Yes, I missed the boat. But…maybe I didn’t really have a ticket for that boat in the first place. Zero Cool Trading cards was a division of Fanatics trading and had a dope mission statement, a handful of small releases and one that I still see floating around today: a collaboration with Gary Vee’s and Vee Friends NFT characters. From what I can see - I actually produced and sold far more cards and card sets (but mine didn’t sell for nearly what his sold for). And as far as I can tell - it didn’t go far, although much farther than mine.
Confronted with the same issues I kinda faced…’where do we take this from here?’, I think Josh wanted to do something completely new…so…he moved on and created ‘Ghostwrite’. At first glance, I saw it as (another) collectible toy company. And I thought it was a ridiculous proposition.
And then, I saw Josh on Gary Vee’s podcast. After hearing his explanation - I think I said this to a couple of friends - and I *never* say this word - I said Josh’s idea was brilliant.
He essentially positioned his toys as one would position cards - a generic vehicle that gets updated based on whoever or whatever it’s meant to portray. As opposed to…say…just some random toy company, his are actually LICENSED by the entities represented. Which, for someone like me, is a really big deal.
While Josh is moving and creating markets, I’m over here wondering where I went wrong…card set after card set…wondering why I’m toiling in IG land trying to understand why my reach has been stifled…
Nearly five years pass, and…the lapse of *this* blog. This would have been the end of the story had I finished the blog in a reasonable time frame, but I’m kinda glad I didn’t…because…a few things over the next few months brought me some closer.