About COMC (Check Out My Collectibles)

Check Out My LLC

Check Out My LLC, located in Redmond, Washington, was founded on December 21st, 2005.
Our mission is to "Optimize Enjoyment: Maximize what you care about; minimize what you don't."

COMC.com

COMC.com takes the latest technology and applies it to card collecting. We desire to continually impress our customers by offering the best service and making it easier and more fun to buy cards online!

At COMC.com we have something special. Hopefully this is apparent from our website. We are excited for the future and the new, original functionality that we are bringing to the collector community.

From CheckOutMyCards.com to COMC.com

We love the Check Out My Cards brand, but from the beginning it was common for people to refer to us as COMC. In the summer of 2011, we had an opportunity to purchase COMC.com, and we began the transition from CheckOutMyCards.com to COMC.com.

Our Story

At Tim's 10 year high school reunion (November 2006), he ran into a longtime friend, Akash Garg, co-founder of hi5.com. This inspired Tim to take CheckOutMyCards.com to the next level. On that same trip, Tim and Julia ran into another friend, Andy Bird , who was looking for the next "garage startup." By the end of February 2007, Andy moved to Seattle to join the team, and Julia resigned from her position at the law firm. For most of 2007 Andy and Julia worked fulltime on CheckOutMyCards.com while Tim worked fulltime at Microsoft and part-time on CheckOutMyCards.com.

In November of 2007 Tim left Microsoft to simplify his life and focus on the website. At this point, Andy had done an excellent job on the website and it was time for him to move on to bigger things. He joined Serena Software as a user experience developer.

Soon after leaving Microsoft, Tim started getting recruited by other software companies and book publishers. One person recruiting Tim was Jon Herlocker, a fellow grad student from the University of Minnesota. He was a professor at Oregon State University that had spun off some of his research as a new product called Smart Desktop. The product had been purchased by another Seattle area startup, and they were looking for a program manager that had Tim's skills. This was an opportunity to see the inside of a startup. Tim was very interested to watch the growth strategy of a successful startup.

In December of 2007, Tim joined the Smart Desktop team, and CheckOutMyCards.com hired Steve Hollander. The expectation was that in the next year or so CheckOutMyCards.com would grow enough that they would need to move into a warehouse and need to hire several more employees. Tim also figured that around that time, Smart Desktop might get acquired, and it would be a good time to take what he would learn and focus on CheckOutMyCards.com again.

Things escalated much faster than Tim had expected, and within four months CheckOutMyCards.com needed to move into a warehouse and Smart Desktop was being acquired by EMC².

During the spring of 2008, CheckOutMyCards.com grew to five fulltime employees and four part-time employees. We moved into a warehouse that is literally across the street from the Microsoft main campus in Redmond, WA. By the end of May, Tim finally transitioned to working on CheckOutMyCards.com exclusively.

In the winter of 2010 we maxed out our first warehouse and moved to a new location that was three times larger. We had 12 employees and our goal was to reach 25-30 employees within the next three years.

Fast-forward to summer 2011... It is just a year and a half later, and we now have 23 employees. We are already on the verge of outgrowing our second warehouse, and we are actively looking to hire more employees.

Fast-forward to summer 2012... It is just a year later, and we now have 40 employees. Last winter we moved into a 27,000sqft building, and we are still actively looking to hire more employees.

COMC Team

Tim Getsch, MS

Founder & CEO

Tim grew up in Minnesota as an avid collector of baseball, basketball, and hockey cards. He fell in love with numbers at a young age and went on to earn a BS in Math at age 19 and a MS in Computer Science, both from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. In 1999, Tim was hired by Microsoft as a Program Manager on Excel. In 2001, Tim switched to Microsoft Access. Tim left Microsoft in October of 2007 as the most tenured Program Manager on the team.
Tim started dreaming about the possibilities of a centralized sports card exchange in the fall of 2003. He built software in Microsoft Access to analyze and bid on eBay auctions, and he built LowPriceCards.com as an outlet to sell excess inventory purchased from eBay. In the fall of 2006, Tim started building CheckOutMyCards.com as a successor to LowPriceCards.com, so users could post and manage their online inventory.

More detailed history and vision for CheckOutMyCards.com

Tim's username is TimGetsch. He also manages the cards in the LowPriceCards account.

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1's username is wotorbottl.

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1's username is corbettford.

Founding team members

Julia Getsch, MA

Business Manager

Julia grew up in the Midwest and has lived in the Seattle area since 2000. She completed her BA in Psychology and MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Culture and Social Justice at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA. As the top graduate, she was selected by the Dean to assist him in developing a young program and running a successful graduate school. She served as a director and adjunct faculty. After her university time, Julia worked for a law firm with a focus on business law (www.changlawgroup.com). These experiences led to her desire to begin a start-up, and she was thrilled with the prospect of starting CheckOutMyCards.com. Julia also serves on the board of the Iranian American Community Alliance (www.iaca-seattle.org) and as Co-Chair of the Civic Action Committee.

Julia Getsch, MA's username is juliagetsch.

Andrew Bird

Software Design Engineer

Andrew has been passionate about computers since he was very young. After high school, Andrew studied computer programming at Hennepin Technical College in Eden Prairie, MN. Over the course of his studies, he fell in love with web development and began to vigorously study it outside the classroom. In 2002, Andrew began building websites for friends, family, and himself. Through personal independent study, Andrew became well-versed and impassioned with the concepts of web standards, semantic development, search engine optimization, user interface design, and information architecture.

In 2005, Andrew accepted a web developer position with Saint Paul College in St Paul, Minnesota. Less than a year after starting at the College, Andrew taught a Web Design class and served as adjunct faculty as well as web developer. In February 2007, Andrew walked away from a promotion at Saint Paul College to join the CheckOutMyCards.com team.

In November 2007, Andrew wrapped up his amazing efforts on CheckOutMyCards.com and started working on a much larger web development project at Serena Software in Bellevue, Washington.

Andrew Bird's username is andybird.