Dad Refuses To Give Son $10,000 For A Pokémon Card Business After He Fails This Basic Test

We all know that sweet, nostalgic moment when a childhood passion suddenly feels like a literal goldmine. For one twenty-year-old college student, a lifetime of collecting Pokémon cards seemed like the ultimate ticket to achieving financial freedom. Believing he had cracked the code to the highly lucrative trading card market, the young man approached his parents with a bold request for a cool $10,000 to launch his venture. However, when his father asked for a basic business plan instead of immediately writing a check, the aspiring entrepreneur grew deeply offended. What followed was a classic family standoff over financial boundaries, parental expectations, and real-world business discipline. Want to know how this high-stakes family negotiation unfolded? The full story is right below.

Dad Refuses To Give Son $10,000 For A Pokémon Card Business After He Fails This Basic Test

AITA for refusing to give my son $10k for his first business?

The stage is set with a supportive parent who genuinely admires their child’s passion for collecting. However, they also understand how quickly expensive hobbies can drain resources without a proper strategy, especially when transitioning from a casual collector to a serious business owner.

My son is 20. He's in college and has loved Pokémon, especially collecting cards, since he was a kid. I respect his hobby. He really has great market insight on...

First online and then, if it goes well, set up a booth at local events. He asked me for between $5,000 and $10,000 and said he'd pay me back in...

Here lies the classic generational clash: a parent’s hard-earned pragmatism colliding head-on with a young adult’s unshakeable optimism. Asking a family member for a massive financial injection often blurs the lines between personal support and professional investment.

We aren't poor, but that's no small amount, especially for a first business. I asked how much he'd already saved up himself. It turned out to be about $1.5k, plus,...

Then I asked him to show me a business plan: where he’d source cards, what the profit margins would be, how much would go toward shipping and fees, and especially...

He replied with vague statements like, "I know the market, and it’ll definitely work out. " I told him I wouldn’t give him $10,000 just for an idea. I explained...

Plus, I’d help him with a spreadsheet to track expenses and an overall business plan. I also told him that over the summer, before school starts, he could get a...

Now, I have some doubts whether I handled it correctly. Maybe I should have acted in another way.

Community Opinions

The Reddit community sided overwhelmingly with the parent, pointing out the vast difference between an investor and a piggy bank.

ADVERTISEMENT

u/PrettyBreezex
Your son wants to be treated like a business owner until the moment someone asks business owner questions about his business actually.
NTA

u/curlyq9702 Tell your son to go to the bank & ask for a business loan & find out what they require. Just because he has the idea doesn’t mean that...

u/silveroakediting22 As someone who actually plays TCGs - No, he has cards that are theoretically worth $1000. Whether or not he can find a buyer for those cards is another...

ADVERTISEMENT

u/Mountain_Source_103 Your son wants to treat a hobby as a job and have someone else fund it. Business plan or zero cash is the only sane conversation to have. He...

u/HappyLifeCoffeeHelps NTA. It is a good learning lesson for him to go into things with a clear business outline and plan. You are offering to help him set it up...

u/Cautious-Corner-3704
NTA
A relative who wants to borrow money with no business plan and no repayment schedule is a relative who is expecting a gift.
Hence your son’s defensiveness.

ADVERTISEMENT

u/KaliTheBlaze NTA. If he wants money to start a business, it is absolutely, completely reasonable to expect him to have done the numbers on it and not just be going...

u/Immediate-Employ-952
If he knows the market then he can explain it in the business plan.

u/ConfidentPerformer47
You are preparing him for the real world and still offered to give money and help. NTA

ADVERTISEMENT

u/Steelman93
Seriously? NTA.
The fact you are here asking is mind boggling it’s such a ridiculous statement from
A clearly entitled kid

u/Candle_Prior This is a hobby that hes seeing play out on YouTube and on tik tok. Alot of it is akin to gambling, that and a mix of fomo. Hes...

u/teresajs
NTA
If it's such a good idea, your son can use his savings and current cards to trade up and build his own business.

ADVERTISEMENT

u/Successful-Food-5938
Giving 10K to a 20 year old to trade Pokémon cards is laughable.
Trust your gut.
You did the right thing.

u/quats555 NTA. If he already has valuable cards, then he has his potential business and starting funds already. He can sell those cards and use the money to scale up...

u/For_being_tall
NTA, he need a solid plan, hope is not a plan

ADVERTISEMENT

A few commenters even warned that funding speculative collectible markets without a strategy is closer to gambling than business.

Mixing family relationships with business ventures is always a risky tightrope walk. On one hand, parents want to foster their children’s entrepreneurial dreams, but on the other, hand-delivering thousands of dollars with zero strategy can set them up for a harsh reality check.

Do you think this parent was right to demand a professional business plan, or should they have taken a leap of faith to support their son’s passion? How would you handle a similar request from your own child? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

ADVERTISEMENT
Share this post

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *