Hey everyone, I’m Brandon Khoo. I’m a Product Manager in SF Bay Area by trade, but I’m also a builder obsessed with creating multiple income streams. The goal is simple: stack streams until they spin on their own and give us freedom.

Every Sunday I will share either 💡 one idea, 📖 one story, or 🛠 one tactical playbook to help you get your flywheel moving. Sometimes it will be digital. Sometimes real estate. Sometimes investing. And sometimes a little weird, but that is the point. Freedom comes from stacking.

This week we start with something fun: 🎮 Pokémon vending machines.

In late 2024 I traveled to Tokyo with my family. We spent a few days exploring Ikebukuro and Akihabara, visiting stores like Hareruya 2 in Akihabara, Card Secret in Ikebukuro, and Dragon Star also in Ikebukuro. We also made sure to drop by Pokémon Center MEGA TOKYO in Sunshine City to see what a flagship store experience felt like.

One day I was walking through Akihabara and saw Hareruya 2’s wide windows filled with sealed boxes, rare promos, and neat display cases. Card Secret impressed me because their selection of older Japanese sets and graded promos was wider than many shops I see online. At Dragon Star we poked around slower moving stock. At Pokémon Center MEGA TOKYO the atmosphere was different, with more tourists and more flair, yet there were still lines for sealed packs.

But what really caught my eye were the vending machines. In many of these stores you could find smaller machines tucked near the registers or in corners, filled with blind packs, singles, and occasional promos. Kids clustered at them, collectors whispered about rare pulls, and people dropped coins just for fun. Walking out of Card Secret one evening, I watched someone pull a rare card from a vending machine. That was the moment I thought: maybe this is more than nostalgia. Maybe there is real business here. Could I build a version of this in the United States?

The global trading card market is far larger than most people realize. In 2024 it was worth about $7.5B and analysts expect it to grow to nearly $12B by 2030. The U.S. alone accounted for $2.1B in 2023, with forecasts pushing it past $3B by 2032. This is not a small niche — it is a mainstream industry with real money flowing through it.

Pokémon dominates this space. In 2023, roughly 43% of all graded cards were Pokémon (vendinglocator.com), showing how strong the brand’s hold is on collectors and investors alike. Retailers can’t keep up — sealed booster packs at Walmart and Target routinely sell out within hours of hitting shelves.

The price action shows just how volatile and exciting this market can be. A Rainbow Rare Reshiram GX card jumped from about $20 to $120 in just a few weeks (TCGplayer). The rare Pikachu Illustrator card sold at auction for $5.2M (ejaw.net). And more recently, the so-called “Bubble Mew” from Paldean Fates spiked from $90 to nearly $700 in 2025 (wargamer).

When a single piece of glossy cardboard can swing by hundreds or even thousands of dollars, it creates both opportunity and risk. The bigger picture is clear: this isn’t fringe. It’s a multibillion-dollar market with global demand and passionate buyers.