20 Things You Didn’t Know about CollX
Do you have birthday or baseball cards that you wish to sell? A challenge that most card owners have is not knowing the worth of their cards. After all, the price of the cards keeps changing depending on particular market forces. Knowing the current price is important since you could sell at a lower price and shortchange yourself. On the other hand, you could sell at a high price and chase away your sellers. Fortunately, you can know the current value of your card by using an application called CollX. Once you download it to your phone, all you will have to do is take a picture of your card. You will immediately be informed of its current market price. How well do you know CollX? If you don’t know anything about the company, here are 20 facts you need to know.
1. The Company Has a Database of Millions of Trading Cards
A question you may ask is how the app can detect your card. The app has millions of trading cards. When you scan your card, CollX attempts to compare it with other cards similar to yours. You may assume that one million cards are many and would take up a lot of time. Fortunately, the app quickly identifies your card by using a computer-vision system. Sometimes the app may fail to locate your card. In that case, it will allow you to search the database and include it.
2. It Allows You to Sell Your Trading Cards
The app is not just a place to inform you of its current price. You can also use it to sell your card. You can either set your price or use its current price. Once you set the price, other users will be notified, and they will be able to contact you through its messaging function.
3. CollX Has a Mechanism for Determining the Market Price
The management browses through several marketplace and auction sites to determine the market price. Since different avenues charge differently for the trading cards, CollX will find the average of the prices they have gathered and use that value as the market price. CollX is aware that prices keep changing, so they update the prices daily. Do you have a trading card from the 1930s? You may think that the card will be too old for the app to recognize, but it will still be able to give you its market price. So, please do not throw away any card before scanning it with the app. After all, you cannot throw away something that can be sold for money.
4. The App Was Co-Founded by a Ten-Year-Old Boy and His Father
Ten-year-old Charlie Mann’s hobby was collecting Pokemon cards. However, he soon realized how hard it was to sell them since he would struggle to find the actual prices of the cards. Fortunately, his dad, Ted Mann, helped him with this problem. Ted worked in the image recognition and visual search field for ten years. With his knowledge in those fields, he was able to build CollX, which could recognize images.
5. Ted Developed the App Through the Help of a Technologist
Ted could not develop the app on his own, so he enlisted the help of a technologist called Kostas Nasis. Kostas was the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Ted’s first company, SnipSnap. Ted considered him a very talented engineer, hence the reason for approaching him. Even though Charlie identified a problem, ultimately, Ted and Kostas built the app.
6. CollX Became the Third Company Ted Worked On
With his experience in visual search technology, he was able to work in three companies. First, he developed an app called Slyce, which helped identify retail products. After identifying the products, the app will then direct you to a place where you can get the product you took a photo of. Â The second app he developed was Partium. Its main purpose is to help people find the right spare parts for their vehicles. The app is thus a way to connect a client with a person selling spare parts.
7. The Company Received Some Venture Capital
Ted revealed that he received some capital from angel investors in an interview, but he wouldn’t disclose the amount. After receiving the funds, he opted to organize a round of funding. With that confidence in organizing such an event, we can only wager that he received a lot of capital from angel investors.
8. Ted Once Worked in the Media Industry
Ted worked for three publication houses: InTown Magazine, The Journal News, and The Atlantic Monthly. However, he spent most of his time working for Gannett as the Digital Development Director. In Gannett, he spearheaded the development of the company’s first hyperlocal network. His experience in the media houses also played a part in helping him start CollX.
9. Technically Philly Acknowledged CollX as One of the Standout Tech Companies of 2022
Technically Philly ranks innovative startups annually. So in 2022, CollX was lucky to be mentioned by Technically Philly as a company with promise. They majorly focus on new startups. Since CollX was launched in 2021, it makes sense that they would make Technically Philly’s list.
10. CollX Appeared at the Mint Collective Event in Las Vegas in 2022
The Mint Collective Event is an event where trading cards enthusiasts meet. By meeting, they can share their passion for the cards. The CollX founders decided to attend the event to interact with other people who are passionate about trading cards. Since the founders are passionate about cards, it is fitting that they would attend this event.
11. The Dan Patrick Show Talked Referenced CollX
The Dan Patrick Show is a syndicated radio and TV sports talk show hosted by Dan Patrick. This show has been around since 1999. Having been around for a long time, it is quite a big deal when the show mentions your company. During one of their segments, Dan invited a guest and asked him whether there was a technology that helped them identify the price of baseball cards. It turned out he didn’t know about CollX, so the guest informed him of the company’s existence. Basically, that was free advertisement for the company.
12. A Teacher Demonstrated How CollX Works in His Class
Teachers have the challenge of bringing some creativity to their lessons. For example, a teacher from Kansas creatively taught using CollX. The teacher revealed this information to Ted during an interview session with the teacher. The teacher would make his pupils scan some cards during their recess. This activity can be seen as both educational and fun. Besides learning how to use technology to make their work easy, they also learn how to work in a team. Also, some children view smartphones as toys, so it is guaranteed that they would enjoy scanning some cards.
13. CollX Allows You to Build Your Card Collections
People commonly use CollX to scan cards, but you can also use it as a store for your card collections. You can have a collection of many cards as possible. A problem may arise when trying to locate a particular card from your collection of a thousand cards. You could try scrolling from card to card, but that would take long. Fortunately, the app allows you to sort and filter your cards.
14. The Number of CollX Users Grew Tremendously
Starting a business is not easy. The challenging part is usually waiting to gain enough clientele. Sometimes it takes until two years before you can even attract one client. However, CollX was lucky to gain 50000 users within two months of being launched. That is a level of achievement that most companies cannot reach. The high number could mean that they correctly identified a need most people wanted to be met. By meeting that need, they were able to grow rapidly.
15. CollX Has a Child Ambassador
Having a ten-year-old boy as a co-founder is proof that they can build a large empire. Knowing this, CollX included a boy close to Charlie’s age as the company’s ambassador. The ambassador happened to be a neighbor to Charlie. He was chosen due to his fondness for picking up cards. For instance, he has gone to various events like the Philly Card Show and Dallas Card Show. By attending the events, he is able to pick up cards and demonstrate how the app works on the cards he collects.
16. CollX Has Certain Scanning Requirements
Using CollX seems easy; all you simply do is capture its image. However, there are certain things you need to remember before scanning your card.
17. The CollX Founders Were Featured in PHL 17
PHL 17 is a media house that particularly focuses on Philadelphia news. Being from Philadelphia, it is natural that they would feature in this media house. The co-founders were interviewed about how they came up with the app. Charlie admitted how hard it was to get actual prices of the cards from shopping platforms like eBay. You may either fail to find the card or find an exaggerated price on some shopping sites. To get an accurate price and find the cards more easily, the boy figured he should start the CollX app.
18. CollX Intends to Support Other Cards in Future
The only cards that CollX supports are the football, basketball, and baseball ones. It is fitting that the co-founders would focus on these sports since they are very popular in the United States. It would be risky to feature a game that Americans hardly watch. However, the founders intend to include more sports cards like soccer, wrestling and hockey. There is even a chance that they could include Pokemon. If you have Pokemon cards, do not give them out yet. Should it be compatible with Pokemon, you will be able to make a fortune selling them through the app.
19. CollX Has a Scan Leaderboard
Is there a reward for scanning your cards besides knowing their market price? Yes, and you can even get a cash prize for it. CollX periodically holds scan leaderboard competitions. The person with the highest scans receives a cash prize in this competition. So, you would have to actively follow their social media handles to avoid missing out on their contest announcements. The winner usually receives $150 per pack.
20. The App Can Scan a Card that Whitney Houston performed the Star Spangled-Banner for the Super Bowl
So far, people primarily use the app to scan only athletes. However, the app can scan non-athletes as long as they are affiliated with a game somehow. There is a card that honors Whitney Houston’s performance of the American national anthem during the Super Bowl XXV game. The game was between New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills during a New York faceoff. This event is not only special because of the game, but also special because of the singer. Critics generally agree that her rendition of the national anthem was one of the greatest.
Conclusion
How have you been pricing your trading cards? Have you been endlessly visiting websites to get a rough idea of the prices? You no longer have to do that when you have CollX. The app is a quick way of getting information about a card’s market price. Additionally, it allows you to interact with other trading card enthusiasts. That means you can find out from them the average price of a trading card. CollX can also inspire us to begin our businesses. For instance, if a ten-year-old boy can start a business, so can you. However, you can only venture into it if you are passionate. By being passionate, you will invest a lot to make it work. For instance, the boy made the app with the help of two people.