what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of hobby jobs here on the stacking slabs network i am brett i am recording this episode in my hotel room at the loews hotel during the national i have a lot of energy a lot of excitement around the industry especially after yesterday and i wanna bring some of that perspective here today what does the national look like when you spend the entire day without trying to buy a card that was my thursday in rosemont i spent the entire day at the card ladder booth recording six conversations with people building different parts of the sports card industry josh johnson cto at card ladder steve sloan ceo at Heystack chris mcgill ceo of card ladder danny moss leader at collect talent michael ousaki from baseball in the attic and noah dock the cfo at bcw supply six conversations six different perspectives six different parts of the hobby infrastructure we talked tech we talked hiring leadership capital customer experience career paths the systems required to turn a good idea into an actual company the cards were physically surrounding us showcases were filled with them collectors were negotiating for them money was changing hands all over the building but the conversations happening at the card ladder booth were about everything required to make all of those moments possible that's the industry start side at the national it does not get nearly enough attention most people experience the national from the show floor they see the crowds the cards the athletes the breakers and the massive booth activations but behind every one of those booths is an operating system there are people making product decisions managing inventory building tech hiring teams creating content solving customer problems tracking margins working through logistics and making bets about where the industry is going next the national is not only the biggest card show in the world for one week it becomes the central office of the sports card industry you can learn about this business during one conversation in a hallway more about it than one conversation in a hallway than you might learn through several months of zoom calls that is why i want to spend why i wanted to spend thursday talking to operators and those conversations will become part of hobbyjobs over the next several weeks i do not want to simply publish interviews and move on i want to pull lessons from them i want to connect what one operator is experiencing with what another operator is building i want to make the knowledge inside the industry more accessible to the people who want to work here today you're gonna hear my conversation with steve sloan steve has spent roughly two decades inside the collectibles industry his career has included upper deck collectors serving as the president of psa and now building Heystack he has seen the hobby from inside established companies and from inside of a startup that makes steve an important person to learn from but before we get to that conversation i wanna expand on this week's operator note because there is a decision many collectors turn operators eventually have to make what happens when the collection stops being only a collection what happens when it becomes capital one of the most interesting dynamics in the sports card industry is that many of the people building businesses here start as collectors they did not discover the market through a spreadsheet they discovered it because they love cards they understood the feeling of finding something they had been hunting for they understand why the mail day mattered they understand the anticipation of an auction ending they understood why one card could mean more to a collector than its most recent comparable sale the collector background has become an enormous operating advantage it gives you empathy it gives you category fluency it helps you understand the emotional job that the product is doing but it also creates tension because eventually the collector and the operator may want different things the collector wants to hold the card the operator sees what the card could fund the collector sees the memory the operator sees an editor a new employee an inventory software equipment over the next month of runway that is when the collection can become capital that is not unusual in entrepreneurship the small business administration describes bootstrapping as using your own financial resources to support a business that can mean personal savings retirement funds or money from family and friends in the sports card industry personal resources may also include the collection someone spent years of building that is simply our industry's version of self funding recent federal reserve research also shows why operators face these decisions in twenty twenty six survey of of employer firms fifty six percent of businesses seeking financing needed it for operating expenses while forty six percent were pursuing expansion or a new opportunity only forty two percent of applicants received the full amount they wanted the ambition may be there long before affordable capital is available but i want to be very very careful here selling something meaningful does not automatically make you a serious entrepreneur sacrifice is not a business strategy there is temptation to romanticize the founder who sold everything bet on the company and refuse to quit that story sounds great after the company succeeds it sounds much different when the money is gone and the business is still broken the value is not in the sacrifice itself the value is in what the sacrifice allows the business to build if you are considering selling cards to fund your business you should be able to draw a clear line from the card to the collector the card becomes capital the capital buys capability the capability improves the business the improvement creates a better collector experience maybe you sell a card to purchase equipment that improves the quality of every listing you make maybe it helps fund with shipping so the orders you have leave on time maybe it helps you hire someone who can answer customer questions maybe it creates enough runway to finish a product that removes friction for dealers and collectors maybe it funds informational content that teaches a new collector how to participate with confidence that is productive sacrifice but selling a card to fund a vague idea cover an operating leak or delay a difficult decision is not conviction it's avoidance before collection capital enters the business i would ask four questions first what exact bottleneck will the money remove do not answer with growth growth is too vague will it increase listing capability improve fulfillment time create more inventory turns fund a specific hire launch a new product you've already validated you need to know second how does removing that bottleneck help the collector if the only benefit is the company gets bigger that's not enough bigger businesses can still create terrible cost collector experiences the question is whether the investment makes the business more trustworthy more useful more accurate or easier to use third how will you know the investment work set the measurement before the money enters the business if the investment is supposed to improve turnaround time measure turnaround time if it's supposed to increase listings measure listing volume and sell through if it's supposed to grow an audience measure qualified subscribers and engagement not impressions alone fourth what is the stopping rule founders are very good at convincing themselves that one more investment will fix a problem decide in advance how much you are willing to put in how long you will give it and what evidence you need to continue that's not lack of belief that is responsible ownership supporting the collector requires a healthy business a company with no margin cannot invest in service a founder with no runway cannot think long term a team operating in constant crisis eventually passes that chaos to its customers that is part of collector first that is easy to miss supporting collectors is not limited to being friendly on social media it's not a slogan it's an operating system it starts by protecting the emotional reason the collector came to you research from qualtrics xm institute has found that emotion has a stronger effect on loyalty than effort or simply accomplishing a task customers who feel good about an experience are more likely to trust recommend forgive and purchase more that matters even more in a category built around passion and identity a collector does not experience a card purchase as a sterile transaction they may have been searching for that card for years it may complete a set it might remind them of a parent it may represent a game they attended or a player they watched as a kid the business handling that transaction is temporarily responsible for something emotionally important that does not mean every order needs a handwritten essay it means that the business should avoid introducing unnecessary anxiety into the experience accurate descriptions matter clear images matter communication matters reliable shipping matters thoughtful packaging matters fixing mistakes matter the technical details become emotional because they either protect or threaten the collector's confidence the next layer is reducing uncertainty the sports card industry has an enormous information problem collectors are expected to understand sets parallels print run condition grading standards auction formats fees shipping policies and market values when a business provides accurate information it is not simply creating content it is reducing the perceived risk of participating the third layer layer is reducing effort how easy is it to find the right card how easy is it to understand the listing how easy is it to ask the question how easy is it to complete the transaction how easy is it to resolve a problem qualtrics defines customer effort around how hard someone must work to make a purchase complete a request or resolve an issue the basic principle is straightforward customer's more likely to remain loyal when a business is easier to use less friction creates more room for the collector to enjoy the hobby and finally supporting the collector means designing for the second transaction a bad operator asks how do we get this sale a strong operator asks what needs to happen for the collector to trust us again that changes your decisions it changes which sellers you allow onto a platform it changes how you describe inventory it changes how aggressively you market it changes whether you optimize for the short term spike or the long term relationship the collector is downstream of every operating decision they may never see the software fulfillment team product data they may never see what the founder sold to finance the company but eventually they'll feel the result this brings me to this week's operator story hopefully you got a chance to listen to the conversation i had with beau thompson from one million cubs on passion and profession brought to you by my good friends at at ebay this week beau thompson started one million cubs with a goal that sounded almost impossible he wanted to trade one million non cubs cards for one million cubs cards the project took seven and a half years but the million cards were not the only outcome the project created relationships created trust it taught bo how to source organize list and sell inventory it taught him how to communicate with other collectors it gave him years of repetition inside the business before he depended on that business for his livelihood i was at a dinner at the national in twenty twenty one i was sitting right across from beau and that dinner alone gave beau the confidence to leave his job he eventually built an operation with roughly sixty thousand ebay listings and moved into selling through ebay live six nights a week what started as a collector mission became a real operating education that is part of beau's story i think is aspiring professionals need to really look at and study do not only study the moment when someone quits their job study the years before bo did not wake up one morning announce that he loved cards and immediately possess a sustainable business he built skills inventory relationship he learned where demand existed he learned what happened when sales stopped growing he learned to adapt he learned to gain attention the preparation made the leap possible another important part of beau's journey is learning to separate the collection from the business two things can coexist but they cannot be managed as though they are the same a collection is primarily organized around meaning inventory is primarily organized around movement a collection can sit untouched for years and still be doing its job inventory that sits untouched for years may be starving the company a collection can be irrational because personal meaning does not need margin to exist inventory needs a cost basis sales strategy and expected return if everything is sacred the business cannot move if nothing is sacred the operator may lose the connection that brought them into the hobby in the first place the goal is not to stop being a collector the goal is to create boundaries know which cards are part of your identity know which cards are business assets track them separately store them separately account for them separately decide in advance when inventory gets discounted moved or liquidated and if you are going to sell your own personal collection define what the money is expected to accomplish when the card leaves both story is a reminder that passion can open the door but operator discipline is what allows someone to stay gotta shout out a cool job here on hobby jobs and the job i wanna highlight is the head of trading cards for ebay live this is not simply a marketing position for someone who enjoys cards it's effectively a gm role the person will own business outcomes across supply demand content trust and product innovation they will be responsible for p and l and gmv targets they will recruit and develop sellers they will shape programming they will influence product capabilities and they will be responsible for creating a buyer experience built around both confidence and fun ebay is explicitly looking for someone who understands marketplace economic seller behavior in the trading card category this role represents where careers in this hobby are going category knowledge alone isn't enough traditional business experience alone isn't enough the opportunity belongs to people who can connect the two you need to understand why collectors participate you also need to understand p and l you need to know what makes a compelling card content you need to know whether the content creates repeatable business results you need to build relationships with sellers you need the standards to protect buyers you need to move quickly you also need to understand what can be damaged when a marketplace moves too quickly if i were applying for this role i would build my case around five things a story that proves i've owned a meaningful business outcome a clear understanding of how live commerce changes collector behavior a point of view on seller quality and buyer trust a programming thesis that goes beyond putting expensive cards on camera and a ninety day plan showing how i would learn before trying to rebuild everything this is a senior role but even if you are not qualified for it today study the description job descriptions like this show how the industry values different skills they become a roadmap if you want to lead a category someday start building evidence that you understand the collector the seller and the economics connecting them my guest today understands the intersection better than most steve sloan spent twenty years working in collectibles he worked in product development at upper deck he held leadership roles at collectors he served as president of psa during one of the most consequential periods in the company's history now he's the cofounder and ceo of Heystack Heystack builds infrastructure for the businesses who's selling cards its tool focus on image capturing card recognition structured data and listing automation the company says more than one million cards have been listed through its platform the collector may never see the infrastructure but they experience its outputs through better images more accurate information and faster listings that is why this conversation belongs inside today's episode supporting collectors does not always happen at the point of sale sometimes it happens several layers behind the transaction i sat down with steve at the card letter booth during the national to talk about building inside this industry what he has learned from his career and what the next generation of hobby professionals needs to understand let's run to the conversation right now alright we are back here excited for this conversation i am joined today by steve sloan who is the ceo at Heystack steve first time we're doing this in person yeah you are a long time industry operator how are you doing what do you make of the national so far i love the national every year coming here and the national this thus far has been incredibly busy for us at over at Heystack at our booth and so just you know trying to soak in every minute like anyone else does trying to carve some time out at the end of the show so i can actually maybe go walk some tables do some buying so so how do you balance that obviously like you have worked with the biggest brands in this space you're working in a start up building the start up you're working in cards you are a collector i'm finding as a business builder my time is being pulled into the building side of it because it is my livelihood it is what supports my family there's fewer time for collecting trying to find the cards like over the years how have you balanced those two worlds try to just be opportunistic you know starting conversations with people at the booth asking what cards they brought to our booth for example this this week to scan in and put into our system so just trying to be opportunistic you know you do have to give yourself breaks too like it's okay to go take a fifteen minute walk around the floor i have to remind myself to do that of course but you know just be opportunistic with your time so Heystack let's talk about it just from the perspective i feel like you have done a great job of building with your team the company's brand i've seen it in more places and more spaces obviously it is a product that solves a massive problem for any individual that is trying to sell cards online how long have you been at the Heystack build in like those different chapters what does that look like for you in the business right now yeah this is our third national so this will be my three year anniversary coming up with the company here in october so it's been a fun ride for sure we've we've really built some really powerful tools and connected those tools to a lot of important industry players here which makes me feel really good about the work we're doing i'd say the you know it's all about maintaining our core engine which is our recognition the recognition powers everything and for us being a ton of everyone card collector we we're trying to make the culture card first in that way and i think that's really paid dividends for us because we're able to ideate and execute on applications of the card recognition pretty tight cycles so for example this year we're doing kiosks at our booth where you can walk up have your cards image they'll be recognized instantly by our ai in the background and then those cards will be sent to a private network of dealers who can make offers on those cards so it's a great way to connect buyers and sellers in a digital way especially with so many dealers across this floor it's nearly impossible to hit every table but if you have a little tech on your side you can get more things done how do you think about your go to market and just like maybe those early stages of like let's get one customer here let's get two customers there let's try to prove the value like how have you taken those early days of growth into kind of this chapter of Heystack and building off of that yeah we wanted to our strategy was to start by segments and so within you know we have a really i think a strong handle of how the industry is structured and so we looked at consignment as an area of opportunity and consignment sellers you know need powerful tools they're they're they're all about throughput getting cards in getting cards listed getting cards out to the buyers and so we took a a primary focus on the consignment segment and built tools that really helped win that segment and as a result you know we now have a really solid foundation of clients and customers inside of that segment from there you know it's about taking what you've learned and what you've built and seeing how it applies to other vertical or other segments i should say and so for example we both we've now built tools for breakers we're building tools for retail stores we're building tools for the classic dealer who has a a standing inventory of cards so it's been a really fun ride to to focus on segments as we go and build compounding tools that help and connect most importantly connect those segments together so that's kind of the stage we're at right now is making those connections happen what's your observations on the state of consignment it feels like there's these existing legacy players who sell high volumes of cards there's cross platform like you got ebay sell consignment you've got fanatics consignment you've got emerging players coming up like there seems like there's more and more consignment options obviously brand for consignors is super important like you work with these people who run these companies like this has changed a lot just in the last two to three years like what's your analysis on just consignment it's a very competitive space obviously you know you the the things that clients are looking for is you know the right timing and exposure for their listings plus you know obviously the highest auction prices realized for their items so the the companies that deliver those two things in tandem are the most successful and a lot of times technology is behind that but also relationships you know relationships with their buyer pool their network of people who come into their their platforms to make those purchases so i think my take is is really just simple it's like you know those with the best relationships and the best advantages from a technological standpoint are probably gonna be the ones that that continue to to do the best how do you think about or how does you how do you and your team think about product development and like getting feedback from your customers about how they're using Heystack and how do you incorporate kind of their feedback in your product road map constantly i mean it's it's whether it's a monthly call we have them with them or biweekly calls that we have with them emails slack channels or where we do slack integrations with their teams it's a constant evaluation of course there's a balance you know you have to plan and be strategic with how you roll out iterations of the software but you know it all starts with the customer feedback hey we're looking for this can you deliver it we'll evaluate it also in certain instances see if it applies to other customers or if it's nonrecurring engineering which means it's only for that client so try to be very customer focused in that way and build tools that are gonna keep our our clients happy essentially i wanna talk about hiring but before i do that i wanna understand your experience and your run at psa and that experience and experience in the sports card industry a a big one and then now you're building Heystack how have those experiences been similar and how have they been different yeah that's a good question i think the similarity is the customer should be the primary focus in all instances in the customer experience so psa a couple examples would be obviously you know we had that massive backlog that's what everyone remembers from the twenty twenty twenty ninth or twenty one twenty one era what we have tried to do in advance of that is to really showcase like getting the submission process digitized and it'd been in paper forms i don't know the the the old schoolers remember the the carbon triple kits i remember them yeah so it was like getting getting psa off of that system and into a digital online submission center was about the customer experience and trying to make that the the the primary focus because we knew if you give the customer an easier way to submit you're gonna get the cards and so i think looking to where psa is today i mean with the investments they've made in the the app experience and the submission experience and the pop lookups and everything you can do with pricing and offers they they value that very highly and i think that's a big part of their success and so with with Heystack as well we wanna take that same approach you know we're we're as i mentioned earlier we're kinda doing it by by segments as we go we haven't fully gone full consumer yet we're more focused on b to b at this point but we do build b to b to c tools which help our clients interact with their customers and so you know i get fulfillment from that in terms of the you know that customer experience side of things do you feel like the b this is my observation i feel like the b to b side of the sports card industry is such an untapped resource and it has so much potential and there's not a lot of people outside of businesses talking to businesses and wants and needs and how do we partner how do how can we work together like i just feel like there's not enough conversation outside of those chats to publicly inspire someone to build a business and learn how to collaborate with other businesses in order to grow that business do you i know you've been building in this space for a while but do you feel like that potential that on the b to b side is is still kind of untapped and has a lot of room to grow i think it does i mean you have to look at the growth of the industry and and the investment some of the bigger players are making that kind of pull up the the overall industry as as a as a whole i think it's all about where needs and and capabilities intersect and so if two businesses have complimentary services or one has you know from our perspective we have a a good handle on card cataloging and recognition if we can find a business that has needs to intersect with our capabilities then i think there's a fit and so that doesn't just have to be in the tech element it could be in customer acquisition more purely in like experiential marketing you know if you have a retail store how can you partner with different companies to drive more foot traffic that's that's what i mean by that it's just about businesses understanding the capabilities of their peers and and having those conversations how important has your experience been previously working in the sports car industry to being the leader of the business at Heystack i don't know how i could do it well without the experience over the years to be honest like it's trading cards like any industry if i wanted to switch industries and get into plumbing or get into medical devices like i would have to be starting from scratch and i think there has to be a certain level of understanding of the space to really excel and it takes time so you know i would invite people coming into the space it's okay to start from zero and work your way up build the relationships talk to people learn be a sponge and talk to as many people as you can to get a baseline understanding that you can build upon but it is critical i mean it's like any area of expertise you have to have that foundation relationships obviously you have a lot of them in your previous life working at psa probably with people you worked with and then obviously other businesses you worked with how do you take advantage of those relationships especially when like rewind the tape to three years ago when people are like hey stack what's that like how do you take advantage of those relationships outreach i mean it's hey check-in this is what i'm doing now i mean i'm an introvert by by nature like i'm i don't excel in the busy trade trade show floor i'm a little bit more you know just a quiet person private in certain ways but i love the people that i've been able to work with over the years and i'd mean that truly like there's so many good people in this space that it's easy to reach out and say hey yeah this is what we're doing is there any way that we can help you for me personally it takes a little courage and and effort to do that just because i'm more like you know you let the intrusive thoughts come in sometimes and you doubt if you could provide value to people but you have to overcome that you have to have those conversations and you know i you more times than not people are are willing to to listen and hear what you're you have going on i wanna talk about the outreach side because anybody building in this space or who wants to build in this space has to reach out to somebody at some point for something and oftentimes i've sat there steve where i'm like i got an email drafted and i'm reading over it a million times i'm like i can't believe i'm gonna send this and then there's just like this nervous energy where it's like they're either not gonna respond they're gonna say no or they might say yes let's talk like yeah i don't know like it takes some reps and sets but like how do you get over the hump to make just that outreach feel normal or is it always kind of uncomfortable in some way shape or form i think it always depends on the dynamic of the relationship you have with the person how well you know them one thing i've tried to do throughout my years is find ways that i can add value to their business yes to their you know situation and so i try to research you know areas maybe they they've mentioned publicly with with that they're trying to do or achieve goals they're trying to to reach and find ways and try to look at it through the lens of Heystack how can Heystack help this business and then just try to bleed with value hey i see you're trying to do x we provide y could equal z you know in terms of the the the outcomes that we're trying to drive for them i was just having a conversation with josh johnson about two things and they're we both said they were underrated number one is just like consistency like just being consistent showing up each and every day doing what you say you're gonna do and the other thing is what you touched on but it's like reciprocity where it's like so many individuals in this space like come to you asking for something first but like if you turn it a little bit and you say okay i'm gonna add value and this is how i'm gonna add value by doing a little homework doing some research understanding the position or the problem that the person you eventually want something from has but like it takes time to understand that like and that's something i don't think you're gonna someone's gonna listen to on a podcast and be like i'm gonna implement this but yeah i don't know over the years like how have you found like consistency and rep reciprocity been able you'd been able to take advantage of those things i mean consistency is it's one of those things that it feel in the moment it feels like butting your head up against the wall if you're not getting the response you're looking for or the outcomes you're looking for but there is a breakthrough moment and it's like that i don't know if you've heard that meme with a guy who's like underground tunneling yes and he turns around really like the things it's like that's a perfect example like the sales cycle is longer with businesses and this is something that you know i've learned over the years it's like the i'll use the word persistence you can use the word consistency but persistence is is is important to to developing the relationships to continuing that that that first email is like most likely not gonna land any deal like it's it's meeting them at the show in person it's it's it's visiting their place of business it's things like that that really help build relationships i love that you called out that working with businesses just takes longer someone could reach out to you and they could be so hot and heavy and excited and you could have the perfect proposal you've got the perfect discovery meeting you've got it all buttoned up and you send it over to them and then you hear nothing and you're like we all scrambled as a team to put this together because the acv on the other side of this is insane like this could be monumental for our business and now they don't wanna respond like anybody who's building in this space has gone through that before like yep how do you how do you get to an answer or how do you work with your team to say this isn't like our fault we've done everything it's just a nature of b to b sales yeah it's a good question i mean i think again every situation is slightly different you know you're looking internally at who's the key decision maker you're looking at what is the priority for that company at the moment what is their strategy and how long is it gonna take them to execute that strategy because oftentimes especially in the bigger businesses they have their product road map they have their initiatives for a year and they're not gonna be able to even give you the time of day until they've got some head space to clear it off of of developing and and executing those things so you know for me i again i hate i hate the answer that it it's unique to each instance i guess the broader application is just understanding where that business is understanding and talking to the people who are the key decision makers and getting to those decision makers and building internal support for the concepts that you're trying to deliver to them because they should be adding value like you should give up if you're not adding value if you if you get to the point you're like you know this isn't something do you find in this space that companies have the more have the ability if you are offering them something that they need that they can include it in their budget and sign a po and make that happen or is it more like we have to wait for them their budgeting cycle which we're having this conversation in july but they might not be able to you know buy from us until december like do you find it's more structured or it's more like opportunistic depends on the business size i would say the larger the business the more structured it tends to be yeah and and so there will be a a whole department that has to get involved in order to to help you with that execution and you'll have to talk to multiple departments and so you're kind of navigating between you know business functions within a larger org but the smaller ones i mean it's really about just getting the key decision maker and understanding having them understand your value and then you know here's actually one that's pretty underrated now that i'm talking this through is the actual operators who are gonna be using your solutions are super critical as well like so the people that whose lives is actually gonna make better on the day to day so if there's a structure where it's like a boss you know you know operators and it's a pretty flat organization like it's really helpful to try to get in with the operators who are actually using the solutions on a day to day because they'll be your advocates internally how do you do that without going over the head of the your your point of contact is there a way to do that that is like strategic and gets maybe the decision maker and the the champion or the end user on the same page yes you're right you can go bottoms up or top down in terms of that you know obviously if you go top down you're looking for that implied permission to talk to the person and show them the demo and get them interested in how it works you're going bottoms up it's it's probably more about the value that it can bring to the organization hey i can i can turn myself into three employees if i had the solution from a tech perspective to to apply to my workflows and so that would then you know get the attention of the owners like who's always looking to to maximize every dollar improve margins things of that nature how many people do you have at Heystack right now so we're growing and we are hiring so if you don't put the put the word out on that we're hiring in our our database and card cataloging team for both tcg and sports and then we're also hiring on our customer service side of things as well and sales so keep that in mind for any listeners out there but right now we're we're still a very lean start up you know we're we're north of ten people at this point we have some contracted employees as well one unique thing about Heystack is we have a headquarters in detroit for our hardware manufacturing and we have employees that work out of that office but the rest of the staff is remote at this point we work all across the time zones in the united states so you can get a hold of us hopefully early morning or late evening depending on where you are in the us or or canada for those sales roles and the cs roles like what's most important for you as someone who's bringing on new team members we talked about this last time we talked it's like this and this conversation keeps coming up with other people it's like hobby domain expertise or outside experience to fit the role blend of both like how are you evaluating those two things because we're a start up we don't have a fully built out hr department that can go through more of the extensive training that might be required for people who are coming in fresh to the industry so that's why i mentioned earlier we prefer people who understand cards so there's a shorter you know cycle of of getting people up to speed so our preference is highly intelligent and highly capable and achieved people people have accomplished things in on their resume you know it doesn't have to be a long resume but accomplishments within a short amount of time is just as valuable as accomplishments over a career if you're into cards you've got a key understanding of cards and then of course we look for intelligence just people who can be problem solvers who are not necessarily permission seekers but they're more of begging for forgiveness and i'd say that just because we got we wanna go fast and so i'd rather you make a mistake on the job that we can review and learn from versus constantly asking for permission on on thing new things coming up but you think there's a rise in people wanting to work in the sports card industry i think so i mean i think it's become more established with the larger brands coming in and putting a lot of money into the space it's has more of a it's not just cards i'm using air quotes for the listeners here it's not just cards it's more technology it's more customer experience it's it's all these things so i think that the industry has matured so much over the last ten years that yes for sure how do you think about like just the tech side and the tech infrastructure in the hobby obviously you're a company that's contributing to that but it seems like it's growing up quite a bit like three four years ago at the national i'm not sure we'd be having a conversation about hobby tech but here we are like how has that changed i think it's led mostly by ai claude you know the ability to vibe code which is which is cool i think you know it's it's been a lot easier in the most recent year or even months to be able to create your idea from scratch with the tools available to people through ai so we see a lot of people coming to us who are are vibe coders asking for access to our apis for data and things of that nature and we evaluate them and and and i think what i look at is more less the product but the person behind the product and like so it's a almost like a hiring opportunity it's like oh so you you you've got a a strong knowledge of cars you build something that you think will solve a problem inside the the space and you've taken the initiative to try to build something your yourself like hey you wanna come work for Heystack let's talk you know that that sort of thing so i i wanna maybe like round this out by talking about like you bringing in people the team growing you're leading the business how do you when you're hiring new people obviously that should mean less work for you i'm sure there was a time maybe there's more work in a different way but less like functional responsibility there's i'm sure there's a time where you felt like you needed to do every function every role like all the time and then you start bringing in people and you offload responsibility like have you gotten good at that at this stage of not feeling like you need to be involved in every function and every decision or like how how do you work that out especially since you're leading the business and there's so much work to do all the time that's a really good question brett it's like a that's a like a loaded question too i'm sure my staff would give a very different answer because i do like to be involved like it's for better or worse you know i i'd say you know i don't have i would never say i have any level of expertise i just have a level of experience that has informed me over the years on on when to get involved and when to back off i would say as you know a a business leader there's no greater gift than a than a strong hire because it just takes responsibility off your plate it gives you a sense of of confidence that you can execute and so that for me i would say the more i'm involved probably means i need to train up and and and be a better leader in terms of my expectations and then to let my people go do their thing and if i'm more involved it's probably because i'm i'm paradoxically maybe a little too spread too thin and i'm i'm i'm getting into weeds in in places maybe i really shouldn't so yeah i don't know if i answered your question but it's it's like that's that's kinda where my yeah no i get it and i'm you said a good hire you talked about that what may like what for you makes a good hire like you can even through the evaluation process like even when you think this person is perfect you it's like once game day starts you don't know until they they're on the field and they yeah they start playing so like for you like what are the qualities of someone and it could be Heystack it can be previous experience but like what makes someone a good hire to you it's internal growth of responsibilities so and and that will hit a limit at some point and you'll have to hire again against it but like someone who can take on more than what's asked of them inside of a start up is so so important and it just gives the business a lift under its wings you know the ability to to apply either a personal expertise or a personal experience to the business where it hadn't been able to explore that that that type of thing before is huge so i'd say you know it's almost like the the draft analogy like nfl gets a guy gets drafted in the fourth round but he's a starter in his first season like that gives such a lift to the overall organization from the value if i were to hire someone at at a lower level and then they come in and prove themselves to be a first round pick i'm winning as an organization and so is that person because their their career is taking a a they're gonna get a high paid a higher amount and all those things so it's really hard especially during the interview process to like tell someone yeah we're hiring you for this role but like we'd like for you to explore how we can get good at these other three roles because you want the focus especially out of the gates but like you find that people like jump into a business are very very excited and they're very hungry by the growth and the opportunity they dominate their role and then they start exploring other spaces of the business and then contribute like i don't know like i call it a different breed there's a different breed of person who like has to like wake up every morning and walk into a start up that's completely full of uncertainty and thrive yeah is there anything you ask people during like the interview process to make sure that they're at least a they're a fit to be able to survive in the chaos that is a startup yeah it's a great question i mean i wish i had like a one specific like interview question that would like unlock the the whole psychology of who who works well inside of a startup but the reality is like if you wanna come to work you wanna do that same thing every day you don't wanna be bothered with you know variety then a start up isn't really for you i mean you're gonna be asked to be flexible in ways that you wouldn't be in a standard corporate culture where there's layers and quote unquote the ability to hide i'll just say that like you can't hide at a start up like if you fall below the the performance of the team not only are is your work product gonna suffer but your your coworkers are gonna make notice and they're gonna say something to the boss so everyone has to be cranking back on that that or that you know rowing as hard as i can in the same direction i i sorry for the cheesy analogies but like you know what i mean it's like you can't fall behind and you know in terms of your question i don't have a specific question i would ask people i just try to probe and get to know their psychology a little bit as we close this out what's next for Heystack what's on your mind right now like being at this event obviously you're trying to have good conversations what's next yeah it's a great question we're doing a lot more in the retail space and so we're rolling out kiosks across the country where people can come into their lcs and image their cards those lcss then can make offers on those cards to purchase them so if you're looking to sell cards from your collection you know you could walk in your lcs and have a really structured way to do so if you can't end up making a deal on that card with the lcs Heystack makes it really easy to list those cards into to ebay or or other platforms so i i would definitely say check us out at the lcs level steve sloan ceo of Heystack really appreciate the time no thank you brett it's always good catching up with steve he's got so much experience and insight i love what he's doing at Heystack i think they're building something really cool that anyone who is selling cards online across platforms should consider if you are building a business in the sports card industry i want you to consider one question this week where is your internal friction becoming the collector's problem maybe it's inaccurate listings maybe it's slow shipping maybe it's inconsistent communication maybe it's lack of educational content maybe it's inventory that you can't process quick enough maybe your team is spending too much time reacting that no one is improving the system find that point of friction and work backwards what capability would remove it what would that capability cost and what evidence would prove the investment worked that is more useful way to think about growth the goal is not simply to become a bigger hobby business the goal is to become a better business for the collector the conversations i recorded at the national will continue to appear here on hobbyjobs over the next several weeks we're going to learn directly from the people building tech marketplaces products services and the teams behind this industry this is what hobbyjobs does and this is why hobbyjobs exists i will continue to put out the newsletter every tuesday if you are not signed up for the newsletter do it it's free link is in the show notes you're gonna get an operator note story some resources and open roles across the industry hobby jobs is where the sports card industry goes to work if you are a business in the sports card industry and you can benefit for getting involved in hobby jobs whether it is promotion whether it's getting your roles listed whether it's building a creative idea with me let's talk you can find me at stacking slabs across all the social platforms or email me at stacking slabs at g mail dot com i appreciate next week