Today we’d like to introduce you to Behman Zakeri.
Hi Behman, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
The history of Behman Zakeri with Collector’s Cache, We Buy Gold, Mastermind Escape Games, Bury the Hatchet KC and beyond…
I was 16 years old when after helping out my local baseball card shop for a couple years, my family and I decided to purchase Collector’s Cache in the Ranchmart South shopping center in Overland Park, KS. I was only 16 so the business had to be put in to my father’s name. That was back in 1993 when the sports cards business was a great business to be in and amazing athletes like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Derek Jeter and soon AROD, were making headlines everywhere. The business was a fun business for the family and after nearly 2 years of occupying the same location we decided it was time to expand and move to a bigger and better location. We moved from 400 sq/ft to nearly 800 sq/ft and with the new location were ready to grow the business. Then in 1994 the absolute worst thing happened to us. Major League Baseball went on strike and our business literally stopped. Collectors all around the world were angry and it seemed that no one wanted to buy sports cards anymore. We put our heads together and tried to figure out how we could continue in the card business with virtually no sales. During that time, we were getting calls for “Magic cards” almost every day and we would always ask, do you mean Magic Johnson cards? They would always say no, Magic the gathering cards. Having almost no choice, we invested our last $2,000 in to a collection of Magic the gathering cards. Once we got our first shipment, word spread throughout the city that there was a new “Magic dealer” in town and business picked up quickly. Then our Magic customers convinced us to start running tournaments and within about a year or so, we were stable again, making good sales and our sports cards almost seemed like a thing of the past.
We also decided to expand our products and we started carrying Star Wars toys and trading cards as well as other non-sports cards. Soon after that, we stomped on our pride and decided that we would get into beanie babies. We sold more beanies than we can remember and to this day we still cannot believe how much we would have missed out on had we not had gotten into beanies. Almost every day that we got a new shipment of beanies, we had a line out of the door of school teachers, stay at home Moms, businessmen, and just about everyone who was crazy for beanies. As beanies started slowing down, a new cartoon, Pokemon started grabbing everyone’s attention and before we knew it, everyone was crazy for Pokemon cards! For the most part, our Magic the gathering, Star Wars, beanie baby, and Pokemon business carried us enough to expand again, to a larger, much nicer 2,400 sq/ft space off of 119th street & 69 Hwy in Overland Park, Kansas. When we opened that store, we also decided to try and get into Nascar diecast toys and apparel since the new race track had just opened in Kansas City. Unfortunately, Nascar didn’t pan out well for us and we had to sell off our inventory. After Nascar was Yugioh,
another cartoon that caught the eyes of the kids and then many other trading card games followed. In 2009 we moved to our existing location which is a 9,000 sq/ft retail store in Lenexa, Kansas. This made us one of the largest retail card stores in the United States and allowed us the opportunity to host most major tournaments at our store including Regional and State tournaments. We also expanded the product line of Collector’s Cache to include board games, miniatures. Then came the story of We Buy Gold…
Some fellow friends in the trading card business highly recommended that we get into the precious metals business. After meeting with them and doing a fair amount of research, we concluded that it was indeed a good time to try our luck in the precious metals industry. We applied for a precious metals license from the city of Lenexa for Collector’s Cache in 2009 and we got denied due to zoning limits set by the city for precious metals dealers and pawnbrokers. That only fueled my ambition more and I
decided that the only way to get in to the game was to start a new business in a city that would issue us a precious metals license. So, on July 28, 2010 we registered the business We Buy Gold LLC and opened our first location in October 2010 in Overland Park, KS at the 76th & Metcalf shopping center. Business was great just as we had anticipated, so, we immediately started looking for our 2nd location which we opened in February of 2011 at the intersection of 151st street & 69 Highway. We agreed that we would invest 100% of our profits back in to the business for the first full year and that no owner would be paid any sort of income for a full year. This allowed us to open up 5 stores in our first year without having to reinvest any additional capital. Three years later, we had 14 stores but then gold and silver prices started dropping quickly. As the prices of gold and silver dropped, our margins got lower and we were buying less because people weren’t as excited to cash in their gold at the lower prices. So, in 2013,
the worst year in the precious metals industry in 32 years, we got clobbered and lost a lot of money. We had no choice but to start downsizing immediately. During that time, I was looking for the wisdom because I knew there had to be a way to continue the business and be successful. My thoughts were, if others had found ways to be in the precious metals business for 20 to 50+ years then why couldn’t we be successful? I had remembered the baseball strike and how we were able to persevere through the tough
times at Collector’s Cache. With that experience I became confident that somehow, someway we would get through the tough times and adapt to the changing precious metals market. We considered many things and slowly added new revenue streams like the sales of coins, purchasing gift cards, allowing customers to pawn their jewelry, and even putting E-Cigarette stores inside our We Buy Gold stores. We figured that our investment in to the E-Cigarette business would be minimal and since our rent, payroll, and utilities would not increase that we had a good shot to build a solid E-Cigarette business. We ended up realizing that the E-Cig business wasn’t for us so we got out of it completely. After a tough 2013 and difficult first part of 2014 we finally stabilized the gold business by downsizing from 14 locations down to 4 stores. We felt confident that we were going to have a long-lasting business model. Most of the rest of the “cash for gold” businesses all closed down in the greater Kansas City area and our stores are some of the only ones remaining. This is primarily because of our core values that we set up for We Buy Gold stores to offer superior customer service in a friendly and comfortable environment. Our slogan is, “We Buy Gold, where you deserve to be treated like gold.” We take pride in the fact that through all the tough times that we paid all our rent on time and completed all our contracts. We honored all our commitments during the good times and the bad.
After deciding that we would be staying in the precious metals business long term, I decided to buy my first piece of commercial property located off 151st street & 69 Highway. This building was an old People’s Bank location and had a lower level that we weren’t using at all. I kept trying to think of ways to either lease the space downstairs or start another business in that space so we could bring in more revenue. After learning about the escape room business sometime in 2015, I felt that an escape room business would be perfect for the lower level of the building. I ended up partnering with a national brand called Mastermind Escape Games and we opened our location in 2016. We eventually decided to close it at the end of 2025 due to diminishing returns and instead focus on the other businesses.
Next is the story of Bury the Hatchet. In 2017, I had noticed that axe throwing had become a fast-growing trend in Canada and the northeastern part of the United States. My partner in Mastermind Escape Games had become a partner in the Bury the Hatchet brand. After doing my research, discussing the business model with him, and realizing that there was only one axe throwing location that had recently opened in the West Bottoms in Kansas City, I knew that Overland Park needed a location. So, I bought a commercial property on 105th & Metcalf and put Bury the Hatchet KC in as the tenant. We have worked very hard since we opened in June of 2018 to make Bury the Hatchet KC a well-known and fun place to go for entertainment in Johnson County.
During 2017-2018, I joined Tony Robbin’s Platinum Partnership and have traveled all over the country with him and many other like-minded incredible people and entrepreneurs. The amount of education I gained during this time both personally and in business is priceless. It improved my life significantly and gave me the mind set to go to the next level. I highly recommend following Tony Robbins. He is a true asset to humanity, a great mentor, role model and modern-day prophet.
Fast forward to January 11, 2023…I bought the Goonies House in Astoria, Oregon. Yes, the actual Goonies House from the 1985 hit movie, the Goonies. This has become an incredible journey with lots of adventures and surprises from meeting cast members to filming a docu-series in 2025 about renovating the Goonies House back to it’s 80’s glory. Want to find out more, just Google: Goonies House owner and lots of interesting content will come up. Also follow me on social media, Instagram, TikTok, & X @behmanzakeri and follow the Goonies House @goonieshome on Instagram and @goonieshouse on X. Or visit www.goonieshome.com
In summary, it is crucial to remember that times change and you’ve got to evolve and adapt with these changing times. Visualize and take action. Ideas are nothing without execution. Be strong, make friends, continue to work hard, and NEVER give up. Goonies never say die.
These philosophies have guided me my entire life to become successful.
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Behman Zakeri
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The history of Behman Zakeri with Collector’s Cache, We Buy Gold, Mastermind Escape Games, Bury the Hatchet KC and beyond…
I was 16 years old when after helping out my local baseball card shop for a couple years, my family and I decided to purchase Collector’s Cache in the Ranchmart South shopping center in Overland Park, KS. I was only 16 so the business had to be put in to my father’s name. That was back in 1993 when the sports cards business was a great business to be in and amazing athletes like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Derek Jeter and soon AROD, were making headlines everywhere. The business was a fun business for the family and after nearly 2 years of occupying the same location we decided it was time to expand and move to a bigger and better location. We moved from 400 sq/ft to nearly 800 sq/ft and with the new location were ready to grow the business. Then in 1994 the absolute worst thing happened to us. Major League Baseball went on strike and our business literally stopped. Collectors all around the world were angry and it seemed that no one wanted to buy sports cards anymore. We put our heads together and tried to figure out how we could continue in the card business with virtually no sales. During that time, we were getting calls for “Magic cards” almost every day and we would always ask, do you mean Magic Johnson cards? They would always say no, Magic the gathering cards. Having almost no choice, we invested our last $2,000 in to a collection of Magic the gathering cards. Once we got our first shipment, word spread throughout the city that there was a new “Magic dealer” in town and business picked up quickly. Then our Magic customers convinced us to start running tournaments and within about a year or so, we were stable again, making good sales and our sports cards almost seemed like a thing of the past.
We also decided to expand our products and we started carrying Star Wars toys and trading cards as well as other non-sports cards. Soon after that, we stomped on our pride and decided that we would get into beanie babies. We sold more beanies than we can remember and to this day we still cannot believe how much we would have missed out on had we not had gotten into beanies. Almost every day that we got a new shipment of beanies, we had a line out of the door of school teachers, stay at home Moms, businessmen, and just about everyone who was crazy for beanies. As beanies started slowing down, a new cartoon, Pokemon started grabbing everyone’s attention and before we knew it, everyone was crazy for Pokemon cards! For the most part, our Magic the gathering, Star Wars, beanie baby, and Pokemon business carried us enough to expand again, to a larger, much nicer 2,400 sq/ft space off of 119th street & 69 Hwy in Overland Park, Kansas. When we opened that store, we also decided to try and get into Nascar diecast toys and apparel since the new race track had just opened in Kansas City. Unfortunately, Nascar didn’t pan out well for us and we had to sell off our inventory. After Nascar was Yugioh,
another cartoon that caught the eyes of the kids and then many other trading card games followed. In 2009 we moved to our existing location which is a 9,000 sq/ft retail store in Lenexa, Kansas. This made us one of the largest retail card stores in the United States and allowed us the opportunity to host most major tournaments at our store including Regional and State tournaments. We also expanded the product line of Collector’s Cache to include board games, miniatures. Then came the story of We Buy Gold…
Some fellow friends in the trading card business highly recommended that we get into the precious metals business. After meeting with them and doing a fair amount of research, we concluded that it was indeed a good time to try our luck in the precious metals industry. We applied for a precious metals license from the city of Lenexa for Collector’s Cache in 2009 and we got denied due to zoning limits set by the city for precious metals dealers and pawnbrokers. That only fueled my ambition more and I
decided that the only way to get in to the game was to start a new business in a city that would issue us a precious metals license. So, on July 28, 2010 we registered the business We Buy Gold LLC and opened our first location in October 2010 in Overland Park, KS at the 76th & Metcalf shopping center. Business was great just as we had anticipated, so, we immediately started looking for our 2nd location which we opened in February of 2011 at the intersection of 151st street & 69 Highway. We agreed that we would invest 100% of our profits back in to the business for the first full year and that no owner would be paid any sort of income for a full year. This allowed us to open up 5 stores in our first year without having to reinvest any additional capital. Three years later, we had 14 stores but then gold and silver prices started dropping quickly. As the prices of gold and silver dropped, our margins got lower and we were buying less because people weren’t as excited to cash in their gold at the lower prices. So, in 2013,
the worst year in the precious metals industry in 32 years, we got clobbered and lost a lot of money. We had no choice but to start downsizing immediately. During that time, I was looking for the wisdom because I knew there had to be a way to continue the business and be successful. My thoughts were, if others had found ways to be in the precious metals business for 20 to 50+ years then why couldn’t we be successful? I had remembered the baseball strike and how we were able to persevere through the tough
times at Collector’s Cache. With that experience I became confident that somehow, someway we would get through the tough times and adapt to the changing precious metals market. We considered many things and slowly added new revenue streams like the sales of coins, purchasing gift cards, allowing customers to pawn their jewelry, and even putting E-Cigarette stores inside our We Buy Gold stores. We figured that our investment in to the E-Cigarette business would be minimal and since our rent, payroll, and utilities would not increase that we had a good shot to build a solid E-Cigarette business. We ended up realizing that the E-Cig business wasn’t for us so we got out of it completely. After a tough 2013 and difficult first part of 2014 we finally stabilized the gold business by downsizing from 14 locations down to 4 stores. We felt confident that we were going to have a long-lasting business model. Most of the rest of the “cash for gold” businesses all closed down in the greater Kansas City area and our stores are some of the only ones remaining. This is primarily because of our core values that we set up for We Buy Gold stores to offer superior customer service in a friendly and comfortable environment. Our slogan is, “We Buy Gold, where you deserve to be treated like gold.” We take pride in the fact that through all the tough times that we paid all our rent on time and completed all our contracts. We honored all our commitments during the good times and the bad.
After deciding that we would be staying in the precious metals business long term, I decided to buy my first piece of commercial property located off 151st street & 69 Highway. This building was an old People’s Bank location and had a lower level that we weren’t using at all. I kept trying to think of ways to either lease the space downstairs or start another business in that space so we could bring in more revenue. After learning about the escape room business sometime in 2015, I felt that an escape room business would be perfect for the lower level of the building. I ended up partnering with a national brand called Mastermind Escape Games and we opened our location in 2016. We eventually decided to close it at the end of 2025 due to diminishing returns and instead focus on the other businesses.
Next is the story of Bury the Hatchet. In 2017, I had noticed that axe throwing had become a fast-growing trend in Canada and the northeastern part of the United States. My partner in Mastermind Escape Games had become a partner in the Bury the Hatchet brand. After doing my research, discussing the business model with him, and realizing that there was only one axe throwing location that had recently opened in the West Bottoms in Kansas City, I knew that Overland Park needed a location. So, I bought a commercial property on 105th & Metcalf and put Bury the Hatchet KC in as the tenant. We have worked very hard since we opened in June of 2018 to make Bury the Hatchet KC a well-known and fun place to go for entertainment in Johnson County.
During 2017-2018, I joined Tony Robbin’s Platinum Partnership and have traveled all over the country with him and many other like-minded incredible people and entrepreneurs. The amount of education I gained during this time both personally and in business is priceless. It improved my life significantly and gave me the mind set to go to the next level. I highly recommend following Tony Robbins. He is a true asset to humanity, a great mentor, role model and modern-day prophet.
Fast forward to January 11, 2023…I bought the Goonies House in Astoria, Oregon. Yes, the actual Goonies House from the 1985 hit movie, the Goonies. This has become an incredible journey with lots of adventures and surprises from meeting cast members to filming a docu-series in 2025 about renovating the Goonies House back to it’s 80’s glory. Want to find out more, just Google: Goonies House owner and lots of interesting content will come up. Also follow me on social media, Instagram, TikTok, & X @behmanzakeri and follow the Goonies House @goonieshome on Instagram and @goonieshouse on X. Or visit www.goonieshome.com
In summary, it is crucial to remember that times change and you’ve got to evolve and adapt with these changing times. Visualize and take action. Ideas are nothing without execution. Be strong, make friends, continue to work hard, and NEVER give up. Goonies never say die.
These philosophies have guided me my entire life to become successful.
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Behman Zakeri
As you know, we’re big fans of Bury the Hatchet KC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Bury the Hatchet is one of the most reputable axe throwing clubs in the U.S. Our axe throwing location in KC opened in June 2018 and we are the premier indoor ranges in Kansas City.
Looking for something new and fun to do in Kansas City? Try axe throwing at Bury The Hatchet and see what all the hype is about. Great for corporate outings, team building, or just a fun night out with friends or family. Plus we have the capacity to host large group events.
Any big plans?
We’re going to continue to deliver lots of fun experiences at Bury the Hatchet for Kansas City. We would like businesses throughout KC to give us a try and run a corporate team building event at Bury the Hatchet, as we believe this is mutually beneficial to the companies who run their corporate events with us. Axe throwing is like no other!
Pricing:
- $22 per person for 30 mins
- $32 per person for 1 hour
- $42 per person for 2 hours
Contact Info:
- Website: https://burythehatchet.com/axe-throwing-kansas-city/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axethrowingkc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burythehatchetkc
- Twitter: https://x.com/axethrowingkc
- Yelp: https://burythehatchet.com/overlandpark-bookings/
- Other: https://burythehatchet.com/overlandpark-bookings/
