We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jason Mansfield. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.

Jason, appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

If I was starting over I would have jumped into owning my own buisness sooner. Although I was laying the seeds for what the buisness is now I feel that I did waist some years working a 9-5 instead of owning my own business. I think of where we would be now if I stated this 10 or 15 years ago. I am definitely happy of the pace we are growing now and can’t wait to see what the future holds for Polar Bear’s Pop Culture Shop.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I grew up in the 80s, so I was exposed to some of the best toy lines, comicbooks, cartoons and movies of all time, in my opinion anyway. I was definitely a closet nerd growing up. I was into comicbooks which started my getting into to collecting. Back then I collected based on what characters I liked to read and would collect any comics I could get my hands on. As I got older I got.out of comics and sold.off my collection of comics. I got.back into them as an adult and would buy lots of comics, keep what I wanted and sold the rest. This was around the time that eBay was becoming big. I starting selling online and then that branched out to renting space at a few antique malls and selling at shows. I started expanded into collecting toys from my childhood as well and started buying toy lots and doing the same thing I did with comicbooks. I originally wanted to open a comic book store, but since I liked a range of pop culture items, I decided to open a pop culture store. When I stated vending at toy shows, people would ask if I had a physical store and I didn’t, but it was something I was striving and building toward.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met James and Tianne through the toy scene. We were doing the same toy shows and they were also selling at the same antique mall. We had a similar path and when I decided to host my own toyshow they were big supporters the trust and friendship built from there. When I decided I wanted to quit my job with my wife Brenda’s blessing and support, I reached out to James and Tianne. The rest is history.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Funding was always the issue and why I didn’t start my buisness sooner. I had a breakdown and number in mind that I would need to start out. After I left the post office I knew I needed to open the store as I wasn’t planning on going back to a 9-5. I ended opening the store with half of the capital I had in mind. I didn’t want to take a loan out as I didn’t want that added expense just starting out. We cut some corners, bought used equipment and furniture and made it happen.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Polarbearspopcultureshop
• Facebook: Polarbearspopcultureshop
• Youtube: Polarbearspopcultureshoptv
• Other: Local Buzz