Ryan Alford

And my business happens to be a collectible business.

And there are a lot of other auction houses that were around in 2012 that were doing $5 million a year, $10 million a year, $30 million a year.

I was probably, when I started Golden, we were probably 250th in sales.

And then we gradually climbed up the charts until 2019, we were number two.

And then we overtook Heritage as number one.

Business skill, that's marketing, that's hard work, and that's understanding the market and your customer.

And honestly, a real passion for the business and a drive to be the best.

I went into the business with a very acute, not only the trading card industry, but a significant number of athlete relationships and a lot of experience of getting comfortable in front of a camera, being able to talk to a camera, being able to talk to an audience.

When that business slowed, I was looking at the landscape

That's when some of the auction houses were getting in trouble with bidding.

They were getting in trouble with selling fake items, bad authentication.

I established an auction house where we guarantee everything we sell, which nobody did.

Everybody had in their book, 20 page disclaimer, everything is sold as is, no warranties, no representation.

I'm like, screw that.

We're going to give, we have an autograph.

And there may still be a catalog like this if they sold a game used item.

It said, your receipt is your letter of authenticity.

We're the experts.

And I'm like, no, I want to get something from the athlete.

I want to get something from the team.