Today’s episode is all about one of the hottest things anywhere on the internet—Pokémon cards! Search for TCG, trading card games, and unboxing, or some combination thereof on YouTube and you will find all sorts of examples of people shelling out beaucoup bucks for boxes of Pokémon cards. The hype surrounding Pokémon plays into the larger popularity of TCGs, including Magic: the Gathering, Yo-Gi-Oh and Dragonball Z, among others and their collectability—A shadowless “Charizard” Pokémon card recently fetched over 200k in an auction, while the Black Lotus card from Magic: The Gathering typically fetches over 30k.

My guests today Marko Schädlich and Jamin Kauf from Cardmarket, know all there is to know about the Black Lotus and everything else on the TCG scene, as Cardmarket is Europe’s largest resale platform for Trading Card Games. Cardmarket has over 100m items for sale on its platform and with 500k users from 30 countries Cardmarket is a fascinating case study in community building and target group segmentation. So without further ado, here are Marko and Jamin to give you the lowdown on how Cardmarket went from nichey passion project to big-time international player.