The story of Matt and Shane
Two kinds of collecting instinct
Matt grew up as the youngest of seven in a competitive family and became absorbed in sports statistics, wrestling rankings, television, and collectibles after a neck injury limited him at age ten. Shane grew up in Durban, South Africa, during apartheid and watched the country change while drawing inspiration from its mix of fashion, music, and design.
He began illustrating surfboard and T-shirt graphics as a teenager, then spent years in apparel and merchandising. Their origins supplied different forms of pattern recognition: Matt studied value and fandom, while Shane learned how culture becomes a visual product that people want to carry and share.
Failures that widened the toolkit
Matt's career moved through Wall Street trading, technology, fractional sports memorabilia, and ventures he describes as a string of failures that still produced useful lessons. Shane's path across apparel, trend forecasting, design, and marketing developed a complementary understanding of how audiences interpret products. Both had to move beyond the assumption that technology alone creates demand.
Web3 also carried a trust deficit because many projects were led by teams without the operating experience to build a lasting business. Their combined challenge became translating new ownership tools into fan experiences that felt recognizable, useful, and connected to established sports and cultural institutions.
Candy Digital beyond the collectible
At Candy Digital, Matt and Shane focus on deepening fandom through digital and physical collectibles, loyalty, games, and exclusive experiences. The company has worked with Major League Baseball, NASCAR, and the Baseball Hall of Fame, connecting fans to teams, athletes, and memorable moments. Code Breakers adds strategy and competition to that platform rather than treating an NFT as a static object.
Their current thesis is that technology should bring supporters closer to what they already love. Candy's advantage comes from combining business discipline with creative experimentation, then using community feedback to shape products instead of copying a traditional sports platform and adding blockchain afterward.