Andres Fernandez dropped out of his college in Florida to start his own business, which sells Pokemon cards.
Andres Fernandez
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 directionI 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.
