that like I would never tell my. Now he's 14, but at the time, 9 year old son to go talk to random adult strangers and have, you know, try to try to make money and make trades and, and I think that carries on and I've seen him migrate from 9 to 14 and the comfortability that he has with adults, it's, it permeates, it's teachers, it's, it's, it's, it's coaches, it's, you know, family, whatever it is, it's a really great left life lesson for these kids to learn how to communicate with adults. It also shows them a huge like how to deal with money and become an entrepreneur. And like it's, I just, I love the industry for all of that and I, I love where it's going. I mean getting guys like you in and our brand which, the, the tech side of it and what fanatics is doing and how card shops are evolving. I, I just, this is just the beginning of another growth spurt in my opinion, for this industry. Maybe funneled by or fueled by repackers who are buying, they can't buy enough. Yeah, I think prices will be good and I think the hobby will be healthy for, for quite a while. Yeah, the hobby's booming. We've been talking about that on the show. And just a programming note, you know, Brian is an official co host now with me on the show. Trading cards and collectibles powered by Ludx. I'm going to let Brian talk more. If you haven't heard of Ludx, you should have. And you're going to hear it over and over because of the incredible technology, data insights, and ultimately how they're enabling empowering collectors. Brian will do more justice to that. But Brian and I have met and I'm like, Brian, we got to do this together. So, Brian, every Friday will be this kind of back and forth. We'll have guests on Tuesday. Brian might jump in occasionally, but a lot of me just kind of interviewing those guys. But then on this show, Brian and I getting into just sort of the behind the scenes of the business, especially his, you know, I mean, this is a, definitely a part of my business now, but Ludx is knee deep in all of this, in so many layers, which Brian will talk about. But I'm excited for us to give you kind of the behind the scenes of access to someone like Brian and his knowledge of what got him in the hobby. But then now the data and all the ability that you have to sort of empower your experience in the hobby. And it's going to be great. It's going to evolve. You know what we are today, four, five, six weeks, we're going to see, get your feedback, get Q and A. But I think it's going to be really fascinating some of the data you'll hear and can see when you start to understand what Ludx is doing and how they're empowering collectors. So, Brian, I'd love for you to, you know, talk a little bit more about that and, and everything Ludox is doing. Yeah, thanks, buddy. It's, you know, companies evolve and as an entrepreneur, you know that, like, what do you think? If you would have saw the deck that I raised money at for the first round? I mean, there's not much in there that happened, you know, but it's about every day. Yeah, it's an idea, right? And like, if you want to take an idea to, to market and be successful, you have to be nimble. You have to check your ego and pride at the door. You got to make mistakes and then make them fix them quickly. And you got to have a team around you that I lucky to have a super talented team around me. But yeah, I mean, I. This industry, you know, I got into it, I was a derivatives trader for 25 years. I started my first company, I was 29, and I ran that until about 2018. We got acquired by a, a big algorithmic trading company. And I would say I'm just not a good employee. That's the easiest, easiest way to say it. I was not winning any awards or getting a Parking space, you know, at the front door. Yeah. No. Employee of the year awards. Yeah, No, I know, I know. I wasn't even on the ballot. I don't think they acquired my company. I was there for three years. And during that time, kind of when Covid hit, I saw prices of cars going up. And the rumor was that the NBA guys were sitting in their pod of where the playoffs were played in Orlando, and they started buying each other's cards, and he started buying the OGs, like, the Jordans, and basketball started coming up, and. And then it became headline news. And so I go get my. My junk wax stuff. My son's nine, like I mentioned, and I'm. We're looking at this stuff, and I'm like, there's not a lot here. So we buy a new pack. I open the pack, I'm like, what the hell is this? Like, it's. It's got lasers. It's pink, it's purple. And I'm now Googling, like, what this is. And I'm like, man. I go, nick, let's punt this thing, man. Frustration's going this way, you know, like, funds going down. And I'm like, there's got to be an app out there in today's world that can help us. And there wasn't, man. And I went to a few people, and they're like, no, that doesn't exist. That'd be cool to invent it. And I said, I'm going to invent that. I'm gonna go do that. And I would say that if it was a recipe, it was equal insanity versus delusion versus hunger to succeed and run a new company. So. And then I got my wife on board, who's the president of Ludx and co founder, and she. She just runs for Ludx. She does everything. I'm really. That I suck at. It's a lot. She knows a lot. I can attest to that. Not. Not you, but myself too. I have a wife. There's a lot of things better than me. That's why we married him, right? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So then, you know, it took a while, so I put a deck together, raised some capital from friends and family, and I was. I was blessed. Being on the trading floor with 400 guys. Your reputation's everything down there. That. That's it, right? You make a trade with someone, I could lose a quarter million dollars in 15 minutes and be like, ah, that sucked. Like, I have. That has to happen. A trade is good. And so I was able to raise over $5 million in 45 days, which was pretty insane. Friends and family. And that got Ludic started. And I would say, you know, as Ludox, what we, what we want to be is we want to be the first line. When people enter the hobby, they want information, want knowledge. I can make someone an expert in 5 minutes, 5 seconds. When they scan a card, what parallel boom. It's a pink laser. Like, whatever it is, you become empowered. And the way I look at it, as a consumer, when consumers buy, they buy. And you know this because of branding, but they buy because they, they're. They have knowledge, they have wisdom, they're empowered and they can make a decision. If you take any of those away now, you're like, I don't know if I should get in this industry or not. Let's help people, right? And yeah, so it's like, really, it's about Ludox helping people. So scanning a card, as simple as it gets. You take a picture of a card, we tell you what it is. You can put in a digital. Your portfolio, your collection. We're going to have sharing collections soon. You could list it on ebay through Ludx. So there's so many things that we could do with this, but at the core, it's about empowering people and giving them knowledge. That was really hard to find. It was very struct, segmented, fractured. I could not believe, Bryant, that Beckett magazine was still relevant. Yes. And look, Brian, here's the deal. Call it serendipity, whatever you want to do, call it. But the fact that I got introduced to you from Jeremy and you can attest this, validate it. When the boys and I came back into the hobby and after we had opened I don't know how many hobby boxes and had cards like two or three months in, going overboard like I like to do, and cards everywhere, you know, about middle of the way of doing that and starting to really think about, okay, what do we have here? What have we opened? I did the whole thing too. I went down the rabbit hole of, okay, it can't be a magazine still. So luckily for me, Brian had already had this epiphany several years earlier. And I went through the 4, 5, 6 apps doing different things, none of them quite clear, but landed on Ludx and I go number one branding shot sharp. This looks like the most put together of them. I hope the tech lives up to it. And it did. It was easily the best in class from a scanning perspective. Collection, collect and just display of information. But the scanning, you know, it was the best of all of them. And so it was, it was already, you know, because at that time when I met Brian, we were in it. I mean, we're in it now, but just what we were opening every day. So that was the number one app on mine and all three of my sons before I even met Brian. Like once I had that interview with him. Ludx app, if you go. Because you know, when you swipe up, it shows you your most common. When you're running a business day to day, it's not the big ideas that slow you down, it's all the little things. Inventory, customer messages, shipping orders, keeping your site updated. It adds up fast. At Collector Station, we use Shopify for all of it, literally every day. It runs our inventory, helps us manage customers, handles our online store, and even makes shipping way easier. Instead of bouncing between different platforms, everything's just in one place, which honestly saves us a ton of time. And that's the part people don't always see. It's not just about building a website. 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I mean, because there's new cards every day, you know, so, like, I'd love for you to talk about, like, that scanning portion of it. Probably be interesting to people. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's everything you said. It's, it's. There's a saying a lot of entrepreneurs, if I knew how hard it was going to be, I wouldn't have started it. But once you got down the road, you're like, I gotta get there. I had no choice at some point, right? Like, yeah, yeah. But it was. I mean, we went about it a little differently than some of our competitors. The level of technology and I think the money we put into it was, you know, larger than some of the competitors that were first to market. And everyone was trying to solve the same problem in their own way. And I just know that from the beginning, Brand guy, like, I wanted Lumx to be A new brand in this industry. Like, there was no tech revolution. Nothing's happened in this industry. I want our brand to be top of line. So if we touch a podcast, I want it to be the best. Our card shop in Texas is going to be the best. You know, our, our tech, I strive it to be the best. And it's not an arrogance thing, it's a, it's a brand thing. Like we have to be if, if we go out and set ourselves to be a leader in this industry for, for the foreseeable future, we have to start day one to do it. And it was, you know, there's a lot of pain in it, but honestly, the parallel training is super hard. There's not a lot of great images to train, so we had to build our own proprietary algorithms to figure that out. And then I would say probably more the something that I didn't think about, Ryan was people are taking pictures with their phone, right? I mean, there's a glare in the back. This guy had a silver prism in front of him. He's like, it keeps coming up red. And I'm like, what color shirt do you have on? He's like, red. I'm like, well, the AI is all red. Like, and it's unbelievable. Like the, you know, we had to train out light stickers, top loaders, all that stuff. So we have three patents pent. We have three patents pending. And a lot of it is around the, the app picture taking and couple another one that's proprietary. But yeah, so it was a, it was a difficult task. I didn't know the market was significantly larger than I thought when I started looking into it. And I'm like, well, first of all, can I make money three or four different ways? That's my first. Second thing, is the industry big enough that, that we can make, we can make money, you know, in this industry. Third, what's the competitive landscape look like? You know, and, and, and four, can you raise capital? I mean, during COVID it was easy, but it got really, really hard to raise capital. Valuations, especially in the vc. Early seed VC just, I mean they plummeted. So there were challenges on top of challenges. But the one thing I don't, I don't really give a shit about challenges, right? Like, it's just, it's just another, it's just data. I look at the whole, everything is data, so you start a lot. X. This didn't work. Well, what's the data tell us? Why didn't it work? Okay, fix it, you know, and so I, I kind of try to stay non emotional and trading for 25 years using my own capital. I think you learn that you're going to screw up a lot. Like no one's made worse trades than I have or more of them than I did. And I think that bodes well to start a company because when I know I'm wrong, I switch it fast and so, you know, so yeah, I think, you know, for lx with the technology and where we're going and what we want to do with it, I'm excited. And pretty much everything we do from now on will be announced on this show. And I would say in the next three, by the end of the year we're going to have two or three really big announcements that I think will revolutionize the industry even more. Well, you guys would be the first to know. I tell you it's usable right now. Like it's, there's a little things and we've talked about Brian's team's work on it, but it's, yeah, it's, it's nine tenths of the way there. It solves issues already. You know, a couple little quirks that you guys I know are working on. But it's, let's just say, I mean if you, if it had those quirks, it still saves you like 10x20x100x the time. It's just, again, you just wouldn't even deal with it, you know, most people because it's just too tedious. And yeah, I mean it's, it's, I mean I think we put like 2000 graded car PSA cards on in an hour last week. And it is, it is powerful. Yeah, it's, it's one of those things that will just help like think about this. Ryan, like ebay ballpark, if you look at their numbers, is doing like $4 billion in GMA for sports and trading cards. It takes three minutes to put a card on and they're still doing. Exactly. Yeah. Imagine that we have a Maddie Rich who's actually on the show, was a guest this week is awesome. He's got a really great, I'd say 9 out of 10 if you compare LCS's, he's doing as good a job as anybody. However, there's a lot of room for an opportunity for card stores in the hobby. It's, you know, we've, we've got all this tech, we got all these advancements in some ways and, and, and you know, I'm not trying to like rip out the nostalgia and the analog nature of some of this. But let's be honest, it's a. It's kind of a. Most shops are stale at best and just. It doesn't have to be that way. And I think it's time for evolution. And I'm excited about, you know, what you guys are doing at Ranger Stadium. Yeah, that's great opportunity. I mean, you know, some of this. Sometimes things just work out, you know, and. And I threw out the first pitch. Last Friday at Ranger Stadium, the ownership group invested in LX and the Neil Lehman. One of the owners said, bry, we'll be the best partners that you, that you have. And he's let us out a lot of his card day. We spot with Beckett, we partner with Beckett. We gave out 8, 500 packs of cards to everyone that came in. And then I got throw out the first pitch and then he. Neil's like, I want to open up a card shop and I want it to be right there in the stadium. It's 5,000 square feet. I want it to be the best in the country. And I said, good, we're aligned because it will be the best in the country. And it's in the old stadium, looking out at the old Ranger Stadium, across the street from Globe Life, which, that campus, if you're ever down there, you have the Cowboys, rangers, hotels, bars. It's just amazing. So let's talk, man. Let's talk data. Got some interesting points. This is going to be probably. We'll be leaning a lot more into this. Obviously we want you guys listen to show, you know, know our background. This is, this is how this stuff comes to life. This is what Ludx is doing. This is what Brian is, the CEO is doing every day. So we want to bring that side to life. But now that we've got that out there, you're going to see a lot of talk a lot more about what this data enables. Just cool. I mean, it's like because when you have hundreds of thousands of scans happening every day, you can go, okay, well you can keep it like on its surface to go, okay, that's a collector that wants to know all the cards that he has and the values they have. But okay, but once you start doing that, Brian's sitting on a lot of data that tells you certain things, trends, who's getting scanned the most, who's going down, who's going up, whose values are going up. Like, that's. And that's just the very top line. You can cut it a hundred different ways. That's what's Going to be exciting about what we can bring to life integrating that LUDX technology into the show. Yeah. And there's a couple of things my team put together is, well, you said it right. Like when we have, you know, 300 million or more scans that have been scanning letters, we intimately get to know people. We know what they collect, do they buy, do they sell. Is it new? Is it. Who are you obsessed with? Yeah, I mean you wouldn't believe some of these. You wouldn't leave some of these numbers when I bring them out of like how many Tom Brady cards is this one guy has? It's like 40,000, you know, like passionate people about everything. But here's some let's relevant data. If you look at the NFL, so the three highest movers as of yesterday and there won't there, there's one surprise in here I would not have guessed. So number one, Daniel Jones. Yeah, he's, he's doing it. He had to get out of that cesspool in New York, but he's up 35% over the last two weeks. Makes sense. And the scan activity on LX is up 42%. So people buy it, people scan it and prices go up. Next is Justin Herbert and he was down a little bit last year. Towards the end he's up 19% and his scan activity is up 14%. And Justin had a bigger, like he, people are scanning a lot of Justin cards so that, that ratio is a little bit. So when you gave those stats. So top three, Daniel Jones, Justin Herbert and Roma Dunz. And if for anybody that doesn't know, you should know. But that's Chicago Bears wide receiver. He played at Washington with Michael Pennix and he is Caleb Williams favorite target and he should be. And I'm high on Caleb Williams. I know he's, he's up and down, but I think he's a dude. Yeah, I hope so. That's, that's my squad. So, you know, I, I, I'm hoping someone comes out with some QR code that goes on the back of these new cards so we can easily get them. And, and I, I'll worry about the other, you know, trillions of cards that have been printed without those. But like going forward, let's, let's sync up and get some QR codes. Yeah, it's like exactly. It's gonna be easy to solve, you know, like one, I mean sometimes I don't think, like you said, I think sometimes they don't want to solve it. It's like because either they think they don't have to, or I don't know what it is, but you know, but hey, someone's gonna solve it for them. I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, I love my boys at psa and I mean, there is still a PSA world and we'll talk about different topics like that over it, but it's like you could get some evolution in this grading stuff too, you know? Yeah, I think the repacks will, the repackers will have a say in that also. I mean, if it's PSA rates, prices and it takes longer, they're going to go to bgs and then if Beckett, then they'll go to CCG and like, eventually I think it's kind of PSA will in the. It's shortterm, long term, midterm, whatever it is, always holds a premium. But I think you're going to see those other companies starting to come up a bit just because of how difficult it is to grade cards and how, how many people are looking to buy these things. I mean, there's you know, I know for sure that there's Probably, I know, 30 to 40 million dollars a month going in to buy graded product for repacks, digital, digital packs, whatever you call them. It's a massive, massive part of the industry. Yeah, we'll talk more about that in the future. Here's what you can expect. Brian and I are recording this every Wednesday for the Friday release, so every Friday, Brian and Ryan here on trading cards and collectibles powered by Ludx. And look, Ludox isn't, is. This isn't about sponsorship. This is about ingredients within the show because we're going to bring these stories to life so that we enable and empower you. And you're collecting and kind of seeing like behind the scenes. And look, you get to live vicariously through Brian and I when we go to all these shows and we'll bring it to life. And hey, come you, you get to come on the road and see us, you know, it's, it's just, we let our hair down. We'll just say that and what's left of it, hey, I still got some, buddy. You got some. I've got mine on the hat here. And I feel, I mean, a few years and look, hey, send me a message. I'll, I'll strong arm Brian into sending, sending you or putting you in a drawing. We'll get you some gear. They got some of the best hats. I love their hats and love you, Brian. Appreciate you, man. It's gonna be fun doing this show together. It's only going to get better as we take a look inside the hobby. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm excited to, to see how this, like I said, see how companies evolve and see how this evolves and, you know, taking feedback from, in questions from people in the, you know, watching this is. Is awesome because we want. You and I are people people, and we want to interact. So this is, this is about totality of the industry. So thanks so much for this opportunity and I look forward to every Wednesday. L U D E X Go to the App Store, download the app, get your scans going, man. This is how you track your cards. It's about knowing the value, but it's about having your collection in the digital form so you know where it is. Look, I might sound like I'm selling it. No, I live and breathe and do this every day with my kids. I'm in it and I'm in it with guys like Brian and the Ludx team. Hey, I'm on the team now, Brian. I'm on the team now. I'm not. This. This is us. Yes. Go to the App store. Get that loadex.com for more information. They're doing some refreshes on the website. Got a lot of content you can also see on the app. Everything. The links back to ebay, some of the other partnerships that are going on. You don't want to miss it. They're at the center of innovation in the hobby and so are we. Trading cards and collectibles. Brian and Ryan every Friday. See you next time on the show. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectibles.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at ryanolford. Now get out there and collect your.