Why I Built Byndr — An Honest Collector's Story

It Started With Nostalgia. It Got Complicated Fast.#

Like a lot of people in their late twenties or thirties, I had a moment where I thought: I want to get back into Pokémon cards. Pure childhood nostalgia. The smell of a booster pack, the thrill of the rare slot, the feeling of collecting something that actually meant something to you.

That feeling lasted about fifteen minutes after I looked up prices.

The market had completely transformed. Sealed product that should cost a few euros was going for multiples of that. Single cards that were bulk in my childhood were now graded slabs in glass cases. The entire ecosystem had shifted from hobby to investment vehicle, and nobody had sent me the memo.

I was shocked. But I didn't stop.

The Spreadsheet Phase#

I'm technical by nature. When I don't understand something, I start organizing it. So I opened a spreadsheet. Then another one. I tracked what I owned, what I wanted, what things were worth, where prices were moving. It worked — for a while. But as the collection grew, even slightly, the spreadsheet started to fall apart. Cross-referencing sets, tracking multiple wishlists, trying to understand my actual portfolio value: it became a part-time job.

I looked for tools that could help. Most were too simple, too focused on the US market, or clearly built for resellers rather than collectors. Nothing really matched what I needed: a personal tracker that respected the fact that I was collecting because I enjoyed it, not because I was trying to flip product.

So I started building Byndr. Not as a startup idea — just as something to scratch my own itch.

The Pokémon Problem#

For a while, I tried to collect Pokémon properly. I picked specific sets — Paldeas Schicksal, Scarlet & Violet, a few others — and focused on those rather than buying randomly. That structure helped. Having a defined goal made the hobby feel manageable again.

But there was a different problem I hadn't accounted for: the algorithm.

Once you start looking into TCGs online, every platform you use learns that about you. Your feed fills up with pack openings, pulls, insane collections, ridiculous alt-arts selling for four figures. It creates a completely distorted picture of what collecting looks like for a normal person. Those viral moments — the ten-card rainbow rare pull, the lucky booster box haul — are outliers. But the internet treats them like they're the norm.

I kept measuring my own experience against an impossible benchmark. And the reality of what a regular budget actually gets you, set against what I was seeing online every day, was genuinely discouraging. The initial excitement kept getting diluted.

Why I Switched to One Piece#

I came to One Piece cards through the art. That sounds simple, but it's true — and yes, I'm aware of how that reads when we're talking about a set called Heroines featuring female characters, some of which are drawn in a way that leaves little to the imagination. That observation kind of writes itself, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist.

But that wasn't actually the starting point. What caught my attention was the illustration quality more broadly: expressive, dramatic, characters with weight behind them. And there was something appealing about a TCG that wasn't Pokémon — a little less mainstream, a more specific collector community, something that felt less like joining a crowd and more like finding a corner.

I also have history with the series itself. I loved One Piece in its early seasons, watched it properly when the arcs were still tight and the world felt genuinely adventurous. The show has grown into something enormous since then — hundreds of episodes, storylines I haven't followed, lore I don't know the half of. So my connection to it isn't encyclopedic. It's more nostalgic than that. I know the core crew. I know the feeling of the early arcs. That's enough to make a card of Nami or Robin feel like something, rather than just a piece of cardboard.

The Straw Hat crew and the characters around them are also, practically speaking, a safe bet as a collection focus. Whatever happens to the TCG — however sets evolve, however the meta shifts — the Straw Hats are permanent. They'll always be the center of the franchise. Cards featuring the core crew, and the Heroines in particular, will always have a collector audience. There's something reassuring about anchoring a collection to characters rather than to sets or mechanics you don't fully understand.

Which is the honest version of it: I don't really know the card game. I don't know the seasons, the sets, how they interact, what makes a deck competitive. I came in without that knowledge and I haven't built it since. The Heroines gave me a goal I could understand and pursue without needing to learn a whole system first. These characters, these cards, this collection. That clarity was the whole point.

So I went in. And I hit another wall.

One Piece Is Brutal for Collectors#

I want to be careful here, because I still genuinely enjoy One Piece cards. But honesty matters: the pull rates are rough. The distribution of valuable cards per pack is not friendly to someone buying singles boxes rather than cases. And the secondary market pricing on the cards I actually wanted — the Super Rares, the alt-arts — reflected a game where a small number of people were pulling and selling, and everyone else was buying at a premium.

I opened product that felt exciting in the moment and then did the math afterward. The gap between what I'd spent and what I'd realistically get back if I ever sold was uncomfortable. Not catastrophic, but real. The kind of number that makes you ask whether you're collecting or just slowly burning money in a way that feels fun at the time.

I didn't quit. But I had to be honest with myself about what I was doing.

Where I Am Now#

I still collect. I've narrowed my focus to things I actually care about — the Heroines collection is ongoing, I'm more deliberate about Pokémon sets, and I buy far fewer sealed products than I used to. Less opening for the sake of it, more intentional acquisitions.

Byndr exists partly because I needed it. Tracking six collections across two TCGs, managing wishlists, understanding my real portfolio value rather than the optimistic version — the platform grew out of those needs. The sealed product portfolio, the budget tracker, the wishlist system: each one of those features came from a real problem I was trying to solve for myself.

I'm not a professional collector. I'm not trying to build a portfolio that funds my retirement. I just want to enjoy this hobby without losing the thread of it — without spending more than I should, without chasing things I can't afford, without comparing my collection to someone else's highlight reel.

If that sounds familiar, Byndr was probably built for you too.