We are back with another episode of Passion to Profession, brought to you by my good friends at eBay.

We had a fun time, behind the scenes before we hit record, chopping it up. I feel like I'm already warmed up. Today, I'm joined by Mikey Osborne, who's the director of growth marketing and technology at Collectors.

Mikey has been on stacking slabs from a collector perspective, and we'll we'll talk about his collection a little bit and what he's focused on.

But the reason why I wanted to have him on is, fascinated by individuals who are building collections and decide, you know what?

I wanna go work for, a company in the industry, and Mikey's been doing that for quite some time. So we'll dig into the story. But, Mikey, welcome back. How's it going, man? Thanks, Brett. It's, very good to be back.

Everything is going good. It's been a long summer, but as you know, football season started last weekend, and so that means fall is upon us and ready to kinda lock in and, focus on enjoying the the holidays and the rest of the year.

Do you have any rituals when it comes to football season and your football team? Anything that you did maybe last week that you're like, I I missed doing that, and now we're officially back.

Yeah. I mean, I wish. I think it's waned over the years because I was much more allegiant and superstitious, you know, growing up and stuff like that.

But we just moved into a new house, and so this was my first opportunity to use my new, like, media room that I built out.

And so I got, like, those, like, recliners that are automated and stuff like that. And the TV is, like, eight feet in front of me, and it's, like, 75 inches.

And so it was pretty nice when I settled in on, Sunday night to watch the game and recline back in the seat and just have football blaring in front of me. It's a it's a great time.

I found that I'm enjoying having these conversations even more as football season is here. Let's make we're gonna spend a majority of this time talking about, your experience in growth and working at collectors.

But for anyone who doesn't know you or maybe didn't listen to previous conversations, Share some perspective on your collection and Definitely.

What what you collect and how you go about your business. Yeah. The best way that I can describe the way that I collect is that I'm a combination of nostalgia collector and a player collector, to be specific.

And so when I say that, I specifically collect players and cards that remind me of my childhood.

And so when I was 10 years old, I felt like, literally fell head over heels for Randy Moss on Thanksgiving Day in 1998 when he torched the Cowboys for three catches and a 163 yards and three touchdowns.

And, I also was like a Pokemon fanatic, and so, like, those and I also love the Power Rangers, and, like, I collect Power Ranger toys.

So that's the best way I can describe my collection is that, like, it has to mean something to me, and it's usually based on something that happened when I was, like, 10 years old. I love that.

I have you found maybe throughout this I think we get so focused on as a hobby, we get so focused on, like, what's new, what's shiny. You're the opposite of that. You like the old and and, the nostalgic, what resonates with you.

Have you found that kind of this, like, long term mindset when it comes to your collecting has been, maybe advantageous for you in terms of, like, self satisfaction for your own collection?

And then also maybe, like, on the on the selling side and this crazy market we're in? Like, maybe talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. I think, like, my perspective on things generally can be a safer one. When you start to get into newer, newer modern sets, there's a lot more prospecting and risk that comes into collecting.

And so, like, sure, it takes a little bit longer to see the fruits of your labor when you're collecting cards that, like, people might not care about as much that were printed thirty years ago.

But what we're seeing now with, like, the maturity of the market and things is that now everybody's starting to realize, like, oh, okay. If they print 5,000,000 of the newest cards today and, like, I think we put out a, stat.

Beau Nicks was, like, the top graded football player during the off season or something like that. Like, I don't know if it was 80,000 or a 160,000 cards. You have to fact check it, but, that's unreal.

You know? So, like, I don't know. I it it sucks in the sense that, like, I would love to be able to, like, go to a hobby shop and buy, like, the newest box of prism or whatever it is or even Target or Walmart.

But I honestly haven't bought, like, a pack like that in three or four years, and it's just because I have no interest in some of the more ultra modern sets that are out there.

This is a eBay sponsored podcast. And I remember I was going back that you, at one point, made the made mention of that you're a degenerate searcher and that spend, like, fifty hours a week on eBay.

I I wanna, like, like, we're all, like, on eBay, but I wanna kinda get your perspective of, like, what what what are you doing, like, with all that time? Like, what is what is your end goal with spending that much time?

And then, like, maybe marry that with your professional existence. Like, does that help inform you on anything you're currently working on at collectors? Yeah. From the collecting side of it, eBay is, a huge tool to me.

I think from a discovery perspective, as I was starting to mature in my collecting journey, there's no better place to learn about all the cards that are available to you in the market than to scroll through and list listings of them.

And so I think, like, from an education perspective, if I've been spending fifty hours a week on eBay for, like, the past six or seven years, I wasn't like, sometimes I would go two weeks without buying a card, but I'm learning that whole time.

I'm not only learning about the cards that are available in the marketplace, but I'm also learning about the market and, like, what cards are selling for what.

And I have, like, a weird brain in the sense that, like, for the most part, I could tell you what, like, certain cards sold for at certain times always.

You know? So I have this, like, Rolodex of, market history in my head. And then, you know, I have all of this information about, like, the cards that are available.

And so, like, I can scroll through listings in eBay, like, very fast. I'm, like, a 12 year old on TikTok when I'm on eBay, and I can, like, just see cards and you know?

And so I consume a lot of information, but I also spend a lot of time, searching. Yeah. So the, as you were talking, you're talking about the images and, like, being, you know, informed.

I was having a conversation with, a couple of conversation with the card ladder guys, and they were talking about how the app is like a it's almost like a a it's a a a content management system in a way because, you know, obviously, there's the data.

And when you're they're positioning the product, you're talking about the data.

But inside the platform, it's just big, beautiful images everywhere. And, obviously, eBay is that times a million. Do you do you like this we're doing content. This is, like, maybe content inception a little bit.

But do you think do you think about that at all in just, like, the consumption of media and the consumption of, like, images in what that does to you as a collector, especially when you're going through it like a 12 year old girl on TikTok.

Yeah.

And it expands outside of eBay too because, like, you know, being so present on things like Instagram, the, like, the amount of content and cards that I consume on that platform over the past, like, six or seven years is just unreal.

And I just every time I see something, I just, like, store it away, and I think it better informs me for the future.

Another thing that I like to use eBay for and social media from a collecting perspective is that although my focus is very narrow in the things that I care about, it actually makes going to card shows really difficult because you can only spend so much time roaming around looking for the case that has, like, one and a half Randy Moss cards in it.

But it allows me to understand the broader markets too.

So, like, I know a lot about baseball cards and the baseball card market, more specifically, like, you know, the nineties era. But I own none of those cards. But I know a lot about that market.

I love that. So you're obviously someone who is, you know, doing a lot of deep research. You're building your own collection, and you're spending a lot of time in, the hobby because you work in the in the industry.

I I wanna I've been talking a lot about tech, and you are you've you've built this career in tech that has you know, you've parlayed into a career in the hobby. And I wanna maybe start there just, like, how did you get involved in tech?

Maybe, like, types of roles, types of companies you're in marketing, and then how that you took those commitments to kinda point it in the direction of the industry. Yeah. I can take you on a quick journey through it.

So like you, I'm a Hoosier. I went to Indiana University for my undergrad. I got a degree in computing through the school of informatics, and so technology was a part of, like, my trajectory ever since I was in undergrad.

I just was really fascinated with it. I think the main catalyst was probably the introduction of the iPhone in 02/2007. I had just graduated high school, and I got, like, graduation money.

And, like, a stupid 18 year old kid, I was at the Keystone Mall in Indianapolis in the Apple Store, like, three days after the iPhone came out. And I was, like, checking it out, and it was, like, pretty revolutionary at that time.

So long story short, I spent all my money on the first iPhone, that I got for graduation. But then flash forward to, like, freshman year of college, I was, like, the only person that had one.

I was jailbreaking it, and people were, like, really interested in it. And that kinda catapulted me down this, interest in technology from a, career perspective.

After I graduated, my first job out of college was at Target corporate in Minneapolis. And at that time, I had kind of, established my niche in data.

And so I worked on a business intelligence team at Target for two years out of college where we were supporting our marketing team, to analyze the behavior of customers across the 1,700 stores for Target to influence the way that they should market to them.

And more specifically, I got into this responsibility of, monitoring coupon fraud across all of the stores.

So I could use all the transaction data that was happening at the stores, see what coupons people were using, and find anomalies.

And so this model that I built helped to the Secret Service take down one of the biggest coupon counterfeiting rings that there was.

Like, this person literally when the Secret Service raided their house, they had, like, 30 foot long boats and, like, Lexuses with, like, monogram license plates and stuff like this.

And so I just thought thought it was really cool to be able to use data to, like, help solve problems. And after my tenure at Target, was when I wanted to come back home to Indiana, and be with my family.

And, like, the only place that I knew to work in Indianapolis at the time was ExactTarget, which quickly became Salesforce. And so I was able to get a job there.

I spent six or seven years at Salesforce working on their marketing platform. And for the majority of the time, I was helping enterprise companies across the globe, shape their digital marketing strategy.

So, you know, I worked with, like, American Express and Adidas in Germany and Ticketmaster and Target and Best Buy and all of these companies through the February, like, start to shape their marketing strategy.

But it wasn't till, like, 2019 when I started collecting again and getting into that, that it wasn't immediate.

I'd say, like, maybe, like, two years in, I was like, man, it would be really cool to be able to, like, pivot my career into the hobby.

And it was around that time that Nat, took collectors private, and I was watching what PSA was doing.

I was already a big customer of theirs, and I was seeing the way that they were trying to digitize, the way that PSA is is, servicing the hobby.

And so, yeah, I decided to take my shot. I knew Nat a little bit through the hobby, and I just sent him a cold Instagram message telling him, like, you know, hey.

This is my, like, professional experience. I'm really interested to see where I could, like, make an impact on the team.

And I talked to some recruiters, and then a couple months later in May 2022 is when I joined the collectors team, specifically responsible for building their CRM program to send emails to, PSA customers.

So I I talk about this a lot where we as a community and the hobby, people on Instagram, for instance, who interact and talk about cards, group chats, all this.

Like, we're all collectors, and we're all there because we're sharing in our love of sports cards.

But then you take a step back, all of us too, are professionals, and we all have these unique skill sets. And you had spent this time working working in tech, working with data, working with systems. You have this knowledge.

You work for one of the the most the biggest brands in the software space in Salesforce. So, like, I would imagine, like, you probably have pretty good confidence in just your abilities and also just your experience.

And then you're looking at collectors and what they're doing, and you're monitoring that. And you're trying to understand everything you see that they're digitizing.

And then, like, there was this moment where you're like, okay. Like, I know based on what I'm doing, I can help this this this big company out. Like, they're trying to scale, and I'm the type of guy, and I'm passionate about this.

A lot of people go through that and never send that DM. Intimidation, they're not gonna respond. Failure of rejection, but you just, you know, felt comfortable enough to say, you know, hey, Nat.

Like, I can I can help you guys out? Where where do you think that that that came from in that moment? Did you just I had the best cheesy analogy for this.

And it's like a motto of my whole life. But, you know, they say that, like, Tarzan would've never gotten across to the other side of the forest if he wouldn't have let go of the bind behind him.

And, like, that's a big one for me. Like, you just have to kinda take the leap. And, also, it's just, like, about, like, pursuing your passion. You know?

I think so many people use, like, the hobby or whatever they're interested in as a escape or a way to compartmentalize from their regular boring life. And, like, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can do them both together.

And I'm a really good example of that because even in the three and a half years I've been here at Collectors, although I will pitch and hold my way into anything that is, like, truly hobby or card collecting related within the organization, That is just not what I do day to day.

Like, I'm, like, negotiating deals for, like, the software platforms that we use to market to our customers.

I'm analyzing data. We're developing things, but, like, I'm not a grader. I'm not, like, you know, really doing anything that has to do with the hobby day to day.

But I'm still in it. And so I'm able to scratch that itch and kinda, you know, leverage my professional experience to make an impact on something that I'm truly passionate about.

So I don't know how many people, like, realize this, but I I have obsessed over this because maybe of my previous career in tech.

But just observing and studying what has happened at collectors over the past four or five years from a infrastructure tech perspective, customer experience.

Like, you you've been there. Like, you've been working on it. You've been supporting it. But it is it's transformational from the the moment of when when I got back into the hobby and what what's happening now.

And just for the listeners, it's something as simple as what we were talking about earlier of just, like, the grade reveals or the PSA app being, like, the central location where I'm, you know, navigating and trying to understand data information.

And so that experience is up leveled tremendously. Like, maybe talk about that, like, from your seat. What has it been like being on a team that is moving so quickly?

And there's so many implications from tech to, like, go to market, all of those things. Like, what is that experience been like just, like, being right in the center of it?

Yeah. It's been really interesting. I think, one exciting thing at the beginning of my tenure at Collectors was that we were trying to do all of this stuff. And in order to do it, we had to make some big bets.

And so, you know, we knew that we wanted to kinda, collectors as a whole, get into the marketplace space, which is when we partnered with Golden, and we stood up, you know, the first opportunity to, like, send your cards from grading into a marketplace and start to, like, really develop that, like, full circle flywheel for the hobby.

And it it was great. We learned a lot from it, but it ultimately wasn't, like, the best solution.

And so being able to see us kinda, like, take some chances and not necessarily fail, but, like, learn from the opportunities that were presented in these different avenues that we went down and then to iterate from there.

I think, like, the current state of, like, my collection and the PSA app is a really great example because, when we originally launched, like, our vault product, it was called the collector's vault.

And it was right around the time that vaults were becoming, like, more synonymous with the hobby, but people didn't really understand what they were for. And so the adoption of that has taken several years.

But now we're really starting to see adoption spike because we've been able to catch up with a lot of the collection management and liquidity features that people were wanting and looking for.

And so now, like, for me, I send cards for grading. They immediately go to the vault, and then I have, like, five different ways to sell them, and I'll never see the cards again. And for a lot of people, the those are the two factions.

You either are trying to, you know, acquire cards for your collection that you know are gonna be the liquid items that will allow you to realize some benefits to actually purchase the things you wanna collect, and we're trying to create an ecosystem that makes it super easy for anybody to do that.

How how hard is it to convert the stubborn collector to use technology?

And I I I mean, people hate change, people, especially when technology enters the conversation. People look the other way. And I just, like, I've got the I'm sure you've got it.

We all have this picture, and I've got this picture in my head of, like, if if I'm thinking about, like, what the collector looks like, like, that standard collector in the space and what they're about, like, technology and, like, adapting to changes is is certainly not on that, like, persona profile.

But, like, how do you think about that? Because, like, working in tech, it's really easy to get tech forward thinking consumers or business people to to to buy what you're selling, but I think it's a lot more challenging in this space.

Like, how do you think about that? Yeah. I think, where it lies is that, like, as much as we can, we'll try to teach an old dog new tricks, but the reality is is that you're probably not going to.

And so one of the things that I think is really important is to make sure that, like, the way that we're positioning our products and our services are really easily attainable for the new entrance into the hobby that are gonna be here for the next, like, forty years.

Mhmm.

And so making sure that, like, our demographics are skewing towards those people who, you know, may be in their college dorm watching football and are part of a fantasy football team and, like, they hear about, you know, a collecting story on the Internet and they see a video of, like, king of cards doing his thing at a show.

We need to make sure that when those people land on our site and start using our tools that they're they are, advanced enough to, like, meet, you know, the the Gen z kid who, like, has basically grown up on a digital device as opposed to, like, continuing to try to cater, to the folks that, you know, thankfully have been customers of ours for over thirty years.

But, like, we have to build products for the next wave of collectors and not necessarily the ones whose, time with us, you know, will be coming to an end soon.

I wanna maybe take one step further into that because I find this thread really interesting where the vocal the vocal crowd, that maybe sends displeasure about things that are happening with companies like collectors usually are set in their ways.

But they're kind of the foundation.

They've been here supporting businesses, collecting cards for a long time. But companies need to move forward, and companies need to cater to trends and things that are happening, and new audiences that are coming, into space.

I was actually having a conversation with someone at Collectors about this very topic at the National.

How hard is how hard is that for someone in your role to, like, know that you can't really, like, cater the message to everyone? And you've gotta make a decision, and you gotta be focused on where you're pointing certain messages.

How hard is that, knowing that whatever you release, whatever you do, likely, there's going to be a crowd of people who've been here for a while who aren't sure about it or maybe they don't agree with it.

Yeah. I'll put it through a different lens.

So one of the biggest blind spots that I have when I try to apply what I know about the hobby to some of the strategy, that we put into the marketplace is the fact that, like, I'm pretty advanced in the hobby.

And, like, there's, like, a small subset of people that operate in the hobby at, like, the level that we do. Maybe we'll call it, like, five to 10,000 of our customers.

And so what I've found by, like, working with, like, our research and insights team, the one that, like, puts out the surveys to our customers is that, like, the majority of our customers are pretty new to this.

And so we can't talk to them like they have a PhD in collecting, and we have to kind of, like, make it more simple and make it approachable.

And so, that's something that I always have to check myself on whether it's, like, for a go to market campaign strategy or the tools that we're, like, trying to put into the marketplace. They need to be simple.

I think it's why we've seen so much success with this partnership with GameStop from, like, a drop off submission perspective is that, like, you literally can walk into a GameStop and hand them a stack of cards and card savers and walk out the door, and a couple months later, you'll get them back graded.

That's the type of stuff that's gonna win us over with the people that are just getting into the hobby as opposed to, the folks that, like, have sent us 5,000 cards over the last decade, and they know our system in and out.

And I think to grow the hobby, we need to make it more accessible. I love this.

Do you observe what's happening just at the macro in the hobby, what you're working on, what other companies are doing, and say, it certainly looks more progressive from a tech perspective over the last four or five years, but we're still a ways behind some of these other industries or spaces.

Like, is that something you see, you still see, like, room for growth? And if so, like, maybe what are some of those ideas or things that can be integrated more in the collector experience?

Yeah. I think, like, the way I think about it as far as, like, the maturity of our space is that, really, I think about it a lot outside of even what I do day to day and more from, like, a, content perspective.

Like, we've had this conversation before, but I just think that there's a huge opportunity for even more influence from a content perspective in the hobby.

And, thanks to you and, like, you dedicating yourself to this and some other folks that have really leaned into, providing education and content to the hobby. We're starting to get a little bit closer.

But I think there's still massive opportunity for people to, like, be content creators and influencers in this space, so that they don't then, like, let's say, take x, y, and z, like, top streamer or content creator like Logan Paul today.

They're able to just, like, decide that they collect now and leverage their millions of people to now be, like, the number one influencer.

But, like, it should be somebody who's grown organically and is able to talk to people along the way and grow an audience together.

I already brought him up once, but I really like what Kyle Kravitz does at King of Cards because I just it's so organic, and he's it it's just growing the popularity.

And I think if we could create, like, a couple dozen of him, that's how we grow the hobby as a whole.

But Yeah. I, it's for me, the measure of quality content is content that I'm either gonna sit and listen to uninterrupted or sit and watch.

And, I haven't talked about Kyle much on my platform, but, dude, anytime one of his videos pops up, I'm watching the whole thing because he's consistent and he's authentic with his approach even if it's in a sliver or category of the hobby that I'm not necessarily in.

And so, I love that call out.

I gotta ask you, and this is just popping up because I haven't had one of these conversations in a while, but I'm curious your perspective. Like, AI, like, how how are you thinking about it? Like, where's AI's place in this hobby?

I know that might have just been, like, opening a can of worms, but I figured I'd probably have a position on it at some level. Yeah. I think about it in a few different ways. From a corporate perspective, it it's a big, focus of ours.

Not even necessarily from, like, a grading perspective, which, you know, there could be some benefits there, but I think we're, several years away from that even being an option.

But even from just, like, a, like, a creativity perspective. And so, like, one of the hardest parts that we have is building technology for our customers that we can put to market in, like, a quick period of time.

You know? Like, some of these things that our customers are using right now, like, it was taken us two or three years to build.

But I was playing around with Chachi p t five the other day, and one of my favorite things to do is to guess the price of a collectible.

So, I mean, a couple dozen times a week, like, one of my best friends will text me a link to an eBay listing, and he'll be like, how much? And it'll be on auction with, like, three and a half days left, and I'll throw a number out.

And, if I'm right, like, I let him hear about it for the next three days after that. My claim to fame was when that Iverson, credentials now is at auction with Heritage, I think, serial number 3 of 3.

And I was at a show that day that it was ending, and, p Ryan from Instagram came up to my booth, and we were talking about that card.

And I think at that time, it was at, like, $220,000, and nobody really knew what it was worth because it was such a ghost card. And we were all kinda throwing our answers of what we thought it was gonna be worth.

And I said, like, 700 or, like, I think I said, like, $5. 80 pre b p or something like that. And I was like, $5 off from where it ended. And so he hit me up after. He's like, dude, I've never seen somebody guess a card like that.

That was a long tangent to say the other day I was using chat g p t and, the new five model. I was able to prompt it with two prompts. And, I created a price car a card price guessing game.

And so it was able to pull in, images from our spec database and then estimated values that I pulled in. I load in the CSV, and it shows, like, the image of the card, and you have five seconds to guess the price.

If you get it right, you get 10 points. If you get it wrong, you know, you don't get any points. And it was just, like, a fun little thing. And I did it with, like, one prompt in AI.

And so, like, if little old me can do that, I think there's just so much opportunity for somebody with, like, more time and a bigger brain and more money to, like, build something that's truly revolutionary.

And there's the places where you see AI being used that you don't know it's being used.

If you open up your phone and, click open the PSA app and hit the camera icon and take a picture of any card in front of you, like, there's artificial intelligence involved in that.

There's machine learning and all these different things that, like, aren't the same as interfacing with, like, a GPT model and knowing, like, oh, AI, or it's not the same as, like, you know, watching some, like, brain rot video on the Internet that you know is fake.

But I think AI is present. A lot of the technology we're using, we're just not as, you know, aware that it's there.

That's awesome, perspective. I wanna dig into maybe the people side, and a lot of people listening are thinking about making the leap or our weekend warriors.

But I've always found, like, I for me as a creator and small business owner in the space, like, for me, it's I have always gotta, like, tell myself, pull myself out of the work and focus in on the people, like, whether it's sending a message or having a conversation.

And I just think it's so valuable to in this space where we all love cards is if you wanna work in it to build your network and connect with people.

How how important has that been for you, not only in getting the job at collectors, but ever since you've been there working around and at card people, at collectors, and even, you know, partners, outside of collectors.

Yeah. I think to me, like, the number one asset in the hobby is knowledge. And so, I think, like, working at collectors, I've been able to really uplevel my knowledge.

So, like, some of the people that I've met while I worked here, like, even peers of mine that are employees, even outside of Nat, have these collections that have been curated over the past, like, thirty years that are just and nobody sees them because they're not share shared on social media.

That will blow your mind.

And then I think also just, like, getting a broader scale on, like, the taxonomy of cards and learning about, like, things like one piece and hockey cards and soccer cards and things that I've never collected and probably never will.

But I think just, like, having the opportunity to have that global perspective on what collecting is.

Also seeing, like, the reality with, our business at Collectors is that we're an operations company. You know, last year, I think we graded and shipped out 15,000,000 collectibles to people and, like, that is all operations.

Sure. Me and my, like, 50 person team of marketing that, like, do some cool stuff are important to, like, growing what we're doing. But our company is nothing without the people that work on, like, the operation side of the business.

And it's so cool when you walk through, like, the floor where we do what we do and seeing, like, people's, like, little cubicles that are just, like, full of collectibles.

And they're there because, one, they want a job, but, two, they're passionate about the hobby. And so, like, one of our key values at Collectors is, like, treat every item, as it's special or, like, it's the same.

And it's because, like, yeah. Sure. A few months ago that Jordan Kobe duo logo man came across somebody's desk to be graded as a 13,000,000 card $13,000,000 card.

But every day, there's a dollar card that comes across somebody's desk to be graded and encapsulated and, like, we have to treat those all the same.

And the reason we're able to do that is because I think the majority of people that work for collectors understand that value because they have some, passion for collecting themselves.

How has the time you've spent working at an industry leader like collectors shifted or changed the way you think about your own personal collecting or just collecting in the space in general?

Yeah. I think it it definitely has. At different points throughout the last few years that I've been at collectors, I think I've had better perspective of on how it's changed.

I don't know the change in my collecting behavior is directly attributed to the work I do, professionally right now. I think it's more just like an evolution of where I'm at.

Like, I feel like, one of the things that I like to say now that I've been so obsessive about the hobby for as long as I have been is that, like, when I sell a card that I really care about, but maybe I've had it for three or four years, not only do I feel like I've enjoyed that card and been able to keep it in my collection, but I almost will always have it in my collection because I know so much about it.

And, like, I still have, like, the scan of it and stuff. And so, like, I feel like it's like a house that you sell. It's like, that was always my first house that my daughter was born in. Like, you're not gonna take that away from me.

Like and so there's so many cards that I've sold, and it was hard to get rid of. But, like, I got them from the guy who pulled it with his a son in 1999 and sent it to me and a 30 year old screw down.

And I, like, carefully unscrewed it and pulled it out and revealed the beautiful example of a card that I then, like, got prepared to send in for grading.

And then I waited, like, a month for it to come back. And then I held it in my hand, and I enjoyed it every day since then.

Like, nobody's taken that away from me. And so I have this, like, different perspective now where it's like, because I've collected it, I'll always collect it type of thing. I that the house analogy is so good.

I'm gonna steal that one from from you. Maybe cut as we're rounding the corner on this chat, you've gone through this experience of building up the successful career and then pointing it at the hobby.

What sort of advice do you have for anyone out there who's listening and trying to find their moment to apply for the job or start something on their own or start setting up at more shows?

Like, what's your feedback? Yeah. I think the biggest one it's so funny too because I heard this a lot in college, and I never really understood it.

But everybody in college used to always say, like, oh, you know, you gotta join, like, a fraternity because the networking opportunities are amazing and blah blah blah blah.

And, I think networking is a big one. Like, you have to put yourself out there. And I actually, like, need to do a better job of it.

But, like, there's so many people that, like, travel to a dozen shows a year, and they have this big network of people in a community, and they're all, like, tagging each other on Instagram, and they have, like, all these connections in the hobby.

I think that can be so valuable because there's a few situations that could be presented to you.

There could be one like I had where it was just, like, very clear to me I needed to take a risk and, you know, switch my career and try to start working at a place like collectors.

But there's a lot of things that will be presented to people that aren't going to be evident or you didn't know were possible, and the only way they'll be presented to you is by somebody else.

And the only way that somebody else is gonna present that to you is if you start to grow your network. And so I think, like, you know, make a core group of friends.

Like, if you're in the hobby and you don't have, like, a group chat on Instagram or Discord or somewhere else with at least, like, three like minded people, go make one today because that is the type of thing that will start to grow your knowledge and grow your network.

And, yeah, I just I think, like, we can all say that, like, there's some group chat that we've had on Instagram for the last few years that, like, these people are like our brothers, but we might not even have ever met them in person or anything like that.

But, surely, they've, like, found a card along the way that they, like, flipped to you and, like, told you about and stuff like that. So I think creating a network is probably the best advice I would have.

You spend your days working kind of at this intersection of innovation and technology in the space. You're seeing a lot. You're working on a lot. You're also spending too much time on eBay buying a lot of cards, doing all the things.

You're a, heavy participant in our hobby. What as we close this out, what excites you the most about what's happening in your professional or personal collecting world or both? I think for me is, like, the scale of it all.

I think now when I log on to YouTube I don't know if you're aware of this, but, like, local news agencies, generally, will tell the same news stories because they're all owned by, like, a larger conglomerate that kinda tells them what to say.

Right? And, there's this one that's making the rounds that now I've seen, like, three or four distinct videos that have some amalgamation of the same clips in them.

They were just cut for this specific local news broadcast, but it's all about the Pokemon boom and how Pokemon blah blah blah blah blah.

And, it's just funny because it's like, I just think that we're still so immature in, like, the scale of where this can go. And, I'm just excited to see it be, like, the biggest thing in the world.

Like, it's getting better and better, and I'm sure you experience this. But, like, when I tell people what I do professionally or what I do personally for my hobby, like, the far majority of people still don't know what it is.

And, like, you know, for me professionally, I also want, like, this silhouette. I'm holding up a PSA graded card, just to be synonymous with the hobby. You know? And I want people to know what PSA is.

I want people to know what collecting is. I wanna be able to say, like, I collect sports cards, and they don't ask me, like, how many cars I own or automobiles. You know? Like, that happened at the national.

I got dropped off at the convention, by an Uber, and he was like, so, like, what kind of, like, vehicles do they have in there? And I was like, oh, no. This is a sports card convention. So I'm just excited for it to mature more.

And, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of exciting stuff coming up for PSA. I think we're finally kind of hitting that tipping point of where people are gonna really start to see the fruits of our labor over the last few years.

The exception being, like, we still have a lot of cards to grade because people keep sending them to us.

But while we while people wait on their cards, I'm hopeful that we can design, some experiences that will, keep them in our ecosystem and excited about the hobby while they wait for their, last grading order to get back to them.

Mikey, always fun to chop it up. Thanks for sharing your experience. We'll have to do it again soon. For sure. Thanks, Brett.