alright we are back built for the hobby time with scott locke we are going to be talking about an event enter the inferno that is co hosted by jeremy sports cards live and inferno red technology and it's happening at the national that's what this episode's about we're gonna talk about why it's happening what the event is what what the goal of the event is and that sort of thing but yeah scott we're right around the corner from the national i feel like it was yesterday when we were standing there at the card ladder booth having a conversation and you blink and a year later we're gonna be back so are you are you how are you doing and are you ready for the national grind hey brett definitely ready yeah it does it feels like it was yesterday i'm glad that we had that that impromptu meeting and had a chance to start working together and recording these podcasts i think it's been fun hopefully the listeners and the watchers like enjoy it and they get you know they get something out of it from us but yeah the national we're hosting an event jeremy lee came up with a concept of doing a a pitch event in a style that will seem somewhat familiar if you if you watch tv without you know i don't i don't wanna say those words out loud but the pitch event about the hobby about technology we had we put out a call for a call for participants and we got a great re great response to that and we had a chance to filter that down and meet with people and so we have a good set of participants that will be there at the national live and so saturday we will at three pm we'll be at the main stage i think which is upstairs this year in the national so we're hoping everybody comes and checks it out i have a box of t shirts to give away that look pretty awesome and i'm excited to talk about you know the hobby tech so we've been talking about hobbytech here for almost a year straight and it's awesome to see it come to life on the main stage at the national for anyone who has not seen inferno red or jeremy promoting the event i guess what is you've you've the process has already been started you've been having conversations but i know this is in collaboration with jeremy but like what what is the primary goal of the event like what are you both looking to achieve i think so first of all like it's also i mean the national itself has been amazing to work with and you know they've been very generous with with the concept and giving us the the platform to do this and so you know jeremy and i'm at sports cards lab and in front of red is producing this and the nationals host it's technically hosting it i suppose i'm probably getting those words mixed up but at the end of the day we want the opportunity to give entrepreneurs in the hobby a chance to pitch their ideas one of the things like this is our second biggest what's our biggest industry by client number you know as i've said in the past maybe we work with some of like the the best known brands i'm gonna name them dc sports upper deck comsea ebay golden like we've worked with all of all of these companies and they're you know they're both past and active clients of ours so we're excited about the work that we do and i think that there i i've been in tech and i've looked at the national and i've talked to so many people in the hobby who are have a technical background or they're just to have a great idea but they now obviously with you know the with ai and the barrier to entry for building these things is much lower than it was a couple of years ago so we wanna hear what those concepts are and so that's what we did and we and we heard a a a number of them like dozens of them and we narrowed it down to people who we thought had some great ideas i don't know all the details i know like the the summaries of them so we're trying to keep like it impartial to the judges who will be on the stage which is myself my coworker ed snyder who's a senior software engineer and loves the hobby as a collector jeremy who's the host of sports cards live as you know and then doctor beckett who will be on stage so he's a legend and so that i think that it's a pretty amazing panel to have the opportunity to hear what these ideas are and support support the the growth of of of hobbytech i don't know i feel like i'm trying to like coin that phrase but i think that's yeah yeah i mean i think i i like the idea of like and i've been trying to do this as much as i can referring it to that as as you know hobbytech what can we do so so the tech landscape has always existed at some level in the hobby think the thought of an event like this five years ago would seem almost ridiculous but the the infrastructure around our hobby has grown so rapidly i guess at this point you sit in this intersection of technology and collectibles why do you think the hobby needs an event right now focused on tech entrepreneurs i mean i think i i think there's the opportunity to really take things that would be you know ideas and and you know vibe coded opportunities and help our role in this is to when we're done to provide you know some level of support to the companies that we that we meet through this event and promote the growth of those ideas by you know consulting or developing or coworking with them and giving them a jump start to to what they're what they wanna do at least from the technical perspective as you know software engineering in our years of experience of building platforms and products for companies and i think that there's so many great ideas out there like you said tech has been part part of the hobby for a long time there's a lot of platform companies out there that are building things like you know harvest and you know collector all the like all obviously card ladder who who built the the app for the national itself or at least for luddix yeah so luddix like so there's all these like different companies out there that are doing things like and solving very specific problems which is great but i just feel like with the gate being opened on the technical side for people to get creative with that as we mentioned earlier that low barrier for development i just i think like we should be supporting that as much as we can and we should you know try to find the next the next big thing obviously this event is awesome for hobbytech i have connected and received more emails about someone starting something new and wanting me to check it out and feedback more than ever before and i think this is a really good thing and that that gets me thinking about just overall feedback like so many people in the space are working from home or are on on an island they're using ai to develop kind of their ideas but yeah might not have a place to turn like how do you think about just feedback in general like outside of this event obviously the access to tools is at an all time high more people are building but do you think there's a good place for hobby tech founders to go to access feedback regularly i don't that's a good question i don't know of any single place to go for feedback i mean i think it's one of those things right now where it's like platforms are getting built and pushed out on instagram and tiktok probably primarily you know christopher my son you know he's his presence on instagram and and our you know our card related work we see all of that stuff floating by it's dominated obviously by things like you know fanatics fest and the national and these other events and and just people you know recording content ripping or making deals or showing cards or whatever it is and then then occasionally like a platform will pop in there and i don't know how well that gets received i know it can get caught up in the noise but there's no specific one place i get a lot of the same things that you do somebody's like hey can you check this out i think this event actually has created a funnel for those type of things i don't know maybe we're we're i don't think this will be the last time we do this event we're looking at other depending on how it goes we're looking at doing it at potentially at other places and maybe this is like something that we can turn into you know more of a funnel for for doing these things i mean we have internally we have we have a part of the company called infernal red labs and which is where you know we're considering incubating or working with companies like this when you know frankly they're startups and they're looking at you know how can we how can we get off the ground and get support and we're looking at it like how can we support the hobby how can we help build products that are potentially you know revenue generating at some point because we run a business and you know we still have to pay my team and so on but we wanna find you know nontraditional consulting ways of supporting these things so infernal red labs is one of the ways that we're doing that and yeah we'll see we'll see what happens with the event in terms of who kinda comes away with the with the support but i like that idea like i i i'd love to find a way to funnel and and create some ecosystem where people can get you know i think brutally honest reviews of what they're doing because i think that's that's the most valuable somebody's just like yeah it's a good idea you should do it and like you know because there's like super common ideas like everyone's trying to build like i think three or four things right now so it's like all of the same things and i i won't get into what they are because i i think that it's probably not not for me to say but i i i think if they're when the unique ones pop in and you see them you're like yeah like that's actually pretty cool like i never thought of that having a form to help those people and then also the people who like you don't like don't waste your time or make an adjustment that would make it more accessible or more interesting i think that's the kind of feedback people need so i don't know i like the idea it's a good idea good idea brett but thanks scott and i wanna i wanna kinda dig into what you're looking for just maybe in the event and outside the event but i wanna stick on that that topic for a minute because i'm thinking about this and just for the audience i spent fifteen years in tech before i decided to jump and do stacking slabs you've built your career in tech so there's a a level of experience in working with teams to build product obviously for the majority of our careers we didn't have access to these tools to be able to build on our own usually they were we had teammates who were helping us build and scale and i think there's this is really good and i don't wanna sound make this sound discouraging but there is a lot of exuberance right now with people who have access to these tools but have never built product regularly and i'm seeing the a little bit of a disconnect on how you actually take what you're building which are cool ideas and they look cool but take it over the finish line and have it actually add value there's a lot that goes into it and this goes back to like having access to people with experience on building products like i don't what i don't want is i don't want people to be building a bunch of cool things that just are cool things and never have true application because they didn't have the right voices or they didn't have the right environment to succeed that's just something i'm thinking about right now so i don't know like is there do you think there's growth in hobby tech right now to have i don't wanna say some sort of advisors or some sort of company or some sort of enablement structure to make sure that these tools that people are building actually get into the marketplace and actually solve real problems for the hobby that that truly matter so alright there's a lot to unpack there but i think like i think my personal opinion having you know i don't wanna be i've said this to you before like i don't wanna be a podcast ceo when it comes to ai and these tools like i'm very much my background is software engineering i did it for a long time and then and then we built infernal right into the amazing company that it is doing exactly what you said which is working with companies to get their products to market and use senior level engineering to do that and now the what you described were like people building and and then getting over the hump like that what we found you know there was this super concern and i mean it's still a concern but there's like that ai is gonna replace all the engineering jobs that hasn't happened and it still could happen i mean obviously like the the the innovation and improvement on the models and for software engineering specifically is like exponential and so if you're really close to the fire as i've said like you're paying the attention so that that where is where our services come in to play to help companies do that so that's what that's our market and our niche niche niche but this question you the other point you made about like making sure they add value to the hobby i find like this is an interesting dilemma because i feel like there's different levels to what this can be if you're an entrepreneur or you're just somebody who likes to build things so i would encourage people like if you have a personal concept or idea that it's like these just you would be good for you the the barrier to build that was always like well i don't know how to program and it would cost money to bring in somebody and like i just there's no like there's no way to get around that obviously like everyone knows that at this point like that barrier is pretty much gone like so you don't have to be a software developer you can use replit and lovable and other platforms to build mobile web whatever it is you know cloud open ai whatever like you there's all there's seven there's a dozen tools like it doesn't matter and you can build something for yourself and that's completely fine like if you build if you're like hey i really want this thing that like captures my collection and then you know maybe pull some comps and like i don't really need to sell it i'm not trying to build a platform for it i just want a tool for myself and like i want it to be on my phone so i want them at the national it just works like build that like you should do that like and maybe you fall into an idea that's like broader and then for everyone else who's the entrepreneurial spirit that wants to build a business around something do that too and i mean that's a little bit more of a of a challenge in terms of just like scale and security and size and and what the concept of getting something go to market actually means there's a lot to it but there's i feel like the that personal barrier is gone so you and i really think like when you start using these tools and you start to realize what you can do and you and i were talking about this earlier like it is a very personal experience like you're you can build this and make it your own and that's fine and then if you wanna build a business like then you can do that too and you you can leverage that same thing it's just there's just a heavier lift the biggest risk to the the company side is the innovation is moving so fast on the ai side and as we just kinda joked everyone's kinda building the same thing there are some real race to zero scenarios where you can do it and then like you'll make no money because somebody will come right behind you and either build a better mouse trap or the tech companies will you know create a feature that does it like there's just even if you even if you make it hobby specific so i don't know i feel like that's that's incredibly difficult to find that thing that is the thing but but i encourage like everyone should be building something if you're if you're into it so so you have already for enter the inferno you've already had access to people sharing their ideas and i'm sure people hit you up on linkedin or ad events all the time pitching you stuff based on them understanding the role you play in hobby tech when you hear a product pitch what are you listening for first that's a great so like the first thing i just wanna hear like what is the what problem does this solve or like what is if it's not solving a problem like what experience is this creating right like what like there's so many like everyone's like trying to solve a problem for the hobby but then there's like some of these ideas that came through where you're like it just sounds like a cool fun thing to do that i didn't even know i needed right like i can't tell you what they are like but there's a there's a few that we're gonna see that you're just kinda like i didn't even think that that was like i needed that but that actually might be something that's cool like those are the ones that surprise you and you know you're not like it's not a collection you know thing it's not like trying to get values and comps and like manage my sales like oh like that's what i was talking about you know in terms of like some of them that are are just there are just so many people like instantly everyone wanted to solve that same problem and i think i actually talked to to chris about this on your i don't know we weren't actually on a podcast i just talked to chris from stacking or from card ladder and we're joking about that it's like yeah this proliferation of of i'm like card ladder already exists everybody yeah like so they have yeah how many clones or whatever and they're trying to like add features or but whatever that's fine like i think people should build like just go build stuff and if you know see what sticks and what doesn't but but for me when we're looking and we're talking to these comp well these these people that have either companies or starting companies that's what i'm looking for like i just think because like i said like we've seen so many different solutions to very common problems like when something unique comes along it's just like that's cool like let's build that like i don't know like see if it works and don't be afraid to fail like completely you know try fail move on do the next thing like that's that's what you that's the hard part of being an entrepreneur but like if you if you can get past failure and accept it and then learn from it like you're gonna you're gonna be fine so so i've i've i've built over the history of of my career i've built a few tech side projects that were cool because i was building something in tech but literally nobody used they just like died on the vine and stacking slabs is like the first thing i've built that people actually use and it's non tech which is a bit ironic but i think the thing i think about is just like demand when you're spending all this time building something like you better you could do it for fun and sure that's great but like if you're trying to build a business like there needs to be demand so i guess when you're evaluating these ideas what makes you believe that the idea that is being presented will likely have real demand in the marketplace i'm i mean i mean just from experience i think of like the cool thing about our company and and i hopefully i mean i'm humbly say for myself is i feel like you know we are have expertise in the hobby itself we are collectors you know we are users of all of these tech we've built some of this tech but at the end of the day like you know i'm i'm collecting and my son and i are buying and selling and so you know we're looking at it from both angles like and and myself and ed snyder and a few other people in the in our company have that expertise so when you pair that up with you know just the general technical knowledge and experience we have from working with some of the companies i think that gives us this kind of vision perspective of like okay is that a cool thing for the hobby itself because we know it so well and we kinda we know you know the like the the hobby spectrum is like such an amazing concept that that jeremy lee came up with because it really kind of like lays out and puts on paper for lack of better term like puts a visual to where people are on the collectors in the hobby whether you know you're a pure collector or you're a tycoon and you flip and so if you kinda use that as that that spectrum as the measure and you use that lens and look at the things that you're seeing from the participants or from those people that reach out to you i think that gives us the unique perspective that we need to be able to to kinda make a a an educated guess on what's gonna work and what's not gonna work you know i think about it every single day like i mean literally like even for myself i'm like you know christopher went to fanatics fest with some partners and friends of his and like you know walking that floor and like what could he have done or had with him that maybe makes it easier like how could we manage our side business better like you know there's just so many like things that i think about related to business and the hobby you know i i wish i had more time myself like okay wasn't like like i wasn't like so focused on like building inferno res business so tell tell me about it story of my life i think there we we've talked about this fact and i don't want you to give any spoilers about the event because we're gonna we're we we want to encourage everyone who is listening to and if you're going to the national so you're listening box checked going to the national box checked we encourage you to go to enter the inferno be a part of the crowd see this in action so we don't wanna i don't wanna present any spoilers here about the ideas that will be on stage but i am curious as someone we we we alluded to the fact that it feels like a lot of people are building the same thing like what is something hobby related maybe that has entered your hemisphere or ideas that you have that if it is being talked about as something that someone is building or and i problem that's looking to be solved like what what gets your attention right now like what is something that will like the record will will scratch and you're like okay let's cancel this meeting let me sit and have a conversation about this what are those types of things right now man like i said i think you know the utility the hobby tech utility market right in terms of apps and services i think it's wide open for people to build something but i also think like to me like while that may be an area for business opportunity and i think it's very it's a competitive area like there's a lot of people trying to do a lot of things i think the the collector engagement market i mean i correlate that to like the fan engagement market you know in terms of like ours our actual biggest client space is sports tech and we work with one of the largest leagues in in the world where there's a basket and a hoop and you know when when you're working with the the leagues and the teams like fan engagement is so important right it's like how do you how can you create experiences that promote the the sport promote the athletes promote the the product on on the court on the field on the ice whatever it might be and like how do you pull in fans that are outside of the arenas and like that that multi use space and like there's all these there's all this like energy money tech non tech put into that and then i feel like that correlates directly to the hobby for me personally like when i'm eventually done with technology as a primary business and i'm working with my son full time like the no i'm not shy about that as like that is my dream to do before i like get too old to do anything and he doesn't wanna do it with me so that but that engagement that experience like the family engagement the crossover when you're in a shop and you see like you see a a father and a son or a daughter or a mother and they're together and they're like they're coming in they're so excited to open that pack or like whether and then whether it's you know you know tcg or sports whatever it might be obviously like pokemon is massive so like i just feel like the opportunity to do things that bring in the collector and the engagement and the collector engagement that crosses over with the products and like like fanatics fest itself obviously like is supposed to be like a you know the comic con the you know festival style not festival's the wrong term like the i don't know i forget what they they build it specifically as but like you know it's it mixes all those things together which i think is cool i didn't go this year i heard i mean i heard it was awesome her is massive and even the card element to it i i was i went to the first year and i haven't i'd love to see you know year one to year three i just didn't have an opportunity time to go but like at the national like it's so focused on the card side of the world and in the media side with the autograph pavilions and the breaker side so that's like a full you know card and a hobby focused event without you know the things on the edge and that media are not like part of the celebration of it it's just part of the experience of it but i think that's the thing that gets me excited and if i was you know trying to create concepts around like that's my goal that's what i'm going to do eventually when we when we have time but that's the part that gets me excited about you know the the ideas of of building and creating new things in the hobby i think that answered your question i don't know if that was no no it it did i actually just i i love it how it's focused on the collector i think we meaning us in the industry and the hobby should never lose sight of building for the collector and we shouldn't take the collector for granted the collector is the foundation if the collector doesn't exist everything crumbles so i like your perspective there i wanna spend a a moment talking about a pitch because we've all been a part of good pitches we've all been a part of bad pitches you are going to see some pitches at enter the inferno and i think communication is always very very important like whatever you have whatever idea you have whatever flashy features and functionality that can solve the biggest problem ever it's always good but like it falls flat if the communication around what you're doing who you are what you're building problem you're solving is bad so let's talk about just like your expectations with a pitch like what from a communications perspective like what makes a good pitch for you i mean for me i i feel like i i follow the founder led investor perspective right meaning like if i was investing in a a startup or a concept i i wanna see the person i wanna i wanna feel the energy from that person behind the concept i mean even if it's like not if even if i personally don't think it's the best concept if the energy and the passion is there from the founder like that's where you're really making the investment right like because you need somebody you know there's the old saying of like nobody will work harder on your business than you as a as a cofounder i know that my two business partners like at the end of the day like we have an amazing team but like we we took all the risk and we still own all the risk and we work hard to to reduce that and so if you're lit you're hearing a pitch i want i wanna see that in the founder and in the concept the concept itself obviously if you get those two things right if you have a strong founder a strong communication be able to to share like what that passion is for the thing that you wanna do that's what drives me like you could have like the best i don't know slide deck demo proof of concept whatever but if i don't think you're genuine and you're passionate about it like it's gonna be very hard to get me to to buy in i wanna i wanna talk about the technical and the nontechnical component to a pitch when i think about the hobby as an industry my impression is that it is the audience as a whole is low tech and i don't mean that that doesn't mean we use apps no no no yeah yeah yeah i mean it's non developer right like that's like that's the way that like so right and which is this is where like everything's kinda shifted right like the non developer now has the ability to use ai tools to to become or supplement a developer like they're not gonna they don't necessarily become a developer right like they ai still is is their development platform but they're they're they're now like the project manager the business stakeholder like the concept person and they can if they can actually you fundamentally use these tools then they get empowered to to be that product owner and bring it to life and they don't even have to know the tech so this is where it gets like you know a little bit geeky is like if you're if you're a software engineering company like we are like we're looking for like high quality time to market scale security test like the whole like that traditional perspective of what soft like shipping a product requires from a technical perspective hasn't changed we are just much faster at doing it and so the judgment element and there's all different levels you can go to like there's still hands on coding where you feel like you wanna be able to do it that's kind of almost diminished to nothing but then there's like full of gentech and your multi agents but you're still a human in the loop to be able to because ai is not perfect like it makes a lot of mistakes and and you know that's the that's the one thing where like people just assume that it's infallible and it's just like it's magic but it's it's not yet magic it's not full like you know agi magic yet like it's really good and it's amazing at like almost everything from a programming perspective but you you know we still need you still need humans in the loop to be able to to look at plans and and add your judgment and be able to to orchestrate and steer the ai to do what you need to do for professional level software engineering and shipping products in the hobby the same people that i just described like they good enough is good enough right like i think that the outcome is what they're looking for and they don't have to know they never even have to look at the code they never have to look at the underlying tech to build something that works and may feel and look and is real you know there's there's like a mid level amount of technology experience you you need to like i think to ship but if you're pretty crafty with these tools like you ai will guide you all the way so it that that part is like that's the i mean revolutionary tsunami that we're living in where that power didn't exist before right and you were like i said so you know i think i think that that's that's the opportunity and good enough might be what gets somebody over the hump and in a pitch i i in a pitch it depends right like if it's a if it's something where i think it's like this is an incredible business opportunity or like i just think it's a really cool idea that might not even be a business and they should build like i don't know i don't know where they're gonna fall in in like the the order of like selection you know but i don't know that's a long very long winded answer of to to your question but i it's i think that's really kinda like the opportunities there yeah the thing i always think about when building for me in order for it to pass the first step of qualification criteria it needs to solve an actual problem and i think there are a lot of people building stuff because they see activity or they're interested or things might look cool and might need to take a step back and say does this actually solve a problem so i guess that's weird i well it's not weird i mean i think that's the like that is the natural reaction or the natural the natural perspective when you're talking about building something right you're like why am i building this what problem is it solving like that's a business that's that's your fifteen years of like project management business coming through but i also think that there's there's the i there's a lot especially in the hobbies and entertainment in a in a an engagement industry right like you we just said like if there's no sports there's no sports collectibles if there's no entertainment there's no you know entertainment autographs and products and so on and so forth but it's engagement at the personal level and there's just some things that are not a problem right like you can create something that doesn't solve a problem but actually creates an experience and like that's the part i'm saying like they they like creating something that is an engagement experience whether it's a game or you know something like a a mission based thing or gamification of like something in the hobby like there's just like these these these concepts that like i think are wildly interesting and the barrier to build them is almost gone and that to me is like that's where it's like because man like you said like how many different ways can we pull comps like it's like or how many different ways can you try to like use ai to you know to take a picture of a card and identify it like it's like wow you know like what i don't know like i i just feel like those problems are not interesting and they're being solved by like ebay and like those companies like where they have multimillion dollar budgets to knock those things out with like you know data scientists who can figure out complex problems but like do something that's like entertainment driven i don't know that's the part that like i think is cool this is what i wanna get your feedback on because i think about this all the time where right now actively and you and inferno red are helping contribute to this but the the infrastructure around the sports card industry is forming and i think it is it it's it's way better than it was when we saw each other last year at the national it's ten times better than three years ago maybe even more so the infrastructure is forming it's maturing new ideas are coming in i guess where i'm going is where do you think what's the balance between building to contribute to the growing infrastructure that's going to make this industry more sustainable versus building for some customer feature or some cool idea that someone wakes up one morning and says i'm gonna go to claude and and try to try to crank this out like what's the balance between those two worlds in terms of building right now in the hobby i mean i think like the traditional business model like like you said solve a problem create a product that somebody will subscribe to or buy or what have you is still there obviously like and you know the infrastructure as you call it like to support that is not you know it it's just built on top of every other type of you know industry you know products path you know concept design build ship market all that stuff like did did that already exist like you're just tapping into like known known commodities and known services and and you know best practices i think the second part of what you said doesn't exist and i i don't think it's as mature as maybe you you kind of alluding to i think that's not a real opportunity and i feel like this event the end of the inferno event is like unexpectedly and and like jeremy gets all the credit in the world for this like is this opportunity for us to kinda start that discussion and like maybe see where this goes and see if there's something that we can do together you know proactively as a as a comp as a company as a as a community to support you know these entrepreneurs and have it be you know steered and focused towards what matters to people in the hobby instead of like trying to like build on top of some generic you know business model that's kinda been there done that and and successful right i'm not discouraging people from doing those things but i think there's a there's an opportunity to to try something new where do you see and we we've mentioned a few times like we don't need something to check comps we already have that or we've got ten things that can help us do that where do you see from your seat kind of the biggest gaps right now in hobby technology today i feel like that's a that's a that's a setup and loaded question brad right that's what we do around here so if you know again i i still i feel pretty strongly number one like the engagement is like the there's a huge opportunity there and doing things that are are are not so utility driven like comps and the way we just discussed i think that's that's an open market and you know it happens like you just said at the grand level of like the national and fanatics and card shows and things like that so i think there's opportunity there you know i don't know if there's like some magic bullet platform or app or what have you that will transform the hobby you know i think people it's funny i think people and chris and i actually talked about this too like people they have these ideas of like trying to create some sort of like trading platform or like analytics that like tries to like literally treat cards like commodities in the sense of the market and be able like and that's and analytics and all those things exist already i mean alton some of these other companies have created analytic you know style platforms i mean card ladder itself built in the the market i think what is what's the number now like some stupid hundred i can't even keep track at this point you've been you i've been following you when you put when you put those out but you know so i think like that's something that people are chasing like because they're trying to you know and i don't and i don't fault like you said like there's the pure collectors and like that's the foundation but there's absolutely opportunity for people to to use collectibles as a an asset class and and you know buy sell trade i mean that's it's it's such a weird thing it's like that is if you buy and sell trade stocks like you're like i don't you don't get crazy excited because you're like oh my god i had i had forty shares on microsoft stock like it was amazing like did you see like the symbol it's like no but like when people are like oh my god i had the one of one local man of you know pick your player and like that card was beautiful the design was amazing and then they're like yeah and i flipped it and made like two grand right and like so like they they get the joy of the ownership of the asset and the and like art right like a picture or something that you enjoy for a while like and people compare it to art all the time and they're like i had this conversation like the other day like like i don't get it like it's cardboard it's cards like it's why why why is it even a thing like and you're like do you appreciate like an artist picture or a print you don't and they're like well yeah but that's art i'm like okay but they somebody designed it you you don't usually own the first of the kind like you have a reprint of it or you have some copy of it like the i forget what they call it like the the pure like the the actual pieces but at the end of the day like all of those things move and sell you paid something to have it like and you might sell that picture some other time and i don't know i'm like i feel like cards like if you if you would look at and this is the thing you in the shops and i find it fascinating when people are like oh my god like the design is amazing like look how pretty that card is like how sweet that looks and you're looking and some people are like i don't see it and then other people are like and then like in the same day of the you know visceral reaction to things they don't like they're like why what was the product i don't wanna slam any products from from tops or anybody but there was like one of them that like the number of parallels was insane maybe it's actually a world cup because panini like the world cup product like there's five hundred car base set and the number of parallels is like a hundred and something and then like so we're trying to figure out how many one zero one messi's there are and it's like there's like thirty of them or something stupid like i it was like we're so then like the sheer size of the product and you know in that case probably like the money grab is high but but we're still ripping them go to target find as many hobby boxes as we can or find as many blasters and pull you know either rip or sell i don't know world cup's over but it's still i don't know i never watched so much football soccer in my life yeah i mean i was in new york this weekend my flight got delayed so i was there an extra night and the eve of the world cup and just walking down midtown it was just blocks and blocks of fans of argentina and fans of spain chanting i felt like i was in europe or south america and certainly not new york city so it did it came and went and was certainly entertaining and i think will elevate soccer cards a little bit i wanna maybe get to back to the event enter the inferno there are going to be you said three there'll be three tech founders right i think there's i don't i think there might be a couple more than that i don't know the exact number off the top of my head i said so three pm on saturday main stage at the national that's the time enter the inferno that's the event yeah so we'll have a group of people pitching their ideas we're gonna have the panel myself jeremy lee ed snyder from inferno rad and then doctor beckett who needs no introduction and we're gonna hear the pitches and then decide who who gets the support and investment and and we're trying to you know shine away from like there being like a winner per se because i think that we're gonna find a way to support everybody if or you know at different levels for sure and inferno red will our our i thought is like with inferno red labs that we can offer support and and technical guidance to to the to the teams that pitch depending and it's gonna be awesome this is the first time that we've ever done something like this ourselves and again kudos to jeremy for coming up with the idea in the in the sense of like the hobby at the national pulling this all together and there's a lot of work that goes in behind it like i don't i've never had to do this but aaron grace who is our chief marketing officer has been working very closely with the national and like you have to run a show man this is like there's like stage setup there's prep there's like showrunner like it is a legitimate produced professional event so it's not gonna be like i what i'm really excited is it's not gonna be like four people sitting up on stage like talking to people like it is it is a well choreographed and a professional professionally produced event so we're hoping that yeah hoping that it comes off amazing and and i have a box of t shirts man with the people love shirts so come to the event come hang out in the audience and we'll have shirts for you i want to maybe give an advantage to maybe one of those tech cofounders who is is so tuned in and they're listening to stacking slabs and they they're hearing one of the judges talk and then very important they know who they are the yes so like here's the here's the the pep talk or the before the event what it what advice do you give to these individuals that will be on stage and you can talk about the way they deliver communication you can talk about what they're building you can talk about go to market strategy whatever like what would you say if you had five minutes with them right now like what advice would you give them before they stepped on stage i think it's like i said earlier like what i look for i mean i think they'd you know be passionate about your idea be confident in the concept like really have it you know buttoned down on on what it is that you're doing and how to present you have a limited amount of time so like having the capability and the presence to be able to present quickly get your concept and your idea across and then just be genuine right be as genuine as you possibly can be we understand like that these are concepts so you know you're not coming with you know this isn't where we're like looking at investing and you have to have revenue and clients and customers or or even a base of of users that's not what this is so the the idea of being a passionate founder is the thing that i look for the most and i i mean that's what i would tell each one of them prior to the event for sure that's awesome feedback and as we kinda close this out you think about the next five years of tech like where do you see it going what needs to be built in the hobby specifically not just tech as a broad stroke yeah but in the hobby like next five years like obviously an event like this has never existed at the national so it's setting the stage for something pretty cool in the sports cloud space like how do you see this shaken out over the next five years oh man that this is such a wide window like i i can't like the thing is like ai is such a proliferating of in event in the the world literally like people i think people undersell it and they look at like if you're not ai is affecting everybody everywhere at the same time and i think it's not an understatement people think it's like you're wow like okay but no i don't think it's an understatement to say that this is the most important and the most disruptive event in the history of the planet because the impact that ai will have not only just on the hobby but like on everyday life you know from now and people joke about the robots coming i'm like that is an industry and a thing that's happening like you just have to go to ces and like look at what musk is doing in x spacex and you know i think when when ai can build ai and you know robots can build factories of robots like these things sound like sound like they're they're you know science fiction but it's not like and it's happening and it's this exponential step and that's the part which is always exciting and terrifying at the same time because the impact on what it happens to just industries and and daily life and like education and health care and like there's there's there i saw this thing and i know this is non hobby specific so i apologize for the soapbox but i saw this thing recently where it was like you know when when the cotton gin or cotton gin when the when when the industrial revolution happened like there were areas of the industries that got improved and automated and then had time to actually move through and people could learn and adjust and it was like one thing happened and so like if you invested money you know ten years ago to improve you know rocket science like rockets became better but the thing with ai is that everything is getting better all at the same time and so rockets medical educate like everything improves and investment happens and innovation happens to everything all at once and that is like mind blowing if you actually stop and think about it but that's actually what's happening and like people i feel like they underestimate and they undersell the impact that this is gonna have now in the hobby the one cool thing i would say that we have that ai can't change is we have the physical nature of collectibles and like that you know anything that's like physical specifically like even my son i'm like he's going to college and i'm like dude go into a hot go in not a hobby go into an industry where it's like hands on people like go into health services go into something that requires human interaction with humans because that is not replaceable and i think that's the cool thing about the hobby like all of this technical wave that's happening yes it's gonna change you know how cards are comped the marketplaces like how people share but at the end of the day yes there's digital collectibles and those are important and people live in that space but the human connection of like a jersey that was worn or a patch that you can see or an autograph i mean think about it like there's tons of like fake autographs and sent i say fake as in just like print it but when people see like their player or their favorite athlete who's had the card in their hand and signed it like it has value to them not just monetarily but like they you know that person they have a connection to that person like that can't be replaced in my opinion by technology and and especially ai so i'm i'm pretty excited about the hobby being able to continue and find new ways to create that connection with you know human to human connection now i understand like human to pokemon is not the same thing and like the enjoyment comes from the collectibles and and the entertainment experience or the gaming itself that's a little bit different but i don't know man that's my soapbox i'm i don't know what else to do about it or other than you know ride the wave and and stay connected to humans that's what i'm gonna do everybody listening attending the national saturday at three o'clock enter the inferno be there mainstage mainstage look at this there's no no side stage this is the main freaking stage integral enter the inferno the the right now we're a one of one never been done before at the national first time it's funny i was looking at the the the athletes for the the tristar signing autograph pavilion and i like when they show the athletes and they put like in the corner first national appearance like this is not our first time at the national but you know jeremy lee sports car lives infernal red technology first time at the national on stage it's gonna be awesome man i'm very excited this is great for hobbytech scott always good catching up looking forward to catching up in person here in a week and appreciate all the listeners for checking this out alright man thank you appreciate it brett as always