Our story

Pando Market is built by a solopreneur, software engineer, and lifelong collector.

I collected stuff as a kid. Cards, figures, whatever caught my eye. It wasn't about value or condition grades. I just liked finding things.

I went the normal route after that. Got into tech, worked as a software engineer. Built products from scratch at multiple startups, took them from zero to one. Got laid off in 2022 during the crypto FTX downturn.

After the first layoff I was lucky to find another gig. I pivoted to a smaller startup looking for that excitement again, the chance to have full control over what was being built. Got laid off again in 2025.

The whole time I was buying and selling on the side. eBay at first, then Mercari, Depop, TCGPlayer, Amazon, Walmart. By 2025 I was running six storefronts part-time and spending most of my free time on inventory and shipping.

Every platform had the same problem. They're fine for transactions. You search, you buy, you leave. None of them gave me a reason to stick around, and none of them made collecting feel like anything other than online shopping.

After the second layoff, I was done building other people's zero-to-one stories. In 2026, I started my own. Pando Market was born.

Pando Market is a collectibles shop with more personality than the usual storefront. A place where people actually want to come back, not just when they need something.

Pando is our red panda. He's basically me at age 10, still getting excited about a sealed box or a card I've been looking for. That impulse you get before the rational part of your brain catches up. The whole site is built around that feeling.

One thing I learned selling across six platforms: trust matters more than anything. The collectibles space has its share of fakes, shady sellers, and stores that disappear after checkout. I got tired of it as a buyer and I refused to be that as a seller. Every product on Pando Market is authentic. Every order ships. If something goes wrong, we make it right. That's not a policy page talking, that's me.

There's a lot I still want to build. But we're here now, and the door's open.