Building businesses, trying new tools, and making room for people. The original posts, collected in one place.
Imported October 2, 2026. This is a static archive. Posts follow their LinkedIn activity order; publication dates appear only when verified.
Showing 161–180 of 348 posts
We created a bounty inside our store and it's taken on a life of its own. We're chasing one card. The rarest pull in Kayou's My Little Pony set — and whoever finds it gets to have their own custom pony designed and inserted into the offici…
Read the post →We just hit $1M in sales on TCGPlayer. 7 months. No prior retail experience. With a staff of just me and two other people. No playbook. No roadmap. Just systems we built ourselves and a whole lot of learning on the fly. I've been sitting w…
Read the post →Wall Street saw a 20% drop and panicked. I saw $5.1 billion in revenue and nodded. We run a collectibles store in South Dakota. I watch the blind box mechanic work on real humans every single week. Low entry price. Randomized pull. Collect…
Read the post →I found Memes.ai and I have absolutely no business being this good at this. Izzi's Gym social media is about to get a lot more unhinged. You've been warned. Seriously though — if you're a retailer and you're not playing with this tool, you…
Read the post →April 18th is closer than you think (or exactly what you think if you think its 13 days away). The My Little Pony TCG hits major retailers and Izzi's Gym in two weeks — and most of the hobby world is still sleeping on it. Tier4 just publis…
Read the post →Izzi's Gym is open today. Not because of greed. Because of community. After the 25th person asked if we'd be open, we got our answer. A lot of folks don't have somewhere to land on holidays — and honestly, after losing my dad and grandma l…
Read the post →We are thrilled to share that Bandai Namco Toys and Collectibles America has been named Merch Maker of the Year by The Pop Insider! This recognition celebrates the creativity, craftsmanship, and passion our team pours into every piece of m…
Read the post →You have no idea how powerful these two little lines of text are. ONE PIECE GARD GAME: GOLD MEMBER GUNDAM CARD GAME: GOLD MEMBER For our players it means bigger events, more competition, more reasons to show up every single week. For our s…
Read the post →KAYOU just opened a door we didn't know we needed. tokidoki blind boxes just landed at Izzi's Gym — 20 of them — and we are fully down the rabbit hole. If you haven't heard of Tokidoki, let me catch you up: Italian artist Simone Legno laun…
Read the post →It’s 9:30pm and I’m exhausted. Not the kind of tired that comes from doing nothing. The kind that comes from building something. I saw a quote on TikTok tonight that stopped me cold: “What a privilege to be tired from the work you once beg…
Read the post →My Little Pony is becoming a trading card game. And it's not what you think. This isn't a collectible product for nostalgia. It's a full TCG. Deck construction. Head-to-head strategy. Organized competitive play. Drops May 1st. Here's what…
Read the post →My brother just wrote an article that perfectly explains something we figured out early at Izzi's Gym. Nobody carries brands. People carry identities. We've never been a logo-first store. We lead with community. With ideas. With belonging.…
Read the post →Most collectors think KAYOU transparent cards are weird. They're not weird. They're one of the smartest product design decisions in the hobby. Here's what's actually happening: Kayou runs a tiered pack system. Each tier has to feel worth i…
Read the post →I was up until 3am tweaking our ecomm site last night. Not because I had to. Because I found something that could be better and I couldn't stop. That's the thing about small CRO tweaks — the feedback loop is addictive. Change one thing. Wa…
Read the post →It starts with a single sale. Nick Hamze and I have been heads down for three days building something from scratch. Custom coded. Built it ourselves. Iterated until it was fast and working perfectly. Launched ads this morning. First sale c…
Read the post →I've watched this happen dozens of times at Izzi's Gym. An adult walks in with their kid. Barely paying attention. Checking their phone. Then they see the Kayou wall. My Little Pony. Naruto. Something they grew up with. Their face changes.…
Read the post →My small talk just cost Izzi's Gym $25,000. Every morning our sales rep calls with the hot list. This week it was stacked. Cases and cases of cards that would've flown off our shelves. So what did I do? I did my usual 1-2 minutes of small…
Read the post →Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan just validated your card collection. I don't say that to be cute. I mean it literally. ↓ Here's what they found (and why it matters) —— In 2024 and 2025, some of the most rigorous financial analysts in the world…
Read the post →I went down a rabbit hole on the Kayou Tokidoki Wonder Voyage Roaming Edition. Not the XRs. Not the BPs. The Rares. Flip one over and there's a short phrase printed on the back. Looked like flavor text at first. It's not. Kayou embedded a…
Read the post →120 kids signed up for Chess Club. The school could only take 40 (lack of chess boards and volunteers) ↓ That's how hungry these kids are for somewhere to belong... A teacher walked into our store yesterday. Her son loves Pokémon. She aske…
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