what's going on everybody welcome back to stacking slabs your hobby content alternative it is flagship episode time coming at you one of my favorite times of the week talking about a topic that i think is really good from a collecting perspective collectors want to find advantages we want to find ways to continue to find cards that we need know and that we love and we're gonna share here today on the flagship episode of stacking slabs and it is going to be a continuation of last week's flagship on discovery inspired by a good friend that shot me a dm after the episode and i thought you know what i think there's some legs here thanks pal you gave me some notes on a follow-up episode before we get into that i wanna shout out inferno red technology the engineering team behind some of the biggest names in sports and collectibles like dc sports eighty seven commsi collectors upper deck and ebay from ai powered solutions for startups to full stack platforms for industry leaders their team can tackle your toughest technology challenge they build awesome software for the hobby for leagues and fans and for everyone in between see what they can build for you at inferno red dot com and i appreciate all of your support for not just the flagship but all of the other shows happening here on the stacking slabs network we got the football card podcast if you need the football card fix wnba card podcast with caitlin if you need to scratch that itch that has been a fun season caitlin is exploring the entire history of wnba card collecting with collectors it's been a blast to check out book to last adam and ryan tearing it up on the wrestling card front there's a lot going on over here we're just getting started but i wanna welcome you back last week we talked about discovery discovery as an advantage discovery not as guessing not as being early but being disciplined expanding your search beyond the headline selecting with intention building taste and building control that was one of the episodes when i got done with it i felt really good about it i felt like i organized my thoughts it was something that was very topical to me i had been discussing across other shows on the stacking slabs network and it just felt good you do enough of these some of them hit a little different i got a lot of feedback a lot of positive feedback and then i got a message from my good friend joe at low pop poppy and by the way go check out his instagram he is sharing some pairings and his collection rules but he said something to me that stopped me in my tracks even when you think you discovered something the hobby is so fast that there's almost guaranteed to be a niche group of collectors already collecting what you think you discovered and that stopped me i agreed so the next part of discovery is finding people engaging them and learning even more that's the bar because joe's right and if you actually take that seriously it changes what discovery means and today is about that next layer discovery isn't just finding cards it's finding the people who already live where you're trying to go there's an uncomfortable truth here i think most collectors want the feeling of being first we want to be the ones to discover we want to be the ones to share i know i felt this way as a music snob and degenerate searching the bowels of the internet to find the undiscovered band first back in the day i used to be a blogger m p three blogs remember those oh man i would just terrorize the internet connecting and trying to figure out find undiscovered music so that i could serve that up on the platforms for which i was writing for and it just made me feel good but this also has this feeling of on the collecting side but what the people or the collectors who wanna be the first discovered they really want the feeling of being right and right in this hobby this deep doesn't come from one lucky snipe it comes from context and context is everything and context is information and this information lives in communities it's not an i'm not trying to be tony robbins here this isn't a motivational quote but that's literally how learning works it's called the community of practice and the idea is simple people develop skills and understanding by participating with other people who share a practice starting at the edges then moving inward as they learn the language the norms the craft so when i got that message from joe the next part of discovery is finding people he's describing that exact process you thought you found a set now you have to find the village that already speaks to that set's language the core reason in community and practice and starting at the edges and moving deeper as you learn the language and norms of the group is really profound if i'm thinking about this from my perspective if i'm collecting let's say wrestling cards and let's say it's panini era wrestling cards there are already collectors online who know every set every variant every parallel every print every grading quirk you you as a collector or me as a collector i want the knowledge not just the mainstream hype i don't care that a card sold for an all time high i would rather understand how we got there and the hobby's knowledge is socially embedded connections outside our immediate circle is where this information typically resides especially if we're on an exploration or a quest for discovery if we only interact with our usual card pals you're just gonna hear the same shit all the time but if you reach across to small forums or instagram hashtags or different circles or meeting people at a card show that's when you get to tap into new information sociologist mark grenoveter showed that people are often best served by the non redundant contacts that bridge of different groups for collectors that can mean talking to different collectors than the ones that you're normally participate or communicating with or different collectors on different platforms that you don't even know connecting with these niche collectors gives us early reliable knowledge that the herd doesn't see it it can help convert the discovery from kind of this lone wolf perspective into this shared truth there's a lot of practical benefits from community connection you get more access and less noise when you become known in a community people mention opportunities directly to you i know this firsthand i have gotten messages directly from individuals who know i might or might be thinking about collecting certain stuff and they dm you a card they give you some sort of information and this shows the formation of networks and personal relationships at play and when we get validation or get support from other people this helps reduce uncertainty think about that in a hobby that's plagued full of bad actors and fakes trustworthy connections matter think about the people in your network or outside of your network who you know and trust that is important in community you get better information better information sure is held in the surface level communities preserve this collective memory you can chase a specific card you can find other people that are doing it even if you think you're early or the first you're probably not the detail we get from other individuals can help save us hours or they can help share information that helps us cut a lot of layers or helps us avoid unforeseen obstacles communities help give us a stronger pricing sense when everyone in a small group follows the same niche prices stabilize you learn what fair value really is you get information about how much individuals play paid for certain cards in that niche that is not publicly available the information is gold especially when it comes to how much we're paying for certain cards and i think that's what happens post discovery when you begin to find groups of people who are collecting what you want to be collecting you can't not mention the psychological connection beyond the cards the collecting is social we as human beings have this fundamental need to be long and we're wired to seek meaningful relationships participating in niche community satisfies that you begin to validate each other's passions and this sense of connection can actually boost your well-being and then having some sort of shared identity or meaning collection your collection is part of your identity we probably obsess over our possessions more than maybe any other collecting group but when you engage with others that do the same thing it deepens the meaning you share your nostalgia you share the reasons why you begin to connect building community around your collecting keeps rewarding beyond just the chase so when i think about this i think about the broader hobby and remember this is the hobby content alternative so we we we are we're talking about the underground topics or the less defined topics but when you look at the hobby as a whole the hobby feels like a tiny menu because attention compresses everything headlines do what headlines do they narrow the entire hobby into a spotlight and then everybody fights in that same corner there is millions of niche interests in this hobby small pockets of people who care intensely about things that are will never trend and i think that is cool the internet made it easier not harder because niche people can find each other so if you discover something it's usually not that nobody knew it's nobody you follow knew and i think going back to joe's comment and this was my first reaction to it is that this is this is what this is what i was trying to get at i think it become it can become very humbling but it's also very empowering because it means the next edge isn't something that is available on ebay publicly your next edge is that network and finding those people new information often travels through weak ties connections outside of our closest circle in collector terms i think it's if you only collect inside your current group chat your information becomes redundant you're seeing the same cards same eras same stuff and finding new people is refreshing the hobby is infinite and your network determines what part of infinity you can actually reach it's like to infinity and beyond if you ever heard that but there's physical benefits that you can really feel in your collection if we wanna get practical what changes physically meaning in the cards you buy when you engage in niche communities i think first you get access not insider trader or not secret deals you get access in normal human way people think of you when something pops up they respect your taste they know you're serious this feeling is ongoing social relations and trust and it matters and it really matters in collectibles like sports cards because collectibles are full of uncertainty condition authenticity altered cards providence market cycles there's so much uncertainty so what do collectors do we build trust systems reputations repeat deals referrals and peer to peer online markets find reputation signals are more reliable with selling performance which is basically the formal way of saying trust mechanisms work we get better information faster you might be the checklist guy or gal you might be the pop report guy or gal you might be the product expert niche communities are the parallel is always mislabeled people you know these people when they see something they spot something they say it right away or put it out there when a new card is listed this kind of knowledge spreads through stories and shared language you also get disciplined not because the group tells you what to pay but because you stop pricing off a headlines or gut feel there are psychological benefits that make the hobby more sustainable and i think this is maybe the deeper part and the the part that really interests me as i explore it the hobby is not just one market we've done a whole episode on this many micro markets it's a psychological ecosystem joe's comment hits because it speaks to something fundamental belonging psychological psychologically people are driven to form and maintain meaningful relationships that it's that is the core of human motivation and we also have evidence that social connection isn't just nice it relates to major health outcomes in large scale research so when you find a niche group that shares your taste you're not just getting hobby value you're feeding a psychological need this connects directly to stuff like the self determination theory or the model that says humans thrive when autonomy competence and relatedness are supported discovery gives us this autonomy we choose our lane last week i talked a lot about this gives you us competence we're we're the master but discovery becomes sustainable when you have lateness you connect that's what joe was calling out there's also a psychological layer which is identity and it's a classic consumer research arguing possessions become part of self we've heard this i've talked about it your collection isn't just inventory it's our identity it's what we are about it's why we what we represent you're listening to a podcast about sports cards and how we think about store car sports cards right now because you're deep into it you're deep into it and these your collection means something to you it represents you it gives you a self identity your tastes are real and if if you're collecting anything tied to memory sports childhood eras moments nostalgia becomes a part of that engine now before we romanticize about this i think there's certainly a dark side there's a flip side of this communities can be herds i've heard the bad side of communities where everyone's gassing each other up when people see others chasing something they infer value and follow the behavior even if their own information says i should stay away this this idea or this phenomenon is literally modeled in research as informational cascades and it can explain why trends pop up and die fast and online communities turn into comparison machines all you have to do is scroll through your posts a couple times or your feed a couple times and you realize this so a rule i'm thinking about is we're building community to increase pressure we're not building community to increase pressure we're building community to increase depth depth is the antidote to this anxiety we get as collectors and depth is the antidote to the headlines so what we dug into last week i would say if i was building something i would say that was discovery one point o and now that we're talking about shared interest and community connection this is discovery two point o it's finding the non mainstream collectors who are already assigned meaning and learn their language and we can create some some some structure around this you can keep your sandbox you can run a community search you can approach this like a student and not a promoter we can diversify our ties and we can protect our joy i think if community starts turning into comparison you pull back because the point is not to find a new way to feel to feel behind the point is to build a hobby life that can stay inside for decades so we've been sharing some frameworks or some systems through stacking slabs content it's an easy way to be able to give you some sort of takeaway on what i'm thinking and if it's helpful you can take it but if i'm building a actionable system on community discovery i'm doing one thing first and that's defining my niche scope keeping it focused in an example for me it would be it's not just wrestling cards but it's panini era wrestling cards there's three years inside that so instead of being overwhelmed by everything it's being very focused then it's search where your niche lives where are the people hanging out online who are doing or could be doing what you're doing of course instagram's a call but is it a discord group is there a reddit is there a facebook group is there a u somebody who's got a podcast or a youtube channel you can start connecting with others on and you wanna observe and ask smart questions my whole mindset and mentality my entire professional career when i was starting a new job or starting a new project it was spending time in the groups where the people were hanging out that i wanted to learn from or become our customers and just watch the discussion the amount of information you'll get from just watching or listening is incredible you don't even don't participate actually i would say just mute yourself just listen take notes when someone posts about cards begin to absorb all that information then you get to this stage when you've got information where you feel like you can be you can participate and you can participate because you've absorbed information across a lot of different channels and you begin to add value alongside your own personal feelings and what you're learning along the way and that's what this point is and it's a big one but it's adding value you can't just take when you learn something share it back that is really important there are so many there's two different types of people in this hobby people who are soul sucking leeches and people who add value it is very obvious it is very it is very apparent what side of the aisle people are on just by how they show up online i wanna hang out with people who are adding value i wanna be able to get something from people because i am pouring everything i have out publicly and i appreciate you tuning in spending some time with me to kinda absorb some of what i'm thinking but yeah i i don't have time for the soul sucking leeches and you wanna build your list of contacts the hobby is so transactional people treat it so transactionally and they're just trying to get get get you build out your list of contacts and get organized around it and you can begin to be proactive with sharing your information gathering information and this stuff compounds over time i'm telling you it compounds especially when you're in a new niche that you're trying to discover the more you can tee up people the more you're gonna get in return it's reciprocity make sure you keep your boundaries remember your ethics share info when asked never push sales or pump for your own profit it's fine to show enthusiasm and excitement about your cards but never act like you deserve discounts or special treatment so i think it's time to thank joe at low pop poppy joe shout out to you for inspiring today's topic the hobby is certainly vast discovery isn't finished when you find the car discovery gets serious when you find people how about that because those people are the map and once you are connected to the map you don't just collect more efficiently you collect more meaningfully and that more than any flip more than any trend more than any headline is how you make this hobby yours i love collecting cards i love creating content about collecting cards i wanna thank you for supporting stacking slabs your hobby content alternative tell a damn friend take care we'll talk to you soon