College Dropout Bought a ₹400 Pokémon Pack for His Cousin. It Helped Him Build a ₹74-Crore Business

What if your most valuable business lesson came from a Pokémon card?

Not from a classroom.

Not from a business textbook.

Not from a professor explaining market dynamics.

A Pokémon card.

That is essentially the story of Andres Fernandez, a Miami-based entrepreneur who dropped out of college after a single semester and turned a childhood hobby into a business that generated $7.8 million (around ₹74.4 crore) in sales last year. According to a recent interview with Business Insider, Fernandez's company, MintlyCollects, is now on track to cross $10 million in annual sales this year.

And it all began with a birthday present.

The ₹400 purchase that changed everything

Fernandez wasn't even a serious Pokémon card collector when the story began.

He was looking for a gift for his younger cousin.

As he recalled in his Business Insider interview, he picked up a pack of Pokémon cards from a Target store in the US. The pack cost roughly $5.

Then came the moment that changed his life.

When they opened the pack together, his cousin pulled a card worth around $100.

A hundred-dollar card from a five-dollar pack.

For most people, that's a fun story.

For Fernandez, it looked like an opportunity.

From frying croquetas to selling collectibles

At the time, life looked very different.

Fernandez was working at a croqueta bar, earning around $10 an hour, while trying to figure out what he wanted from college.

The answer, it turned out, was not college.

He had enrolled in a business programme but quickly realised he was there more out of expectation than passion. After one semester, he dropped out and decided to pursue Pokémon cards full-time.

On paper, it sounds reckless.

In hindsight, it looks visionary.

How do you turn Pokémon cards into a company?

The short answer: one livestream at a time.

Before building a business, Fernandez built an audience.

He started creating Pokémon content online, eventually growing a following on Instagram. Later, he joined Whatnot, a live-commerce platform where collectors buy and sell cards in real time.

Timing helped.

He entered the platform when its Pokémon community was still tiny.

As Fernandez told Business Insider, he believed being early on a growing platform could be like joining YouTube before YouTube became YouTube.

The gamble worked.

For years, the business was basically one exhausted person

Every entrepreneurial success story has a less glamorous chapter.

This was his.

For the first few years, Fernandez did everything himself.

He streamed.

He packed orders.

He shipped packages.

Then he woke up and did it again.

Six days a week.

According to his account, he didn't even pay himself for roughly two and a half years while trying to grow the business.

That's the part social media usually leaves out.

Then came the $150,000 bet

Most businesses have one moment where things either accelerate or collapse.

For MintlyCollects, it was a $150,000 inventory purchase.

Fernandez invested heavily in sealed Pokémon products and began expanding operations. He recruited friends, family members and eventually a team of streamers who could help scale the business.

Today, MintlyCollects reportedly operates multiple live-selling accounts with nearly half a million followers and a team of around 10 streamers. Sales grew from $3.7 million in 2024 to $7.8 million in 2025.

Not bad for something that started as a birthday gift.

Why are people spending so much money on Pokémon cards anyway?

If you're wondering whether people really pay serious money for trading cards, the answer is yes.

Very serious money.

The Pokémon card market has exploded in recent years. According to reporting by SFGATE, some rare cards now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, while collectors spent an estimated $450 million on Pokémon cards in a single month earlier this year. The value of top Pokémon cards has risen dramatically since the early 2000s.

A near-perfect 1999 Charizard card recently sold for nearly half a million dollars.

Suddenly, that shoebox full of cards in someone's attic doesn't look so silly.

So is this really a story about Pokémon?

Not entirely.

It's really a story about spotting value where other people see nostalgia.

Most people looked at Pokémon cards and saw childhood memories.

Fernandez looked at them and saw a market.

Then he did something many people talk about but few actually do: he committed to it completely.

Was it risky?

Absolutely.

Would it work for everyone?

Probably not.

But that's what makes the story fascinating.

The bigger story: The business school dropout who accidentally found his MBA in a Pokémon pack

The irony is hard to miss.

Fernandez left a business degree programme because it wasn't teaching him what he wanted to learn.

A few years later, he was running a business generating tens of crores in annual sales.

His classroom became livestreams.

His case studies became customers.

His exams became inventory decisions.

And his first lesson came from a small piece of cardboard pulled from a $5 Pokémon pack.

Not every hobby becomes a company.

But every once in a while, one does.

And sometimes, it catches them all.