In this blog, I thought I'd give you guys a bit of a background story about myself and how I got to this stage in my professional life.
I've always viewed career as important and always wanted to do something that felt purposeful. This is why my career started and still is linked to coaching football. Football has been my constant hobby since I was 10 years old and I got my first qualification at the age of 17.
However, a career in coaching is not straight forward and not feasible for everyone. So upon leaving university I had to think of other things to do alongside coaching. Through a love of TED Talks, I stumbled upon a talk by Brian Miller who spoke about how magic helped him connect with people.
That's what sparked my initial curiosity with magic, which was then accelerated further when I stumbled upon Chris Ramsay's magic tutorials in November 2017. At the time I was doing a masters that I HATED (Psychology) which required me to be in class for just one day a week. I had a LOT of free time on my hands.
Magic became my focus, but I was also starting to collect playing cards and growing an appreciation for playing card design. Around mid 2018, which was a really tough year for me, my friend shared a video from an entrepreneur called Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary was a rowdy, in your face american hustler-type entrepreneur who you'd either love or hate, and I definitely didn't like him at first.
However, after giving Gary a chance with a few more of his YouTube videos, my year was about to change and this was the starting blocks of me starting my first business. Not only did Gary's content encourage me to starting documenting my magic journey online as well as selling playing cards on eBay, he also hit me with some big life lessons in his content that made me get my act together and get in a better headspace.
For context, Gary Vaynerchuk is a damn good entrepreneur who has a very popular and successful personal brand on social media. He has various businesses, but uses his social platforms to connect with and share advice from his business journey with millions of people.
Selling playing cards on eBay was kind of fun, but eBay and PayPal combined would end up taking about 15% of the revenue from my sales. In other words, no profit! I decided in December 2018 that I should launch my own website, and after some planning and preparation in early 2019 I launched The Card Inn on February 12th, 2019.
This was largely inspired by having a lack of fulfilment post-university. I initially wanted to be a PE teacher, but realised I only like football, hence why I started my journey in coaching. Full time work in coaching has to be earned, and so in the mean time I did a couple of internships working in London as a social media executive. My time in these jobs really motivated me to work for myself and make TCI my full time job.
Launching The Card Inn is right up there with the most significant decision I've made in my life, and I whilst I thought I could eventually gain success with it, I couldn't have envisioned just how far I could take it. Just over 6 years ago I launched my store and it's been an incredible journey. However, I didn't just want to sell other people's playing cards, I wanted to create my own.
Good Pals was launched in November 2021, and to get a full story of the Good Pals journey you can read the blog here. Good Pals started as an apparel brand before branching out into playing cards. Good Pals has become my creative outlet and producing my own cards is a key reason I'm still doing what I'm doing now. Without being able to create my own products, I feel like I would need to do something different alongside The Card Inn to feel satisfied in my career.
If there is one strength that I do have, it's coming up with ideas and bringing them to life. That doesn't mean all my ideas are good, there are tonnes that are bad. But if you have enough of them then you're bound to come up with something good at some point. Whilst I am a business owner, I like to think of myself as a creative, as I feel like creativity is my strong point.
In regards to the future, I can see myself being in the playing card industry for at least a decade (2019-2029). Running The Card Inn for a decade would be special, and I have quite a lot of ideas for Good Pals decks that would see a full calendar worth of releases for at least the next 3 years which would take us up to beginning of 2029.
Surpassing a decade, who knows what will happen next. This niche industry of ours has changed a lot since I started out in 2019, and as a business owner I have felt even the effects of an industry / global affairs shake up since 2023 with it becoming harder and harder to sell enough units to keep up with previous years totals.
But business is supposed to be challenging, and you just have to adapt if you want to survive. For me the passion is still kicking for Good Pals, and whilst it has inevitably dipped a little bit with The Card Inn, I am still passionate about the industry and believe in its potential.
As mentioned at the start, I coach football and this is still a big passion of mine. It's something I would double down on should I ever exit the playing card industry. Not only am I passionate about coaching in general, I like the idea of having a positive impact on young people, something which I aim to achieve in my coaching.
I mentioned I see myself as a creative, but I have developed certain skills in business. Lately during quiet spells for The Card Inn I have debated whether I should venture into other areas of business, as I am really passionate about football for which there is a huge market for business.
Time will tell!
If you have any interest in the future Good Pals decks I alluded to for the next few years, you may be interested in checking out my Patreon membership which provides numerous reveals of upcoming Good Pals decks as they are being designed, from draft phase to finished work.
You can check out the membership here.
Thank you for reading!
