The Kid Who Sold Baseball Cards at a Flea Market Before there was VeeFriends, there was a kid at a New Jersey flea market selling baseball cards to anyone who'd stop and listen. That kid grew up to be Gary Vaynerchuk — "GaryVee" — one of the most-followed entrepreneurs on the planet. He immigrated to the United States from Belarus as a child, and if you know anything about what it means to grow up in an immigrant household — the pressure, the hustle, the weight of your parents' sacrifice sitting on your shoulders every single day — then you already understand something essential about why Gary is the way he is. It's a story a lot of us know from the inside. For me personally, my father came from Lebanon, and the immigrant work ethic isn't a concept in our family — it's the air we breathed growing up. When Gary talks about what drove him, I don't just hear an entrepreneur's origin story. I hear something familiar. Gary grew his family's wine business from $3 million to $60 million in revenue by pioneering e-commerce before most people knew what that meant, then founded VaynerMedia — now one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the world. He's written bestselling books, spoken to millions, and built a media empire. But the through-line from that flea market table to VeeFriends is a straight one. Gary has never stopped being a collector. Wine, sneakers, sports cards — he thinks in the language of collectibles: rarity, community, emotional attachment, long-term value. He understands why people love building collections because he's one of those people. In 2021, he sat down and hand-drew 268 characters. Not because he had to. Because the kid who loved baseball cards had something to say about values, business, and what it means to build things that last — and he wanted to say it in a language collectors would understand.