We are back with another episode of Built for the Hobby with Inferno Red Technology. I'm joined again with Scott Locke, CEO at Inferno Red Technology.

This is going to be a fun conversation. Last time, we dug into why tech matters in the hobby, and we are going to be talking about how tech can make collecting better for people in the hobby.

We're gonna get into a lot of that conversation. But, Scott, we got a chance to catch up a little bit, and, I was up late last night.

I didn't stay up for the whole West Coast game, but I was up watching the Pacers lose in double overtime to the Thunder. And just a reminder, the NBA is, back, and, it's nice to have games to watch, all the time.

But I have to, like, mentally tell myself, it's a little different from football. I shouldn't be so emotionally invested on each and every game. You can lose one out of the gates and, be okay.

But I know you've been, watching some games. Are you pumped? Hoops is back? Oh, man. Yeah. No. Basketball is massive in my house. Like, it is as you know, and we talked about, many times, like yeah.

It's too much, though. Like, I can't like, the thing with football, it's, like, Sunday, maybe watch Thursday, and then, you know, that weird time of the season when they start showing Saturday games and when it's not even the playoffs.

And then there's, I guess, like, football's, you know, Monday night too. But, like, there's one game. Like, basketball, there's basketball on every single night. And so I'm with you, man.

The West Coast games, I'm on the East Coast as well. And when the, the West Coast games go till 01:00 in the morning, but I feel guilty because I'm like, my son and I, like, watch basketball together, games last night.

I didn't actually stay up for the West Coast game, and it was incredible.

Aaron Gordon dropping 50, Steph doing what Steph does. He was like six for seven or something or six for eight, maybe Maybe he's, like, six for 12. I don't know. But he's still hitting 35 foot bombs, 60% overtime.

I love basketball. I have the unfortunate pleasure of being a Wizards fan. So we've only won, like, 31 games in two years. It's rebuilding year, Brett. Rebuilding. It's feels like they're always rebuilding something.

I mean, they rebuilt the arena, so that's good. Like, you know, things are things are getting torn down all over the place in DC. So, like, why not, you know, why not, do that with the Wizards?

But, yeah, I don't know. I'm definitely gonna go to some games. And it's fun to see, you know, to be there and and and this the NBA is very special. So it is special. I love basketball.

I'm glad it's back, and, I'm I'm sure, we'll be, going to some games myself. I thought for this episode, it would be interesting to look at technology from the perspective as you and your team are builders of tech in the hobby.

I think what a lot of people hear about tech, they think about automation, and it feels very cold to people implementing tech, maybe less personal.

And I think about, like, that perception, and then I think about how our hobby runs. And so much of it is built on kinda narrative stories and relationship. And I'm a I'm a tech guy. I've shared that, and I'm a big believer in tech.

But, like, that contrast, like, how do you how do you view that contrast in terms of, like, the building of relationships and the way the hobby runs from a a person to person perspective, and the perception, I guess, of just tech in general.

And I know you, because you're working on it, view it a little bit differently. But I thought, like, just that contrast might be a a fun way to open up this conversation. Yeah. I mean, especially today. Right?

With, you know, the, this AI revolution that we're in, in this point in time, I just had a conversation with, with one of our engineers who's an expert in AI as an example, and we're talking about, you know, this is and from a tech perspective, this is the most impactful time probably since the microprocessor.

Like, you know, we're, you know, not even counting, like, the Internet.

And then after that is, you know, mobile and the experience there and then so on. But, you know, what we're what's happening in the, the technology industry around AI, is incredible.

Like, it's an incredible thing to see and be part of. And that to the rest of the world can feel very cold. Right? I mean, it's like autonomous machines artificial intelligence, and robots.

Right? Like, there's nothing human about that. And so, you know, there's this there's this kind of, pushback on it because it's, you know, it's it's somewhat intimidating and threatening.

And and, depending on what industry you're in or what you do, it can be empowering if, you know, you use it in ways that improve your life.

You know, if you're you're using, AI for things like efficiency type of plays. But, you know, technology in general shouldn't be like that.

It shouldn't be something that, creates anxiety or fear. And but sometimes it can. And in our space and in in the hobby, at least, you know, when we're working on those types of projects, like, that to me is not a great experience.

Technology should complement the very human and emotional aspect of collecting and sports and gaming or whatever your whatever it is that you're collecting.

And, you know, obviously, we're talking about basketball last night, and it's like, I forget one of the players. One of the players from, to from the Pacers, actually, who's playing because Haliburton's out.

He's getting time. I forget his name. Oh my god. I forget his name. Ben Sheppard? Yes. Yes. So Shepherd's playing, and and I'm watching him play. And he and I think he had, like, twenties plus points last night.

He had a game. He fouled out. Right? One of the three players who fouled out, you know, almost didn't have a a lineup. But Christopher and I immediately were like, invest.

Right? Invest. And so we look and we're like, oh, man. Like, the Internet's already found them. Right? The price is, like, in the last, probably from game one to game two, like, just spiked.

And he says, dad, it's too late. Like, how quickly we move. You know, but there's a there's just, like, this emotional tie to it. And and sports does that and collecting sports memorabilia and sports cards.

You know, that all should be part of it. So yeah. And and tech should compliment that in my opinion. It it feels like, you know, this hobby is huge, and I think a lot of us, individuals in this space always seek, community.

We wanna find groups. We wanna find, people who who we can interact with. And I think you layer in technology to that desire, and it had me thinking of this question.

And this question I wanna present back to you, but it's what if technology actually made the hobby feel smaller and more personal and more connected?

You know, as I I share that question out, and there's a lot of different ways to, I I think, take it.

Like, do you think tech is capable of of making this happen in a authentic way? Like, is is this already happening? How do you view kinda your response to that general question about just tech and making the hobby feel smaller?

I don't know that the hobby has a problem of feeling too big, actually. I feel like for most people, you know, most people aren't going to the national or they're they're not, you know, attending really large events.

Maybe they go to a CSA show or they go to, like, Burbank or something like that depending where they live. But they're generally going to their hobby shop.

Right? Their their local card shop, which is, you know, have I think have seen a pretty decent revival in the last, you know, decade from before COVID to now. And so it feels I think it feels actually pretty small to them already.

Like, they're they're meeting that person behind the counter. They're having that one on one experience. They're buying some product. Maybe they open it there. Maybe they go to a trade night at that local shop.

That feels very small. Right? If you go to the national, you know, then you're like, oh my gosh. Like, look how this is insane. Like, how many people are here? You go to their trade night, and it's like you can't get in.

And, you know, and then maybe if you're extending it through to, like, to breaking and, and I would even say, like, even in the breaking side, it's like it feels that you're usually just, like, one or two breakers and it's just, like, 30 people in a room.

So I don't I'm not sure that it's the the technology needs to make it feel smaller, in my opinion.

I do think, though, that in those situations, that technology we have the opportunity to create experiences that make the hobby a lot more engaging, a lot more frictionless when it comes to doing things like you said that, are interesting to those groups.

Like, so building sets or researching a card. We recently had a, friend of ours give us a binder of Pokemon cards that were her daughters. And I know nothing. Right? Like, I'm flipping through it.

I'm like, well, there's a bunch of energy and, like, nothing else. And Christopher and Morgan, my son, Morgan, younger son, they look at it, and Chris was like, oh, well, these hollows are actually pretty rare.

And so like they're looking in on their phone and they're using card ladder and using eBay and they're like, you know, doing some quick search a little bit, Google a little bit chat GPT.

And like, there's this, like, they're just, you know, moving through the tools to understand and do the research and do the pricing and understand if they have something. And then all of a sudden, they're like, oh, wait wait a minute.

They flip one of the cards over and it's, like, severely miscut. Like, looks like somebody chopped it, but that's not what happened. And they call a friend, and the next thing you know, it's like, hey.

Do you see a do you see an alignment dot in the corner? Well, yes. We do. That adds, like, 30% to the value of that card. And now this girl who's, you know, in college or off to college, you didn't think about these cards at all.

Like, the card's probably worth, like, I think we guessed, we're gonna get it graded for her, through SGC, and it's gonna be, you know, $250 Pokemon card.

So, like, from a binder in her in her dresser that she hasn't thought about in, you know, ten years. So, you know, those those are not necessarily fully baked out apps, like, maybe card ladder, obviously, but in eBay.

But, like, they they put all those little pieces of tech together, and they were able to discover something and and make sure they qualified it and so on and so forth.

They would that'd be much harder to do years ago before these things were built. Right? Like, you were how would you even do that?

Like, you would just you'd have to, like, go to a shop or talk to somebody who knew, pick up a Beckett magazine or some TGC. I don't even ask for Pokemon. I'm not an expert, so I don't even know where you'd find those things.

So, you know, it's made I think it's technology can make data experience much more accessible, and I mean experience of, like, people other people in the hobby and, you know, decades of collecting and put that at the fingertips of people who are just starting or who are, you know, looking for something.

And that that's game changing. They don't think of it that way. Right? I'm sure, like, my kids that weren't thinking of it that way, but it was kind of fun just to sit there and be like, you know what?

Like, ten years ago, you couldn't have even done what you just did. Like, maybe fifteen years ago. Is is ink I I love the example, and it's clear in my mind.

Is there a contrast to, like, that example where maybe a company is rushing to digitize something and then automate something, and they're not even thinking clearly about, like, that end experience where then the technology is just overriding the ultimate experience, and it just leaves kinda users feel feeling kind of like, what is this?

I'm I'm I'm unable to connect with that. Is is there, like, a contrast to that example that you just shared?

You mean in the hobby specifically? Or, I think we were just doing something yesterday where I don't it wasn't even necessarily the hobby related where I had to, like, what was I doing?

I had to, like, acknowledge something, click something, acknowledge it again, come back. Like, it could be for it should be fairly frictionless to, to do things like research and purchase or buy.

You know, live selling is a big deal in our space right now, and, like, that is, like it's actually incredibly easy to do in a both good and bad way.

Like, it's too easy to, like, to, to buy something, like, on whatnot or or, you know, eBay or whatever, and you're like, like, I don't even have to check out.

Like, every single thing's online for me. Like, they make it completely seamless. But I can't think of anything specifically that's, like, that's difficult to use.

I think, like, I said this before in a in another conversation that, you know, the race to, to capture images and use AI to identify cards in apps, is has been something where, like, that just isn't easy to do technically, and the the experience is very, very frustrating, as an end user when it doesn't work because, you you know, you know, like, I can search for this in, like, five seconds, ten seconds in card letter and find it and pull it up.

But if I'm, like, stopping, taking a picture, dealing with the first response, it's not right. It's started off. And you're and, you know, you're just like, this isn't this isn't working.

That's probably I that's my kinda go to, example of, like, something that I feel like is, not worth this you know, the the not worth the squeeze, and the experience can be extremely frustrating as a user.

Yeah. Those are that's probably my biggest example.

Help us maybe, a lot like you mentioned live selling, and I think that's a pretty great example in terms of not only, like, macro trend in retail, but, like, specifically the hobby that involves, I don't even know the method to the madness on creating live selling platforms from a tech perspective.

But I would imagine it takes a lot of energy, and resources to make that happen.

But the end result, right, is you're building something that creates a really strong connection between the individual collector or user and the brands that are either breaking or selling hobby shops, whatever it is.

And to me, that just seems like the shining star example of right now in terms of, like, what is possible when it comes to technology and building connection between kind of user our user our brand and customer.

Maybe dig I'd love to get maybe your perspective just a little bit further on just live selling and just what what you have seen, as you've analyzed platforms like Whatnot or eBay Live and and maybe just anything on the the technical side that you think people, should be, aware of or know about?

I mean, I think, like, live selling is clearly the way that, that breaking, in in the form that it's currently in, is having success.

I think whatnot, controversy aside of, like, content and things like that, all of these platforms generally have, like, a few things in common.

Right? You easy, ability the ability to purchase product easy, from a selection all the way through to checkout, then the experience of the actual stream and the rep, seeing the cards, the integrity of the breaks.

Like, people aren't thinking about that anymore, but, you know, there's a there's plenty of examples out there on YouTube of, you know, breakers, like, trying to slide cards off off screen.

So there's a lot of energy been put into, like, multi camera views and and and so on. And then just, like, having enough vendors qualified, as breakers or car shops or or what have you on the streams between all of the platforms.

You know, my friends break, game time cards, shout out to them in Florida, Break on eBay live, and they do really, really well, and it's a great experience.

I have no affiliation with Rip Hamilton rips on whatnot, but I love those guys and Swish breaks.

Like, I don't know why, but they just have, like, crazy, crazy products. But they, you know, they're they they do a second thing on the human side of the element, which is, like, you have to have charisma. You have to have interaction.

You know, you don't wanna be one of those, those breakers and those live sellers who are just, you know, frankly, like, not somebody you wanna listen to for, you know, an hour or two, however long you're on there.

But then the second part of it is, like, the community interaction, like, the the chat.

Like, it's in the chat. You know, as they say, that these people are having dialogues with thirty, forty, 100 people depending on how many people are in the chat.

And and it's always such a surreal thing to watch if you've ever been on the other side of it and you watch the breakers in in their element, because they're they're not talking to anyone else.

Excuse me. They're not talking to, like, a human voice. Right? They're they're just reading chat and they're having those conversations.

And I always thought it's like, of itself. To be able to like, you know, you know, thanks, you know, you know, bread at stacking slabs or, you know, viper fan one three three, you know, like contenders got 15, right?

You're just, like, you're just talking to these personas and but they are able to, like, create this entire, human interactive, real time ecommerce experience where you're buy and then what they're selling is not cheap.

Right? That's the crazy thing. So, like, we saw during, we were watching last night on some of the, the higher end breaks for, like, Flawless Basketball and, eminence, not eminence, what the other is it eminence?

Iminence. Yeah. Yeah. Iminence. Sorry. Iminence basketball. There was a breaker selling, doing a four box break of eminence basketball that was raffling, or doing not raffling, doing auctions spot.

Like, I, we couldn't get our head around it. We're like, this is insane. And they threw in a case of flawless just to say thank you. Like, a case of, like, $20,000 in basketball because they were ripping a $120,000 in in four boxes.

And it was loaded, of course, like, pulled, like, a Steph Curry, number to three championship auto patch that somebody put an offer in the chat for, like, $200 on the spot, which was legit because these people were spending, you know, $6,080,000 dollars on random team spots.

But my point is, like, how do you get people to do that? Like, they're buying houses. Right? Like, somebody would made a joke in the somebody made a joke in the the chat that was so great that they said, wow.

You just threw in these flawless blasters. It was it was nuts, but, like, the interaction, it was entertaining. It was interactive. And then the platforms themselves were, like, really well done.

I mean, whatnot is a billion dollar company. Like, they have an extensive amount of engineering resources, and so they can bring their, you know, a pretty, a pretty extensive experience.

But even companies like ours, we're smaller, but we, you know, we still build great stuffs plug for IRT.

But I think it's important, like, as you were asking about before, like, it starts with the human interaction. It starts with the engagement of your your your chat even if there's, like, five people in there.

Like, you can still sell products if there's five people. And then the platform has to be solid, which, you know, they're generally stabilized pretty well now.

So When, we'll we'll let you shine a spot, spotlight on, IRT for a minute. But I because I'm curious. You're helping a lot of different types of clients within the hobby.

Generally, like, everyone's, probably serving a collector audience. But we all know that within the collector, there's different personas and different flavors, and people do a lot of different things.

Like, when you're helping out a a client build something, like, how are you and your team considering the, like, user's emotions and the workflow and going about building something that's going to actually hit the mark and create a good experience rather than just be something that gets built for however much money and no one ever use?

How, like, do you like, what's your process going into that with a client?

Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, it starts with, it doesn't start with the technology itself. Right? It starts with, like, what is the problem we're trying to solve, and, like, why does it matter? Like, what's the mission and purpose?

I say that all the time. Like, what's the mission and purpose? And it's not our mission and purpose. It's like, what's your mission and purpose? Like so say, for example, we're talking to you and you're like, hey.

I wanted to build a podcast app. I'm I'm done with Spotify and Apple and, like, I'm on my own. And so you sit down and we're like, okay. But why why does that matter to you? Like, what's the impact of having that?

Like, what what's the value for you to do that? Like, why do you care? Like, what are you hoping to get out? What do you want to use? Like and we really start to try and understand, like, what it is that why it matters to your business.

Well, I'm going to be able to have a more direct impact on not only, like, the financials of the engagement because, you know, I can control advertising or I control whatever, but I also then can engage with my listeners in a different way that I can't do on Apple and Spotify.

And I'm making that up because I I mean, there's a lot of companies out there who build their own podcasting apps.

But, for you, using you as the example. But that's where we start. Right? It's a conversation between humans about what matters and what the mission and purpose is of what you're doing.

And in the hobby, what I love about this is, like, first of all, I am completely biased. It's built in to a passion area that I personally have.

But it's not just me. Like, my engineering team, there are people who are already engaged in the hobby and, like, collect and so on, and some people passively, some people preactively.

We converted some engineers along the way who were who were not collectors, you know, but when we were testing, like, we gave them, you know, funds to be able to buy on loop and those kind of things.

And your next thing you know, they're like posting their hits, you know, their hits in Slack. And I'm like, wait. What? You pulled that? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, wait.

Did we fund it? Do I get to keep that? And they're like, no. No. We were like, anything you pull is yours. Right? But you're just, for for all intent purpose. But, you know, that I think is that's part of our process.

Right? So we start with the people, and the problem, the mission, and purpose. And, like, every good consulting company should be telling you that if you're working with somebody, if, you know, you're listening and you're like, hey.

They just came in and start talking to AI and tech, then they're missing the point on, like, what it is that they're actually trying to do, which is solve a problem or provide a solution that drives your business.

Or the maybe you're not even a business. Maybe you're just, you know, using ad to build your own thing.

Like, make sure you're you're focused on who your users are and what their experience is like. You know, we're not an official, you know, human centric design type of company, but I think we think that way naturally.

And and for hobby clients, it's just a little bit easier because, you know, this is where we live, and where we work and where we play. So we we know that this hobby and industry is built on the back of trust, and it's very valuable.

I think it's also interesting that it's an unregulated market, and there's a lot of money involved, which, typically brings bad actors in to try to take advantage.

So there's because we see an incident over here regarding show bidding or, you know, someone stealing something over here, it it causes all of us to kind of put up our antennas and always be cautious and very protective of the way we go about operating in this space.

Do do you think technology and new use of technology by these businesses can actually maybe start to restore some trust that has been lost along the way by, you know, the actions or activities of, I don't know, different people, bad actors, or brands who, were maybe not thinking about their customers' best interests at hand when they made a bad decision, you know, years ago?

I mean, for sure. Right?

I mean, I think, there are examples where technology is used, to control and and put some controls and and in place to to stop some of those bad behaviors, you know, whether it's in live auctions or extended auctions or, you know, show bidding.

I I can't speak to what, the larger auctions do about that and then and how they identify, you know, through know your customer and activities and things like that.

But I know that, I know that it's done, I think that over time, I feel like there's far more, far more examples and good experiences in our in our hobby, that it kind of over any of the bad things.

I mean, the, you know, the bad things that happen are fairly, like, fairly limited.

They don't happen at scale where, like, all of the good things, you know, per eBay purchases and, you know, going to hobby shops and breaking, you know, like, it just happens at such a large scale that it's kinda overwhelms everything else that I think is is negative.

Until something is, like, so mainstream and it, like, really permeate permeates, Permeates.

Permeates. Thank you. Permeates, an area where there's there's a lot of, general acceptance of, like, this is just how things were operating, then all of a sudden you find out that that is what you thought was true is no longer true.

I think that, I think that there's there is actually a pretty high level of trust.

I think the one other the one place though where we need to pay a lot of attention to, as, again, as the hobby continues to grow, I think authenticity of items and cards, fakes, I think the I used to hate the eBay authentication program.

I'm like, oh my god. There's one extra step I gotta send my card to eBay, then they send it to you. Then how long is that gonna take? Because turnaround matters.

Like, if I just spent $3,000 on a card and I have to wait two weeks to get it, like but at this point now, because they've improved the process so much and the turnaround time is so so quick, and I think it really matters because it provides provenance, provenance to the, to the item that you're buying from this very public marketplace.

And we're, you know, we're sending, basically, you know, 1 to $20,000. I mean, I bought a you know, I guess it was like a a LeBron James, X Factor rookie that was, like, $19,000.

Right? I bought it on eBay. And, just for the record, like, we sold a bunch of cards to be able to buy that card. But, and he's, like, pulled $20,000 out of the bank. But we just paid them, and they put it in the mail.

And it's like, that's the mind boggling part of this hobby. It's like, how much it's not just even money that transacts. It's the value of the products and how they travel through our, you know, FedEx, UPS, USPS systems.

Like, it's mind boggling. But, you know, that authentication program from eBay, like, yeah, it got sent to them. It took a little bit longer.

But, like, now I know that I'm covered sending something of that value that the person buying knows that it's authentic because, you know, between, like, cracking slabs open and, you know, you know, fakes and and high dollar, high dollar, examples, there's risk to it.

And, you know, that's an example where, like, it wasn't even technology that made that improvement.

It was a a process decision by eBay. And then whatever they're doing on their side to authenticate it, I can't speak to that and how much tech is involved. But I'm sure there's some. So, yeah.

I mean, I think there's there's generally a ton of opportunity to improve, but I don't feel like we're overwhelmed by bad actors that there's this feeling like there's a ticking time bomb, and we gotta solve the solve the the problem.

I love the eBay authentication example. I was talking with Tory at DC Sports eighty seven, and we were talking about the app.

And, I made mention You mean the app that we built, Brett? Let's let's let's try I'm try I'm trying to set you up, Scott. There you go. There you go. Download it today. I I was exactly.

I I told him. I was like, I downloaded it, and, you know, I logged in and did all the things. And for me, the coolest feature of it was just the ability to interact and communicate, like, like, it was just like an iMessage.

And and it it sounds so simple, but just, like, in this world of, consignment and you have a bunch of different consignors, you could send your cards everywhere. Like, what matters to me most is the ability not necessarily, like, yeah.

I want the most money I can for my cards, and I want the best rate. Sure. That's, like, table stakes. But, like, I don't wanna, like, have to I don't wanna ask a question, and I don't wanna have to wait, like, hours to get a response.

And so I don't know. That's an example to me that's something super easy that's, like, tax involved, but it's, like, fundamental, like, bringing together, like, customer and consignment company to respond to, like, a simple question.

And I don't know. That it's just, like, an example that comes right to my mind just based off of, like Well We don't need to think about complicated things. It could be something as as simple as that.

I mean, I think it's a great example. If you actually if you think about, you know, DC Sports as a company and how they used to operate, I mean, before they were a client, I you know, I was first a customer.

And and going all the way back into, you know, 2019, 1819 early days, like, how you interacted with with, DC Sports was, like, you texted Zach or you sent a message on Facebook.

Right? So, like, you couldn't get more direct to the, to the business than that.

Right? And that but that actually had a lot of value. People even though if you think about it from today's world and you're like, how that doesn't scale, guys. Like, yeah.

No no kidding. Like, absolutely not. So now they're at the point, obviously, years later where they're this, you know, multimillion dollars a year in revenue and and tens and hundreds of thousands of cards, millions of cards.

They've not given up on that one to one connection of communication, and now it's, like, showing up in the app.

But that kind of customer connection, going back to your point of, like, human centered, like, think about, like, how do they wanna operate?

How do we wanna communicate with our clients and our customers? Because it is it's the same thing, man.

You you put a cell box together. You go to FedEx. I use FedEx anyways just to at least know that I'm it's gonna get there, hopefully, most of the time. And then you put all that stuff together, and then you just put it in the mail.

And then, like, it might be $20,000 worth of cards. You know? And then did you get it? Did it arrive? You know, PSA is a good example. Like, oh, I just sent a a shipping, a a order at the PSA.

And I got I and they've improved this tremendously over the last year or two where before you send a PSA and, like, you were like, I have no idea. Like, did it get to California? I have no clue. Or Texas and wherever PSA is.

Texas, I guess. And or maybe I guess they're in California and Texas. Apologies to PSA if I'm wrong about that, but I digress. But you you would send that and you just kinda look at the tracking and, like, hey.

Did it get there or not? And then did it get in the system, but, no, it's sitting in the warehouse forever. And they changed their process to be, you know, a lot more user focused.

Like, I know when, you know, Nat kinda took over, it was like, hey. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna clear out the backlog. First of all, we have, like, millions and millions of cards.

But next, we're gonna improve the experience of what it's like when you send us things. And so they did that. So now I sent this thing the other day. As soon as I literally walked out of FedEx, I think they were loading the truck.

It was late. They shipped, out, and it got scanned. As soon as FedEx scanned it, I got an email from PSA that your journey has started. Right? Now I'm, like, engaged.

Right? Because it wasn't just, like, you know, package sent. It was your journey to PSA has began. It wasn't quite that, you know, that elaborate, but it was similar. Right? And then every step of the way, we received it.

We got it. We were processing it. Like and you just so you you know where things are because they have value. And as humans, we're generally paranoid about things that have value not being in our control.

And the hobby is crazy. Right? Like, think about it, man. Like, we're willing to put cards in the mail and ship it across the country, but we're at, like, a card shop or at a show, and we're like, can I see that? And you're like, yeah.

But, like, don't put it in your pocket. You're just like you're so afraid someone's gonna take it out of your hand, but I'll send it in a package across the country to get that PSA 10 grade. I was, yeah. I just did that this morning.

Got the box and and shipped it out. And I I you've said this a few times to me, and and now it's all I can think about. But the the the example, though, like, with your email from PSA and, like, it is automation.

It is something that might feel cold, or maybe in other industries, we hate automated emails. We it just feels inauthentic. But in the hobby, in that example, it brings you closer to the brand.

So, like, what is that balance between automation and authenticity and, like, how we how businesses in this hobby and collectors should be thinking about it from a tech perspective?

Well, I think, you know, when when we're looking at automation as an example or if you're looking at AI to, you know, create efficiency and process, you know, there's this perspective that we follow in our own business.

And if we're talking to clients that, you know, you can't automate anything that hasn't been documented, as a workflow.

Like, you just can't. Like, you otherwise, you're just kinda making it up as you go or it's in your head or you're like, oh, yeah.

Like, I need to be able to, like, receive a package, and then what are we getting like, if they just did it that way, like, it it would be horrible.

Right? So you can't automate anything that hasn't been documented and is not in is not a workflow. So, like, it starts there. Right? And there's we follow this, actually, this this thing called EOS.

It has process and processes in that that lane of of organization that you have to simplify simplify simplify, document, and follow. And then when you're looking at it from a technology perspective, it's like, great.

You got that far. Now automate, and so you can create efficiencies. Now what you automate and how you do that, I think, very much depends on the utility of the thing that you're doing.

So in PSA's case, that automation and workflow, it doesn't need to be authentic. It needs to be accurate. Right? So authentic, yes. It's from PSA. Great. Cover that logo, source, domain, whatever.

But it needs to be accurate. It's in this location. It was received at this time. It's safe. Like, you want people to feel safe in in a lot of different ways, whether you're communicating to them by email or in person.

You want people to feel safe. Now if you're a cuss if you're logging into any customer service portal, and if it's AI or not AI or what have you, now the person has they're coming to you with a question or a problem.

That answer has a lot more credibility and impact if it is more not only accuracy because you're trying to solve a problem, but gen being genuine is an emotional state for somebody to be able to react to.

So if it to your point, if it's, like, automated to the AI degree of of robotic, they're not gonna believe it. Right? They don't trust it. They don't feel safe.

Being genuine, allows people to feel safe and also believe that whatever it is that they're they're ask or whatever it is that you're telling them, you believe also to be true and because you are being genuine and authentic about that response.

And you can do that in an automated way.

Like, they're like, we're getting the tools and the and the the way that we can do these things are getting better and better at understanding sentiment and providing language that's, contextual and and has, has your voice and things like that.

I generally like, I don't automate messages to my team.

Right? Like, I write them because that's a personal interaction with a small team. But we have plenty of clients that are like, that just doesn't scale. They can't respond to every single message personally.

So they work very hard to train models or to, you know, to work through dialogue, coach, and things like that in these tools, semantics and so on, syntax, all that stuff to get it right.

So it sounds as genuine as possible. And I think that's right now is really, really good.

It's going to be I personally think from the trends that I'm seeing and the pace at which change is happening, especially in AI, that that's going to be indistinguishable in the very near future.

And that comes with risk and reward. Right? Because you can if you can create that level of genuine response, you get people to trust it, then you there is a risk that they're gonna do something bad with it.

But, the hope is that, generally speaking, in this in the hobby that we're in and the space that we're building for, that people are gonna, you know, do good, with that power.

So So so we talked about DC Sports eighty seven's app. You mentioned the PSA, you know, shipping email, automated email example.

Is there any other examples that come to your mind whether you observe or that, Infernal Red Technologies help support that might help kinda bring, strengthen the relationship between tech brand and, end customer?

I mean, I think I think, like, the we kinda keep coming back to this, and I there I mean, there's only, like I feel like there's only a few circles of applicable technology in the hobby that are, like, anchors.

Right? Mhmm. Things like, you know, pricing and comp, ecommerce and marketplace, research and history. And then there's I feel like there's been live selling and streaming, which I probably put into the ecommerce.

And then this concept of, like, vaulting and collect and collecting, archives of, like, your own collections and things like that, which I think I don't know where that really, stands as a growth market in technology for the hobby in terms of, like, people using platforms to to capture their collections.

And I think that's probably just because the collect some people's collections are just so big and it's so time consuming that they start and then they stop because it's you know, like, oh, man.

I did one box. Right? So, you know, and I think that as as in those areas, there's an opportunity for these companies. And I think, like, DC did it. DC Sports did it.

I think PSA, as you said. I think eBay has an opportunity. I think some of the bigger players that are coming in in the commercial space, like the Walmarts, and those companies have the opportunity to really engage their customers.

Think of it the same way that, sports teams engage their fans. Right?

They can, you know, through, using technology to understand how they buy, like, what they care about, what they're looking at, like, what interests them, what their persona is, they can start to create experiences and engagement that people appreciate and are understand to be genuine.

And, you know, they're not people don't like to be sold to. Right? Like, you don't like to be sold to. But the crazy part about it is, like, while they don't like to be sold to, they like to be made aware.

Like, they don't want especially in this hobby. Right? You're like, oh my god. Like, tops you know, tops basketball dropped and sold out at the price.

Like, they don't wanna miss that. Right? So they don't mind, like, sharing what their behavior is if they can get you know, that they can buy a product that they're gonna buy anyways at the cheapest price they can.

So I feel like technology can be used to create a better experience for the collector in a way where they they feel like they're they're getting an opportunity to do something that they can't normally do.

I would love I love the fact, like, that, some people hate this, but I think well, I don't know if they hate it, but I don't actually don't know what the the the public would say, like, what tops his agreement with, like, the, you know, rookie debuts, patches, and things like that where, like, you know, they're they're creating these, you know, one of one patches based on this thing that they just manufactured and now all of a sudden it's gonna have like a million the Cooper flags one of one debut patch.

Yeah. The worst game ever, but, like, that patch is gonna be a 7 figure card. Right? So good or bad.

Right? At least the these companies like Topps and the NBA, in this case, are partnered to bring something to, to collectors that they wouldn't normally have access to, and that will generate interest in whatever product that comes out.

And, obviously, like, they'll make a ton of money on it.

And but then we'll have a whole another set of things to, like, collect and be like, this is amazing. I have no idea what product that's gonna go into because if we don't really guess we don't know.

I don't know anyways what tops is gonna put out. But it would be, like, you know, the flawless equivalent of the of the logo man, a game use logo man. Maybe even better.

Actually, we should buy those. Absolutely. Right? I hope that I hope that it's just in I think they did in baseball. They put them in just standard tops chrome. So I'm hoping it's in, tops chrome basketball, but I it's not lost on me.

We just spent for, you know, forty five minutes talking about tech, and we're ending the conversation talking about, a gay a piece of game used, fabric and material, which is fun.

But I also right before I got on this call, I I read something that, Cooper Flag wore three of those patches, and they were going to destroy two of them to make sure they didn't get out.

So yeah. Wow. Wait. Is that true? Like, they said that? I I saw that switching jerseys. Right? It'd be kinda crazy during the game if, like no.

Because I know, like, the, I know the NBA and well, NFL for sure, and I know the NBA, they changed jerseys at halftime because the, well, Panini used to, and I'm sure tops these agreements they have where, you know, they're getting game use memorabilia, and so they switch at halftime.

But it would be really weird if, like, Cooper Flagg comes out in the second half of the jersey that doesn't have the patch on it. And there'd be all this, like, controversy of saying, what happened to Cooper Flagg's, like, debut patch?

Get out the tinfoil hats because it's I who knows? I I should have looked at the source. We should look at sources, but I saw it. And, yeah, it just made me believe that he put on several different jerseys, and Topps is like, alright.

We're getting rid of these two patches to make sure they don't get in the mix and get in someone's hands that shouldn't, which is if that's the case, that's admirable, I think.

I mean, but then the hobby, we know this. Right? I mean, like, the number of one of ones Mhmm. That exist in any given product is like mine.

It's not like everyone's like, oh, there's only one of those. You're like, sort of. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, like, select, you know, select pick your pick your products like basketball, select football.

It's like, well, there's like Don't get me some variations started. 10 variations of, like, one of ones. And, you know, I think it was, like, UFC the UFC product.

Maybe it was SelectU. Yeah. Select UFC is the same thing. And then, you know, what's even crazier now with Panini and the licensing, change over the tops, they just you don't have to be a a rocket science to see what they did.

Like, they just pushed so much of their product of what they had on the shelves into the products that they released this year, and then what they're gonna release in the next you know, when their license for, football runs out.

There's gonna be, you know, logo man number to 10. Like, that's crazy. Right? Like, you're like, wait. What? So the one of one, situation is is one.

But if we also noticed sorry. One last thought on, like, in terms of trust, like, there's this also where you can kinda go too far with that fan engagement experience and, like, you go to the sales side.

We were we were commenting on how many sponsors were on the screen at any given time, during the basketball games.

And what what people don't realize like, I go to a lot of, a lot of sports technology events and conferences, and, like, that stuff is tracked.

Like, that stuff is monitored, the monetization and the return on those investments by sponsors.

And there's a lot of technology that drives that. Right? Like, it says, okay. Like, who what logos and what things are visible on the screen for what amount of time, and what's the value and the return on those investments.

And, you know, there's a place where technology is driving business, and how that ultimately will trickle down into something like the hobby, I have no idea.

Maybe at some point, they're gonna be like, how many patches are on on a jersey that are gonna now be put into a card, that generates a 7 figure sale?

Who knows? Who knows? That's the fun part of of the hobby, and I I think this was a really, fun and interesting conversation.

And we will be doing more of these. I think maybe the next time, we might be hearing from a different member of the Infernal Red technology team.

But, Scott, always appreciate, spending some time talking about the hobby in tech. Yeah. Likewise, Brett. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.