Founder of StockX & Fanatics Collectibles | Josh Luber's Bold New Venture

0:00This is the GaryVee Audio Experience.

0:30and I really hope you all enjoy. Now to the episode.

1:00and I know a lot of you heard of it. And he's gone on to do a lot of cool stuff and we've known each other now for a little while. And his newest project feels very right to me. You know, I've been saying a lot over the last three years, five years, that like fashion and food and sports, I feel like collecting, collectibles, is starting to switch into a genre where I believe the mass and vast majority of society in 20 years will go to a dinner party. I had a dinner party the other night. We had eight, 10 people over and we talked obviously about many things. We talk about like, what are you watching on Netflix and what restaurants are you going to?

1:35We did not in this evening say, what are you all collecting? However, multiple people made mention to a painting I had in the apartment. Multiple people made reference to the sneakers I was wearing and made a comment about how they're collecting Air Force Ones or something like that. I believe we're within the next decade in a place where both men and women will just in general conversation talk about, just like did you see the big game last night? They will say like, hey, I just picked up a Spider-Man first appearance of Carnage or I just found the hardest to get marble for my marbles collection.

2:08And so I think collecting, which by the way is the most human truth. Like you go back to Cavemen and they were picking up like, I don't know, dinosaur bones and shit. Like collecting is forever and it's crossed the chasm five years ago and now it's just building towards that momentum. and that's why I'm so excited about talking about what you're doing brother and so that's the setup. I really wanna get into the depths of entrepreneurship, collecting and then what you're up to now, mainly to be very frank because I want a lot of people who find it interesting in my community, which will have a lot of crossover because of what I'm into, to be able to get in early, which I always like.

2:47I always like the feeling of like, I literally get an email every day, 10 of them actually, or five to 10 a day of like, thank you for getting me on TikTok, it changed my life. Or thank you for sports cards or thank you for making me invest in Facebook back in 2015 or what have you. I love that feeling and I love when people find a passion of theirs and I feel like you're gonna have a very passionate community once this thing gets really rolling. So that's the big setup. The podcast could be over by now, by now actually. But that's the big setup, Josh. Why don't you, for the people that don't know you, take the mic for the next two, three minutes and tell them who you are and what you're up to now.

3:23Thank you very much. That was an amazing introduction. By the way, this can be like the Rich Eisen, Giannis, PSA 10 conversation, right? You can be rich and I'll be you and we can talk about collectible toys and how they're next. Thank you. By the way, we don't need to tell the whole story of that day in the diner, but the first thing, I don't know if you remember this, the very first thing you said to me, you sat down, you didn't say hi. Right? It was a super, you know, it was a super. I remember it was like, everybody, it's literally out of a Seinfeld episode. Absolutely. Literally this diner.

3:57We're on the counter. It was a typical old school. We're on the counter. It was so tight. Like you couldn't turn around in there. And I was there a couple of minutes. There was 49 people in a space that held three. It was so New York. It was so typical like OG New York. And you slide down next to me and you look at me and you don't say hi. And you know, and then you go, oh, you're about my age. Baseball cards are candy. and it took me a second and I was like I was like oh I was like I know exactly what you're asking I was like both I was like yeah it was like candy and bubble gum in middle school and high school and then you know collecting cards my whole life and it was because we're about the same age I think you're like four or five years older than me and everything you just said about how collectibles are changing and becoming more and more part of culture is because we are now the ones creating the companies that create the culture and we grew up like that right we didn't have that generation before because phil knight wasn't a sneakerhead because he had invented nike right steve jobs wasn't an iphone 5 because he had invented that these guys invented these we were the the ones who were consuming that and then now we're creating those businesses before there so um you know it really is uh not only central to what you and i both like but it's been my career now for 10 years and to some extent i'm just lucky that i was one of the first people to sort of create a business around sneakers and then around trading cards and now around collectible toys but but it's all just the stuff that we collected as kids and now we're putting it.

5:17Friends, literally as recent as 1975, which is when I was born, ironically, 49 years ago, nobody was like buying Superman's first comic book as like a core collectible. There was a small crew. I had to say that part because I was gonna get emails being like, bro, fuck you, in 1974, I went to a comic book store. I know, but there was like 19 of you. I'll go to Sneakers because I lived that, not the comic book thing. The comic book and cards thing started to kick in in the late mid-70s. The sneaker thing, in 1990, people weren't collecting Jordans. I remember I actually, in 1998, went to a wine dinner, and the daughter of the guy, the daughter, because she was a fashion girl, like a cool girl, was collecting Jordans in 1997-6, and I was like, huh.

6:16New things get collected. Like I just don't think people understand. Like video games, I was early on that. They are now, you go to eBay, you go to completed items, video game, you'll be stunned of what some of these things sell for. You're right, we're the byproducts of the golden 1980s, 90s pop culture era that sponge bobs us, that sneakers us, that all this stuffs us and it's very, very real. When I was a kid, my parents had friends that had more money and they would go to Sotheby's and buy antiques for real money. $400 ,000 for a vase. There's no fucking buddy buying a$400 ,000 vase. That's like our crew, which is the crew that now is amassing wealth.

7:05We're not buying a fucking$380 ,000 earn. And again, I know there's people who are gonna email me and be like, I know you're from a third generation wealthy family and you're affected by that culture. But the new money, the new money wants a fucking Jordan rookie card or a pair of sneakers or a Mego Superman action figure, which is like a 1970s rare toy. Like, it's just different. I literally had someone email me last night that said, hey, can you help me find, can you help me buy a Jordan PSA 10? Right, they're not somebody that collects cards, they're somebody that is actually in sports media, and said, hey, I wanna put some money into cards, I want a Jordan PSA 10.

7:50Good timing. Tell us about two seconds on StockX, Zero Cool, that era, and then let's segue into this really rad thing I think you're doing. Most people know me as the founder of StockX. As they should. You built one of the most important contemporary companies in the world. It's pretty fucking cool. I appreciate that. It's real. You know, a lot of this is timing. I stood outside at 21 Mercer during the Galaxy phone drop in 2012, you know, and I sat out there with everyone else and said, is this really how Nike's most important sneaker release ever happens and the chaos? And so I was in the right place at the right time for some of these.

8:28But I've collected sneakers all my life. And all these products I've collected all my life. But I almost intentionally avoided creating any businesses around them for years. Because when we grew up, the word entrepreneur didn't exist. The idea of chasing your passion didn't exist. So StockX, we started in 2015. Obviously, I moved to Detroit. We started that company with Dan Gilbert. I left in September of 2020. And at that point, I was trying to build a trading card business. And, you know, somehow I ended up partnering with another billionaire NBA owner, Michael Rubin. And we created Fanatics Collectibles.

9:00We went out and acquired all the licenses for baseball, basketball, football cards. and that business was bigger, faster, crazier by every metric. I mean, that thing was nuts. I mean, we built a$10 billion company in one year at the end of 21. We acquired Topps and then we built that. But unlike StockX where that was my baby, that was like everything around my whole life, it took me a year to realize that just because I started that company doesn't mean I can't leave. Whereas with Finanx Collectibles from the very beginning, Ruben and I were on the same page. And if this thing gets as big as it's going to get, you don't want me running this.

9:33And I don't want to run this. You're not a corporate CEO type. No way. You're a founder. Yeah. And so, which was great because, you know, Ruben and I were on the same page as that. And once that business got big enough, I went back to the same thoughts that we had as StockX was growing, which are the other categories on StockX that are interesting. In 2018, we added collectible toys to StockX. We started with Bearbrick, which is the longest running, most successful collectible toy franchise. Cause Astro Boy, a lot of these sort of like typical hype economy. Kid Robot is part of it. I mean, they don't really have the energy they used to in sort of the mid 2000s, but there's a couple of them.

10:10But you have these hype economy products that are all the same as sneakers and trading cards and street wear. They're all products that are supply and demand driven, that are based on the intersection of culture and commerce that have resale value and collectors. right they're all the same right it's just a different product a different blank canvas right a jordan one the value is based on the color pattern and how many exist in the supply and demand of it all but it's a jordan one's a jordan one's jordan one right the value is based on who that that collaboration is with in the same way a trading card trading cards are all the same the value is is that wemby or is that the backup catcher for the twins right and so for me as we were moving to the next business that I wanted to create, we had always been fascinated by collectible toys because the collectible toy industry is big enough to matter.

10:56It's big enough to work with all the most important brands and artists and cultural creators, but it wasn't so big that you had these monoliths in the space. There wasn't a Nike or the NBA or Fanatics in the space. You have Funko and Medicom and these okay companies, but it's not the NBA. It's not Nike and so I very very specifically chose a place where we could build a brand and leverage everything we learned from sneakers and trading cards about the intersection of culture and commerce about supply and demand but a place where I could do it on my own I didn't have to partner with a billionaire and be owner to build a multi-billion dollar company to even rep be relevant in the space you went back to your roots in a way yeah yeah and by the way when I left StockX there were 1 ,400 people when I left Fanatics Collectibles there were probably close to 2 ,000.

11:39It is me and 10 people at GhostRite, which is, I mean, a business is just people, right? Like, this is the best. I get to work with exactly who I wanna work with. Almost every one of them worked with me at one or both of the last two companies. They all get the industry, the space, and working with me. And most of all you. Yeah, and that's the true joy of this thing. Hey, everybody, actually, if you're a really hardcore listener, you know I never do this. I'm sorry to be jumping in the middle of the podcast, but the truth is, I'm like shitting the bed on this. everybody else is getting people to review on Spotify and Apple and like the Vayner Nation does none of that because I've never asked.

12:13So if this podcast has ever meant anything to you please go to Spotify or Apple right now and leave a review. By the way even if you give me a one star review because you think it's shit I respect it but just leave a review an actual review four or five stars and the actual details of why yeah that would mean something for me so thanks. Now back to the podcast. So Ghost Right. Ghost Right. What is it? Ghost Right is a collectible toy brand. But we say it's a blank canvas brand, which means that the product is the shape. Now, the best example of this is Bearbrick. Bearbrick, which is made by a Japanese company called Metacom, is 25 years old, is a human body with a bear head.

12:54Most people who are somewhat relevant at all with the hype economy are aware of Bearbricks. StockX, when we added them, we were overnight the largest seller of Bearbricks, which means that almost every collectible toy is a is a character it's ip it's spider-man it's astro boy it's it's it's iron man right a bear brick can be anything you could put iron man on it or you could wrap it in the american flag or a war all pain or something else and that's what allows it's a canvas and that's what allows us wider aperture in the culture and so at ghost right we are doing the exact same thing so a ghost which i have here is a kid wearing a crown but a ghost like a bear brick there's no face there's no gender.

13:31The ghost itself is not a character. It's about what you put on it. There's been four public releases. One's been an NBA basketball. Another has been the logo from Eastside Golf. Another has been a Rocky's Matcha, which is a T brand, right? And now we're moving into the WNBA set, which we'll talk about. But the idea is that it can be anything. And that gives us the opportunity to treat this exactly the way the trading cards work, the exactly that sneakers work. And it's a fun place to be because it means we get to collaborate with everyone interesting. Right, so if Louis Vuitton wants to do a deal, you can do the pattern there, but if the WWE wants to make a deal, you could put the actual wrestlers on it.

14:07It's a pure blank canvas. The shape is the IP. Exactly, exactly. Understood. Yep, we, for a year, all we did was make Ghosts to giveaway. We started making Ghosts in August of 2023. The first one was with Eastside Golf. We actually made Ghosts for their golf tournament. They were tee box markers for the tournament. And then over the next year, we made one here, 10 here, five here, all friends and family, promotional, all brand building. After that, we started selling ghosts about four or five months ago. On ghostwrite.com? Everything else, ghostwrite.com. And spell that out because some people are going to get the wrong right.

14:47G-H-O-S-T-W-R-I-T-E.com. And this is about the ethos of the brand, Ghostwrite, is that these are products that tell other people's stories right as a blank canvas we can tell other people's stories it is not about the ghost story itself that by the way i love this case is afa graded ghost okay which we have a partnership with afa which grades gi joe he-man star wars all the like the classics they're the they're the psa of vintage toys and so we have a partnership with them where we can have our ghost graded in fact that is the the sample case there that i brought you so but as we then launch ghost on ghost right which to date everything has been sold direct using what we call blind dutch auction which you revolutionized with stock x right which is this is not the first time we did this we did this at stock x we did this how we did zero cool series one boxes that's right people snagged for like 20 something hundred now they're like 6k yep people did well with that and and we're not Tyler blew it.

15:50We're not going to turn this into economics lecture, but that, that, that, that Delta right there is exactly the way the economic theory says it's supposed to work, which means that when the product sells as a blinded auction, there is hype left in the system, which means that like by definition, everyone should be able to resell it at some point for more than what it cleared for. Just the way that a way that works. And that's, that's why we like this this concept um but so um to date all of the by the way the same we have the same three sizes bare brick the 400 which is 11 inches which you have some of these that is kind of the flagship size um the thousand percent which you also have one of those that is kind of the promotional one yep uh and then this which is called 100 which is two and a half inches and so i'm obsessed with this one yeah in december um we are going to do the first ever 100 release with the wnba It's so rad.

16:46It is joint license with the league and the players. So you got the WNBA and the WNBAPA. That's right. And this is the first two boxes. These are blind boxes of 100%. These look so good. Thank you. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I don't expect less, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was impressed. This is proper. This is the thing about being able to work with who you want to work with. They're all rock stars. I get to go and have great designers and product people and everyone else. And so we get - Looks like a fucking iPhone. You know what I mean? We've spent so much time on this because this has to be a true collectible.

17:25It has to matter. It has to be a phenomenal product. The supply and demand of it all, that's just the gravy. The product itself has to actually matter. And by the way, to have a license with the WNBA, and we have licenses with the NBA and Major League Baseball - Are you kidding me? The fucking gangsters of the gangsters. This is trading cards, right? This is a blind box. And so we're going to open this the same way we opened the first cases of, of, uh, you have the famous fan. That's cool. This, when, when I say we take everything from sneakers and trading cards, you know, the, the Kobe, uh, world cup prism card that is numbered to 25 and autograph.

18:03And the last one sold at golden auction for like 60 grand, right? That concept, we didn't make that up to put the most relevant people in culture that are the big fans of the sets. So Aubrey Plaza, and here's her ghost. This was the outfit she was wearing at the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix this year where she tore her ACL playing knockout with the players and her ghost has crutches and an ice pack on her. I mean, like these are the stories of the WNBA, right? This is the idea. Ghosts tell stories. We get to tell all the most interesting stories. And by the way, what a year for the WNBA. I mean, look, there's so much that's just, I'm so lucky from a timing standpoint.

18:40like holy crap, I get to come in at the first year the WNBA with Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese and everything else going on? Timing. Yeah, timing is great. So this is the first set. I haven't opened a box yet either, this is the first one. We get to open? Oh my god, I'm pumped right out. Amazing. Do I get to keep mine? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So here's the thing, there are - That was me being clever. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's remember, do you remember what happened when we opened the first - Yes, we pulled a sketch card in the first box. I still can't get over that for the V Friends book. Bro, honestly, I know that some of you are watching the videos, but most of you are listening on the audio.

19:14The packaging is remarkable. Like really well done. Really well done. I'm impressed. Thank you. How much are they gonna be? So, there are 900 total cases that are being sold. Cases. Each case has 12 individual blind boxes in them. This is a box. Yep. Man, this is great. The girth. The girth. This is substantial Yeah So there's 12 ghosts Inside this Oh there's 12 ghosts Inside of this Yeah yeah yeah Yeah that makes sense Yeah Okay Yeah they're this size Yeah So wait This is not a case This is a box Well I Yeah So I call it a case Because it's a box So this is a case Yes this is a case Got it So there's only 900 of these Yeah it's super limited Yeah yeah yeah Oh I'm hyped right now I'm like I'm like let me just Yeah yeah I got I got one unopened case here For each of us And then one to open So again Amazing Thank you brother One case to open because this is insane yeah so there are there are five main parallels that we're chasing and so you can see on the side of the box on this side we have our five main parallels here right fire which is 101 gold number to 10 chrome number to five this purple one which is a bet on women we can talk about that that's number to 25 and then this alternate face which we call victory is number to 50 so the face the look here which we call game face was this idea of sort of like the elevated intensity of athletes.

20:38So that's the major look. And you can think about this as like a Panini prism design, because this would be the same look we use for the NBA and Major League Baseball for this year. And then next year, we'll flip to a new design for each player. So like each year we have that design, but the five parallels, I mean, this is what we're chasing, right? And by the way, I, is there a chase in each case on average, the math works out that there's one per case, but, but not guaranteed. Yeah. There's no way to sort of guarantee it. The factory does it randomly. And I honestly don't know what's in here.

21:07Hopefully we get some new decisions. This is literally the first time you're opening it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like the first one. When did these come in? Now, basically. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we literally had them have an overnight from China yesterday as everything else is rolling in over the next two weeks. That's unbelievable. How are people going to get them? Yeah, well, so there's two ways. So there's 900 cases. 700 of them are sold wholesale to the breakers. So the top 10 card breakers are opening this. Backyard Breaks Blez Cherry Like You know That's who's Mainly opening this And then we're doing A Blind Dutch Auction On Ghost Right For the other 200 So Second week of December We'll have We'll do our Blind Our Blind Dutch Auction For the remaining 200 For my homies here That want to go that route Where do they go?

21:51Everything on GhostRight.com We added The product page Went up this morning So all the information's there And over the next three weeks We will do all the Storytelling and marketing And all that But it will be People can enter into or they can buy cases directly from us. Love it. You wanna open them? I have no, okay. Do I rip with this cordial tap? Yeah, yeah, I think we rip them here, so I haven't opened it yet. These are, I'm telling you, like I've got, like, am I, like, just like the, I've gotten much more into product design, I feel, as I've gotten older. Like, I appreciate, oh, this is pretty.

22:25This is the first time I'm opening them too, which is, yeah. Let's just point out, because we took these boxes randomly, and we took the boxes randomly for VFriends and you ended up with the number to 15. You were the one that hit the sketch? No, you hit it. Oh, I did. Oh, the 15? Yeah. These open nice. Yeah. All right, everybody, I'm opening my first one ever. And I'm opening mine at the same time. We'll see. There should be one chasing each. We'll see who gets what. I mean, look, the base are number to 800. I mean, just even the poly bag. Yeah. This is really well done. Proud of you, man. This is really nice.

22:57Thank you, thank you. I think these are going to be really popular. Here we go.

23:04Kelsey Plum, base. Oh, you pulled Aubrey Plaza on the first one. Aubrey on the first one. I love it. I pulled the Aubrey. And is it? It's all. What's on the foot? So it says 1024. That is October of 2024 when the set was created, when the set was produced. And then numbered 800. So there's 800. Even the base are only numbered 800. But this will only say 800. We'll say one of 800. That's right. That's right. And it'll say the same thing if it's numbered to 10 or 5. They're not individually numbered, but it says exactly how many. Oh, the head turns. There's a little bit of movement. Yeah, I didn't think that.

23:34Head and the legs move. Legs move? Yeah, the head and the legs move. Oh, the legs. Okay. So I can have a little, I can give you a little side eye. So because we can't, you have the AFA sample here. So by the way, if anyone pulls any of the top three parallels, gold, fire, chrome, we will pay for them to grade it with AFA. No. Yeah, we are paying for free because what we care about is the long-term value. Of course, I get it. How does one do that? There every all the info is on the site and yeah on ghost right yeah, so this oh Well, this will be this is a separate cases that we have for this is like think of this as like PSA And this is like a you know a semi-rigid right this is like your top loader.

24:15Yeah. Yeah, so Yeah, this one is is I brought one of these for you. So whatever your big hit is okay You can put in there put it in that well put my big I'm setting to AFA it's fucking right That's right Okay. These are fun. These are fun. Yeah, I mean like parents, if you're listening, like this is just like a super duper duper duper elevated blind bag toy play. Right, for a lot of the parents that raise kids in the last 15 years, blind bagging for toys has been monstrous. This is just, think of this as like the LVMH of that experience, like from a package, just have the poly bag and then ooh.

24:57Now how, like, okay, so they're gonna have, like for a lot of people that may wanna get in on this, but don't follow the WNBA yet, what you're doing well is you're putting the jersey on the back, right? So I get Carrington, like that's how you are. So that's Dijon A. Carrington. I just pulled Dawn Staley. So there's 12 active players, three legends, Dawn Staley, Lisa Leslie, and Becky Hammond. Oh, and didn't I see, wait a minute, did I see Diana? Taurasi, Diana's still playing. Oh shit, she is. Yeah, yeah. What a fucking gangster she is. Hell yeah. Are you kidding? What year is this for Diana now?

25:3330. 30? Yeah. I'm joking, but it's 20. Yeah. Google it time. 15? I think it's like 13 or 14. Yeah, I mean, she's been, yeah. She's such a gangster. I'm like, I haven't seen any parallels in real life yet. Kels. Asia Wilson. I got a plum as well. Asia Wilson. Asia Wilson's so gangster. She's such a player. She can really play. She's the first kid in 2004. 20 years. 20 years? I was right, bro. I told you 20. So one of the other things that we did, which... This is fun. I'm not sure anyone's ever done this before, is all of the information on the site about the players is written by Shea Serrano.

26:16I saw it. So we put his quote on the side, and then if you go to the site, this is instead of having an intern at Tops, right the back of a baseball card, right? We went to a four-time New York Times bestselling author who's got an NBA and WNBA podcast to do the content about the players, right? It's like, it was a no brand. I was like, how has no one thought of this before? I pulled her. I pulled the Taurasi. That's so awesome, yeah. And I got Becky Hammond at the same time. These are really nice. Can I get a scoop here? Do you have another license yet that you've been able to lock in? Yeah, yeah.