I Dropped Out of College and Built a $7 Million Pokémon Cards Business

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andres Fernandez, founder and CEO of MintlyCollects, which specializes in selling Pokémon cards on the live selling platform, Whatnot. The company’s two Whatnot accounts have around 500k followers altogether. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born and raised in Miami, and I’ve always been an out-of-the-box kid.

When I signed up for college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was going to college because my mom was making me go, and I was studying business, which I find to be cliché.

After just one semester, I dropped out to be a full-time Pokémon card seller.

Rather than getting a business degree to work a corporate job, I ended up building a real business that’s mine.

How I found my direction

I was super into video games, YouTube, Twitch, and content creation growing up. I had played Pokémon video games since I was 10, but I wasn’t a collector. That changed when my little cousin’s birthday came around, and I needed to get him a gift.

I went to Target and bought him some cards. We opened the cards together at his birthday party, and he pulled a $100 card from a $5 pack. As soon as I saw that, I was like, “I’m in. This is awesome.”

I started collecting and ripping a lot of packs. At the time, I was working at a croqueta bar, frying food for $10 an hour. I was spending too much money on Pokémon cards, so I started creating content around Pokémon.

I eventually grew an account to about 30,000 followers and started selling on Instagram Live. Then Whatnot reached out to me.

I joined in late 2020, when Whatnot had just started its Pokémon side. I was probably one of the first five Pokémon streamers on the platform.

I saw the vision immediately. I grew up watching YouTube and Twitch, so I thought, “Imagine being on YouTube when YouTube first started.” If you’re consistent, you’re going to succeed because as the platform succeeds, you’re going to grow with it.

I was 20, and I stuck with it.

I built a family business

For the first two to three years, I did everything myself. I streamed six days a week, packed orders, shipped them, and repeated the process Monday through Saturday.

My uncle eventually sat me down and said, “You’re onto something. Quit your job. Stop school, and run with it.”

So I did.

At first, I didn’t know anything about running a business. I wasn’t paying myself for the first two and a half years.

But I learned.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t do everything myself. I’m a control freak, but then I took a huge risk and spent $150,000 on my first really large sealed-product investment, and I needed help.

I turned to my friends and family and gave them a commission on the profits. If they streamed and did well, they got paid.

Now, my girlfriend works for me. Her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend work for me. My brother works for me. My girlfriend’s cousin works for me. My childhood best friend also works for me.

Today, I have 10 streamers. We can stream more than 20 hours a day on one account and 15 hours a day on another, with both accounts running simultaneously.

In 2024, we did $3.7 million in sales. In 2025, we did $7.8 million, and we’re on track to do more than $10 million to $11 million this year.

You can’t just go with the flow anymore

People aren’t going to like to hear this, but being comfortable doesn’t equal success nine out of 10 times.

People think, “Oh, I’ll go to college, and it’ll all work out.” No. You should be doing internships. You should be working. You should be gaining real experience.

I sacrificed years paying myself zero dollars to get where I’m at. The idea that you can just go with the flow and everything will work out may be true in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, but we’re in a different era now.

Find a direction and an interest. If something isn’t working, pivot. If you’re in tech, go work for a company for free. Volunteer, gain experience, and you will figure something out.

As Gary Vaynerchuk said, you could go to a garage sale, find something, make it nicer, and flip it. Or go to Walmart and get a job, and use that money to start a local business.

Even if my business somehow failed today, I know going to figure something else out — that’s how I see life.