Passion to Profession: From Baker, to Teacher, to CEO of a Multi-Million Dollar Business — How Stephanie Garcia Built Mama Breaks

Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of Passion to Profession here on the Stacking Slabs Network, brought to you by my good friends at ebay. This is that time of the week where we dig into the operational and entrepreneurial journey of people building cool things in the sports card industry. And I am fired up to share today's conversation. Today's guest, Stephanie Garcia, is the founder and CEO of Mama Breaks, a trading card breaking and media company built around entertainment, trust and community. Before launching mama breaks in 2021, Stephanie taught middle school English. What began as a return to collecting became a business, a team, and one of the most recognized breaking brands in the hobby. This conversation explores the decision to leave teaching, the work behind Mama Breaks, and what it takes to build a brand people. Remember, if you want to show your support for the broader Stacking Slabs Network, hit the follow button, tell a damn friend, run on over to the Patreon Group again, shout out ebay for making all of these conversations possible. For now, it's Stephanie. Mama Breaks. Let's get into it. All right, we are back. Very excited for this episode of Passion to Profession, brought to you by my good friends at ebay. This has been a long time coming. Luckily we had a chance to catch up before this, and I think this will be a very fun conversation for all of you out there listening. Today I'm joined by Stephanie Garcia, the owner and CEO at Mama Breaks. Really doesn't need much of an introduction. Stephanie has done just a wonderful job ever since I've been following her on building her brand, running awesome breaks, building a community, and then also just being a master online. Just like being in the right spaces, providing value. So not the most straightforward entry into sports cards. And we're going to get into kind of the background and how it all came to be, but these are the Topps of conversations I'd love to have. So without further ado, Stephanie, welcome. How are you? Thank you so much, Brett. Thank you for the kind words and the great introduction. Just hearing founder and CEO of Mama Break sounds wild even four years later when I just told you right before the show that I used to listen to you on my commute to work four years ago before I decided to do this and, and wonder how you were doing it. You know, you were putting in the work then and I really appreciated the value you were providing in my. And my learning of the industry and my just keeping cards as a part of my everyday life when I was still teaching, when I was still working and kind of when all of this was still a dream. So it's a really, really full circle moment for me here being on the pod, and I'm really grateful to be here. So thank you for having me on. I appreciate the kind words you mentioned. Teacher think. There is a lot of people that listen to sports card content that are collectors right now with the industry doing what it's doing, questioning, hey, whether it's a teacher working at a desk job running a business that's non sports card related. People are asking the question, like, how do I make the move? How do I do cards? How do I do more cards? How do I do cards full time? Maybe take us back to you in that teaching profession, which is very important. Shout out all the teachers out there. But like, what happened when you made the decision to say, you know what, Like, I'm teaching, but there might be an opportunity here in sports cards. Take us through that. It all happened so fast. And I think where it started was during COVID I found out lamelo ball rookie cards were going crazy. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. Like sports cards. I remember opening packs of sports cards that I would buy at Target. I remember I love Pokemon cards. So this was during COVID I was teaching from home. I was pregnant with my youngest. My oldest was about one. And you know, teaching from home was rough. It was stressful. I remember my husband was working all day. He was a delivery driver. So I was kind of like, I need a, a hobby. I think everybody felt that way during COVID right? Everyone was taking up new hobbies. I did a lot of like, cooking for the first time too. And I'm a baker by trade. That was my initial work before I did teaching. So Yu-Gi-Oh I was just like, let me get into sports cards again. I started, you know, searching them up online. Oh my goodness. Sorry, Sorry. But I have this like automatic light in my office. But we'll keep it like this. It looks intimate. I like it. Yes. But, Yu-Gi-Oh I just found cards and I became obsessed. Like, there was nothing about everything, about parallels and autos and chasing my favorite players. I'm a huge sports fan. I love the Dodgers, I love the Clippers and the Lakers. And I would say those are my two favorite sports, basketball and, and baseball. Definitely got more into football as I got older. But I became obsessed, and I became obsessed with consuming the content and opening packs and watching breaks online, where I became so entrenched in a specific breaking community that my husband thought I was going crazy every night where I was watching breaks till two in the morning and Said, you know what, I think you would be great at this. I think you could be a breaker. And that he kind of put the idea in my head and I just started setting small goals. My first goal was I started my card page Mama breaks. It just came to me. It felt like, like I said, like, it happened so fast. It felt like wildfire, like, okay, I love cards. I'm gonna start a page. I love ripping. If I get to a thousand followers on Instagram, I'll do a break on Instagram live. It happened within a couple of months. I did my first break. I learned a ton. And it's just been goals, goal setting and hitting goals since then. There was to be in the position I am today. Very grateful, but was never the intention to have a 12 person multimillion dollar business in card breaking at this point. I could have never imagined when I started, I could have never even imagined when I left teaching that this is what it would become. But now it's, it's a lot of the same thing. So now at this point I'm like, I have no idea where this could take me, but I'm enjoying the, the journey. There's. For anyone who's building a business in this space with just a environment that's changing so rapidly, like, there is always just this level of uncertainty. Obviously, when you decided to go all in and pursue MA breaks as your professional livelihood, like that took some risk and took some, some courage to make that jump. What was maybe going on in your head when you were in the process of like leaving your teaching profession, which is a regular reoccurring salary that you get a paycheck every two weeks and you know it's coming. Like, how did you process those decisions on? Like, I'm okay with not getting that regular paycheck because I think the upside in doing this is a lot more and I think I'll be happier, like, take us through like that decision making. I think I'm lucky that in my life I've been in situations where I've had to take risks and I've built those reps where I know that I in a tough spot and I got out of it. In a tough spot and I got out of it. And I have experience quitting a prior job where I was a baker by trade. And I said, there's no way I can keep working this physically and raise my kids and work nights and weekends. That's the first job I quit where I had no plan whatsoever. I just knew that some way, somehow I would figure it out. And that's when I went into teaching. And that was great, and it was amazing. And I thought that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And then I found this and I said, you know what, let's try it again. In worst case scenario, I could always come back to teaching because I've built that foundation for myself. So I was very much of the mindset that, as delusional as it may seem, that anything that I want to do in life, I could at least try really hard. And it's better to try than not is where my mindset was at. And I really, really, really believe that I can figure anything out. And with the support of my husband, obviously, because we do have two kids at this point where I decide to quit teaching with his support, with knowing that in the worst case scenario possible, you know, he would be just taking care of everything for maybe a year. Worst case scenario, I lose everything and we start from scratch and we'll figure it out. That's kind of just the mindset that I was really, really in at that point. And I figured this is something where I can build a life, where I can essentially craft my own life. I can take the kids to school and pick them up from school. I can be there whenever they need me. So that's what was worth it, is the freedom to do what I want with my time. When you started the business, I think back in that timeframe, I'm just. You've given me some signals. You mentioned La Bello Ball Rookie. I'm just thinking about that timeframe and I think about just like the breaking industry during that time. Like, you'd find breaks on your Instagram stories, you'd find breaks in like Facebook groups. I don't think it gets talked about enough. But like, just like the infrastructure around, like the breaking side of the industry has changed rapidly over the last, like five years. When you saw all these people breaking and you got encouragement and feedback from your husband saying, you know, I think you can do this. Like, how did you think about not only doing it, but doing it in a way that was going to maybe separate you from the hundreds and maybe even thousands at the time of other people doing something similar or adjacent. It's such a great, great question and it's such a so nostalgic for me, you bringing it up that way. Just realizing that Whatnot was a platform that was in its infancy, not really doing sports card breaking just yet. Fanatics Live and all these other live platforms are just completely not even a thought. Back when we started all of this, right. And people, most people were doing Facebook Live groups or they were doing breaks on their website and going live on YouTube or where I found breaking was on Instagram Live. So you'd have. During COVID on any given night, especially weekend nights, live streams, just a bunch of live streams on your stories and everybody's live ripping cards. Right. It was a lot of personal rips and ships on Instagram. So that's. That's where I was learning the most. And definitely I like that question because you have to have this kind of business mind where you, in order to build something, you have to figure out what you're going to bring to the table. That's different. Right. So it's obvious. For me, I didn't see any women card breaking. So that was number one. I knew I was going to stand out a little bit there. Number two, this. Just this idea of just sitting there and waiting for people to buy stuff was maybe the one thing where I thought, you know, this is where I can be different. I was teaching from home, and I learned so many ways to engage with students online. All these new things that I was trying, I was so excited, and I was so much better at being like, engaging online. I thought I could do this where it's more fun to hang out in a stream. And that's just been my number one goal this entire time, is figuring out how to make it more fun, more engaging. This process of opening cards with so many people, it's what really I enjoy the most. It's what fires me up. So it's that it's. It's not just sitting there and waiting for stuff to fill and then going live to open it. It's this process of bringing a community together that loves talking about the cards that you're opening and loves watching the cards get open. Yu-Gi-Oh Whether it be the set or big pulls or awesome parallels, like, that's what I wholeheartedly enjoy. You know, it's undeniable. I think we've all been there. Whether you buy into breaks regularly or you do it occasionally, like, you pop into the rooms and we've all, like, bought into the break and, you know, we get sent to the screen and it's like no one's in the seat and there's just like bad music being played and we're just like waiting around. But, like, you know, anytime I've been in your streams, it's like you've got your regular customers. You're very welcoming, like, and Also, like, there's this side about you that I think is very important. And to me, as an observer, and maybe I'm maniacal about this because I study everything and everybody. Like, there's an authenticity, especially around when you are ripping products. Let's just say Star wars, let's say Disney, let's say wrestling stuff, like, I can tell you really love. And, like, it's just infectious. Like, if the individual on the other side of the screen is passionate about it, like, that's going to get the whole room excited about it. So, like, as an observer, that's what I. I find, like, that to be, like, a secret sauce of yours, maybe talk through just that. I mean, you've dressed up on streams, like, you like to have fun with it. Like, that, to me, separates you from a lot of other people. Like, how important is that? And the passion and authenticity to you when you're, you know, people are spending a lot of money with you. Like, but you're showing up, like, you're showing up and showing. Like, Yu-Gi-Oh if you spend money with me, like, you're gonna get, like, great service and you're gonna get a little bit of a show in a community. Like, how important has that been to you? As you built Mama Breaks, it's been the most important thing. The craziest thing is that it's been unintentional for a long time. It's kind of just been me going, hey, I'm spending 10,000 hours live. I might as well make it fun and make myself want to, like, go out and do this thing. And I love cards. So that's just. It came pretty easy to me. I hate to say it that way, but, like, I'm. I love dressing up. I love Star Wars. I love the cards. It's what I collect. It's. I adore it, and I adore the people that love it. It was unintentional for me at first doing that part, and it's now I'm beginning to realize on the business side that that's what's helped build the brand and that's what helped build the business. And now my number one goal is to figure out how to be more consistent in that, because I can be very inconsistent. It's tough to build around this idea that, you know, I can be CEO and manage this and manage that. But what's most valuable in our company right now is me being live. Me being presently live and putting on this show. So moving all the. I have to figure out how to move all the pieces and and hire great people around me to do the other things to so that I can focus on that and more importantly so I can focus on teaching other people to create this process again that I, that I think I'm so happy to hear you that hear that you say it's infectious. I just think it's, it's the sauce that we're trying to recreate and recreate here. I have two breakers, Tony and Kevin, who I think also, also do that really well. And I think putting the right breakers breaking the stuff that they're really passionate about is the first step and just going from there, it's. That's the most important thing in my business. So there's a lot that you said there that I want to dig into. You mentioned CEO. That is your role. You are also on air personality. Like you are the brand. Like originally I know you have team members and you're doing a great job of trying to like elevate team members you have on the team because you likely know as a scaling business, everything just can't go through you all the time. Like how do you manage that? How do you manage the CEO? Like you need to make sure bills are paid, you need to make sure new products coming in, you need to make sure like pricing and inventory shipments are going. All the stuff in the background that no one ever talks about. Like you need to make sure that stuff is running like the operation is running. And that's like a CEO level role. But then you're also like a face of the brand. And people hear mama breaks and they think of Stephanie Garcia. Like, how do you manage your time between those two worlds of CEO and like face of the brand managing time is what is that? How to just wake up and live and do things. But no, I think the it's always just hiring great people. The best investment of my time always as a CEO and always will be is in people. So any minute that I can spend with anyone on the team building, teaching, teaching something that I do or even guiding them through whatever like emotions come with, like dealing with customers or emotions that come with being on stream after eight hours and not feeling anything for three days or anything like that, anything that I can help teach someone. The more you put into people, the more you build a more solid team where everyone has their role and does it really well. The best way to manage that and it's not always perfect and since I am on live a lot, not always the best. It's not always perfect is what I'm trying to say. But That's, I think the number one thing that you have to do is invest in people and teach and grow together. So we got the opportunity to meet in person at Fanatics Fest and then obviously continued some of those conversations at the National Shout Out Mama breaks for Sponsoring Wrestling Card Takeover. But I also got a chance to interact and meet members of your team. And everyone who I've interacted with and met are fantastic and awesome. And so you are someone who's built this business that's become multimillion dollar successful brand in this space. You've never done this before as a part of that responsibility of a CEO. Like you have to hire and bring on bringing good talent so that you can like trust people and offload some of your responsibilities. Like how did you get good at hiring and bringing on these individuals to offload some of this work off your plate? I don't know if I'm good yet or I don't know how you, how you can say you're good. I think I'm still learning. One thing that I have learned is that it's my job to make sure that their job is a job where they feel comfortable at, they feel safe and they feel that they can grow in. I work for them. Me building this is building positions for them where they can look forward to coming to work. So that's been the biggest game changer. That type of mindset I think is, is important and you get better. You know, I. A lot of recognizing how you react is big to certain things. Recognizing the way that you speak to people, the way that you teach is all things that I focus on to build a better team. A hiring is. Hiring can be tough. You know, like you go. I go back and forth on questions I think I feel I should ask. And at the end of the day when it comes to hiring, I think setting clear expectations of a job is Zebra important. The gist of it, Yu-Gi-Oh the. On like the hiring front, I'm curious where like making that first hire where it's like all the money coming in isn't going directly to me, but like I need to give up some of that money to pay someone because I need help. Like when was that moment for you and how did you know that like instead of you trying to do it yourself, you were just going to, you needed to find the right person to help you with some of those responsibilities and pay them for it? Yu-Gi-Oh that's an amazing question because I think it's all another thing that you have to really get set on is what you Want and that's why goal setting is so important. So is your goal to reach, let's say, the next revenue target. You really gotta look back and look at the big picture and see what is it going to really take to hit this number? Can I possibly hit this number by myself? Like, how many cases is it going to take for me to rip on live by myself, sort and ship? How much time is that going to take and go? Well, you know what, it makes no sense for me to just do it by myself. I should have someone helping me sort. I should have somebody helping me ship. And, and that's kind of. I've always set those revenue goals for myself is figure out, for example, if I want to do this one month, what does that look like in terms of hours live? What does that look like in terms of cases and what kind of cases and what the price points are? What does that look like shipping wise? How many people is it going to take to manage shipping? How many people is it going to take to sort all of it? How many people is it going to take to handle the customer service behind all of that? So for me, 20, 23 Bowman draft. I went from selling one case a day, which I was sorting and shipping same day and sending out the next day, to all of a sudden I was so busy, I was filling four cases a day and then realizing that after I was done, I didn't feel like sorting and shipping. I was tired. But even if I did sort of ship for eight hours, I Goldin get it out. And that's the moment where I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh if I want to keep doing this type of volume, if I want to get to the next revenue level, I maybe should hire someone to help me sort. That was my first, my first employee. That's very real. And appreciate you sharing, maybe digging into like the brand side and your relationship with customers. I think anybody who's listening understands that or should hopefully understands that if you're buying into a spot and a break, like the chance that you pull the product, hit yourself and you get rewarded from that. It's like it's very small and I think customers spend money on breaks for a lot of different reasons. Obviously, like the upside is one of them. But then it's like there's community and right there's entertainment. Like whenever I'm spending money on breaks, like for me it's usually, it's like Friday night I'm smoked from the week I'm sitting on my couch, my kids are in bed and it's like, you know what? Like, my wife's in bed early because she had a long week. It's like, you know what? Like, let's see who's breaking and let's see if anyone's ripping WWE products and let's buy a new break. But I'm doing it because I want to be entertained. And so, like, I'm curious as the individual behind the operation, like, understanding that the customer's likely not everyone's going to get something. Like, how do you continue to nurture and build trust with those individuals who are spending money with you and especially individuals who might be coming by for the first time? It's like they're joining mama breaks for the first time. Like, how do you make sure that, like, they keep coming back and they keep coming back to experience what you're offering on, you know, a regular basis? Like, how do you think through that? That's a great question. That's the business that we're all in. When it's breaking. It's one of the hardest things because like you said, it's a lot of the times you're not getting those huge cards that you're hoping to get when you get the spot. Right. We all have that dream of, like, I bought a 19 spot and hit a $10,000 card. It happens all the time. It really does. It happens more often than you than in this market? Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh For the last three months, it has, at least. But it doesn't always happen. And I think with us, or with me in particular, it's that it's showing up very present, very ready to be positive and have a great time and entertain and make people feel welcome and make people feel seen. You know, I. I learned that a lot as. As the years have gone by that I really need to just, like, be in a good mood before I go live. I think smiling goes a long way. I think developing connections over things that people love to collect and remembering details goes a long way. And then I think the most important thing is what happens after the stream is who are you sending thank you letters to? Who are you connecting to on DMs? One of the last things I always say before I leave or end a stream. This point feels scripted, but everyone who's joined my breaks knows I say the same thing every time. It's remember everybody. It's not all about the hits we want to hit. It's a big part of it, but it's not all about the hits. It's about the friends and the memories that we make. Along the way, we have a big community full of incredible people who are lawyers, who are dentists, who are graphic designers and tech wizards and take value where you can make connections with people in the chat, help each other out, learn how to buy, sell, trade, learn how to make some money back on the refractors that you hit. There's so much more value in cards that people don't recognize. It's like all this, like, focus on the big hit sometimes really does bother me if I'm being honest. There's so much value that we can find in each other, so much value that you can find in the cards that we are pulling. And so make some friends and memories along the way. And again, if there's anything that I can help with, please reach out and dm, if there's anything that I can be in any way that I can be a resource. I truly appreciate your support in helping us build this thing that I love building. And after, you know, going into the DMs, replying to DMs, sending thank you notes and the team working very hard to, you know, ship accurately and as fast as we can so people get their package right away. Is, is that's the goal? That's the system. So far it's working. Stephanie, I want to talk about you as a creator, but you mentioned something in your last response that grabbed my attention. And like you said before, I turn the stream on. Like, I want to make sure, like I'm like in my best self, I'm in a good mood and I'm like going to show up and you know, be the type of person that reflects the Mama Breaks brand. And you know, in viewing you online to meeting you in person, it's like the same person, very positive. But there's also like, we're real people and there's, there's life and stuff happens and not every day is great. And this happens to me a lot where, like, people will say to me, like, they'll mention me as like someone who's very positive and stuff, but like, I'll be catching that feedback, which is great on a day where I feel really shitty and I'm in a bad mood. So how do you think about that? Like the es and flows of life and personality and knowing that like, you're responsible for being live online, being upbeat because if you show up in a way, a certain way like, that not only can negatively impact like the customers that return, but like, that can negatively impact the brand that you're building. So, like, how do you manage That I love that you asked that question because I think it's something that I've recently learned that's Zebra important about that is look at the way that you just said that. Right? Like one negative stream can negatively impact your business and one bad review or whatever. Right. Like that's a lot of pressure you're putting on yourself. First of all, you have to recognize in myself one-of-one and this is what I've learned in myself, that you're human. There's so many different factors that affect your mood and what you might say that you don't mean. Whatever it is, it could be something as like, I guess like that hits you in your heart like something that's going on with your family too. As little as like you just didn't get enough sleep the night before and you're a little hangry. You know, it's like it's human nature and, and your mind is so volatile is. Is that you have to be able to forgive yourself after bad days though. Yes. Be very intentional. Focus on building discipline. Figure out why you're in a bad mood all the time and figure out how to fix it. Maybe, you know, exercise and working out has been a huge, huge part of me building my business. I cannot stress that enough to anyone listening. You gotta get healthy. You have to eat better and work out. It helps with discipline. That's so important in building business and it prepares you to be a better version of yourself. But also when you inevitably do have a bad stream where you little cranky, say something that you didn't mean. I'm live so much. I do it all the time is you have to be able to forgive yourself and move on. It's like I love to see it as, like I love to see building businesses, being an entrepreneur as an athlete. And I just think sometimes I think Cristiano Ronaldo is one of my, one of my goats just because of his work ethic and how he sees life and. And knowing that people are always going to have an opinion of everything that you do and you're going to have great games and you're going to have bad games where you didn't one-of-one but you go and hit the. Every day is a new game where you can go out there and make an impact. You cannot beat yourself up too much on the bad days. You just can't. So. But you do have to have that intentional discipline to want to be a better version of yourself every day. Yu-Gi-Oh Shout out. Looking out for your mental and physical health. It's definitely a part of My regular routine and I think very, very important, especially as someone who's talking into a microphone all day, every day. But I want to talk about you as a creator. So one of the things that I observed, and I think naturally, like, as someone who breaks, like, you're on streams, and those streams can get clipped and you can throw big hits, go Whatnot, like, everyone sees it. Those clips get in the algorithm and go viral. And that's just like a very natural, like, content stream. From being a creator. I like, separate, like, that activity, which is something that, like, obviously, like, I see. But then you're the personality behind the brand, and you're very front and center, and, like, you go anywhere, any show. Like, people know Stephanie. We've seen Stephanie on your for you page. Or they've. They've seen one of your breaks or participated. Like, you've built your reputation and your personality online in the hobby. And then I noticed, like, at Fanatics Fest, like, grabbing Gelman and doing a quick interview, and your team's, like, ready to go. And. And then I. At wrestling card takeover in the national, it's like your team shooting everything. Pictures, content, like, pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures with people. It's like, I'm watching it. I'm just, like, watching it unfold. As someone who creates at this space, and I'm like, there's such a method to this madness. And, like, the amount of amazing content that can be captured in, like, two, three hours that then you use as a brand to continue that story after, like, an event is incredible. So, like, you all get it. Like, you understand it. Like, did that come naturally to you or did you learn that over time? Like, help me understand from one creator to another, like, how you make that happen? No, it didn't come natural at all. I think I still hate listening to myself when I watched the content back. And I think being able to be yourself on camera is the one thing that I've had to work on the most. And it's so hard. I usually, like, the camera's on and I turn into this, like, oh, I gotta be stubborn. I gotta be a teacher. Wait, I gotta be like, everybody thinks I'm this person, so I gotta be this person, and I gotta do that. And even though I haven't eaten or, you know, we've been working 16 hours every day, and it's like, day 75 of the national, and I can't believe I haven't been home in three months. And all this stuff, right? Like, you have all this stuff going on, and it's you go you as a creator, especially when you're creating for a business, I think puts that extra pressure on you. You're building. We are building content to support our brand that inevitably, hopefully, you know, gets people to buy into our breaks. That's the system that we're trying to create. And it's. I think it for a while removed me from the content that I really actually wanted to create because I was so focused on, hey, this content costs a lot of money. Like, like you said, like, we have like two people I'm bringing here to do this. Like, it's not free. So we need to figure out how to make sure that we're actually getting some monetary value out of it when we're not doing brand deals because those are never guaranteed or when we're not. It's hard to do brand deals when you create content for a business in a lot of ways. But it's just been this, like, this back and forth of trying to figure that out. And I. The beautiful thing about all of it is I think that I never will figure it out. And it's just part of the journey. And along the way, we've had some trips where we make. We crush on content, the content crushes, and we've had trips where we go and we're just going to move on and try again and forgive ourselves and keep going. So, I mean, that's the good thing about it, though, is I. I do personally enjoy creating a lot of. And I have a team who does as well. So it's never lost. It's never a complete loss because we enjoyed it and we are creating experiences, put it this way, like, some of the content I've created, even though the content didn't crush, I maybe met four or five people that have, over the course of this journey, changed my life in some way. Whether it be, you know, introduce me to someone who helped me do this or just explain something in a way where I would have never thought of and helped me build this or help me become better at that. So it's. I think there's so many beautiful things about creating, putting yourself out there and meeting new people. But that too, you do get to share your story and hopefully it resonates with enough people where they get inspired to do the same. And we just keep growing all this industry together. It's a crazy thing that's happening right now. It is crazy. You mentioned it's like, you know, the content's expensive and like, there's goals around the content. Right? Like, ultimately, you're trying to build awareness for Mama Breaks and you're trying to catch the attention of someone who might be interested in something that you're breaking or selling. And it's a continual cycle of content and trying to catch people and bring them into your ecosystem. Ultimately, in order for all of this to be successful, like, you need to have product, you need to have new product. You need to be there and you need to be ripping on release days. And because that's the expectation from the market, especially when a new and exciting product is available, like, you need to be there, you need to be in the game. Like, I know their, like, allocation. It can be challenging and it's all about, like building the right relationships. Because having the product is such an important part of your business. Like, maybe over the course of time, like, how have you thought about making sure that that fuel is constantly going into the Mama Breaks engine? Like you constantly have the new product that's coming through? Like, how do you think about that? Especially as there's more breakers than ever before, more competition for new product. Like, how are you thinking about making sure you're ready each time a new product drops? That's been a huge part of this for me too. And I think just not being afraid to take risks, not being afraid to try a different break format, not being afraid to go big on something, not not being afraid to take that leap. Where you go, you know, this is where I'm gonna make a name up for myself. I think Galaxy Chrome, Star wars is the first. Like, that was like my first big girl position that I took on a. On a product where I was like, you know what? I think I could sell this better than anyone else. Let me go out there and just buy it everywhere that I possibly can. And going so hard that no one else is going to think about anyone else but me when this stuff comes out next time. And then just create that cycle again and again and again. I think wrestling is another thing that I'm just like, you know what? No one's doing wrestling. I love it. Let me go buy every case I could find and make sure that I go so big and I go so hard that no one's going to think about anybody else but me and wrestling. And that's going to give me a better position, put me in a better position for allocation next time and next time. So it's definitely always looking into the future, seeing how the risks that I can take today can help build upside for me next year when same product releases and just that cycle again. And again. And you got to know what you're good at. You got to know where you want to go hard and just try it and know that if sometimes you could fail and lose a lot of money and figure out how to make it up again and this, it's a lot, but it's fun. I think what I appreciate about what you are building is the fact that you are willing to take risks and you're willing to go out on a limb to support a niche community around a specific IP like Star wars or wwe because you enjoy those things yourself. Like I am a big believer in just the more these niche communities grow, the stronger like all the markets will get. Like the more collectors, like I'm a big advocate for that. What have you found in like focusing in on Star wars or focusing in on wwe? Like take us through because I don't think we get the opportunity to hear enough about this. But like take us through like that formation of like you can just focus on Star wars or wwe. Like what do you see like in you because you're into it. Like how do you feel, how does that make you feel as a, as a business owner helping contribute to those spaces? I just think that there are a lot, a lot of the times they're the ones that get left out, right? Even when it comes to just the big picture wise in product, they don't get a cool Topps Chrome, some of them right release or they don't get a cool like cosmic. And it's not, it's not until I think there's more demand or more response from the community that we start getting better sets and we get, we start getting the companies to pay more attention to what they're putting in and the autos that they're putting into it. So I feel really, really excited to be a part of growing it. And I also feel really excited to put it this way, like to even provide breaks where sometimes they Goldin even join breaks for wrestling and Star Wars. When I was doing wrestling and Star wars breaks, no one was doing pick your character breaks at the scale that we were doing them. No one was doing pick your wrestler breaks at the scales that we were doing. That is just providing more to that community is where I get most excited and going, okay, what are they doing in sports that I could bring to Marvel? Like for example, this is something like a Fanatics live filth bomb breaks. They put on like 100 case player break for Update Chrome Baseball. This was a few years back and I remember thinking like Yu-Gi-Oh this is so crazy what they're doing. Like, no one's done anything like this before. And then I thought, wait, no one's done anything like this before for non sport cards. So I went really hard into the first year Marvel Chrome and I started putting up cases and cases of pick your character breaks. And it was like wildfire. Then it was because no one else had done it. And it's just so cool to see both sides grow like that. I see it all the time with like people running a lot of random teams. Right. That became huge and popular on Whatnot. I was not on Whatnot for a while and I'm back now and I'm looking like, oh, shoot. Like these random things are so crazy for non sport and wrestling cards where four years ago they were non existent. People just weren't doing that. So it's, it's exciting to see the growth and excited to be a part of it. And like I said, I do it because I love it and I love the community, I love the fans. What have you found in terms of like, representation and being like a female breaking in the space and especially like with a brand name like Mama Breaks and I think about like, there are probably other females out there who see someone like you doing what you're doing and feel maybe more comfortable in your space than other spaces. Obviously, like, because of the brand name, people know you're a mom. So like that might also cause a mom or dad to bring their kid to a stream to watch breaking and have fun and it's entertainment. Like, what has that experience been like for you? Maybe representing more underrepresented segments of this hobby through your work? It's not something that I do intentionally and I do feel really responsible to uphold it. And I'm very grateful that I can. I guess it's a crazy question because I don't. I never intended for this, you know, I never intended for this. I never intended to represent women or intended to represent families in any way. Like, I'm just doing something that I really love. But the really, the part that I'm really grateful for is that I hope that it does do that. That it makes little girls who maybe feel like this is a boys thing could go like, well, it's not a boys thing. Like girls can be breakers too. Because I think if I look back at myself, when I was 11 and 12 years old, I was called what I don't know if like people use this term still, like a tomboy. Yu-Gi-Oh I got called a tomboy all the time. And I Used to be so mad when I was a 12 year old, 1112 year old girl. Like why are people calling me a boy? Like the boys aren't gonna like me because everybody says I'm a boy because I'm just this tough, like tough, tough girl that loves baseball and playing in the dirt and playing basketball, you know, and, and thinking like oh well, it's so weird that I like these things and I'm a girl. Maybe they're right. Maybe there's something wrong with me and being. Hopefully if I could see this is a cool thing, right? Like when you're doing something that you love when you're older that I could, I think I could talk to my 11 year old self and my 11 year old self would think that I'm pretty, pretty cool and would say like you're doing something that you love. It doesn't matter if it's because you're a boy or a girl or not. I don't, I botched that explanation. But what I'm trying to say is that this isn't a thing just for boys. So if I can represent that, I feel very grateful that I can. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't. It means a lot to me. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I, as a Guy who has three daughters, I took my daughter to IndyCard Exchange and had her first experience and we were ripping squishmallow packs and Yu-Gi-Oh she, she. They're like two, two bucks a pop and and she kept like I was selling some cards and it, it was like one of my favorite experiences this year because I saw her light up. I saw the way she organized the cards. Andy was great. He was like here's some stuff from BCW supplies to put your cards in. And I was like this is such a cool experience. And it was, I don't know, like I felt very proud to be a dad and to expose my K there being her feeling comfortable. So I'm a fan of there being voices outside a bunch of 40 year old dudes in this space. I think it's really important especially as we're trying to grow and expand this industry. Let me make one point about that that I think is another reason why I started all of this that I don't talk about enough is that that connection that I wanted with my kids. So I think another to, to kind of like a better answer for that question that you had is the. What's been most impactful in my journey through all of this is getting those dads reaching out to me and saying thank you because now my daughter Kind of likes cards because she thinks that you're cool or whatever, right? And I think people think I'm cool is awesome. But like the fact that I can somehow be a bridge to a dad having a better relationship with their daughter is amazing because if I look at my journey, I was a tomboy because my dad loved playing sports with me, because he shared everything that he loved with me. And whether or not I was like bored that he was always wanting to watch soccer or football and hating it sometimes, eventually it just became a part of who I was and it became what I was really passionate about. My dad loved Star Wars. When I was a kid, we had Return of the Jedi on him almost every day. And now when I look at Star Wars, I feel it with every bone in my body. Even though I can't be with my dad every day, he's always with me. And it's a huge part of why when I had my own kids, I realized that as parents we struggle so much with the idea of like, how do I spend quality time with my kids, how do I connect with my kids? And it's tough. But very simply, if you share what you love with your kids, it really becomes a part of who they are. And that's. I hope that people can do that through cards. It's a card through cards is a beautiful way to do that. So it's a huge part of this for me. I love that you, you've talked about you being a baker and then being a teacher and then now being a CEO of a business. Like, is it become normal for you to go to a show like Fanatics Fest or the national and be stopped by so many people and like you have that one to one conversation, like, has that become normal for you or is it still like, are you still like, I can't believe this type of activity is happening in my life. Like, where are you at with that right now? I think it's become. Yu-Gi-Oh first initial initially was a shock and I was like, why? Why do these people want to take a picture of me? Wild. Like I'll even often think like, what is this picture going to do for you? Like, I have nobody. You said I sometimes I want to take a picture of famous people because I'm like, I'm going to get a lot of likes when I posted. You know what I mean? But. But I think I've reshifted my mindset towards this, especially this last Fanatics Fest in National where it's like I consider everyone who wants to spend some time with Me, deeply, deeply a friend. So it's very important for me. So anybody listening? If you ever see me anywhere, it means the world to me if you come and want a moment with me because I want to give you as much as I possibly can. That's anybody that has any question or any way that I can help in any way, even, even maybe if it's just connection in that moment. Like, I very deeply feel like people that want time with me are my friends. And I appreciate all the support because even one view, even one, like even one comment on our pages does so much to help us grow. I'm now filled with so much gratitude when that happens. It's insane. It's a blessing. I love it. As we're maybe rounding out this chat, Stephanie, what do you think entrepreneurship has forced you to learn about yourself? That's a tough one. Everything. It's been the ultimate growing as a person activity I've ever done in my life. I think sometimes in business, not sometimes, always in business, something that may be wrong with your business is something that's actually wrong with you. And you do a lot of self reflection and you do a lot of growing. So if I can speak on something specifically, it's just learning to be more self aware, looking at the big picture and like everything that we, we talked about a lot of different things today. Just how important it is to set goals and how important it is to believe in yourself. When people hear Mama Breaks five years from now, what do you want it to stand for? Ask me in five years. That's a good thing. How about, how about we close the fizz? Because I'm genuinely curious. There's a lot of stuff happening in the industry right now. It's nuts. Like, we could literally go down the laundry list of just a million updates. Press releases, new drops, new categories, new people, celebrities, athletes. I mean, literally go on and on. What right now and as we're recording this mid August 2026, what excites you the most about this industry right now? It's unbelievable what's happening now. To me being in this five years ago, what excites me the most is that we have no idea where this industry is going to be a year from now and where before. Even as, as soon as last, like as soon as last year, I was afraid of what's unpredictable. I've grown and I've learned to embrace what's unpredictable and choose to have fun. Yu-Gi-Oh I have never had so much fun in my entire life. And I can't wait to wake up every day and have so much fun and hopefully everyone around me and everyone who is helping me support this and build this whether you're a customer or working for me, whatever is having fun with me. I want to give as much as I possibly can and have fun. That's what I'm most excited for. What a wonderful conversation Stephanie. It was a Pulsar Looking forward to doing this again down the road. This is Stephanie Mama breaks. Really appreciate the time. Thank you Brett Loved hearing the full story from Stephanie. You see her online, you see the personality, you see the content. Hopefully this gave you some context on the person, the individual behind one of the hobbies most notable and recognized brands in the space. Shout out ebay for making passion to profession possible. Shout out to all of you the loyal listeners for tuning in and showing your support. Take care. We'll be back with another one. Talk to you soon.