Latest / The Sports Card CEO Podcast / Episode 25, S2: Special Guest Mat Sposta, CEO of CHCK.AI & Trove | The Future of Collectibles

Transcript

Episode 25, S2: Special Guest Mat Sposta, CEO of CHCK.AI & Trove | The Future of Collectibles · The Sports Card CEO Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is happening, everybody?
• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to another episode of the Sports Card CEO.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got two of the CEOs in the house.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's my boy, Kern, what's up, baby?
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Did he get another one?
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, give us on his way back and get another one.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: a 47-D season and a season of life in the other and naturely baseball history from one of the Koenia Junior.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a drag right on the Man of Heaven, the Man of Heaven, the Man of Heaven, but there's an idiot having the hits that's not hard.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's the man of the left, my truck has ripped them all around.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: What's up guys, Mike Traut?
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to Sports Park's C.E.E.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: with current Buffland Hand.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's going on, Dick boy.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just Sarah Manit is good to see you.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got a special guest today.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited to dive in here in a minute.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bubba is still recovering from spring break.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just going to be current in him on the pod today with our guests coming up.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But current big things happen and in your life this week, I'll share whatever you want to.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we're going to go ahead and dive into the rags.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And before that, I got to give you applause for the master's logo gear.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thank you.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and big masters guy.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll call it that now.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not a big master's guy, but I love the shirt.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got a gift.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I thought a lot of this is a gift, so it's really comfortable and it's nice shirt.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dude, masters is like my favorite time of year.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be honest, like this past week weekend is like highlight man.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ever since I was a young kid, like teenager man, love watching the masters.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sunday posted up dude.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nice little back to back by Rory, but I'm
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's never the same man.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: He always had such a aura, like, as he did these days.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: His aura.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I will say this though.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever been to Augusta?
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dude, it is one of the coolest, like, physical places venues to go.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's so much, it's just iconic.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you feel like you're walking in a movie scene.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do imagine.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's super, super special.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I think we need to get Baba to roll through some of his Georgia connections and the CEOs need to have a little Augusta trip.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Bowman former and wild girls gone wild.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Baba, I could pick your Baba Baba with his shirt off to swinging his brain raised.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who's got cards for me?
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like that Baba Impression.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure he'll be pleased with it.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll be thrilled, yeah.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Give us a little update, man.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: A week in the life of
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good amount.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have fun night last night, you know, the angels are in town, trout crouched at last night, a couple of homeruns, and then me and my wife went to meet him at the hotel and rip.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got some real cool stuff signed.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just for now, I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep on the low, but I got some really cool card signed.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: We ripped a bunch of Bowman draft and it was fun time.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a really fun time, and then I'm gonna go to the game today.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Me and my wife and,
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: my oldest son.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to bring one of his friends as well.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, we're going to go for BP.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and then to the game, we got first row seats right behind the dugout and legends.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm looking forward to that.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a good time.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's 80 degrees here in New York.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's got to be 80 degrees.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good times.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't get better.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you what.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think every single one of our listeners loves living vicariously through Eric Manlacher.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, yeah, yeah, I would just, you know, hung with trout and just rips some bone and, you know, but it's awesome.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's awesome, man, because, you know, watching, at least for me, you know, like, we, of course, had trout on the show and got to speak to him personally.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, seeing him go back to back and back and forth with Judge last night with some homeruns and like watching trout
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a little connection there, you know what I mean?
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You felt a little, you felt a little connected.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like some of our listeners perspective too, like because our community super tight and niche and our people like, you know, trouse our boy.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's good to see about what they're doing this thing.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is funny, because you kind of know what's going to his head at that.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's absolutely, you're like, okay, yeah.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I saw him smirk like that, I had like this voice of Denzel Washington in my head, like in and out, Ted,
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, okay.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like really good Denzel.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like let's hear the Denzel I feel like you do a good one.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my man, huh.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are we a judge?
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay?
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know to be like I thought I felt like he's trouncing with them.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll feel like breaking out like training day Denzel on my air You know, then we'll take you to hell them off, though, man.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will say he's a magnet for the ball though
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: He came last night beat up.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: He got a sleeve over his arm because so rare hit them in the forearm That's all right.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So rare was with us, too.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a good dude.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I see.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and the other hand he's got a freaking East bandage from that, you know, from the hit by pitch.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's just beat up.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how these guys do it.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean all We're hurting it, you know what I mean?
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just hurting at such a long season.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is like when tell Mr.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fish tell Mr.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fish to stay healthy.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's good to
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: out there.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's funny the last time we went to see him play.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were playing at Yankee Stadium.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: He went yard too.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, did he?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like he's done.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's done well at Yankee Stadium.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's last few out of the house.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's one for nine.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's going on with you.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, it has been, you know, back in the saddle, spring break, all the kids home from school, just a hot mess.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like, you're just trying to make it through the week and then get back into the grind of work.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we're
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: going through some transition right now, adding some people, some transition at the office.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I've been a lot of my plate, you know, just a lot of responsibility.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm just having to kind of like stay really super centered and stay calm and just take care of like
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: whatever I can take care of in the day-to-day.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's been good, but you know, more stressful than usual.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're in the middle of finishing up J.D.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Baseball with a little Matt, you know, we were traveling yesterday to win.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The game goal last night.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They worked.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: They did work.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were, they won like eight hours or something like that.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I said, didn't need the righty.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now he didn't need he didn't get the closer call, but he coach told him he's going to be closing against the cross town rivals on Thursday.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a funny man, Lil Matt's got this thing now where he's like the closer, like the specialty pitcher, like they bring him in late in the game.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I told him I said, I said, bro, you need to get some like hype, you know, some walk out music.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I was talking to you, you got to play it on, you bring a little speaker and plus I'm gonna do like my personal head.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, okay, but like you're on the channel channel some hype music.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you can if you had if you had to pick a walk up walk out song right like what would you have one like what's your kind of go to you know what table this for towards the end of the episode I got that's something I got to think about come back.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay come back.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I say what we super grateful for all our listeners man The pod continues to be just a great space for community people who love the hobby people of baseball people of cards
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're continuing to get so much feedback as always, folks, follow us on the SportsCard CEO, Instagram page.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can always reach out with a question, 888 pods CEOs, and today we have a special guest that we're going to go ahead and bring in.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Carmy ready to roll with this?
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, let's go.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SportsCard CEO, Matt Spasta.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is the CEO of Check AI as well as the founder of Trove, and you can see him on Instagram at Find Your Trove.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Matt, what's up, brother?
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I fit the theme of the sports card CEO.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, man.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm super pumped to have you.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I will go ahead and say this.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: We said this in the preshow.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is the southern North Carolina here like wedge between two New Yorkers.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like you guys are going to have to keep me in line today and you know, teach me the ropes.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get a little rowdy.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's get a little rowdy from that.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're good for it, Matt.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, welcome to the CEO, brother.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know you and Kern are buddies.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so Kern, I'll let you kind of introduce the relationship and then Maggable, but a background.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we go away back, Matt.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, we've no each other for a while.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: My wife and Matt went to high school together.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're very good friends.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's how I know you.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd probably know you through sports, too.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: We played against each other, Ernie.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, actually.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know each other way before that.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You went to when to do with my whole crew.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: We grew up to write towns away.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've known current wife since for three.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know anything about Matt.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we also want to, we also want to Michigan together.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's right, that's right.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I forgot.
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we go way back.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when I saw him start posting card content, I was like, what's going on here?
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I reached out to him and then we met at national.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was it like two years ago?
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Kern was like just getting started.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had like maybe one or two supers before he was known as the super god.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he had this camera crew and I was like, bro, what are you doing?
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, oh, just filming myself.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, it was the beginning of the brand of Kern.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was like the very early stages of that.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's like before anyone knew him as you know him when right was he nice to you growing up That's the question was he was he kind current always been he current's I'm just been a nice guy He is a nice guy.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean just now You know since he started hanging out with like the big boppers.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's he's changing a little bit, but he's he's the same old current Come on well, but by the way last year we got we got to go to the met game together We went to BP we hung with trout on the dugout a little bit, but now I've seen I've been I've been replaced by his wife
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably a good thing.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's probably a good son.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's a lot pretty, I'm sorry.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I could imagine.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, but that was cool.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had a really cool experience last year.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying out of the game, I got to see the energy first hand, which was like, man, this guy is just super passionate in the back arts, the way he was prospecting, the way he was talking about prospects of other teams.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, damn, he's one of us.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was super fun.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Matt, give us a little bit of a background, man.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You obviously have long standing career in the hobby and your big card guy.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You got a lot of different endeavors here, which we're going to get into.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But kind of had you get into the space, man, give us a little background.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, childhood collector.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: 90s, Jordan collecting, you know, we're all kind of the same, right?
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We grew up all athletes playing sports, just loving the hobby.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, we all grew up in the junkwax era, and I think a lot of us kind of lost that love and passion for it, and we probably all got busy later in life.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: like a lot of other people I found to turn COVID.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's used breaking as a gateway drug, I was stuffing my house during COVID.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I finally realized how's like, man, I got the disposable income to go buy the stuff that I really wanted as a kid.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And right around that time, me and two buddies ended up launching trove because we're like, hey, there's no trusted voice in the space, there are a lot of bad actors.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we launched trove as this passion project five years later, we have millions of followers across all
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, we partner with 25 different entities across the space.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've had some really amazing collaborations.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'll tell you more about like how the evolution has happened, but
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, for me, a retired banker, about 10 years ago, I left the Bankie Industries, built my first star up in the fantasy sports space, then I'm scaling that business up sold to a public company.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this was right around COVID.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got back into cards.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, man, I'm going to go all in on this space.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: We built Trove, developed a ton of relationships across the space.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: ended up getting approached by another public company who is building a technology around the car world too, which was a digital grading company.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was called shoe box at the time.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: They ended up bringing me in a CEO or sponge shoe box out.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now we're building growing as check AI.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a AI grading company that's more so it'd be to be business and a direct to consumer company.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've partnered up with some really big entities across the space, we're working with the big marketplaces.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I don't want to bore everyone with, you know, the backstory of things, but like where we are now is like, look, the hobbies, the strongest it's ever been.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're very close with a lot of the big entities across the space and talking a lot of institutional players across the space, like the money's flowing in, not just into cards, but into infrastructure, into technology, and for the first time, you know, we saw this 2020-20-20-21,
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: the amount of support that we're seeing across the industry, the fanatics effect that we're seeing in the sense that like, hey, we've never had a real entity across the space that's actually marketing space, right?
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, collector, you know, collector universe never did that, and Penini never did that, but fanatics is all in.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it definitely feels different this time.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do have my concerns about the hobby, but yeah, it feels different this time.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, a lot to dive into but one of the things is you bring that up that we talk about often on the show is, you know, I don't think people understand the amount of kind of like corporate involvement in the hobby right now like I mean we certainly get it you absolutely get it but like the amount of corporate involvement that's driving the space is unlike what it's ever been before.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when you've got dick sporting goods buying the Paul Scheme's debut path, right?
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're getting this massive amount of corporate, you know, financial influx, which is very unique.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it really adds credibility, but a ton of capital to the space.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's super cool to hear.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can kind of dive into that.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: But current, did you have any kind of questions, man, or any direction you want to start to take to Hama?
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear more about the evolution of find your truth and what the, you know,
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: you guys do have a huge following and a huge outreach.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to hear more about how you built that up and what the strategy is behind that and how it's involved and where it's going.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I do know that you guys just launched something near the other day which I'd like to hear about.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, you know, the evolution has been crazy.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We basically launched it as just an Instagram channel to start.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: We found Frank who's our main content guy who, you know, a lot of people have seen his face.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's phenomenal.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Frank does a really amazing job.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I found him in his college dorm room.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: The kid reached out to me on IG during COVID.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, yo, subscribe to my newsletter.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, who are you?
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I'm Frank from scene hall.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, Frank from scene hall.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Get, I was like, you know, WFAN cold.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I swear to God, I was like, Frank from scene hall, give me a call.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: He calls me.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like straight out of boiler room.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, hey, kid, give me your best pitch.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: He wants it to sell me his $20 a month newsletter.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yo, this kid's really smart.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hit up some of my buddies.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yo, I think I found a content guy.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we brought him in.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He started aggregating, like breaking videos and stuff.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: One day, he started getting in front of the camera.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, four years later, he's posted a video every single day.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Joe up every day, you build that trust, you build that brand.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the evolution really started with like, hey, we're just going to post content.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to build a following.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to build trust.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then one day PWCC reached out to us, they're like, hey, you know, we have this big card at auction, but you guys be willing to do, you know, one of your stories around that we're like, shit, yeah, that means that we could figure out ways to monetize and build our brand and get more exposure short.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it started from there.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We just started building relationships across the space.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like I said, 25 partners later, we worked very closely with Golden, you know, we've worked historically with heritage and fanatics and every other auction house you can imagine, Robert Edwards, great flannel, CP options, working with Jupiter now.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we work with a lot of the different entities across the space, the repacking companies come to us courtyard arena club.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now,
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've basically launched Collector, which is focused on collectors and designers.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've gotten the ton of interest over the last year of designers who were like, hey, I need help getting exposure for this item on, you know, it's at auction right now.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's finishing a couple of days and for us, we don't want to be a shill, right?
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We want to cover really cool items.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We want to cover the, you know, the backstory of those items and the progons.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it's really important and we've uncovered some incredible cards and credible stories.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us the story from last year.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You guys posted a cool story last night about a Jordan card.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't mind, can you share that because that was incredible?
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's really amazing and it really lined up with the launch of Collector.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like I said, we've been doing this in formerly for the last year, but we're like, hey, what if we formalize this into a business and we launch a handle that's connected to this?
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we launch Collector, which is in itself just an amazing handle.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a vanity handle.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's at Collector.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We got very lucky and partnered up with a guy we were able to launch it with.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And really the focus of this handle is going to be, you know, launching our consignor program that telling the backstory around collectors.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We really led with this first story where we found this guy in Facebook.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: He posted this 98 flare MJ legacy car, but it was special because it was a serial number 23.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, in this day and age like that stuff is way more desirable than just obviously a regular serial number and he had like 25 messages and like defined offers on Facebook and he decided to come with us because we were going to help him tell his story and he had an amazing story like.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: this is like such a fuel-good hobby store.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The guy ripped this card 30 years ago has been sitting on it for 30 years.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Him and his wife work in McDonald's.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a manager.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: He adopted three kids.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: He brought in another family to live in this small town how he's just like a good good guy.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, he has personal needs.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, it's time that we sell it.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what we're doing is we're basically highlighting the car, telling the story before it even gets graded and goes to auction.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We did this video last night.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, we have a million views.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been less than 12 hours across all of our channels right now.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This thing is rocking.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the amount of positivity is coming out.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, finally, a good story.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Finally, a good guy getting what he deserves.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we do.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, the story telling is really
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: really the amazing collectors, the amazing cards, and the amazing stories across the hobby.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's how timely is that, man.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, here we are this morning, just in the middle of this interview, and here we are getting the viral real going on.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's interesting you bring that up to Matt, like the hobby needs that kind of stuff, right?
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the hobby has to have the the balance.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: of these feel good stories when you see the benefit and the good in the hobby, because a lot of times we get in the space and there's a lot of grind, there's a lot of hustle, everybody's competing, you know, and it can sometimes get drown out with a lot of negative noise and a lot of negative energy.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm just grateful that you guys are doing stuff like that.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It kind of like remind us like in the hobby really does have a story to tell and it can, you know, bridge a lot of gaps for people and, you know, in this case, be a provision for folks.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a super cool thing, man.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw someone posted about it yesterday.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was Boston was posting about on Twitter.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, you know, the collectibles industry is the only asset class that actually brings you joy.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, it's really true.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much good in the hobby.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of bad too.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of bad actors.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like, if you could sus through all the noise, there's a lot of really, really good stuff going on.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, especially now more than ever, content has become a king in the space.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Storytelling is really critical.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: all the auction houses are leaning into all the big entities across the space are trying to figure out how do we control the narrative, how do we flip the script, you know, phonax is dealing with a lot of negativity, you know, whether it's with the jerseys or whether it's with, you know, people thinking boxes are fixing stuff and they're like, hey, we want to tell the real story behind the scenes and like, you know, it's it's a given take, there needs to be a balance because there is a lot of like, you know, corporate stuff that's going
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the fairies play, that's going on in the driving negativity, so if you could shine light on the positive stuff, man, even better afterwards.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's just going to say there's so many different types of people in this industry, how do you whatever you want to call it?
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's, you know, that that do it differently.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's the collector that
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: enjoy collecting unique pieces.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And again, that's the story telling behind those pieces.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then there's people that are just flippers and there's people that are dressed in the breaking world.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's just so many different pieces of this industry.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's part about it, though.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you have all these different layers.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when I look at the industry, what's caused like it's rise over the last couple of years, it hasn't been one thing.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been multiple things.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You talked about the institutionalization and the money flowing in, but like you talk about repacking as bad as it's been, like you're bringing a lot of cashables in who are now gambling on the space of while it's bad.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know there's a need for it and there's a demand for it and right the repackers are keeping sort of this constant bid in the middle market and are creating liquidity for us collectors which is great and then you have at the higher end you have like fanatics bringing in all these big players whether it's funds whether it's these billionaire guys that are buying this is like one-on-one.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: are, whether it's Kevin O'Leary and Secured, what they're doing, but you have this trickle down effect because your cash and people out at the top were true collectors, they're redeploying the middle market and it's just keeping this balance across the ecosystem.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think some of it is unhealthy, but I think overall I think we're seeing a lot of health across the industry.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: venturing off just a tiny bit from one of those comments that you mentioned Kevin O'Leary.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can we just talk about for a second, Dean of White, and it's red room here at the knee.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm sorry, like, I love, I love Dean of White, but I love Dean of White, but like.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The card is not worth 250,000, and then the card is never going to be worth a million bucks.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not true.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is true.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's coming.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, I know in your minds, and as you sold the super in our, yeah, I know, but that's not going to do it that.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has something to do with it.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has something to do with it.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has something to do with it.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Comparatively speaking, though.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why is that car going to be a million dollar card because Dana White said it is and what the boy world is too smart for that dude Okay, maybe too smart.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe but what's changed across the hobby and we saw this with Logan's illustrator card It is you create a lure around a specific card and that was Dana White's card or that was Logan Paul's card or now Kevin O'Leary is wearing his card around his neck in the Tiffany and crossed it
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's something that's driving culture across the space, and it may not be your Bowman guys.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may be some guy who's a Boston fan who's like, you know what?
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dinoite said this card's worth that, and I'm willing to buy because it was Dinoite's card, right?
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's what changes.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think what's changing across the hobby is culture's really driving things, right?
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can talk to Jason about this Jason's a big believer in that.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, provenance plays a huge part in all this.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think there's a world in which it could happen and not because Roman's values gone there, but because Dana White said it was.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if he keeps promoting this card that way, who knows?
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, here's my, here's my thought on that.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to jump in on this current.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is what, what, what, what stimulates a lot of economies and, and marketplaces is to to your point Matt, I take real estate because real estate was my first career at a college.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: When someone goes into a space and they buy real estate in an area and people go, so-and-so-bought real estate there, naturally the market around that real estate begins to rise.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the Walt Disney Effect.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why he bought so much real estate in Orlando under all of these like surnames and sub-companies and stuff, because he knew once they found out what was going into the space.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, there's plenty of other advocates of marketplaces who go into a market space and it just doesn't respond.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's really interesting about how the masses want to follow a kind of pioneer thing, even if the pioneer, it may be completely off-base.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: To your point, Kern, you might sit here and go, like, did this is freaking swamp land in Orlando?
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are you talking about?
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has no value.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But in this case, if you can build that aura, that kind of like story narrative, that's actually what people buy.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it could be manipulation in a way.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I get that.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a false market though.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I get that.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do agree with you to that point, but it's interesting because the mass is still follow the story and when you build the story around the asset, that's when you start to get this kind of hype.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And again, to your point, maybe it's not sustainable, but for right now, I mean, cash out why you can, if you got in right, you know, take advantage of the moment.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I get that.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just think that, I just think that, I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think that's what I think
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a false sense of market.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a false market.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a real market because the way the Bowman world works is, it's, everything is just, just, comp-driven.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get that culture and somebody in a specific, that has, you know, a lot of cloud can manipulate that market.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: But,
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just don't think it's a sustainable, or I don't think it's realistic.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's four other of those cards.
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there might be some knucklehead that's going to pay 250,000 because Dana white owned it.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There might be.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, anybody can make me believe the market, but somebody with the cloud like Dana white, sure, but it doesn't mean that the other four are going to be worth that and it changes the entire market.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not going to work like that.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Unless there's all buyers that just want, you know,
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: somebody is a significance to own that card.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just not going to work like that.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's only one off card situations because they own that card.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: If they have pedigree on that on that slab from PSA, and it says, Dana White, you know, Dana White's collection, fine.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get it, right?
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like Tom Brady's collection.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like otherwise, it gets a shit.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, he's going to remember whose card that was.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, he's care.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get the idea.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get to do a deal with Dana White's manager.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like who cares?
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: People care.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bowman markets are more rational and I believe because people are willing to height, you know, buying to hype and foam.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, for players that are more culturally iconic, you don't get, but this is all players.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's exactly.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's let's just say if Roman Anthony shits the bed if you're right, he sucks, he gets hurt, whatever it might be, if he sucks, and he bats 220 for the year.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't care who owns that card.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody's paying.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: a million dollars for that court for him to say it could be that value he clicked but who would say I agree with you I'm just I'm giving the care to that because it's a great conversation these are the kind of conversations that everybody I see your side to I get it trust me I get it just
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, bizarre.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's the thing, boys, is like, this is the game we play, right?
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the hobby that we play, you know what I mean?
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's no different in, you know, take stocks or whatever, it's like, so and so, you know, heard that there's this potential deal lurking with this, so this or this, like so much of this, this hobby that we're in is driven by this perspective hype.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And again, the point being is that you have to stay on top of it, so you don't get swallowed up in it.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what's different, like think about this and Matt,
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Talk about like 90s Jordan inserts right like this is this is something where for a long time I think that market was kind of like almost shunned or ignored But now when you're actually looking back and you're looking at an asset
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: right that is a numbered rare Jordan insert or whatever and you have enough collectors in the space.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean dude what what if Jordan inserts done over the last two years?
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean probably 200 percent.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So so it's a good conversation.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just had this talk with someone last night and where I think the first boom happened in 2021 people were going after the iconic rookie car right they're going
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: once, you know, same thing with the griffy 89 upper deck.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where you saw a lot of the foe mode driven, but I think collectors have gotten smarter with their going after is more scarce assets.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't have to be a Georgia rookie, but it has to be something about Jordan that's differentiated and special.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So right, you talk about the inserts you talk about, you know, look, I've had a conversation with a big collector who owns the red Jordan PMG,
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: which obviously the green Jordan is obviously the, you know, the the grail car, but he has the red Jordan 23 serial number and he thinks the value of that is up there with green, which to some it might be because the value of that stuff is subjective.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what it comes down to is collectability, right?
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you want to be differentiated?
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are 10 Jordan greens out there.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how many have seen the light a day, but there's only one 23 red, right?
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's only one 23 in that 100 serial set.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what I think collectors have gotten smarter, what I'm seeing with the big dogs who are really buying at the high end, they're buying the stuff as one to one are the same way that people are buying game use stuff and putting it away.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're buying the stuff and they're putting it away.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some of the stuff, I mean, never see the light a day,
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think what people have, I think the recovery that we've seen since the COVID highs has been out performance of these, you know, more rare non rookie cards for the MJ types.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm seeing with everything, right?
• 28:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: You look at Geter PMGs and you look at bonds cards and griffy cards.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you look at the super raves and the star rubies like those markets are going nuts right now.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: No one cares about the 89 upper deck anymore.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's an interesting query like when you really get in that game and that's the game that little Matt and I have really kind of gotten into over the last couple of years.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I tell you what, dude, it's wild because you get to a point where you recognize like there are only 200 cards like this that have ever surfaced, right?
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like take the Jordan thrill seekers, for example.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like a thrill seekers Jordan is a pretty low in insert on the scale of Jordan inserts.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But dude, there's less than 300 graded with all companies.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you're talking about what's
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's I don't even know.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably really well.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it tends or the tens are chewed up.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like we just owned a nine thrill seekers, right?
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it just went on we just sold it on auction and it did really well.
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there's always this thing in the back of my head like did we let an asset go that's like almost irreplaceable.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because the nine pop is probably like 50, you know what I mean, and are there 50 Jordan collectors out there that would want this card and they're probably so and so that's the hard game is like somebody who's in the space to capitalize on it and buy and sell cards, but also when you get a card that you can't replace, you know what I mean that's the thing with 90s inserts that's so challenging is you truly sometimes do get cards that you're probably never see again.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And those cards don't create it like you may uncover one of those in a box or in a collection, but those cards aren't creating well right and some of the higher end guys that I'm talking to they're only searching for the top pop of specific arts right because they want to own that one of one or they want to own the top.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the top graded one and again, I don't think a lot of these cards are going to see the light at that and and and that's that's what I love about the hobby You have so many different types of collectors and so many different types of approaches and you create that nuance that nuance creates arbitrage Creativity speculated creates the ability to flip and find liquidity and for us it creates the ability to storytell right these nuances create the ability for us to tell these amazing stories
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know for contact everybody has different things that I mean it's whatever makes them happy right at the end of the day yeah for sure and it's an amazing what different people kind of like you know kind of lean toward right like they're there are guys who lean towards that 90 insert market you know bring wayer with um deep value investors on the show talking a lot about that and we certainly got current in our world the boom and folks that you know go after the reds and the oranges or whatever
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you're looking at the hobby to map, when you look at the diversity of the cards that you guys see, because you guys probably see some of the craziest cards ever, you know, creating some fun stuff.
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you look at, when you look at true assets in the space, what jumps off the page to you?
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I want you to kind of break this question down into, kind of that 90s insert game versus the modern boom and stuff, versus like the true vintage stuff, like when you see a car, like what what automatically internally creates value in your eyes?
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look, it's really interesting.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I look at it as like these different sub-asset classes, but you want to stable asset, you go to vintage.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, vintage has been slowly rising.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have kind of smart, longer-term collectors, you're buying that stuff and putting it away.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The 90 stuff is, you know, a little bit higher speculation, but if you're buying the right stuff and you're buying it well, and you're buying, you know, top-grade it stuff, you could feel like it's a safer asset.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like, look, anything you look at these charts and the charts are crazy.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: my view is it's a supply demand game and if there is enough scarcity around it asset it should be pretty stable the ultra modern stuff is the only stuff that obviously really scares me speculating and I'm not going to say boom in and baseball I'm going to say more so around the basketball stuff I think this year you know you have
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the first year of top-score and basketball again, you have some amazing draft class.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think this set is probably going to age pretty well, assuming that these guys come to fruition, in terms of the world, plus it's just an iconic flagship set coming back.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I always say that with Ultramodern, the gold standard of any product is booming.
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bowman does it right, it's consistent, it's structured.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what you're getting, you're in, you're out.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's the only product that, and then you know you guys talk about this all the time, but it's really the only product that you could prospect the guy from literally, you know, day one of his career.
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know they're going to standardize that across other sports too, but it's not going to happen with basketball because, you know, these guys are drafted and they get thrown into the league immediately.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're not never going to have the original speculation there.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's worth that.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but but like Bowman is amazing because the way you could approach is anyone could approach it and anyone could create value for themselves Because I know guys Yeah, I see guys in the community.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to spring training games are getting signatures of these guys on paper cards and like they're they're scouting They're really scouting and I know you guys use tools and I do too.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big fantasy baseball guy, but
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, for me, the Bowman is the gold standard.
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bowman baseball is, it's just an incredible collectible product.
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, so question, follow a question to that whole idea.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if, if you took, if you're come from banking, right?
• 33:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I don't know if you were in like investment banking or commercial, whatever.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But bottom line, if I gave you, you know, let's say a million dollars, right?
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I just said, I'm going to take a million dollars, you know, Matt, I'm going to give it to you.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, and you're looking to go acquire, you know,
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: assets and I use a million because I don't want to say 30 million because you're not going to go buy a 52 mantle um you know but like if I gave you that kind of directive and you had to go out and you had to acquire a couple of cards as a guy who's been in the space you've been around what where you go and what do you lean to what jumps off the page you've seen a lot of stuff what pops for you.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a really amazing question because in 21, we raised a million bucks, we raised a fund.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had about 7 LPs that came in.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's deployed by the time we closed, we deployed into the 22, 23 market, right?
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you know how that ended.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: What we did wrong during that time was we went out and we started buying all the iconic rookie cards and we did the base cards we bought, you know, you know, 10
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: you bought, you know, one jording 86 flier.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We bought a lot of these cards, but at the time, we thought we were buying what we believed to be stable assets because these were the rookie cards.
• 35:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are the best cards.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: What we didn't realize at the time is that people only cared about the top pop of those cards.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the other stuff is done, okay, but that stuff hasn't recovered, right?
• 35:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And winding that fund was such a nightmare, and, you know, we ended up losing like 60%.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We actually outperform our index pretty meaningfully, but, you know, deploy into the peak of the markets and then try to unwind in the next two years was was a nightmare.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I had to do it all differently and I had a million bucks, I'd probably buy one of two cards because what I've found is if you buy right and you're able to create your own market, you know, skies the limit for that specific card and you know, we have the resources to be able to tell a specific story around a card.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for me, I'd find maybe one to three cards that have a really strong differentiation from the rest of, you know, those markets, something has a real strong story behind it, provenance, even maybe collector acquisition story where that card was where it was sitting.
• 36:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of how I've changed my approach of the last couple years.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to find stuff that no one else is looking for.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like,
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I'm looking in options and I'm hunting options, I'm playing every single option, I'm in every single night.
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of the cards that I'm looking for because I'm buying a ton of ID stuff, I'm buying Frank Thomas's in kangaroo for juniors.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, yeah, that's my favorite.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You send me some stuff, when you send me stuff, I'm like, oh, I need that you're looking at.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's always unique pieces.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's not like ever pieces that I would be looking for on an option, but I see them in them like, that's cool.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's cool, Gar.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like looking at just like iconic sets and you know, if I'm looking at a card and there's no recent comfort, like I get giddy.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's good.
• 36:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to raise stuff that does not trade and that I could buy and put look to me, you know, I'm a markets guy.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not I'm a collector, but I'm specular.
• 36:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like every card I might collect not every card, but most cards in my collection have a price.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, so when I buy something, I want to know that there is an exit strategy unless it's a PC item, which I know I'm just putting away, but I think buying right is the most important part of being a collector and a flipper and a resell whatever it is, right, and there are a lot of nuances into what buying right actually means.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think buying with purpose, you know, is I think that's what you mean kind of buying right is like if you have intentionality with the purchase and you have a game plan with the purchase and you have a strategy to the purchase, that's one thing.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're just hopping in to kind of hop in the pool, like that's where you get cooked.
• 37:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: You get absolutely right.
• 37:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of nuance that's coming into the game here where people getting really smart, educated, and they're buying right and buying smarter.
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know,
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jeff about this and you mentioned it earlier when the big dogs are filling out and they're leveling up it's making that card available to the middle market and it's like this latter thing.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when a little Matt and I started, I could never imagine owning a Jordan star.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never even thought about it.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It seems stupid to me now, but like we leveled into a star Jordan, you know what I mean?
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there's somebody who, you know, sold out of that that for for us to get into it, to step into a six or to step into a sevens.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: that kind of market, you know, climb is really important and how it drives the overall hobby.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I'm buying high-end cars, so when I'm buying high-end cars, that I know aren't specifically for PC, right?
• 38:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the way I think about it is, yeah, I want to know that there's an extra strategy, right?
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: 100% and what is that extra strategy?
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And where do I see that market going?
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also won't buy it if I'm not okay being stuck with it and going to zero and be happy with it.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Personally, you know, am I happy with this card going to zero
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: The answer's no, and it's a lot of money and it's a big purchase.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm likely not buying That's just the way I you know, I'm doing some I do things, but do you remember last year when we try getting the judge super?
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I I kind of wish I yeah, let's not talk about that.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love I love.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are great stories.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 38:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know.
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We put it this way and that was trying to help me acquire the judge super and I feel like I feel like I could have gotten it at
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: a really good number, a really good number, compare comparatively speaking to what it just sold for.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it was long at the time the number he threw out, but you seemed unreasonable, but obviously.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And line hindsight, yeah.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's kind of, let's transition here because I'm going to make sure we get into everything because I could talk, you know, hobby stories in cards, specific stuff, Matt forever.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I could also listen to you throw shade at current all day.
• 39:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is super fun.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It broke Roman judge.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what else you got?
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's what you got.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good, so you know what, you know what, breaking news.
• 39:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm retiring from home.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You love it.
• 39:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't do that, Karen.
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't do that to us, babe.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talk a little bit, you know, so Trove, Matt, kind of, you guys got that up passion project.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It took off, it blew up.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've mentioned collector now as that evolves, but talk a little bit about Czech AI.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we talk a lot on this show about grading, and about the subjectivity of grading.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: and about the monopoly of grading and about the nonsense of grading.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Talk about what you guys chose to do with check.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you said it was shoebox initially, and now it's check.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so this technology was originally incubated IEC, which is a big public media company owns it started by Barry Diller.
• 40:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never thought a company like that would be incubating a, you know, a car technology.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when they approached me, I was like, look, this isn't going to happen.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you know, we've been talking about this for years.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: A aggregating is in the thing.
• 40:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: No one bleeds it.
• 40:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, you can't accurately predict what a grade is going to be because you're always at the mercy of the subjectivity in a grading room.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many nuances that go into it.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I really, when I came in, I challenged the engineers.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, how good is this, you know, how possible is this?
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And with these guys showed me blew my mind.
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, the ability for sort of this new technology, it's computer vision technology, it's kind of different than LLMs and AI that we know it's really visual learning in a way that could understand damage and measure damage and what you could do with pictures from a smart photo is incredible and what we were able to do is we were able to kind of recreate what happens in a grading area.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And look, our grades are never going to be perfect, but if you could accurately predict with a high degree of confidence, you're going to help a lot of people.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of see the businesses too full.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one, using it as a pre-grading technology to know what you have prior to sending cards and for grading, grading is expensive, risky, slow, these markets move fast.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you know what you have, and you could save people from sending cards and for grading, you could help save people a lot of money.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right?
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what we really want to do is we want to unlock
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, you know, there's kind of a barrier to entry right now.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have maybe a 200, we usually, we say $250 a car.
• 41:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a risky proposition to send that car to for grading.
• 41:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because when all said and done, you spent 40 bucks for grading.
• 41:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: PSA nine and a lot of cases is lower than a raw value of a car for obvious reasons.
• 42:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, and we kind of want to be that de facto player in the low end of the market.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we've created this flow where it's great to design.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: you grade your car with our technology, you get a digital slab connected to it and you get a fully transparent report of where the damage exists on the car.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've had so much traction selling those cards on eBay and what people want is they want transparency and people are willing to pay a premium for that.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so for the lower end cards on average, we're getting a 200% premium for our cards.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, we're talking maybe $20, $50, $100 cards, but people are willing to pay up premium to the raw comp just to understand exactly what they have.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many times you buy a card in eBay and then it's all sudden like you get a ding corner and it's like you show the picture getting caught by AG and it sucks.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think as long as the expectation is, is it it's not going to be perfect no matter what, but it gives the, it gives the, the buyer an idea of what kind of conditions, it's, it's buyer protection, really, right?
• 43:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's like really buy protection.
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Forget, forget, eat day authenticity, which isn't above, what's the number?
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know, but to, regardless, I think.
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like working with designers is huge.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I can imagine some are probably hesitant to do that because it might affect your business, right?
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's really like from a morality perspective, it's a great thing.
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, look, creating in general is a brand play.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to break in as a brand.
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So our goal is like, we originally launched this as a direct to consumer technology and we built an app and then we realized very quickly.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like the best way to build brand and credibility in the space is
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: credible partners across the space, you know, so we're having big conversations with the big market places.
• 43:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're working with some really trusted Service providers like the PC sports cards guys, which this kind of inserts into their business really well, right?
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you put free grading at the top end of their flow because they do subgrading and they do consignment
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of a sudden, we're integrating into their platform where their customers could see, okay, I could see how my car pre-graded, I could decide if I want to send it to PSA, or if I want to send it straight to consignment.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've been getting a ton of traction with their customers, we've been helping a lot of their customers out.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know people say, hey, this is going to cannibalize their business, because people aren't going to send as many cards of PSA.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're finding as people are sending, you know, five times as many cards now, because they have this whole stack of cards that they don't know if they're going to
• 44:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, from the moment perspective, like I mean, just because that's what I'm collecting, like I think it's great for the market at general because it's more it kind of legitimizes the market a little bit if these raw cards have a, you know, I agree to sign to them at auction let's say right because like everything's come driven really right you're looking at a comp right now you don't know when that option ends right so like that could play a factor and in what the number the final number is right, but also condition like this raw.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: people that look are looking at a comp, they're looking at a comp and they're like, that's that's that's crazy low, right?
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, if it has that AI grade, you know, slab attached to it is like, oh, because that was the PS6, you know, or not the PS6, but it was you would have been around a six, right?
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, you see that.
• 45:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you see if there's a nine going at the same time, you see why it's higher, create it, it just creates more legitimacy, I think, with it.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, marketplace.
• 45:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you a good example around education.
• 45:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Gary's a good example.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were at PC and Gary had like a massive sub came back.
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a very, very big Bowman first guys like huge names.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we ended up cracking them all out.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're all BGS labs and
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told Zach, I was like, let me just, let me just grade these and see what they would have gotten, had, you know, you pre-graded them before you set them out.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We fell within a half a point on almost all of them.
• 45:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking seven and a half, eight, eight and a half.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like stuff that I would have told him, like not to grade.
• 45:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, look, I think some people were just like, hey, I'm gonna roll the dice anyway.
• 45:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you come back and you're creating high end cards and you're spending thousands of dollars on it because, you know, the higher end cards, you know, you're going to get, you know, if you could say people money, if you could educate people, if you could educate the market as a whole, you're creating definition within pricing categories and you're creating arbitrage opportunities for people people want those.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: is this technology that's is this technology that's currently available to public or no, because you've tested it with me and it was like crazy good actually it's not just like take a picture of the front of the back you're going to take it from certain angles so it does take a little longer that's what makes it more accurate.
• 46:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why we kind of shook in anybody download this.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: A B to B focus.
• 46:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is available in the app store.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's check AI's the app.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have open and beta right now.
• 46:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So collectors could use it and play around with it.
• 46:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want collectors to use it.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want them to understand what it is and how it works.
• 46:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we do have it available to collectors.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like the nuances you were talking about, anyone has said they could accurately grade a card by taking a top-down picture of the front and back is lying to you.
• 46:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: because the nuances of capturing light and angles for surface and side views for edges and corners, you can't accurately do that with the top-down picture.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we've sent thousands of cards to PSA on average our average differential is 0.55, which if you could predict with half-repoint degree of confidence, people are gonna have a better idea of what they have, right?
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you're a card showing a nine and a half, like it could go either way with BSA obviously because they don't have a nine and a half grade.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But have a couple I think is is strength.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a couple thoughts here.
• 47:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number one is when you talk about grading high in cards.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people when they get into the space, you know, let's say you you're grading up.
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's take Kevin McGonagal right now because he's he's fairly hot.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're saying you're grading an orange right and an orange Kevin McGonagal is probably what eight nine K current now, 10 K maybe.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I'm like that probably 10 no a nine a roll.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, eight nine K and then if it grades a 10 it's what 16 probably 17 18 K some of that.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, if you send a roll card in, you could get an eight and still have to pay six seven hundred dollars.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: have that card graded.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a massive difference.
• 48:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now you have an eight slab that's really challenging to move.
• 48:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or you could have a nine, you know?
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And again, to have that call to the ability to make that call when the price point per card is so high to grade, like we just graded a Michael Jordan East West refractor Kobe East West refractor.
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And thank lord, it was a miracle.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It jimmed.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got a no way.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's awesome.
• 48:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Shoutout is actually going on fanatics next week on their auction, but such a beautiful card.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But my point being is is like the grading difference.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're talking about two grand versus like 600 out.
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and to know it had a shot was worth the upside risk.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you get this idea that it's not going to be worth the risk, then I mean, it really changes the idea on whether or not you want to send in these cards, because you're going to get upcharge or charge either way if it nines.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that can really say folks a lot of
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Think about the speed too.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You talk about a guy like McGonagall.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look, I think McGonagall's great.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'd be happy investing here.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you, all the sudden, had been holding on to this card, waiting to grade it, and then he has a hot start to spring training in the season like he has, maybe you want to flip it.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you can't wait for PSA.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Maria is depending on the service level, you know, at a minimum, it's going to take at least a couple weeks, right?
• 49:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, we provide the space has become really like velocity focus now.
• 49:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, you're seeing it with repacts.
• 49:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fanatics is really leaning into the digital collective more so it's like we don't want people taking possession of their cars.
• 49:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't want people sending their cars out of our flywheel out to PSA because it slows down the velocity of money, right?
• 49:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially if you're a reseller, if you have your eBay store, we're creating a new path for liquidation and monetization here, which doesn't exist right now.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that dude, and it's funny.
• 49:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: So back to this whole 90s insert thing what what I did a couple years ago.
• 49:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Carip can junior was always my god.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love them since I was a kid.
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at Jordan's top inserts.
• 50:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I went and got those cards of ripkin.
• 50:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, you know, just as just as an example right now, I just picked up this.
• 50:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a legacy row zero number to a hundred ripkin by the the flare cards.
• 50:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like look at these.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So good on that.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so good, but the here's thing I bought it raw.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I found it raw.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I already own an eight.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I already own a nine.
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm going to go download your app and I'm going to use it to see on this row zero because here's the thing.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to pay.
• 50:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, $200 to grade that card when I can put it in a one touch and have it in my collection and be completely content with it if it's a PC.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a name.
• 50:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's totally totally.
• 50:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love I love it.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for for breaking all that out.
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's super super helpful for the hobby.
• 50:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I look, I think in bestowing people with like the right tools to help them, like on their journey.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've found it helps everyone from people who have no idea what they're doing who never created before to really like high velocity, high end resellers.
• 51:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then kind of everyone in between, I have people who are calling me, who want to build arbitrage funds using this.
• 51:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to go out and source, you know, 5,000 Cooper Flag, you know, top-scrow rookie cards.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to identify the 20 in there, you know, the 20% of those that we think are going to jam.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you flip the rest of them, you know, add costs and market, and then capture the upset.
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you look at the returns on some of these cards, like, if you look at the returns on just to you, but top-space Cooper Flag PSA10, you're talking about like a
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: $3, $5 car versus like a $350 car.
• 51:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that, those are crazy returns, right?
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's really opportunity for everyone in this space and providing these tools, I think, allows people to do different things that they couldn't before.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do current, do you have any any questions thoughts?
• 51:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 51:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just my last question is, if you could change one thing about this industry, what would you change?
• 52:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, just like I was saying with Check AI, I think, you know, the technology right now and the infrastructure that's been developed is there's just such a lack of continuity across it.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And part of it's because the license is in flipping back and forth.
• 52:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been having conversations with a lot of folks.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: who are building, you know, technologies, who are building, you know, supportive services and things like that.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The biggest issue in the space right now is data and private, you know, car data and pricing data is just so unstructured, right?
• 52:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no universal identifier, there's no way to link, you know, sales on eBay or sales on options to a specific card and then you have the nuances of the grading.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if someone was able to figure out and I think it's going to take for collectors universe to get together with bananas and tops to get together with the needy to build this universal structure which is not going to happen.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it creates a lot of friction and a higher barrier to entry for just traditional collectors.
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many people come into the hobby and they're like, I can't figure out the price of this car.
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is this worth?
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know what I'm buying and look for us, those nuances and that education give us sort of
• 53:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: we know how to create value out of it and that's where the hour or the charge comes in.
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's a barrier to entry for a lot of new collectors coming into the space and I see it all the time people like how do I buy?
• 53:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where do I buy?
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I price this?
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's daunting for a lot of people.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's one of the biggest issues that I'm seeing.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you figure that out, all of the downstream systems that are supporting marketplaces and technologies and things like that are going to open up in a really sort of consumer friendly way that we haven't seen before.
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, that's that's huge.
• 53:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're kind of near in our window here, Matt, certainly appreciate you jumping on, man.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a great, I love putting myself around, guys that have been in the hobby longer than me and have educated themselves.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always a benefit.
• 53:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm grateful for your time, and certainly your wisdom.
• 53:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know our listeners are as well.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's our objective with the show, with the podcast, is to bring education and connections to people that normally couldn't have them.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's funny when I saw, yeah,
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we've met before like at the national, maybe when I haven't been at the national win.
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but PC's booth.
• 54:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what I thought.
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, because he told me, you know, who you were, but I didn't put the face with the name.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was good to spend some time with you on the screen and certainly effinatics faster than national this year.
• 54:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It'll be back.
• 54:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look forward to seeing you in person and hanging for a minute.
• 54:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm a card junkie at heart, right?
• 54:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the card dynamic does bring out that childhood thing in us and we get this idea of like, when were kids going out to the stuff we collect?
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm asking you from a PC standpoint, I'm like, is that you currently own the few cards that you just go, man, I love this card.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is one that's just special to me.
• 54:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, everyone has a price, but give me a couple of the top tier ones that just, you're really proud of.
• 54:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you bought the the flares out a lot of cards I've been buying recently in the flares.
• 55:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just got the the horizontal row zero Frank Thomas which the legacy like I something about 90 serial numbers on the back of cards like make me go crazy.
• 55:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
• 55:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're so iconic.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yes, so some of those cards I have a Derek Geter Ultra Medallion card.
• 55:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, platinum Italian card, ultra platinum Italian card that I just picked up.
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even get to tell the story of the storage locker, but go ahead, we got a few minutes.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead, drop it in.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll close with it.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good.
• 55:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 55:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So just quickly a couple months ago, I got a call from a guy mad out in California.
• 55:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, hey, man, he's like, I know you told me you weren't to cards.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you know, this guy who works for me is uncle has this whole storage locker full of cars.
• 55:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you think you could help.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, sure,
• 55:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: like 500 boxes and crates of like one row white boxes and I'm like, oh my god, I was like jackpot.
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like I wanted it.
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, unfortunately the brother was sick and he was just looking to cash it out to pay medical bills.
• 56:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he came up with a number who that he thought and I negotiated and we ended up settling on a number.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But outside on scene came with the bankers check.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I spent the next 48 hours in this locker just going through it.
• 56:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: sorting out all the boxes of wax like we're talking about like you know skybox ex boxes like you know like really really iconic stuff and that was fun putting the boxes aside but when i started going through this the the one row boxes and like going through old packs that he opened mad it was probably some of the most exciting stuff the big hit from the whole find i found a uh
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jerry Rice PMG card.
• 56:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was just kind of sitting on the the top of a flea metal box.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when I opened it, I knew exactly what it was.
• 56:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh my god, this actually was in Santa Anna.
• 56:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I gave it to Sean and I in case breaks did walk through service and ended up getting a PSA eight.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but like those in the tech with the red grain or was it the one with the go is the next year's the next goal of the circles.
• 57:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 57:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it was like, but those cards to me.
• 57:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny that I followed up with me a couple of weeks later, unfortunately his brother passed away.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, Hey, I found a bunch of cards that he had left over, which I think he plucked out of the stores locker, but he ended up sending me a cheater 98 PMG and he ended up sending it in for grading by himself and it got a super low grade.
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, man, I wish I could have taken that and helped him with it.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I am, I may end up buying it from him anyway.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not a big Yankee guy, but I, I love collecting jeter, I love collecting bonds, griffy, and Frank Thomas was my favorite player growing up.
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I've got a ton of stuff.
• 57:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Me too.
• 57:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize that.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you boy, you Frank Thomas boys over here.
• 57:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is all white stuff.
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're watching him.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You said that.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's WGN.
• 57:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: the big the big heart baby I was big I was big big heart back in the day him and Bo Jackson that 91 92 season not I love those days here's a little trout PNG for you is so so good boy it's us and we're gonna wrap up today friends and sports card CEO official not as Matt Spasta founder of Trove at Find Your Trove on Instagram as well as the CEO of check.ai Matt's been great having you on man really appreciate you joining us