Passion to Profession: Building the Ultimate Hobby Experience with John Amendola of Mintink

Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of Passion to Profession brought to you by my good friends at ebay here on the Stacking Slabs network. It is that time of the week where we dig into the entrepreneurial journey of someone in this house. Hobby building, something cool. And I have an episode for you all today. I'm joined by my man John Amendola from Mint Inc. And we are talking about building a hobby brand at scale. I love John's mindset, his mentality, his appreciation for cards and his appreciation for business. There is so many, so much good insight and information in here. If you are a collector, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're an operator, someone plugged into a hobby business, you are going to want to listen to this. Make sure you are signed up for Hobby Jobs. It is a newsletter I put out every Tuesday that explores the operator side of the hobby. And we have a podcast every Sunday to accompany it. Shout out ebay for sponsoring passion of profession. John Amendola, Mint Inc. Coming at you. All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Passion Profession, brought to you by my good friends at ebay. Had a little time to catch up before we hit record with today's guest. And I'm. I'm the energy man. I'm fired up. I'm. I was already excited before this, but today's guest is. I'm sure going to be bringing a lot of passion and insight which is perfect for our show. I am joined by John Amendola of Mint Inc. There is a lot to talk about, a lot about what he's building, and I think this is going to be a really fun chat. But without further ado, John, welcome back, man. Or welcome. How are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me, Brad. I'm super excited. Love what you're doing. I love your show. I love the crates of vinyl behind you too. Love it. Collector of collections. I think I was listening to a pod you were on at some point and you were talking about how I think you haven't just collected sports cards, but you've collected a lot of things over the course of your lifetime. So I'm sure you can resonate in some. Yeah, I love it. The sports cars, by the least thing I collect. Like I'm a big pop culture junkie. I have all kinds of content we produce where I'm just video games, comics, and everything's significant. I collect stuff that really matters to me and so there's like a story behind everything and typical. Like, you know, I'm a grown man, you know, in my mid-40s and it's like everything I couldn't have. I grew up an only child, single mom, lived in housing, I think you guys call it projects. And so, you know, going back and buying everything I couldn't have when I was a kid is definitely a really cool trigger for me. You were, we're talking about before we hit record, just about all that's happening at Min Inc. And we're going to get into that in this conversation, but maybe brief the audience if there's anyone out there who is not familiar with your brand and what you guys are up to, maybe give everyone the skinny of who you're in, what you do. So we're, we're Canada based. We're out of Toronto. We're in the midst of a national expansion, which is crazy because the days are long enough and that's really cool. We definitely can talk a little bit more about that. We've gone from like five to 50 employees and we're about to add 30 more. So it's crazy. But I'm a lifelong collector. I'm a collector of things I love. I grew up collecting, you know, GI Joes and cards in the 80s and the 90s. And in the late 90s as a business, we were on ebay, power selling early. And when the card market softened, we went into video games and all that kind of great stuff. We were buying out video stores, which was pretty cool. In the late 2000s, they started an ad agency. That's sort of my, my passion is I'm a marketer. I love content, I love new business development. So I've been an entrepreneur essentially almost my, my entire life, since 23, 24. You could argue before that I was 100% commission. So I've sort of always been a you eat what you kill kind of person. So that's exciting. 2018ish. You know, I'm into my 30s now and my wife and I tried to have kids. It didn't really work. So you come to a point in time where like, okay, you know, you got to shift focus a bit. And all of a sudden I had some extra money. I wasn't, you know, dance lessons weren't a thing and all that kind of stuff. So started to dive back into cards. The pandemic hit and absolutely destroyed my ad agency. We were big into small business community, local events. So Canada, we were shut down for the better part of two years. It was awful here. A horrible experience. A lot of people suffered. So we had like 16, 17 employees at that time. We were down to just a couple. And I'd given up, really. My wife and I were all in. There was no bank loan, so, you know, it was all our money. We had just had a grand opening. 120 people at the office, rah, rah. And, you know, two weeks later, the world is over. And I sat there one day and I was done crying, and I said, well, I'm having fun selling cards. I'm just gonna sell cards. I was into it for a little bit, and, you know, all of a sudden, I'm buying Gretzky and Jordan rookies a year before. I'm buying, you know, sixes and sevens and eights for five and six and seven grand. And all of a sudden they're ten and twenty and thirty thousand in both currencies. Like, it's crazy. And I got on the phone and I said to my wife, this is it. This is what we're going to do now. And that was it. Mint Inc. Was born. I'll let you a lot of people ask what Mint Inc. Means. So this is kind of how deep from the very beginning, if you think about mint, obviously, everybody understands mint is the form of measurement. And in our industry, it's the standard. You know, if it's mint, gem, mint, it's going to be top quality. And then ink, not ink. I n k. Because at the end of the day, like, I started my career, it's a Pokemon card. I started my career, I was a print guy. I own newspapers and magazines. So it's ironic, here I am 25 years later, and I'm still in the print business. I mean, I sell paper ink, so that's what mint ink means. It's pretty deep. I actually have, like, a whole sort of thing behind it. But when we started out, it was all about the lifetime value of the space and the way I believed it was going to go. And right from the beginning, we were in it for the long run, as we had sort of already done. So then six years later, I'm on your podcast. Pandemic sucked. Although it opened up a lot of doors and opportunities for entrepreneurs like yourself. And you got into cards, seeing the opportunity when you started Knit Inc. Like, you talked about it from the jump, like you are a national brand right now. Was that part of the original vision or what was the vision you had for the business? Yeah, so, like in, in, in spring, summer of, of 2020, when I really kind of got an idea of what was happening and I, I, I started to look at consumer behaviors and trends and, and you know, culture shifts and all this. And I saw like, you know, being in the space my whole life, it's one, two, five, year old business. I saw like the demand for the nostalgia come and then, you know, just the fact that it was, it was hitting mainstream. So it, if you follow, like Malcolm Gladwell, the tipping point, everything he kind of talks about in that book was happening. And, you know, we dug a little deeper. I did some more research and I wrote this paper, middle of the night Crazy, you know, six or seven pages of what I thought it was going to be. And the late later that week, I went online. I had just left Walmart buying Chronicles, Blasters 2020, Chasing Zion Luminance, and turned my phone on, you know, barrier to entry, right? A phone and a box of cards. I already had production studios, so we were, we were already pumping out, you know, great content. We were doing webinars and all that. So we were ready. I went live and it was wild. I sold everything that was on the table in an hour. People were like, you know, they just wanted more. I was having fun with the community. Like the. Well, they weren't a community yet with the people. The next day I trademarked Breaks After Dark, turned my boardroom into a card store, and we started ultimately what was a podcast kind of. But we ripped cards, two stations set up, just shooting a breeze, talking sports and cards, and next thing you know, we're doing 15 breaks a day. So we're running, you know, 12 hour streams through the middle of the pandemic. And. And by that fall we had opened up briefly. I tried to open a brick and mortar, but it was very difficult. So we did like a back door in the boardroom. So it was showroom by day and streaming by night. And by fall of 2020, when they locked us up again, the demand just went crazy. Sort of what I thought. And I knew at that point I said to my wife, I said, we're going to. People need camaraderie. They need like minded people around them. We need to create an environment where people can come and congregate and loiter. In this context, it was in my live streams and there's a video that circulated in December of 2020 and it says, I want to create something where. When you think of the hobby in Canada, it's synonymous with Minthink. I get goosebumps when I say that because it's crazy. Oh, I get super emotional. Like six years later, like, we did it. And not without a lot of man. Armed robberies, break ins, mail Frauds, you know, people. People are really tough. Employees, customers, all that crazy stuff. And you just kind of. And cash flow and no money. And, you know, the banks, you know, this wasn't what it is today. Even just a few years ago, like, you weren't getting money from banks and everything else. It was, it was, you know, you kind of had to sort of just do it on your own. So we were all in from the beginning. And the whole mission wasn't just, hey, let's capitalize on this crazy market, take a bunch of cash, you know, the Italian way, let's take the envelopes under the mattress and call it a day. It was, let's just keep reinvesting because you know, where we're going and where it's going, it's going to hit a place where even if it's, if it, Brett, if it stops tomorrow and it crashes in half, it's still 10x bigger than it was five years ago. And my attitude was, if or when that happens and that roll up happens, you know, when the dust settles, people still collecting, people still need that and, and, you know, mint ink would just be there. So I kind of set out and said, like, if I was rebuilding Toys R Us or a mastermind, you know, if, if I was building what I thought toys and collectibles should be like today, as a big kid, my wife will tell you I'm her teenage husband, that's what we're going to do. And it worked. I want to go back to that. The, the dawn of Breaks After Dark and you converting your office space into break studios in real time. And the demand just kept going up and up. Well, a lot of people don't talk about, like the operations behind breaking. And so you're, you're understanding that there's crazy demand, it's coming in, people want more and more. But there's a lot of work behind the scenes, especially when you're scaling that operation. How did you make those decisions in real time to make sure that what you were doing was efficient and also like you were able to get product to customers on time. It's kind of like flying a plane and changing an engine at the same time. Like, talk to us about how you went about that. So I was fortunate, number one, to have done this before. So I was already very familiar with buying and selling cards, mail order, E Commerce. I'd done a lot of E commerce in my career, and I had been toying around with live shopping earlier on. Few of my friends were in the jewelry business and we Were, you know, there was an app called Live Scale before. Like, people don't understand what, what whatnot and OBS has done. We had 6,007, $8,000 computers running software called VMIX and all production and know you couldn't just throw OBS on your phone and, and put what you can out today. So we were really fortunate to have already been doing that. And of course, I was already in business for myself, so I'd been through a bunch of BS already and, and learned and I had a couple of employees at the time that were really digging what we were doing and of course they needed to work. What we were doing didn't exist anymore. So I was really lucky that I had the. The that side of it, the production side of it. So right out the gate, we were already pretty pumping out really good quality show, great content, all that great stuff. So I was able to focus on the hardest part of the whole game is Supply Chain. Anybody that understands knows that that is the absolute hardest thing. Like you're going to ask me at some point, I'm sure, if you were going to do this today, would you? And I don't know. I don't know if I would because of where Supply Chain is, you know, and how difficult that is. So we were able to really kind of divide and conquer right out of the gate. Although, again, you know, I had to be the face of the company. One thing we've always done and continue to do is I'm not the only one you're going to see on camera. We're really big into community and camaraderie and knowing people. So I was never shy to that. It didn't matter to me how, you know. You know, there's a lot of talk. People say, oh, you know, you got to watch out for this. You're going to that or you're going to put these people on a pedestal and then they're going to go and try to. It doesn't matter. I have the blinders on. The reason the horse wears the blinders is because as soon as you pay attention to everything else, you're done. You go off track. I've been really fortunate through my career to really kind of take that approach. So, yeah, so I was really lucky in the sense of I had the right people already employed in theory. People tell me, oh, you made this crazy pivot. How did you do it? And I'm like, I was already doing it. Cards are a widget. Like, I'm a content. I'm a business builder. I run Staff and systems and policies like it's cards today, it could be whatever tomorrow. So. So for me, it was more about just like, I'm building this app, this infrastructure to take this application and put it in said infrastructure and then be able to kind of grow from. From there. And it worked. So you've got employees in your other business that have moved over into join the Mint Inc. Business. How long did you run the business with kind of old staff? When did you start hiring new staff? Like, how did that go down? That's a great question. Because, you know, hindsight's 2020 and when you go in, you know, like when you, when you put people for jobs and not like jobs or sorry, when you find jobs for people and not people for the right jobs eventually. So. So we ran for a good 18 to 24 months and then by the time the, the, you know, 21ish comes around and spring of 21's coming and we're like, okay, this Covid thing is, I think it's almost over and we're going to be able to open the space. If you remember, 21 and 22 got really crazy. So I needed some help. I had some friends that I had done business with for a long time, my partner Freddie and his family. And we did a small deal, brought them in, and that's when we really started to, to scale. That's when it became a real business. I mean, okay, let's be clear. It was a real business before and it. We spent a lot of money back in the business to get to real business. But that was when it. When we knew, okay, this isn't going to be, you know, three, four, five people, a couple people streaming. You know, we're going to sell stuff online. And no, this is, this is something. And we were big believers, my wife and my partners, right from day one that, you know, they had faith in me that I wasn't out to lunch. I guess, you know, they. I'd already proven my crazy to them a few times over. So in this case, it was just like, here's the check. Go make us money. And so I sat down and I just said, that's it. Like, this is it. Never going to do anything else again in my life. I'm not going to go through what I just went through, lost everything. Like, I can tell you stories of my wife rolling out the gas station because she couldn't put 10 bucks in the gas tank to, you know, now it's, you know, nice day when I go to hit the golf course. It's, you know, you got it, you must have it made. So anyway, you know, it's definitely heavy, Brett, to get there, but I'm really happy that from the beginning that was the mindset. But yeah, by about the second year, we really had to pivot. And I'm gonna, I'm not gonna lie to you. Like, it's really only the last 18 months where we've really now scaled to like a full fledged retail operation as opposed to like a card shop, if that makes sense. You know, friendly, mom pop. It's, you know, the owner's there every day. That's. That's challenging for me. My favorite place to be is in the store with the customers. And I don't get there too often these days. I really cherish those moments. And just earlier we were talking about the streaming. That's the hardest job in the company. The streamer has the hardest job in the company. Yeah, they might make the most money because they're a salesperson. They have the hardest job in the company. There is so much happening and in those intense moments, you're dealing with customers, maybe they're not happy. You got. Sometimes you're on 2, 3, 4 platforms, you're following all these chats. It's the toughest job in the place. When you are like, let's zero in on like this. The role of the streamer at Mint Inc. When obviously, like, very valuable position, very. You have to have the right personality type, the right motor, all the. I'm sure you've evaluated it time and time again since the business has been open. When you are thinking about bringing on someone to do that role, let's say today, let's say you have a, an open role and you're trying to bring someone in, what is more important to you? Is it having the professional skill set in place or is it having kind of the domain knowledge and expertise or is it kind of like an overlap of both? Like, how do you evaluate bringing on a new streamer to the mini team? So a couple things. Number one, it's the hardest job and the hardest position to fill. We've been looking for streamers for a while. We really, really. We just built three brand new studios looking to scale up very, very, very particular. We've had a few people in and out. Some have worked out really well, some haven't. But myself, Adam and Maz. So I'm very fortunate. My first three employees all still work here. They're now key, you know, people running entire systems. And the three of us still do the majority of the streaming, it is my favorite thing to do because I just love hanging out with the people. But it's. You can teach product knowledge. You can't teach. Teach professionalism. You can't teach. I don't even know what the right way to describe it is. Like, in the moment, it's happening so fast. We live in a world where everything is being recorded. Everything is there. Like, you know, you're. You know, what time of day? What's channel am I on? How can I talk? What language can I use? Is it okay if I drop an F bomb? And, you know, I don't have to tell you. Like, we, you know, you see it online all day. What not crash shows is probably one of my fake great Instagram pages. But. So for me, it is professionalism first, and then I'm looking for salespeople, real, hardcore salespeople, which I am one. And. And it's a dying breed. I used to hire people the kids won't even know, but I used to make my staff watch Glengarry Glen Ross, Boiler Room, and Rounders before I would hire. I'll be like, you're gonna go like, you're in school. You're gonna go do an essay on these movies. Boiler Room is probably one of the most underrated movies. Oh, so good. So good. Vin Diesel and Ben Affleck in, like, their infancy is, like. It is just, you know, the best. So for me, the. The institutional knowledge, the product knowledge, like, that's easy to teach anybody. I'm really looking for, you know, the level of professionalism is the most important. You're the one that people see the most. And I can't control what you're saying in a live screen. And trust me, man, I have been there, seen it all. I've had people slip. We. We've been reported for all kinds of different shit. One of my Instagram accounts is frozen because people report us for selling weapons. You know, people. I'm very fortunate, Brett. We get a lot more flowers than bricks, but there's bricks sometimes people got to throw. But, yeah, professionalism and just general sales experience outweighs, for me, the product knowledge. Like, I can teach you what's in the FIFA box, you know? Yeah. What makes a good salesperson to you? Like, what are those traits that you think about, whether it's you from your own experience and anybody who's an entrepreneur who's been through kind of the different stages you have been through? Like, sales is a critical skill set in any line of business. How do you Evaluate kind of like a good salesperson in 2026, salespeople don't get enough credit. Like commission salespeople. And I'm talking about real ones. You can't tell me there's a hundred thousand real estate agents in Toronto and they're all good. Commission salespeople are, you know, a special breed. It's, it's about relatability and, and relationships. So we took a very transactional business, very transactional retail business, and we made it about relationships and community. So, so finding people that are, you know, that's. That whole sell me this pen. The pen is blue, is irrelevant. It's like, what kind of pen do you like? How do you like to write? Maybe it's not even the right pen for you. So like one's ability to be received by people, I mean, they're spending their disposable income, their entertainment funds, we're entertaining them, we're talking live stream now. They have to be able to be relatable and build relationships. So we'll have customers that will only rip with certain people. Like they have. My same real estate agent does all my deals. Or you and your family maybe buy your same car from the same car dealership. So it's really about, you know, their interpersonal skills is everything. It's not about, you know, let's just close that deal right now. And I'm, I have two speeds, you know, now and right now are the two speeds I operate at. I'm a little bit nutty that way, but at the same time, slowly is the fastest way to get anywhere. And it goes with relationships. I've had customers sit in our life for shows, on shows, on shows and not spend a penny. And then all of a sudden they turn into the biggest customer because now they're finally into you. They trust you. Trust is huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. It's everything in this space. And I, you know, I can, I love the, the motor that you have and the energy that you come into kind of this conversation with which I can't imagine into your business. It's not for everybody, right? You're, you're what? You're. You're, you're all gas, no breaks. Pretty intense. Yeah. People think I don't sleep. That's such a hoax. I sleep eight hours. I get a oura ring, I get 89 most nights. I get up in the morning, I get my phone, I lie in bed for an hour with my dog, drink a coffee. But then I just go, and what else am I going to do on Tuesday night at 7:00'. Clock, like Wash TV, forget. And again, like I said, you know, I had to find silver linings. My wife and I weren't able to have children. We really wanted to. So it's not like I'm missing recitals, I'm not missing hockey practices. I would have been a horrible hockey dad because I can't even spin o. But I'm a football guy. We actually have football in Canada, by the way. NFL. Not just the CFL. But yeah, you're, you're 100% right. I'm definitely not for everybody. But the, I pride myself in that the right people thrive with me because I, I push. You know, Tom Brady's got a lot of great analogies. Like, you know, you need to be coached hard. I'm a hard coach. If it's not for you, great. It's not for you. You should never do anything in life that's not for you is one of my philosophies. And I just, if I find a good. And that's the other thing. I am the hardest on the ones that I feel have the most potential. So you're probably like personality test probably like a hundred and ambition. You're running a hundred miles an hour and you're like telling everyone to like catch up and you're trying to get everyone on your, on your level. And as a part of this, right, you're growing and scaling this business like inevitably, like things don't last any longer and stuff breaks. Whether it's, you know, people process technology, the strategy you once worked with, like you, you outgrow it, maybe share some perspective on something throughout the history of growth that you've endured that kind of just broke and you had to figure it out. I've had that happen a few times. And it's, you know, we're going through it again this year because you know, we're going. What's, what's, what happens is you kind of alluded to it is we're going through five year plans in 18 months. So in 18 months is like this. So by the time you start to get your stride, let's say it takes a year for, you know, to get a stride in anything. You know, you get the rookie year done, you go into your softman year and you're just like, what? I gotta start over. So that's been the biggest challenge and what was happening and I learned this, you know, is I would have, I would hit this. So I try my best to stay in front of, keep the road my Job as the leader, as the CEO is to deal with all the BS in front, get the mountains and make sure the road behind me is as straight as possible for the team. Managing the lanes in the road. And what was happening is we're hitting these critical, critical mass and scale. And I'm like, okay, I need this, this and this and this by way of leadership and everything else. And I was hiring talent for the day in that moment as opposed to, okay, you keep going through these. So this time around was a little bit different. About a year and a bit ago, we, we just hit this, this crazy. Even know what you call it. It's been, it's been awesome. It's not slowing down. We planted a lot of seeds over the years and you know, I wasn't really trying to plant a garden. It was more about we're going to take our time because we're going to build a jungle. I used to say to people, we're really building a jungle. And that's what happened. And all of a sudden we just exploded. You know, like we're revenue is going, you know, monthly revenue is turning into weekly and you know, of course expenses go with it. So this time around, brought in the recruiter. I understand. Okay. We went from five in place to 10 or 12. Okay. To 20. Then we went from 20 to 45. Then we went back a little bit and now I just approved like 30. We're about to open three more stores in the next few months, plus corporate. And it's like 35, 40 people. I just approved. So in the last year, brought in recruiter and I brought in real senior leadership. Like I am not the highest paid person at Mint Inc. That's amazing. Yeah. We have a senior retail director, director of finance. We brought in a proper fulfillment manager. We're in the midst of hiring an office operations manager now. You know, so I go from having the whole company reporting to me to four or five direct reports. I. I'm in an office in another building by myself now. And it's crazy. I don't stop, but it's. I want to be interacting with customers in the store and I want to be on here. But if I'm not in my office getting the next lease negotiated or dealing the next security contract or, you know, we had a store get broken into. Like, my job is to make sure like my team has what they need to get the store back open and the customers and the staff have a, you know, their environment. And, you know, it was a great proof of that. This weekend in the gta some stores got broken into and our security is really good. So luckily they didn't really get to too much and they shouldn't have got in at all. But we had the store back open in a few hours. Brett, the community shows up. These guys had like one of their best Sundays ever. Their coffees, lunch. So it's really important to really not lose sight of. You can't do everything, you know, I don't read a lot of books. Good to great. Jim Collins is another one. And level five leadership. I got through that in 2023. We had an armed robbery three years ago and crazy story for another time and. And since then it's been a whole other trajectory. You know, the conversation was, okay, I said to Freddie, I said, hey, we can do two things. We can just go join the golf course and this will be fun and when it's over, it's over. Or you know, fuck it, we're going to go all in. We're going to build the greatest thing in Canada. We're going to take this as fuel and. And you know what? The last three years have just been insane. And the level five leadership talks about how it's got to be about Mint Inc. It's not about Johnny or Freddie or Adam or Maz or anybody that's come gone or coming. It's about Minthink and Mint. Think for me it's. I built it for the people. It's 100% community and I see that every time bullshit happens, every time something like a break in happens or somebody tries to throw bricks, like I sleep well knowing that if there's people in a room and they're talking about me, there's those people in the room that are going to like tell the real story and had a conversation with somebody this morning that never spoken with me before and he was telling me we have some mutual friends and, or acquaintances and you know what they were saying? And I lost my ego and checked my ego a long time ago when I had an ego, I lost all my money. So for me, at the end of the day, sure, I mean we all have ego and I have a chip. It gives me a lot of validity when I hear that. I have a great shrink too that I see every few weeks. That's been a game changer for me this last few years because it is just crazy how much comes in a day, how many different people and the other thing, you know, like I said to you when we started, I'm this crazy loud talking Italian, if you know Italians the passion, sometimes it can be fiery. So I've really had to learn, especially in 2026, I really had to learn the change in people and. And really understand, as we grow, where I fit in the whole thing. And, you know, for me, as much as I don't want to be in my office, that's my job, to go there and do the stuff that no one else can do and hire the best people to do everything else. And that's what we've done. And 2026 has just been epic so far. I want to talk about kind of the experience that you're building, but you said something there that I have to get some further insight on. I. I think the hobby can be so transactional at times. Like, people want quick wins, want everything. Right now, they want to be a star overnight. They want their business to grow, and they want to be making millions of dollars, you know, next week. But that's just not how it works. And you made mention, like, you planted a bunch of seeds. That, to me, that that means, like, you did a lot of the right activity. And I guess, how did you manage, like, your ambition as you planted those seeds to not just, like, go, continue and to move on to the next thing, but, like, wait for those seeds to grow and then for you as a owner, operator, and someone running a business, to be able to see those seeds kind of popping up and take advantage of those opportunities. Yeah, so I was. I was. I mean, baptism by fire. I have no. I don't have an MBA or any of that stuff. I have no, you know, real formal any of that. It's baptism by fire. So I was fortunate enough to learn through my past experiences in business ventures, anywhere I failed was because I tried to do too much too fast. So, you know, any business connoisseur or coach will tell you, you know, it's way easier to go vertical than it is to go horizontal, right? So you go deep first before you can go wide. Build the foundation, all that stuff. So I try to give this analogy to people. If you're driving past, let's say you're, you know, you're driving down the street and there's a field, and all of a sudden there's a sign up and it says, hey, we're going to change some zoning and we're going to build something here. And it goes before council and this and that, and let's say, you know, a couple months later, okay, now there's a rendering of what they might do. And so a year passes, and now, now there's an approval. And then it's like, okay, here's the rendering. This is what it's going to look like. And they start to dig a hole. So two years later, there's a hole in the ground. Okay. Six months later, there's a 50 story tower done complete. People are moving in. So this whole grind to get to that point to then just to be the other thing is the hardest thing in business. Especially when you're like, it's way easier for me now because I have, I let people make decisions. I have partners aboard. Like, we're, we're, you know, we're expanding quite aggressively. So it's, it's great to not have it all on my shoulders, but you got to know when to cut stuff. And contrary to what I just said, when we started the ultimate hobby experience in Canada, like the vision statement, the mission of Mint Inc. From day one is to provide the ultimate customer experience. I've had people work for me to say, Johnny, the ultimate customer experience is impossible. And I'm going to tell them the word impossible. I'm like Kobe fucking Bryant. It just doesn't exist. I'm the guy that possible. Like, you know, we get broken into on Saturday and I'm just like, ah, you know, it is what it is. Positivity trumps everything I, I live through in my life. Like, I've been there, done that. I know what it's like to not have food. I know what it's like, you know, getting toys that were donated through so my mom could give me a Christmas. You know, we had somebody comment on a post the other day talking about how people are forced to steal. Nobody's forced. I can give you a million ways illegally to make money. Accountability. You know, the answer to entitlement is accountability. So for me, that's, that's what it is, Brett. It's like I, I knew from experience I had to let the, the, the seeds mature and kind of grow. But at the same time, like, I'm only going to put so much miracle grow in the plant before I realize the plant's dead. Now at the same time, we had to, in Canada, build the ultimate experience. So we now had to find a way to be not master of all trade, you know, jack of all trades, master of none. We needed to do brick and mortar, E. Com, live shopping, grading, consignment and buying all very well. So I took the Burbank model and I found a two or three or four of the, what I thought at the time were like the best live experiences. And. And then I went one step further because they told me they could never do sports and TCG together. And I realized Canada was a very unique market in the sense of the way it had been sort of approached. And I said, yeah, no, not going to happen. I might, like, lose any hair I have left. I'm not going to get paid for a couple of years. But I believe in this. I believe if we do it properly and we went all in on it, and I think we just really paid attention along the way. What worked and didn't work, if it was working, we would let it sort of fester slowly. And, you know, it's same thing with people. They say hire slow, fire, fast. Same analogy in business. If you know you're onto it, then you hit the gas. Because the other thing is there is absolutely not a single delta in business that trumps momentum. So when you're on a run, you can't stop. You just got to keep going. And I'm built for that. So that's. We're really lucky. Really lucky. So you've got a speaking to experience. You've got a ton of different service lines and offerings, and they're. The hobby is so diverse. And even, like you look at just Canada, the hobby is diverse. And there's a lot of different participants in this hobby doing a lot of different things, whether they're buying into your breaks, whether they're using your consignment services, whether they're just stopping into the shop and want to buy some packs. Intentions are different across the board with what people want to do with those cards and how they want to interact with brands like Mint Inc. Like, how do you. How do you think about that diversity when you're thinking about, like, creating the ultimate experience? So like I said at the beginning, I'm a collector of many things. Have been my whole life. And I just always was like, even when I was back, 20, 18, 19, 20, I'm going like, I grew up in a town just east of. Of Toronto, and I went back into the store that I would go in the 90s, and it was the same store. So I was like, right away I was just like, I'm gonna create what I believe. And I believe I'm like the biggest nerd going. And I'm going to have like, I know what I want, and I'm going to just build for everybody else what I know they want, because it's what I want. And me and you, we think the same and we created these great big, vibrant stores, you know, Lots of staff that are really knowledgeable, again, very much about relationships. And my staff are trained. I don't care if the people spend no money. Educate the shit out of them, answer all their questions, give them a free pack. If they're not buying anything, they're going to come back, they're going to leave. Maybe you're being secret shopped by tops or upper deck, who knows. My attitude has always been you have to treat although you know, the world is, is not everybody isn't always treated equal, you know, especially at first interaction. You can never judge a book by its cover. We have to, you know, allow that opportunity for the relationships to manifest. So I had a mentor, you know, he passed away now and we had this conversation and through the pandemic and I was like, people are going to need a place to congregate, you know, more than ever. And in a small like minded. So I said I'm going to build something completely the opposite of what people want. I'm going to implore people to loiter in my business because eventually like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. You know, like if you're in the space, you're in the space. Like why not give you the best place to do that? Then took it one step further and our stores are, you know, 40ft slab balls. One of my stores has a speakeasy in it. Like no shit, you walls open up and you go into a whole other room. Like it's pretty cool. When you come to Toronto, you'll, you'll see. So we just tried to be really different. And again going back to the equality thing, like I don't care if you're ripping baseball, football, hockey, UFC, Pokemon Gundam, One Piece, Riftbound, or you're buying $1 cards or you know, I'm selling you a $25,000 Jordan card. Like that's the widget. Cards as cards as cards. Supplies is supplies. It's all the same. It's for me it goes back to the relationship with the people, the camaraderie, loitering and community. I had a mom come to me after we run a trade nights every other Friday we run kids collector days. Every time schools have a day off and they'll be packed. Sometimes there'll be 100 kids in our, in our bigger store. I had a mom come to me, pull me aside one night and I was like, oh, here we go. What happened? You know, somebody stole or something. I just want to commend you for what you built. And I was like, oh, thanks. I love the feedback. She says, No, I don't think you understand. My 16 year old son can't make friends. Meanwhile he's rolling up with his mom on the back of a motorcycle and I'm like, this kid's the coolest kid in the place. But you know, he was different. She said, he came to your trade nights and all of a sudden he's making friends and life is great because sure, you know, the kid wants to be able to go put his, you know, Pikachu cosplay on and hang out with Snorlax and, and go through their cards and play a game and not be judged. And that was big for us. The other thing is the diverse, eclectic mix of people I'm seeing with the hobby. There's a major urbanization of it. It's not just baseball and hockey and you know, it's not an old man's game anymore. We're getting not only kids, but the amount of female collectors I'm seeing, which is really awesome. And the kids and the parents. And the other thing is you're getting this like multi generational. You get the grandpa, the son and the grandson, or the grandmother, granddaughter and the daughter all in you. We're at a moment in time and this is another for me, big piece of data that, that really tells me kind of where we're at is there's not too many moments in time where you're going to have three or four generations of people that have a commonality. Right. So, so that's very, very unique in the trading card world. I'm seeing 70 year olds, 50 year olds, 30 year olds, 20 year olds, 15 year olds and 8 year olds in the same family, entire families. You know, our store on a Saturday, it's not as big as Burbank, but same idea. You know, we'll have hundreds and hundreds of people through our stores on the Saturdays and it's, I'm not, you know, the families that are walking through the store aren't the same people that are coming on the livestream or buying on the website. So we have to treat at this point in time each of these buckets. You know, essentially we run three businesses, we run a brick and mortar experience, we run an e commerce business and we run a livestream. So, so the business is now separated, you know, amongst the 4050, 60 employees across those macro buckets, if you will. I think something you said and maybe you can help me understand, but might be the connective tissue in those three separate businesses under one roof. And that's just the educational aspect that you're kind of infusing in your employees and in your business. I find in having a lot of these conversations with people running businesses in this space, those that are the most successful and those that sustain all the ebbs and flows are the owners, operators, entrepreneurs that lead with education because they come from a place of abundance and they don't expect the transaction right there, right now. You're a content guy. Like, you understand media, you understand the power of content and education. Like, how do you think about, like, your knowledge of content, your knowledge of education, and what's possible if you continue to lean into that with mining? Well, I think. I think like a few years ago I was telling people, you know, especially when fanatics really started to get going, and all of a sudden, you know, again, you go back to the tipping point. You know, Drake is ripping cards and Luke Holmes was here a week ago, Mike Trout was here. So, you know, now anybody that comes to Toronto that wants cards, it's pretty awesome. They come to midday. But lifetime value is what we've always chased. I tell my staff the first sale is the easiest. When you get to sale number three or four, now we're winning because the first sale is the easiest. It's like you go to a restaurant, if there is hair in my food and you're a great server, I'm coming back. Shit happens. I'm coming back. So another thing is conflict resolution, because nobody's perfect. That's lost in today's society. I'm very fortunate with some of the new leadership that we've brought in. Calm, cool, collective, and they really understand that and can really articulate that through a lot of people. Face to face is difficult because we just run behind our phones, keyboard warriors. That's important to me. And the lifetime value of the customer, to your point, is, is what I'm after. So we're building men think to always be there five years from now, ten years from now. Now with that being said, I used to. I would. I would equate the hobby to a baseball game. And I said, there's a point in time where, you know, X, Y and Z will happen. And that's the seventh inning stretch. And I used to say that would happen between 25 and 2028. We're there. I feel like we're in the fifth, sixth inning. The question for me will be when we hit that seventh inning, which you're going to see in like the next 18 months, as it really ramps up, the manufacturers are going to do a really good job keeping Supply and demand the way it is. Like I, as much as I want more product, I don't want more product. You know, I don't, I don't mind that some of the retail gets out to Costco and that because it pushes the masses as long as the manufacturers do a really good job and we learn from history and we keep the specialty chops the specialty. And you know, Walmart's not going to start breaking cards tomorrow. They might have a platform, but it'll still be with the sellers. I think that the question then is, is this a nine inning game or is it going into extra innings? I think that based on what I'm seeing the last little while, like Brett, you've been around. Remember 2022, it was over, no sky. It wasn't even close to over. It was like any other industry. That's hype. There was a little bit of speculation and the 10 or 20 play like Zion and mellow. Fine, here we are today. And all those grail cards today are worth more than they were worth then. And sure, a guy like Zion, that amounted to nothing. But I give I often as part of education to people that are looking at this from an investment perspective. I try to equate it like this. I say if you're chasing rookies, it's like penny stocks. You got to hit one. You might miss 100 or a thousand before you hit one though. Otherwise be happy with your, you know, regular returns and like anomaly the last few years, crushing every other return but every other market. But if you're buying Brady and Gretzky, Messi, Ronaldo, now we're, we're talking about like ETFs, you know, you're buying your blue chips, you're going to get your 3 or your 8%, whatever it is. There's way too much institutional money in the game now. It's become an asset class. The liquidity. I know how much we spend. I know my buddy Jeff Wilson Burbank. Like I'm fortunate enough to talk to a lot of these guys. I know what they spend, I know what I want to spend and I also know how fast it turns over. So I think that based on a lot of those, I think it's, I still think we're just getting started. Like it's crazy. And the US Economy is popping right now. I mean, the recession is over. Just like in 2008. I started a business in 2008 and it exploded in the worst economic time ever. So there's a lot more positives. And then of course it's mainstream. The amount of people that I promise you, Brett watched me on my Instagram. I was this guy wearing custom suits every day to like my actual best life that thought I was right out to lunch that are now, first of all telling me I'm brilliant. Second of all, asking if they can buy Pokemon for their kids. That's the best. I lol. And I look, I'm like, hey, look at that thread up top from 2021 when you asked me if I was still smoking too much, you know. But yeah, I think that it's very important to understand that getting them back to three, four or five transactions, that's when you know you have lifetime customer. I have some amazing, amazing data. We were having a meeting last quarter and my finance team showed me a report that showed a five year history of customer. And not only do I have an insanely I'm so humbled amount of people still shopping with us from the beginning, they're spending more money than ever. That's a good, good sign, that's for sure. I think about like this conversation, all that we've talked about and we've talked about the business and maybe just like your professional growth, like you, you made mention, like things have changed. Like you've got more structure, you've got some direct reports, like you're probably, you probably don't have your hands on everything because you got to specialize your time. You're in an office space like through this transition to more professionalized Mint Inc. Bring in really talented, smart people. Like, how have all of those decisions and those people coming in. How do you think that has changed or how has, how have you grown professionally through? Oh yeah, it's uncanny. Especially the this year, this year we. I probably went through this year. I've been through probably the biggest challenges of my professional career and some of life. And like I alluded to earlier, this isn't the podcast for it. There's a few out there if you Google me where I'll tell you my, my story about growing up and it's crazy, you know, I'm not supposed to be having this conversation with you. I'm one of those guys, you know, not supposed to have made it. A lot changed for me this year. I realized that, you know, especially the bigger we get. I'm not here to be friends. I have to be a good leader. I'm a respectable, respectable employer. I love to have fun. I'm the fun guy. So we have team building events and now I show up and do my speech and Greet everybody and have a glass of water and leave. You know, before it was like, oh, let's get the limo and go downtown, know what I mean? So now it's like now, you know, little things like that and, and I'm really, I think, which is crazy, I think a lot more about what I'm going to say. And I've been a really unfiltered, authentic, very passionate. So I'm learning sometimes to just slow down a little bit when I, when I'm, especially if I'm reacting to something. But I wouldn't be able to do it without the people around me. Like I said, I have these, these legacy employees. Kathy, who's our chief of staff, she's also my wife. She runs life, she runs this place, she keeps me in line, Everybody knows it. And then I have a very, very, very close friend and mentor. And of course my therapist, Mary. Like, I mean, she's like absolute. The best money I spend, I could probably use a gym membership, but the best money I spend, people say, oh, your health. I sleep because people think I don't sleep. I sleep and I talk to my therapist on a very regular basis. I'm huge into mental health. Minting had a commitment of a hundred thousand dollars to the local hospital in support of youth mental health. It was a five year commitment. I think after this year, which is third year, we're already going to be like almost at it. So we're not going to stop, we're going to keep going. And I love to talk about it because nobody talks about it because they're ashamed or embarrassed. And I'm like, if I did not have her, I would not be here having this conversation with you because I would have never been able to get here or I would have implied bloated, you know, or whatever. But yeah, I checked my ego a long time ago. This year I'm learning patience slowly is the fastest way to get anywhere and just learning when to shut my mouth. When I started to focus in on my mental health, gave up bad habits, bad addictions, bad things, good things in my life started taking place, most notably this platform. It would never have existed if I didn't get help and look lived in this old world. Do you find like now that you are seeing someone and you're having conversations and you probably feel a lot more clear upstairs? Do you, do you find like you feel almost unstoppable as an entrepreneur? Yeah, it's crazy. So again, I've been in and out of therapy my whole life. I had a really Rocky childhood, but way different then. It was like, you know, you're a kid. Nobody, especially. We're old. Like, it was way different then. There was no diagno. I was like, get him out of the class. Kind of. The teachers were no good to me. One of those. This was much, much different. I went in with a much different approach. I went in with, I have no more ego. I have no. No more chip on my shoulder. I recognize cognitively. I see a therapist, not a shrink. I don't take meds or anything like that, which. Nope, great. If you need it, let's get it. Don't pretend you don't. But for me, it's the cognitive way of thinking. So I went in with a much different approach. I went in with a much more positive, okay, you know what? I do need this not being. It's not being forced on me. And I'm dealing with some stuff this year, and I've been on extra appointments. Trust me, there's a lot of people out there that don't know she's saving them all. And I'm talking to her, and I'm saying, I can't believe I didn't do this and how I didn't go get in my car. And she's like, that's John. That's therapy working. This is the idea. This is you doing what you're doing, supposed to do, not being that, you know, so huge for me. And honestly, like, where we are and where we're going, the old version of me, you know, would have never. Would have never got us there. Like, I thrive in chaos. It doesn't mean I want to be in chaos. And I'm seeing that now. It's like you said, you know, you go in with an open mind, you embrace the change, cut a few things out, kind of a little bit more focus. And, oh, my God, man. Like, unstoppable is a understatement. I. I love to hear that. Have a couple more to dig into before we get out of here. I'm curious, like, you see a ton. You are running one of the biggest hobby businesses in all of Canada. Like, an entire country. A lot of different service lines running around. You have your finger on the pulse of this industry probably more than most people. Like, what is an opportunity right now that you see with inside the sports card industry that maybe most people don't quite see it yet or aren't taking it, taking it seriously. So it goes full circle back to the camaraderie. I think too many people still look at it as Purely transactional. Look at World cup stickers. So you guys are getting like, you know, I'm seeing all the content in Boston. So Toronto's one of the most diverse cities in the world. Soccer is massive here. I believe on the brick and mortar side, we might sell the most soccer in North America for tops. So from a cultural perspective and you know, all of that where you're seeing now with these, the events, these trading card events, people are trading stickers. The stadiums are full of people trading stickers. I think people don't understand because we lost it. Like, I think we're close in age. Maybe you're a little bit younger than me, but it's like, you know, the boys and girls club and after school programs and going to play manhunt with your buddies. Like, and we live more and more and more in a world where we're trying to get, you know, just buy it on the screen and it'll show up at your door. I think people really underestimate the value from a business perspective. The ROI on spending a little bit of money and creating an environment where people can congregate. I think that that's missed a lot. And then I think there's, you know, anybody in the world of sports that thinks Pokemon is a joke. You got to really look at that again. And, and the other side of it I get is, you know, Pokemon. People will say, well, where are sports cards? Because Pokemon's here. Let's remember Pokemon is first of all the highest grossing IP of all time. People don't understand it's bigger than Disney with Marvel and Lucas combined. And there's 10 or 15 gamers for every sport. So if you look at the math, I mean, just open up card ladder. Both markets are, are growing at the same pace. One's just traditionally a lot larger. So that would be the other thing I would say this day and age especially because it's like any business that's hard, it's getting competitive. I don't know if I like, you can't open again today. It's really tough. Like maybe because, you know, I'm 45 and I want to retire and just sell my singles and be that guy like a secondhand shop. But you can't at scale. Like you're not getting tops and upper deck accounts. Distributors don't have product. Like, you know, it's really, really tough today. But I think that that's two things that people are really remiss on not taking enough investment into events and, and opportunities with their customers to, to congregate and then the overlap. You can't just do sports, you can't just do Pokemon. You can, sure, but there's limits, limitations. So I would say there's a couple of things, just from what I see. But again, respectfully, I don't really, you know, pay too much attention to what anybody else is doing right from the beginning, like I said, I went out and I found what I thought were the, you know, I took the Mark Cuban approach. I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I went in and found what I thought were like one or two best. And I said, let's just do it a little bit better or a little different. And I think that's the approach we took. We took this model and we just did it a little bit different. And here we are today and, you know, we finished runner up with Mantle to Burbank for best car shop in the world, which is pretty awesome. That's amazing. Since we're in our 40s, we can remember having VCRs and we can remember hitting fast forward. So if we've got like the MIN Inc. Vcr, we're hitting fast forward and we're going all the way. Like 10 years from now. Based on what you've built and what you're building now, what do you hope people are saying about minting 10 years from now? They're going to say that this is the absolute, the ultimate experience in the space. And I say that loud crazy guy that talks with his hands knew what he was up to. And I want to believe that they'll believe that, you know, we did it for them. Hopefully at that point in time, you know, that's me talking from a beach because there is a point in time where I got paid, you know, that. That goes without saying, but nothing I've done to date is for the cash. Like I said, my wife and I have a great life. It worked out the way it worked. It's not like I'm, you know, having to pay for tuitions and this and that. I'm not chasing legacy. My head is big enough. I'm just looking to leave my mark on a space in a very positive way where people go back and remember, especially from the onset, we have a lot of day one ers that still support us because, you know, we gave them something that they really needed at a really dark time. And I think that that's the mandate and the mission that I want to just keep getting there. And I know there's going to be people along the way that say, I'm full of shit and da da da. And that's fine. I got really thick, thick, thick, thick skin. I sleep well at night. I know what we're doing is great. I know we provide for dozens of people and I think that's what it is. It's going to be like, you know, instead of lining my pockets and cashing out and this and that, we literally just continue to invest and build the greatest, you know, I'm going to call it like, like I said from the beginning, what would I do if I was building Toys R Us again today? This is what I would do. And we're full. We don't just do cards. Like that's the other thing. My biggest piece of advice for any shop owner is diversity, diversity, diversity. We sell Lego toys, collectibles. It was easy for me because I collect toys and video games and VHS tapes and music and cards. So again, going back to what I said earlier, I just said, well, I can't be the only one that does that. There's gotta be lots of us out there. I go to all these shows, so let's just build that. So now you don't have to wait till Saturday. Once a quarter. Well now it's every weekend. We're a seven day a week, 99 card show, collectible show. You come in our store and that's what it is. We have everything you want and very knowledgeable stuff. So that's how I want it to be talked about then. And we'll be close to coast where right now we're opening our third store in Toronto in a couple months in Oakville. And I am in the in the midst today. Like my next meeting, I'm trying to finalize my Vancouver lease. We're just going back and forth. The west coast is different because of earthquakes and stuff, much different. And, and Calgary. So we're going to be west coast and then the beginning of next year we're going to do east coast of Canada and Quebec. So the goal is by this time, by Q and a Q2 of 2027, we are the first national brand in Canada, which is really exciting. I'm even working on something with a few people for the smaller provinces in between because we don't want to leave places like Saskatchewan and Manitoba out. But obviously, you know, if you understand the geography in Canada, the population is really spread out into five or six cities. But we can't lose sight of, you know, we want to have them in thinking Regina and my wife is from Prince Edward island, which is the most beautiful place Maybe in North America. So I, you know, be great to go spend. Listen, I can't get away from work. I'm gonna go. I want a vacation property, damn it. And my store is there. So I'll go to P.E.I. and I'll work that store. But you know, people say to me too that, like, you know, if somebody came along and bought you tomorrow, what would you do? I'd be like, you'd find John's cards and comics on the corner the minute the non compete was over. I will never go back to doing anything again in my life. I'm done working. This is what I do. I'm here seven days a week. I love it. People are like, oh, you need to do this. And I am. We're off on a boat in a week. We're going to go to Japan. But it's like in between, I don't. What do I want to do? I can watch sports in my office and I'm not working. Like, I don't consider it work. That's the part I think people understand. Like, you go all day. I'm like, yeah, but it's not really work for me. Like, yeah, there's moments of the day that can be stressful, but that's life. You get a call from your mom, she's not well. Or you get a call from the principal because your kid messed up in school, or you get into a fender bender, like, okay, somebody stole from you. There was a fraud charge. Oh, the box didn't come. Big deal, let's get on. So it's not work. It's a passion project for me. If you can't figure that out by now, then you're cooked, because that's what it is. And I think that's my superpower, Brad. If I was to give myself any kind of kudos, it's. I don't do it for the money, so it's really tough to beat us. That's an unstoppable position. This was a awesome entrepreneurial story here, John. I very much enjoyed this conversation and looking forward to doing it again very soon. I hope so. I hope I didn't talk too much. I'm known to talk too much, but I love it and I've been pretty good to keep my hands were the most far together. But I would love to pick it up with you again. We should. Well, you got to get to Toronto and we'll shoot an episode in my podcast studio. We'll get you set right up. That'd be awesome. I would love to show you Toronto. And for all your listeners, the Toronto Sport Card Expo happens in spring and fall. And after the national, it is, you know, it's a 350,000 square foot card show. And it's not just hacky. Okay, it's not hacky. Everything just like the nationals, not just baseball anymore. So like, let's give Canada some love. And main thing, we ship everywhere your dollars, like 40 cents. Let's go. I love it. I love it. All right, man. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Brett. Such a fun conversation with John. Love his mindset and how he thinks about building a business in this hobby. Make sure you check out Mint Inc. They are doing a lot of really cool things. Shout out ebay for sponsoring passion to profession. We will be back with another one next week. Take care. Talk to you soon.