From Passion to Business: The Catchback Cards Story

(upbeat music) Collectors together from 10th-ending productions, it's a podcast for creators, builders, and collectors who share real stories of their love for cards, the community, and the hockey. In today's episode, we sit down with Joseph Zang, the founder of Catchback Cards, who built a platform from the ground up to give collectors a smarter, fairer way to buy, sell, and trade cards we love. Hi, Joseph. - Hey, Cuny. - How's it going? - It's going well, super excited to be here. - Well, we're super excited to have you on our inaugural show. So this is the first podcast that we're doing, and I've been thinking about the concept for a long time because I've met so many great people who we wanna learn about their backs, look, story like yourself, and you're obviously someone that has a really interesting backstory, and an interesting product, and something that we feel like our audience members we learn a lot about. So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself, just general bio data? - Cool, yeah, so I'm Joseph. I grew up in like Korea town, like Duluth, and like Suwani, Georgia, and then I went to school and study computer science, and then right after, I kind of took a wide variety of where I wanted to go. I worked a little bit in consulting, worked a little bit as a software engineer at Amazon, and then I worked at a crypto startup. And then after that, I had a friend who was, "Hey, I'm selling Pokemon cards on the side, "so I started selling Pokemon cards, "and I realized that this is a really interesting community "and wanted to build a product for you." - Awesome. Tell me a bit about like your upbringing, and kind of where you're from, Atlanta. Like when people meet you, they're not gonna not only think that that's where you're from, so like tell me about what it was like growing up there. - Yeah, I coincidentally wore the shirt today, did not intend to, but so I was born in San Diego, and then my parents moved to Atlanta 'cause there's a very large Korean town Asian population at Atlanta. Very surprising when I say, "Oh, we're from Georgia, everyone's late." There's Asian people in Georgia, I'm like, "Yeah, there's actually a lot of us." So my mom was a waitress, then my dad is a wholesaler. So what we do is we distribute supplies, cleaning supplies to dry cleaners around the metro Atlanta area. So that was the area in which I grew up in, yeah. - And you mentioned Korean town, are you Korean? - I'm half Korean, so my mom is Korean and my dad is Chinese. And so I grew up going to Korean church like on Saturdays and then Chinese church on Sundays. - Oh, wow. Two separate churches. - Yeah, yeah. - Did you feel like the cultures were similar or different? - I feel like there's a lot of similarities. I think like, you know, filial piety, like respecting collectivism, just being like generally respectful towards other people. I think there's like a shared culture there. But I also think there's a slightly different sub-cultures like within like Korean cultures and Chinese cultures, but within the general Asian-American sphere, I would say they're very similar. - And how did that mesh with being in Atlanta? Obviously, you know, we're in San Francisco. - Yeah. - We're in the Santa Clara Convention Center. It's a really strong Chinese community etched with what it's to be in California. - Yeah. - And I would say like San Francisco is very unique for that. What was Atlanta like? Like what was the larger dominant culture there? - Yeah, I was actually saying it's very similar. I think people or immigrants as a whole have this very like work hard, keep your head down and do the right thing type of thing. So I would say there's, you know, a lot, I draw a lot of parallels between the people in San Francisco and the people in Atlanta. - Awesome. And what brought your parents to San Diego first? - In Atlanta. - Yeah, so my dad had a, he had a scholarship from the Chinese government to study at the University of Philippines. - Okay. - He grew up in like a farming village and then he was very smart and like worked hard and got the scholarship here. And then he was at the University of San Diego finishing out his MBA. - Yeah. - Unfortunately due to like some political tensions, he wasn't able to finish. And then he basically worked as a food salesman. He was doing like wholesale, like food supply selling for US foods. - Yeah. - And then we moved to like Georgia because there were job opportunities there. - Wow. So like your parents or your dad specifically sounded like, he was very ambitious right to like come out of a farming town and end up in a place where you don't speak a language at all. - Yeah. - And try to start a family and move from state to state. He probably himself was a bit of a, you know. - For sure. When I think about how old I am, and while my parents really had to move to a different country around the same age that I'm at, I'm like, well, that's like something that really admire. - Yeah, absolutely. Great. So let's get into kind of the next stage of your career. - Sure. - And moving out of Atlanta, you know, I read your bio. You went to Stanford for undergrad. And then for graduate school as well. Like it's probably not that easy to get into Stanford. Like tell me about that. - Yeah. - And like, what was that going like? - Yeah. So I think for me, I was always really interested in like, just working my best. And like really just falling in love with learning. So I did a bunch of like really cool biology and chemical engineering research in high school. So essentially like I went to a professor and they had this like undergrad program. I was like, I'm not yet an undergrad, but like can I work in the lab? And they're like, we're not sure about this. And I told her like, you know, I'm gonna be here from like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. like six days a week and I'll do all, you know, basically all the lab work, all the ground work that you don't have to do. And then they took me. And I basically repurposed some of the research projects in a slightly different way and then submitted that to a science fair. And I think that gave me a leg up on college admissions. And I was very fortunate enough to earn the Gates scholarship. So I had a full ride to Stanford studying my undergrad in Masters in computer science. - Wow, very cool. Tell me a bit about the Gates scholarship. - Yeah. So the Gates scholarship is a scholarship awarded by the Bill Gates Foundation that pays for, you know, the complete package. I rushed through my masters to finish within four years so that it could get paid for kind of scam them a little bit out of the money. - Yeah. - But yeah, it's just a great community. You're just expected to connect with the other scholars and basically pay it for it as a mentor. - Wow, very cool. So it was more like pushing yourself to finish within that four years and arbitraging the systems. - Exactly. - Which is awesome. Great. Tell me a bit about like, cards, right? - Yeah. - Going from biochemistry and research in a lab where at the, you know, he's a big hard show with like TCG, TCG now. Tell me a bit about like how that transition came about and how you started your company catch back cards. - Absolutely. So when I was younger, my mom used to take me to garage sales. So we'd pick a furniture and I'd really love to pick a books and like you, you and Tokie Montcards, like, you know, like a binder for like $10 and that's like what I would play with. So I really had like that connection there. And then when I was in like undergrad, I started like flipping cards like, you know, I'd sell like a hundred dollar card for like $110, $115. And I'd take my girlfriend out to go get like Chipotle or something. And like, that's how I really got interested. - I love it. And then I had a buddy who I was working with and then he went to Princeton and he was making so much money selling Pokemon cards and I was, dude, how are you making so much money? He was, he was working in an investment banking and then he quit his investment and making job and was, hey, you have software experience. Let's see what we can build that serves the collecting community well. And so we went on this journey of iterating on the prototypes and developing the app and website and then now we're finally ready to go out to card shows and show people what it is that we built. - Got it. And then you guys were all so part of YC. What was that like? Tell me about the application process, you know, what you got out of that experience and then kind of where you are now. - Absolutely. So the application process for YC is, you know, you submit multiple videos and then you write a bunch of essays and then you interview with two or three partners and the partners just grill you. It's like, it's very like rapid fire. Like, what is this? What is this? Where's your competitors? What do you think about this? And then we got accepted very luckily and then it's a whole grind process for the three months. We're entering the end of the current batch. So we're raising our seed round right now. But it's a lot of, you know, meeting with the partners, getting feedback on your product and just talking to users all day. - Got it. Wow. What were the highlights and lowlights of that experience? And I would say like YC is a part of this journey or undertaking obviously, you know, catch back is a great concept. It's something that's gonna last for a long time. But up until this point, what has been the highlights and the lowlights for you? - Yeah, I think highlights are definitely, when you work with your team that you really enjoy working with, that's like absolutely amazing. I feel like I worked a couple of jobs where it's like, I think a lot of BS happens and so far is like, you try to make it seem like you're working hard but you're not actually working hard. And when you work for yourself and really get to work tightly with the team that you carry, I think that is very fulfilling. Additionally, like, I think just the fun of seeing people's face light up when they see like, oh, like this is the product that I've been like wanting for a while and like you guys have built it. And I'm like, this is very fulfilling. - Yeah. - Some sort of like lowlights would be sometimes it gets a little bit overwhelming. Like you're always thinking about the business, right? Like even on Saturdays and Sundays, the shipping orders come in. And if you don't fulfill them, then the customers like are like, hey, why aren't these orders filled? And it's, it takes up like, Rhett, you know, in my mind, like 30% of my brain is always like, how's the company doing? How's the company doing? Yeah. But I would say like, you know, that has its perks. as well too. Yeah. Um, the not being able to shut kind of things off and always thinking about the business part is definitely something that I think is unique to, um, starting a company. I'm curious like when you had all these experiences, um, what going back to kind of how we started this conversation with your parents, what was that conversation with your parents like where you're like, oh, I have this great job in consulting and tech, whatever it may be, I'm going to quit that and then start my own company, like presumably without an income for me. Yeah. So my dad was like, you know, how I said he does like his whole selling business. He was like a little bit skeptical. He was like, you know, um, it's very normal to go like a well beaten path, right? Like you go to a good school, you study hard, you work at a big company and you have a very safe stable income. Yeah. And then for me, when I went in on it, I was, I want to make a bet on my soul. I think that we're going to do well. And then my parents were, wait, you're selling Pokemon cards. And I'm like, wait, wait, you don't need a mask. They're pretty good. They're like, we didn't send you to school to like sell Pokemon cards. But I think my parents like generally have accepted that like I have decent judgment and like where I think I want to take my professional career. And so I think at first they were a little like what is going on. But then after they saw the product being built out, they were like, okay, now we kind of get it. And now they're like super supportive. Um, so my mom had a small tutoring academy. And then we took one of the classrooms in the tutoring academy and then we turned it into like a card shop. Like we put up decorations and then started selling kind of a very scrappy thing. We're like the first collectors or first people introduced to our website. We're like people in the greater Atlanta community. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So catchback cards is a platform that maximizes the thrill of collecting trading cards. Basically we have two main products. Our first product is a custom mystery pack where collectors can pick what goes in their bag and what odds they can basically hit their cards at. Our second product is a one dollar marketplace where collectors can trade and trans at cards for just a one dollar fee. That's super cool. Tell me about the space and what competitors, how how catchback is differentiated from competitors? Yeah. So with regards to the mystery bag, there are two main competitors. So we have physical repackers and then we have the digital repackers. So physical, physical repackers are people who sell physical mystery bags at card shows. Then digital repackers are large, you know, repackers such as courtyard or arena club and gameshop power packs. So how we're different from our competitors is that with regards to the digital aspect, we allow people to pick and choose what goes inside their mystery packs so that there's full transparency. Okay. Very cool. And what is the value for the individual? The space is so hot. If I had a bunch of cards, what would be the biggest benefit to me if I was to list my cards at catchback? Yeah. So to list your cards, we're working with a banking provider right now to get people a high yield savings account on people's cards. So similar to how you could put money into a savings account and then basically earn yield on this. We're working with banks to provide yield for collectors for when they vault with us that they can actually turn their cards into an investment piece. Wow. So I can actually get cash back for cards. Exactly. Okay. So then it takes away the guilt from maybe investing all of this money in asset and your parents are yelling at you. Are you doing that? You can actually take a loan out against it. Is that how the right way to think about it? Yeah. So there's basically the way that we came about the theory of catchback. Is a play on the words cashback. We want to give collectors maximal value for what it is that they own. And so you're alluding to something that we're working on building out is that we're building out a loan marketplace. Oh, the concept here is a over collateralized loan where you vault your cards and you can take loans against the value of your cards or you can fund other collectors loans to earn a yield interest that is higher than what you can get for investing in US government bonds. Wow. And our cards, the only thing you're able to do with this. So currently we're starting with cards and then we're going to expand to everything. So we're going to do handbags, watches. We're going to do all sorts of collectibles. Very cool. Okay. The two products you mentioned earlier, which one is more popular? What has the market reaction been to either one? Was one existing and then you launched the second one? How? How? How? How? So people love the custom mystery pack and the custom mystery pack is something that solves a lot of the pain points that people have when they rip digital packs. Okay. And so there are a couple of pain points that people have when they rip the digital packs. So number one is that there's a lot of fees. Right. So they're a lot of the competitors charge buyback fees. They charge fees for shipping and we alleviate that. And number two, it's a customization aspect of it. So when you rip open a digital pack, a lot of the competitors will offload some sort of, you know, junk slab that collectors might not necessarily want. If you spend $50 or spend $100 on a mystery pack, you want whatever you get to be pretty decent. But with our custom mystery pack, you can take exactly what are the cards that go inside of your mystery pack at what odds that you can hit the mat. So you can basically set your win rates for how often you get a card that you want. So it's full transparency, right? It doesn't feel as scammy in some ways because you know that there's, you know, ex-aude to be able to hit that. That it's not zero. Exactly. Because a lot of other services may conceal that probability. Exactly. So you can create your own custom pack, whatever cards you want to put. For example, you can put a pack of just Pikachu cards if you're a Pikachu collector. You can put a $50 Pikachu, $100 Pikachu, $150 Pikachu. And then we'll charge you $100. And then you will have one third of a chance to hit each one of these and we'll charge you the average of everything. Oh wow. Okay. That's that's very helpful. So it's almost knowing exactly when those scratch and wins. Yeah. What is the percentage and the what is the probability of being able to hit something? Exactly. You'll know exactly what are the cards that go inside of your mystery pack. And then you get to pick what probabilities you hit the mat. So for example, you could set one card to 60% probability, one card to 70% probability. And your pack price changes according to what you put in the pack. So if you put a lot more expensive cards and make those expensive cards more, it'll be hit. Your pack price also goes up. Got it. That's really revolutionary in the space. That's super exciting. I think that is it. So let's dive right into the culture and communities. Sure. What makes the TCG community unlike any other? I think the wide variety of people who enter the space, there's different people who are in it for different reasons. Some people have very strong nostalgia towards certain cards. Some people are in it as a side hustle. I said, you know, flipping cards to make money for Chipotle. Some people are in it for because their friends are in it. But I think there's a wide variety of people who all have different opinions and philosophies on how they transact and interact with each other, which I think is a very interesting space to build in. And what are the demographics if we were talking to someone who knows nothing about TCG, although it feels everyone knows a lot about TCG these days. But to your parents, how would you describe the community, the culture, the space? Yeah, I would say there's, there's a wide variety of people. So you can find the kind of demographic of characters, which I find super interesting. For example, there's a specific demographic of people who collect sports cards. There's a demographic of people who collect very, you know, cutesy cards. My girlfriend, and then there's people who, you know, collect very expensive, vintage, high-end cards. So it's a wide variety of people that I think are in the community. Yeah. Have you ever had, it's also a very passionate community, right? Yeah. They especially folks in sports, for example, where they've been in the space for a long time. How do you handle the passion that comes good and bad with this customer base as well as a larger community here? Yeah, I think the main thing that people react to is that I think my philosophy is people on a whole understand when you're trying to take advantage of them or when you're trying to build a relationship with them. And so for me personally, I don't necessarily mind passion. As long as I feel that we can work together with someone. So I think people are very passionate. It's great. I'm a very passionate person. And people react very well when you're also a passionate person that they also suddenly understand that you're trying to, I guess the words for it might be take care of them or work with them very well instead of trying to take advantage of them. Yeah. I spoke to some of your co-workers or also early employees. It seems you've known them for a really long time. So yeah, I met somebody who you knew when you were in kindergarten. So it sounds your use to that concept of building a relationship and blasting wise. That's something you take into what you do and the, you know, the business as well with customers. Absolutely. I think when I think about how I want to transact with people, I want to think about leaving a lasting impression on them. I want the people that I work with to feel I'm upgrading them or also making them better in life. Or either more understanding of how I see the world. Or also upskilled or upleveled. And with customers, we want to make sure that the customers feel that their interests are always prioritized at the top. Right. Any reservations that you've heard in the past for someone who maybe is skeptical about the service but is curious about it to want to try it out. Can you address some of those roadblocks or challenges or things that may be holding somebody back from, you know, building, making an account or investing in the way that you're describing? Yeah. I think a lot of people who open mystery packs feel that these packs are scams. Right. And that's what we're, that's exactly what we're trying to build again. So people have experiences where they have vendors who are a little bit suspicious who try to take advantage of them. So to that, we have two solutions. So number one is that we allow people to demo open the packs. So there's a button that you can click that would show you, "Oh, this is what you would hit if you had opened the pack." We also open source our code that shows people how cards are selected in the mystery packs. And so you can verifiably and independently trust us because you can look at our technology and see what it is that we're providing to verify the trust. Additionally, with the custom mystery packs, you can basically put cards in your pack and then independently feel that everything is random because you set and control your own odds. So for example, let's say you're creating your own pack of five cards. These are the only cards that you'd be able to possibly hit in your pack. And then the independent, independent verifiable, it's crypto that power blockchain, that powers that. To be able to have this ledger. Can you talk a little bit about that to my parents who will make you not ever heard about crypto? Absolutely. So I think a lot of people who are not into crypto are very skeptical of crypto, understandably so. So when I worked in crypto, I was, wait, there's so much technology here that I think is really interesting. That's just that for everyone who's not in crypto, this seems a little scammy. So our website runs without needing crypto. Crypto is almost a backup. So it's a proof that happens in the background, but is not dependent upon any sort of cryptocurrency or anything. That the way that we use crypto to explain maybe crypto in a very easy to digest manner is you just think about crypto and blockchain. Blockchain is specifically a Google drive or cloud storage. You basically just deposit stuff to a Google drive. And then once you deposit stuff to a Google drive, it's immutable, which means that no one can change the data. So that's how we use basically the blockchain to verify if somebody opened the car. Exactly. You guys can, you know, go back on that or someone else can accuse. Okay. Exactly. It's kind of the way to think about it is an mo or paypal. Think about when you make a deposit and then you see that the deposit has been received or a card has been opened from a pack. That's a system that is underlying everything else. Very full. Well, thank you so much for the time. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so explaining to the audience what crypto is, how to get a gate scholarship. What it is 11th, I feel recovered a lot of topics. Yeah. So thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. This has been really fun. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.