Alright. We are back. Another episode of Passion to Profession brought to you by eBay.

We are going to talk to the third member of the card ladder team. This was no particular order. Josh is kinda bringing up the rear here, but I figured let's get the story from all of them individually and try to dig in.

And, I've been having fun with these. Josh, I know you just got back from a trip. Are you ready to talk about your career in cards and cards in general?

I'm ready. Awesome. Let's maybe kick it off here because I couldn't pinpoint with Chris and Christina just based on history of listening to content, how they returned to cards.

But I'm not that that story is a little blurry. I don't know even know if I've ever asked you, but maybe walk I know you collected as a kid, and you had binders, and you collected Penny Hardaway.

But what was the catalyst for you returning back into cards? Like, what was that period of time, and what happened? Yes. Mine is very different from the other two.

I came back through Pokemon cards, actually. So when I was a kid, I primarily collected Pokemon, but I also did collect basketball cards. Honey Hardaway, I had some, like, Kobe and MJ stuff too.

Nineties, you know, card collecting, Beckett magazine, the whole thing. But I did a lot of Pokemon stuff, with my brother, and we had, like, you know, all the base set stuff and jungle and fossil and all that.

We were really into it. And then I think it was, like, 2015 range when Pokemon Go came out, the really popular phone game.

And, I played that with some friends at work, played it pretty heavily with my brother on a couple vacations, and then just sort of, like, got back into the Pokemon nostalgia world and then, like, found my cards at my mom's house.

Same old story there. Went through my binders and then found my basketball cards and kinda got it through that way. I I think I just, like, wanted to complete my old Pokemon set, and that took me, like, a day.

You know, you could just, like, go on, eBay and just, like, buy the last five hollows that I needed or whatever. And then started to do, like, first edition hollows.

And I kinda got bored with Pokemon just because it was, like, too easy to get to complete the sets. So then I started getting into basketball and LeBron and Penny Hardaway and trying to find, like, the rare stuff.

So so we'll sidebar here for a minute on Pokemon. As a kid who grew up collecting Pokemon and then returning via Pokemon, what is what is what is your and I know you don't collect this stuff now, but, like, what's your perspective?

And I see story posts every now and again about your analysis on the Pokemon market, which I do appreciate.

But, like, with what's going on, it's been just absolute hysteria. Like, what's your read on the factors that have caused Pokemon to dominate kind of the headlines and the hobby this year?

Yeah. It's similar to the nostalgia of the nineties kids, just coming back with a wave of of my you know, money and they're they're aging into the, like, lower thirties to late thirties.

They have more money, same story as basketball. The thing with Pokemon though, is they have continued to capture those audiences through the years. Like they continue to make popular video games.

They've made, like, computer games, you know, Game Boy games that have been really, really popular. And they've sort of, like, they've kept making the cards. The sets are very popular. The TCG game is very popular.

The franchise itself is, like, the highest grossing revenue franchise, that exists today. So they're still very, very popular. And the cards, like, booming over the last year, Pokemon specifically, I'm not sure.

You know, it's probably a combination of, like like I said, people aging and they're hitting their thirtieth anniversary or whatever. I don't know. They're always hitting some anniversary.

People get excited about that stuff and some influencers jumping in. There's always reasons for Pokemon, but it seems like it's a bubble to me just because the supply of Pokemon doesn't make sense relative to sports.

So they don't have like serial numbered cards, for example. So like some of these like Pikachu, Mario, Pikachu's and Umbreon cards that are popped, like, 40,000 that sell for multiple thousands of dollars.

Does it make a lot of sense to me given that they were in the hundreds, you know, less than a year ago?

We'll see. So when you started collecting, you kinda left Pokemon behind because it wasn't as exciting, and you moved into collecting LeBron and Penny Hardaway.

I knew it probably wasn't overnight that you're spending big money to get rare and scarce kind of LeBron rookies or gold refractors?

But what was like, how quickly did that occur that you were okay. I'm collecting basketball cards, and then it got, like, real serious.

And then maybe talk to us about how that like, what were the types of things that influenced you to start spending real money on some of LeBron and Penny's best cards?

Yeah. I I remember still bidding on eBay auctions for, like, LeBron gold finest refractors, and I was, like, freaking out spending $200, you know, like, bidding at the last second for $300 on a finest gold.

Like, oh my god. What did I just do? And then it just sorta, you know, the values of that stuff was going up at the time, like, 2016.

So it kinda just, like, made sense to keep going up and, like, selling some stuff to pay for the next one. And it just I feel like it's a pretty organic rise up in value.

I don't think it was like one day where I decided, you know, now I'm gonna start spending $5. I think it was a very, very linear thing where I was spending $50 on random cards, and then it turned into a 100.

And then I would sell that for 200 and use the 200 to buy something else for 300 that I, you know, added some extra income and it just sort of like kept growing.

And I do remember buying a LeBron rookie auto ultimate collection, the the one out of two fifty raw for, like, $5.

And that was just sort of like an I remember that jump up and then the next jump up, and then it just sorta turned into, like, the gold refractor where I'd flown, to Texas to, like, make this trade with a 25 trade.

And then, you know, everything I had below me because rising up in value and it just sorta, like, snowballed. And here we are.

So I wanted to make sure we kinda for anyone who didn't have that insight, give you some background on your collecting and how it started, and we're gonna kinda connect this with your career path. So let's maybe do that.

And and maybe a good bridge would be the fact that I've listened to you talk a lot about, like, the way you think about your finances and the way you think about spending money and talking about, like, you know, paying your bills.

But then, like, previously, you know, when you get paychecks, it was like, alright.

Well, we'll allocate this to discretionary, money to sports cards. And, like, you're very methodical about how you approach it, but you didn't always work for, you know, card ladder.

You kinda came up with this career in working in a lot of different companies and engineering roles. Maybe, like, take us through kind of that career path.

Like, I know you went to Arizona State. You leave Arizona State. And, like, what did it look like? Yeah. So I got my degree in computer science. I'd always wanted to do something, you know, coding or tech related.

So I went and got computer science degree, then worked for a few engineering companies, Garmin. Then I worked for GoDaddy. And then I worked for, like, some contracting businesses, some hotel companies, moved around.

The engineering software world is pretty fast paced. Like, usually, you switch switch companies every year or so, and you just sort of, like, move up the the salary ladder that way.

So I'd built a decent career in tech before even getting into cards. I think I was at, yeah, I was at this company called, Infusionsoft. They do, like, small business marketing software.

And that was the company where I started playing Pokemon Go and collecting cards. So I'd already built up I was already, like, pretty deep into my career at that point. So I I had, like, a decent amount of discretionary income by then.

Did did did you were you, like, on a mission or on a path that eventually, the more you got because many of us collectors, the more we get integrated into the hobbies collect, the more we wanna get involved, whether that's just spend more time, whether that's make bigger deals.

Did you have an instinct that you eventually were going to be building something in the hobby, or was it just kind of an organic opportunity that presented itself? No. I never went out of my way to do anything like that.

Because in my mind, it was a very physical collecting space that was, like, completely separate from my job where, like, I could unwind and not look at computers all day and actually just like, enjoy something in the physical world, the sports cards.

And it brought me back to like my childhood of collecting and looking through binders and like the smell of the cards and all that stuff.

So I always saw it as the opposite where it was just sort of like a balance from my day job that I could, get away from.

And, like I said, not have computers involved. The shift into, like, the card letter stuff was more just like Chris leading the way. And I just was like, well, I can do the tech stuff.

You know? I guess I'll, you know, I'll help. It makes sense. I have the skills to be able to build something like this. And so that, again, like, that really wasn't anything that I went out of my way to do.

It just sort of, like, organically happened. I wanna well, I wanna hit on you and Chris connecting, meeting, like, some of those first conversations, how it how it all went about.

But before I do that, I wanna talk about, like, this top line quote from Michael Rubin that we just, like, I we can never forget.

But it's, like, when he's talking about, like, this brutal experience that the lobby offers. And I think there is a lot of it that is as simple as, like, yeah, we just wanna keep things simple.

We wanna collect physical objects. But then, like, there was a world we were doing this in where, like, card ladder didn't exist. And I think many people out there listening are like, yeah. What would life be like without card ladder?

It would definitely be more challenging. So technology, I think, plays a role for, for the positive for us. Often, we get thrown tech things that we don't need, and those things eventually fizzle off.

How, like, how have you thought about that kinda in your mind going from, like, I'm separating these things, like, one's work, one's like my hobby.

But then as you've been a builder of this platform that a lot of people use and find helpful, like, has your mindset shifted at all about, just the role that tech can play in the hobby and how people like you can help kinda drive the hobby forward in a way that's, helpful and not going to interrupt kind of this this, way of connecting and collecting that we're all experiencing?

Since he said that, doesn't it feel like it's gotten more brutal? Like, the complaints right now on Instagram are, like, two week wait times for eBay authentication and, like, PSA vault timings and stuff.

And, like, it just feel like it's gotten more brutal, but that aside, for card letter or like the tech side, there it there's definitely tech things that have made improvements for everybody.

I do think the eBay authentication overall is a good thing. It's increased trust a lot. It's increased people's, ability to, like, buy stuff and not have to worry about it, and there's, like, less nefarious activity going on overall.

So it is a net positive. From our side on the tech, we've really tried to provide a tool that's like a supplementary thing. We're really not trying to, like, get in the way of the actual hobby experience for anybody in particular.

You know, we're not trying to, like, force anyone through a specific path or say, like, you have to do something this way or you have to follow these indexes.

Like, we've purposely built all the tools to say, like, you know more about your cards than we do.

So, like, here's 10 different paths that you could take in order to value your own collection or value something in a deal. You know, we're giving you, like, the last sold price.

We're giving you the volume of the sales. We're giving you, like, an estimate based on the index change. These are all sort of, like, data points that we provide, but we're not, like, explicitly saying this is the way you have to do it.

And so, like, if you add a card to your collection and it says, like, estimate the value, there's, like, six options, I think, right now, maybe seven.

Because we we just want you to be able to, like, use the tools however you think is best for your your collection.

So that's always kind of been our mindset from the beginning is to make a tool that's helpful for everybody, but really like not get in the way of your hobby experience.

Some people like, as you probably know, every type of persona uses the product, right? Like flipper flippers use it. Collectors use it. Investors use it. Mixes of all those. And we welcome all types of people that wanna use the product.

So we've really tried not to pigeonhole it into one specific thing. Okay. You said so much there that I wanna dig into, and hopefully, we don't like, I won't sidetrack us too much.

But this idea of letting people decide and letting the giving collectors the the power and not forcing them and telling them what to do.

It seems to me, and being back in this space and working in it regularly for a while now, that not only from a tech perspective, from a services perspective, but then also to very much so from a content perspective.

A lot of creators and businesses come to the table as the, it's almost like like the college professor where they're, like, talking at you and telling you what to do.

What I heard from you is a completely different mindset shift on letting the individuals or the students or the collectors be in control of the experience that they want.

Has like, that's really and that's a really important foundational, like, piece when you're building anything. Where where do you think that came from? And has that been kind of part of the card ladder DNA from the beginning?

Indeed. This hobby is, like, over a 100 years old built out of, like, a completely grassroots movement where the corporation started as we're gonna sell you gum, but we need shove these cards into them.

And then it slowly morphed into, like, collectors and people that are buying this stuff, demanding what they want printed from the company.

It's like there became a a demand from the customer, from the collectors to say, this, this junk wax era isn't it for us.

You guys ruined everything for us. Our values have tanked. We need you to start making things more rare. We need actual, like, proof that these things are rare. So then serial card numbers came out of that organically.

So the the customer and the collector has always driven the path that things take in this hobby. And so, you know, a hundred years later, it doesn't make any sense for a company now to come in.

And once again, say, this is how it's going to go. You guys are going to start doing breaks only. You're going to start doing gambling. We're going to start collecting more of the revenue in between these middlemen steps.

Like, the collectors are still gonna find a way to make it their own space. And so instead of fighting against that, we've felt like, let's just continue to let the collector drive this industry forward. I love that.

I think one of the things that you also mentioned, which is extremely hard to do, and I know this because I think a lot about the communication messaging, everything that gets involved in this, is that you have built something that is that is used by individuals who participate in the various variety and diversity, the many different flavors of the hobby.

And you mentioned, you know, the collector, the flipper, the investor, like, all across the board.

How do you is without without I don't know. Is it just because what you build is better than everything else, or is it is it has it been something else that has attracted?

Because, I mean, I'll watch a video and I'll see Kyle Kravitz, king of cards, and he's using card ladder. And it's like, you know, he's one of the most popular personas in the hobby, and he's viewed by so many people.

And I like his content. I would say our approach to the hobby is probably a lot different, and we do different things. But he's using card ladder every day. I'm using card ladder every day.

So, like, I don't know. How did that how did that happen? I listened to your interview with Chris to brush up before today, and he already answered this one. It's just the P it's the team. It's the people.

It's the, you know, it's Chris, Christina, myself at Nick. We're in the space. We're in the hobby every day. We know all of these people already. We'd been in the industry for four years before we even started on the project.

So we already knew, you know, a good majority of the people in this space. We already had all the networking and relationships built, and we just, like, weren't gonna we're not gonna stop until it's the best it can be.

You know, like, we're just the four of us just have that drive to just, like, keep it going. And like our team and individuals of people are what make the car letter product go forward.

You know, it's not that it's not any one thing with the product. It's not the tech, You know, it's not the customer support. It's not the, like, CEO decisions. It's like all the people together moving it forward.

So I think, you know, that to me is like the secret sauce of building a successful startup or, like, a small business is like, you just have to have really passionate people who care about the thing they're building and they have a, they have to have a genuine interest in it as well.

I've seen so many people try to make their own businesses for the purposes of making money because they feel the industry is like ripe for whatever.

But then that never works out because they don't actually care about it, and they're not they don't have, like, the incentive to, like, move it forward because they don't care about what they're working on.

So I think, you know, I can't speak for any other businesses in this industry, but for us, the secret sauce is the team.

So I think what's cool, and this is what I wanna hear, is you and Chris connecting and the relationship and how it was developed. And I'm not even sure I have the story straight in my mind. That's why I wanna hear it from you.

But I think what's powerful is the fact that you can build a relationship through online based on a common interest or a common point of view, and that can lead to creating a piece of software that is used by however many people and has changed the way people think about approaching cards.

And I just think that in and of itself is, like, super cool and super powerful.

And I don't know if anyone out there really understands, like, that opportunities out there if there's passion. So maybe take us through did like, when did you start talking about card ladder with Chris?

I would imagine you were sharing an interest over cards before that, but let us in on the inside of how the relationship developed. I think we met in, like, 2017 or 2018 through just, like, being in the space.

You know, I think we maybe saw each other's posts on blowout or something and came to an agreement on some topic that everyone else was zagging. Like, we zagged on a topic and it was like, oh, we both we both zagged on this.

And then, you know, chatted. And then he had his podcast. I had mine. So, like, we had that connection where there weren't that many content creators at the time. So it was kind of a small group.

So we got connected through that as well and then just started chatting over the years. And the card ladder thing, it was really just so Chris had like that newsletter where he was like doing market analysis of Michael Jordan sales.

And it was like on PWCC at the time, he would like review past sales. And then he would, like, write a newsletter on what he thought the next sale was gonna be based on trends.

And then he was, like, sending that newsletter out to people. And then it was just sorta, like, one day, I was like, why don't you just, like, he he was explaining it to me, and I'm like, why don't you just digitize this?

Why are you you know, like, my engineering brain sees things differently than him. Like, he has all the stats and, like, the trends, and he knows how all that works.

And he's very, like, meticulous and methodical about it. And my brain is like, why don't you just digitize all this? You're, you know, you're wasting so much time. And he's like, I don't, you know, I don't have this.

I don't have the tech skills to be able to do that. I was like, well, I could whip something up. And so I think I just, like, digitized his newsletter, and then it just sort of, like, turned into, hey.

What if we, like, digitized more than just these Michael Jordan cards? That's, like, capture the sales and start making graphs and do this.

And so then then then it was like, hey. We I think we might have something here. How did you like, obviously, you have a skill, and Chris has a skill, and you came together. You're we're like, you're working. Like, this is work.

It's taking up time. How when did it reach a point where you all had to have a conversation about, like, the vision and what where you wanted this to go and how it was gonna all work and roles and responsibility and all that stuff.

So when we first started chatting, I was working at Amazon, and that company requires a lot of your focus and attention.

And so I had decided to make a to leave Amazon and go back to my previous company where it was very entrepreneurial driven small business company.

They built small business marketing software, and I had been there for, like, five years before.

So I knew a lot of the I had a lot all the domain knowledge I could go back and not have to, like, relearn a bunch of stuff. So I went back there with the discussion around, like, hey. I would love to help what you guys are doing here.

I know I know the business. I can help the company, but I also have some other stuff in the works where I I would love to be able to, dedicate some time to that. Are you guys open to it?

And it's such a it's such a great company that I worked at. They were working they were willing to work with me to say, you know, let's do, like, thirty to forty hours here, and then you can dedicate some time to that.

With the assumption that I would depending on how well it went, I might, you know, phase out.

So that was kind of the plan from the beginning. I know Chris and Christina's weren't as, like, smooth and easy of a transition, So they they could probably like, I think Chris maybe spoke to his, his lawyer thing.

Like, he had to do, like, a hard stop, and it was, like, a pretty tough decision.

Mine was, like, kinda more my thought it was kinda more, like, planned out with the company, which was really nice of them to do. I I know that's a that's not something that that's not something I took for granted at the time.

I I was very grateful of that. Did did you view I mean, it sounded like you had a little bit of a safety net, but did you view the work that you were doing in the early days with Cardlytor?

Do you did you view it at all as as a risk, or was it more I I believe that there's upside to to this and what we're building.

I definitely saw the upside given the team we had. I could tell that, Chris and Christina were of the same ilk of me where it's like, we're not gonna stop until this is awesome.

You know? And that's kinda like what you would look for in a business partner is are they driven? You know, that's kinda like the number one thing I look for in a business partner.

So they had that same sort of, like, I would call it, like, obsessive drive to do this until it's done. So when I sense that from them and I knew I had the same thing, I think it was sort of, like, inevitable to a certain extent.

I I never saw it becoming nearly as popular or successful it is today, but I could I could maybe see, like, hey, maybe this will be a nice replacement one day for, like, a regular day job.

Is there anything you've built? You've talked about your kinda career path. Is there anything different about building tech in the hobby that as opposed to other industries that you've worked in, anything particularly stand out?

Not really. I use the same principles to build the, you know, the back end and, like, scale everything. It's all it's all very similar.

That's the that's the nice thing about, tech is that it's very applicable across industries. You can take what you learn and kind of rebuild things. But the big difference here is that I really did care about the topic at hand.

So it it it was more motivating to, like, wanna work on it every day because I was building things that let me look at cards all day. You know? Like, that's basically what it was is we were already talking about cards half our day.

Now I just get to talk about it my entire day. That that was the driving. That was, like, the the motivating factor to, work so hard on it from the beginning is because we were excited about it.

I wanna do a little content inception and talk about content for a minute because ever since I've known, you, you've been doing content at some level, whether it's Cardboard Chronicles or then moving over to Crossover and some of the content you're doing with Chris and Card Ladder.

How why have you always made made the decision to not only be like Josh, the builder of tech or Josh, the collector of cards, but also, like, Josh, the content creator.

Where does that come from? I'm gonna be honest. You guys like the content way more than I do. I don't know if that comes across in the crossover where I'm sort of, like, the more grouchy, like, less willing participant every week.

And that's just because, like, I don't get as excited about creating content as you guys do. I'm really bad at it in terms of, like, editing and making the videos presentable.

If you've watched my old episodes, they are, to use Michael Rubin's term, they are brutal. Like, the the mics are bad. The quality is bad. There's no editing whatsoever. So I've never been very passionate about the content.

It was sort of just like, You know, in like twenties, I think I started at like 2018, maybe 2017. I can't remember. But at that time it was like, I'm so I'm so invested into this space. Like, I just felt like I had to do something else.

And, this is definitely not a knock to the existing content that was out there at the time. I just felt like I could bring something different to the table with, like, the interview style.

And I just felt like there was a lot of interesting people in the space that were like my similar age that were coming into it with the same, reasons that I came into this space.

And I just found it interesting to talk about it with people.

And so I just sort of, like, turned the camera on and talked to my friends. That's kinda what it was. And then, you know, it was enough where, like, I just kept going with it even though I I didn't love the content creation side of it.

And then crossover. I just, honestly, dude, that show is literally just me and Chris talking, talking crap on Friday night about stuff we already talk crap about over DMs.

And so if that's just all it is, so, like, I don't mind I I really don't mind filming that that those episodes.

It's fun. How would you I love the honesty, and I appreciate that. How how would you evaluate the current state of content in the hobby? And let's, like so Carbor Chronicles was such a there wasn't a lot.

So a lot of people that came back, your conversations were a lot of people's first exposure to content in the hobby. And although you you you're not giving yourself much credit, I I think, like, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that it's, like, not well produced or not there's not graphics or audio quality. I think it's, like, the the substance is what's good.

And I don't know. For people like me, that's what matters most. I've gone back and listened to several of those conversations you've had with people over the years just to, like, catch a nugget again or hear something.

But how would you evaluate, like, from then when there was very few to now where there's content on top of content? Like, how would you evaluate the current state of what's what's happening on the content side in the hobby?

Yeah. I think people might expect me to say, like, oh, it's bad today because it's all focused on investing. I'll take the I'll take the more positive spin on it.

I think you can still get the same type of collector focused content that you did back then, and there's a lot more of it. And now you have the additional choice of listening to someone talk about the investing side or the flipping.

And I really I do honestly enjoy watching the videos of people, like, go to shows and, like, making deals, like, the especially the nice produced ones, like, from Josh Roth and Kyle King of the Cards.

Like, I do enjoy watching those guys' channels. I think they're fascinating, and it's, like, another way for me to, experience the hobby in a way that maybe I don't experience it.

So, you know, people just kind of expect me to slam, in the investor side, which is fair. I'm critical of it, but I do enjoy, like, all the content.

I I I I listen to all your episodes, like, my the football fantasy football, CardPod is, like, my favorite, card podcast right now just because I am so I'm so into the football cards right now.

So I love that that show came up at the perfect time where I really needed it. And then there are like I said, I I'd like the mix. I think there's just, like, so many great choices out there.

And if there's something you don't like, then just don't watch it. You know? Like, there's you just go watch the stuff you like. I I love the perspective there, and people would probably be surprised.

And I haven't, like, openly talked about it too much, but I listen to a lot of stuff and stuff that's, like, way outside my lane, and it's not even, like, collector focus.

And I don't know why. And it's, like, maybe it's just because I have a just and I have a I have a desire to be on top of things.

I have a desire to, understand different points of view from different types of people. Do do you like, how do you the investor I I would we all invest in some level, but I I I would classify use more as a a collector.

But, you know, you're also just you're not you're buying the cards with the intention of them going down. Right? You wanna hold value or go up.

Seems like on Instagram specifically in this market, and I know you've got thoughts, but, like, where it's thing cards are going up rapidly and we're in a bull market, it's it seems like we as a community get way excited and way over index on the values, and it maybe takes away from the experience a little bit on the card front where there's less content about, like, the specifics of the card and why.

And it's all focused around the price. Like, I know every now and again, I feel like you reach a point where you'll take it, you'll take it, and then you'll expect, alright. I've seen enough subject x.

I'm gonna put put something on my story. Like, let us in on, like, your mindset. What I feel like you share in that with me where it's like it's just at a certain point, it's like, I there's only so much I can take.

But how do you think about, like, the all the voices during this time where things are going up? When everyone has one opinion, my brain is just like, I have to say the, I have to say the opposite.

It's really, it's probably just like some super simple monkey brain thing, explanation like that, where it's like 20 people are like, oh, soccer cards undervalued forever to the moon.

I don't care if it just doubled this stuff, you know, world cup twenty twenty six.

And then I'm like, oh my God, I can't hear this anymore. I have to say this is be a, you know, that it would happen even to like the stuff that I personally collected.

If LeBron's index doubled in a, in a month that I'd be like, this is ridiculous. Why, like what caused it to go up two X in one month?

And the part that, people may not catch through my criticism is like, I'm of the opinion that, the so, like, the opinions that I give on being critical of, like, stuff jumping up in value and people hyping stuff, I actually want to see the values of cards go up just as much as anybody else.

But in my opinion, the more successful route to get to that point is to not do this.

It's to not, like, push and pump and hype because I I actually think that, like, hurts the values medium term and long term. Short term, it might work, but it's not going to work medium and long term.

So it's actually like a, you know, a plea to, like, please stop pumping stuff so aggressively, and it will just go up in a nice smooth organic way, and we'll all be better off.

But that clearly doesn't work. Like, the more that I hate on kaboom or downtown prices, the more they go up, dude. That stuff's gone up, like, two x since I started whining about it. So, you know, it's my strategy is not working.

I love it. I wanna hit this topic because anytime I'm talking with a collector who's also a business owner or works inside a hobby business, I'm always just curious on the the lines and the blurring of the lines.

Like, you your hobby is also what you work on full time. And so it's, like, of this kinda yeah. I I obviously don't.

You've got a family, your, you know, your dad, your husband. You've got other responsibilities, but you probably spend an absurd amount of time on cards both because it pays the bills and also because you're a collector.

Like, explain that dynamic where kinda your hobby and your professional life are almost one in the same. Yeah. I'm just a psycho.

I don't know. I just look at cards. I code apps to look at card prices. And I have a family, and I'm managing finances and whatever. I don't know. I just I don't care. I'll just figure it out. I just I love checklist spread.

Like, I love having stuff to do when I wake up in the morning. So, you know, knowing that I have to, like, answer a bunch of customer questions, I have to code some feature, I have to, you know, look through my eBay safe searches.

I have to figure out how to get the next grail. Like, these are all just challenges in front of me every day that I enjoy having.

So I relish every morning having these, pile of card related, family related things. It's, it keeps me it keeps my brain moving constantly. And then I've picked up, like, the running thing. Like, I've just I'm just a psycho.

I'll just add 10 more things. Who cares? We'll figure it out. I'll I'll eventually blow up and, you know, burn out, but we'll figure that out later. So you you're also, like, part of it. I'm curious if this has changed.

You build you're building a product that displays cards and prices. And so you're constantly in this world where there's these images of cards, and I'm there's gotta be some influence of, like, you stumbling across cards.

Like, has building card ladder in any way shaped or changed the way you think about your collection better or worse? So the images I listened to the Chris interview.

He loves to give me credit for that. Like, oh, we gotta build we gotta build the whole app around images. And I that was, like, one thing that I said that stuck with him, which is which is great.

I I enjoy that part of the app. And he tries to not give himself credit for literally coming up with the entire idea and, like, the whole platform and everything.

That's great. What was your question? Just the like, because you're in this world of building an app Yeah.

Like, looking at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally, dude. Like, looking at sales history all day, every day, and like pulling in these sales and like reviewing the fanatics auction results every week.

I just sorta like started looking at why the heck are these football cards of the same cards, like a tenth of the price of the basketball versions.

Cause football is like way more popular than basketball in this country, as you know. And I like football better. Probably. I get to close.

I love basketball. I've always loved, I've always liked basketball more, but like football is just so such a great brand. And like the NFL is just so fantastic. I love the league and I've always been fascinated with fantasy football.

And so like to see the prices and like work on the product, it's definitely influenced me to be like, I need more football cards. This is, it would be too I'd be passing up on too much fun.

Not because, like, they're undervalued necessarily, that is part of it. But I just I love football so much. I just need some more skin in the football game and, you know, the LeBron basketball stuff just isn't enough.

Now I need football. Surprised to hear that you you rank football maybe slightly higher than basketball, but, I'm glad you're on That's a it's a recent shift, dude. Okay. I I just think the NFL is, like, a much better run league.

Yes. I think their product is better. I think the organization of the teams is better. Every year, every team has a shot. Like, people like people were ripping on the Colts all off season.

They gave them no chance. And now they're like a top five team, undoubtedly. They went toe to toe with an elite Rams team, and they should have won that game on the road.

So, like, every year, every team has a shot. Whereas in the NBA, it's like, you know, if you're not a top five team, there's just no there's no shot.

So I I think that's a big part of it. Like, there's always hope for your favorite players. And the NFL is always, like, cycling in new exciting players. Ashton Genti now is, like, a superstar.

Dijon Robinson. These guys weren't even in the league three years ago. You know? Like, there's always something new and exciting coming up. And the NBA is still hanging on to, like, LeBron, Curry, and Durant.

Like, they can't move on. It's the same guys from twenty years ago, and I just find the NFL to be more exciting lately. I'm not disagreeing with anything that you're saying there, Josh. I wanna audience listens to the show.

There are people out there that are interested in maybe pursuing a path in the hobby. And I think a lot of individuals, when times are really good, it's an easy time to say, oh, I wanna do my thing or share my idea.

I guess looking back on your experience, what would you tell someone who is maybe on the and it could be anything. Building an app, dealing full time, working at a hobby company.

Like, what would you advise someone who's thinking about leaving their nine to five and, doing something in the hobby full time? I think you already need to be in the hobby for quite a long time.

I think you need to really understand the industry. It's like that, you know, that ten thousand hours of training argument where you just really have to know everything before you can jump in and try to build something.

There's always a lot of, new people that jump in when things are really exciting, like you said, and they'll be in it for a couple of months.

And I think I've seen enough, you know, everything here is is awesome. It's always going up. I need to build something now. I gotta capitalize.

And I think it's, more prudent to, like, really understand the industry, go through the ups and downs, wait for a down cycle, see how everything reacts, and just, like, not rush into something because, you know, you could start building it and then all of a sudden we go through a crash and then you just burn out.

That would be my advice. You just really have to, I think you like and also it kind of gives you this timeline or this chance to like, find out for yourself if you really are passionate about the space.

You can't, like, know if you're obsessed with something after, like, two months of being in it when everything's good.

You you have to, like, love it when it's also not going great. You know, everyone's posting, like, Charlie Munger quotes right now because everything's great.

But, you know, a year from now, if things are going down, that that stuff's gonna stop, and it's gonna have to only the people who actually love it are gonna be still here.

What's been the most rewarding part of working full time in the hobby for you? Not have not having to, like, context switch between, cards and, like, other tech related things is really nice.

It's been nice to just always have to stick with cards and, like, keep it focused on one thing and, like, you know, Chris being a close friend of mine, and he's also a business partner.

It's just like a very, it's a very smooth way of living right now where, you know, we talk about cards over DMs already, and then it transitions to, like, applying that to our business. It's all just sorta, like, one cohesive unit.

So, I can't really think of anything else. Alright. Before I before I let you get out of here, I'm curious just for you working on card ladder, and then Josh is the collector right now, 2025.

What excites you most about kind of the car card ladder member and collector, like, each of those lanes? What what has you really excited? I mean, like, the future of the business or the industry or Any way you wanna take it.

Yeah. We don't like to talk about the future of the business very much. Like, we we get asked, like, what's the next big thing? And we don't we barely know what we're gonna work on tomorrow.

We just we kind of go day by day and, like, whatever comes across our table that day, we we handle it or, you know, a customer will come up, like, kind of organically give us a new idea that that spawns out of discussion.

So, the future of the business, we're just gonna keep up and right very slowly.

That's always been kind of our our motto is, like, we just like to keep moving it forward little by little. We're not trying to, like, two x anything overnight. Same as our motto for, like, the industry itself.

For the card side and the industry, Just excited to, keep adding to the collection, honestly. Like, I'm I'm really focused on trying to buy a bunch more football cards. I've got more coming. I told you before this at auction that I won.

So always excited to keep adding to the PC, keep collaborating with people like yourself, joining podcasts. Honestly, like, it's just everything that we're doing right now is set up so nicely.

I I don't wanna, like, get greedy and say we need more of x, y. I just wanna keep doing the same thing. Just keep keep it going. There's not I'm I'm not looking for any I'm not looking for anything crazy, any big changes.

I like it the way it is. I'm a conservative conservative and psycho in the space at the same time. Does that make sense? And and there's something special about being content. Josh, appreciate you, sharing your story.

I think this was, definitely enlightening and, will be entertaining. So, yeah. You'll you'll yeah. We'll get you on the Football Card Podcast here soon, and people here listening to stacking size will hear more from you.

But this was a fun one. Appreciate it. I I have so many takes for the Football Card Pod. Please. Yes. Hold them. Hold them. Hold them. K. Okay. Thanks, Brett.