what's going on everybody welcome back to an episode of stacking slabs your hobby content alternative hopefully you are well appreciate you joining me appreciate you driving the sidecar next to me on an episode that i just had to get out the door today we are revisiting the topic of shrinking the sea focusing in on specific categories and segments of the hobby and what happens when you have the right infrastructure around a specific category it is undeniable anytime i'm talking with a collector that collects specific categories or genres or eras of cards who goes to a card show a lot of the times the feedback is it's just the same stuff and none of the stuff that i collect and i think that is a signal for where we still are as an industry as a hobby where we're trying to get people in the door we're trying to get cards exchanged from a dealer perspective but what happens when we start to drill a layer down and curate and get specific around creating events creating auctions creating communities that are centered around a specific category what happens then it is happening it is not happening at large scale i know this because my thinking around the stacking slabs network has always been the more we create category specific shows around a specific genre of cards the more that group of collectors of said genre are going to connect be inspired feel like we're speaking directly to them and that will elicit excitement engagement and likely more cards will be coming to market more transactions will happen so today is an extension of an idea that i laid down in february and it was very simple it's a flagship episode the hobby is not one market it's not one mood it's a portfolio of micro markets and if that's true and i really believe it is true then we can stop pretending that the hobby gets stronger by trying to make everything bigger the hobby gets stronger when we make it narrower not smaller but narrower because when you shrink the seed people can actually find the right people who collect like them have information create content create connections centered around the type of cards that they're passionate about and it is these bonds that we can create through communities and through to and from collectors that makes this space that we love very sticky in that flagship episode i said the hobby is segmented dozens of segments operating simultaneously and i talked about market structure i talked about collector psychology and how headline sales can distort our judgment when we treat the hobby like one big emotional blob i also laid out a framework i've been using to make it more operational to access one access is a financial tier how much capital is naturally deployed per transaction and how concentrated the buyer pool is and then the other axis is a persona type or what psychological reward the buyer is actually purchasing is it profit identity belonging completion that's not wordplay that's actual physics of this hobby so the question i want to take seriously today is if the hobby is already micro markets why aren't we building better micro markets my thesis is that the hobby gets stronger the more we create structure around categories outside the big four and we'll classify the big four for this conversation to be basketball football baseball and hockey hockey structure meaning curated auctions focused content real community data that respects the lane a shared language a shared calendar a shared identity because structure is what turns casual participation into real collecting if you look at how the hobby's tooling is built it already assumes segmentation cardladder literally publishes indices category indices player indices and defines them as a way to track market performance for a set of cards similar to an s and p style index that is not how you design a product if the hobby is one market you design that because the hobby is markets plural and as i'm recording this the card letter indices page shows a bunch of categories outside the big four in green racing pokemon soccer ufc wrestling marvel it goes on and on and on and on and on and on on and on and on i'm here to make the point that the health of the hobby isn't just how are the big four doing or maybe specifically how is high end basketball or vintage baseball doing the health of the hobby is how many lanes have enough structure to sustain real collector behavior i've talked about shrinking the sea since i started stacking slabs but i'll explain what i mean by shrinking the sea when everything is treated like one giant category collectors drown in options and when we drown in options we default to the loudest narratives biggest headlines the most liquid categories the most mainstream stuff but any type of digging or research you do in consumer psychology will show you that more options doesn't automatically mean more engagement there are conditions where large choice sets are demotivating and people are more likely to do nothing at all so when i say shrink the sea i mean create smaller rooms with clearer labels so collectors can walk in and immediately know this is my room this is where my people hang out this is the type of cards i collect not because it's exclusive but because it's coherent i think this is where collector psychology matters one of the most cited arguments in the psycho in psychology is that humans have a fundamental need to belong think i've talked about belonging and the collector psychology around it almost in every flagship episode this year but it's because people are motivated to form and maintain enduring interpersonal attachments that's not said to meant to mean to be cute that's foundational now you compare that with the second concept from consumer research and that's our possessions are not neutral they are identity when we talk about extended self we talk about arguing possessions contribute to and reflect our identities that's why persona type matters identity belonging completion these aren't minor motives they're engines and there's newer research in the journal of consumer research showing something even more direct a desire for control motivates engaging and collecting because collections create structure so when the hobby builds structure around a niche it's not just better for the market it's better for the human or the collector you're literally making it easier for a collector to find meaning find people and build a structured pursuit i'll give you a specific example when i was putting together this episode that stood out in my mind and this is not the only example but it is an example that resonates with me and it's even an example in a lane or a category that i don't collect in if you've been following along on passionate profession which gets released new episodes sponsored by ebay every monday i bring on a new entrepreneur each week and we talk about building their business and this might be a good time to plug it if you're interested in learning more about building businesses in this space this is something that i'm doing i'm sharing that within the hobby job substack you can find a link in the show notes but an individual who i've had two conversations with is mike and then in the second conversation mike brought on cameron from his team and they're part of the leahy five one five one three team and they have a run been running specific f one showcase auctions on ebay and the reason this matters isn't just the sales numbers it's the structure it's focused it's repeatable it's a known event it's curated inventory inside one lane in our conversations mike described the purpose of doing focused auctions as respect for the consumer's time specifically for the demographic buying in that lane and that's really important because niching down isn't about gatekeeping it's about serving he also talked about the demand they saw after the earlier f one featured auction over a thousand psa graded f one cards and how that auction showcased a global buyer base most people weren't familiar with and he framed their approach around trust and integrity open markets no funny business and building high quality experience end to end this is infrastructure this is an operator understanding the dynamics of community engagement consumer engagement and bringing those together not in a new app not in a new slab infrastructure is a format people trust in a lane they understand with a cadence that they can plan around and once you have that something happens it's crazy but it happens do you all know what happens collectors show up bidding density increases comps become more real confidence rises and the micro markets get thicker i'll never forget being at the national last year engaging with other collectors in the space asking what was on their schedule there was an f one related event that f one collectors were going to to buy sell trade connect there was a soccer related event where soccer collectors were going to to engage buy sell and trade i got jealous i wanted to go to a wrestling card event i wanted to go to a football card event but that didn't exist so why does this type of activity grow the hobby that's a question we should all be asking ourselves as i'm digging into this and i think there's a big idea niching down doesn't doesn't weaken the hobby it moves the hobby from casual attention to committed participation and the reason committed participation matters is because it creates collectors who stay collectors who learn collectors who trade collectors who curate collectors who become nodes in a network not just one time buyers they don't treat this hobby as a transaction they're here to stay they're here to buy they're here to sell they're here to trade they're here to contribute there's a concept in community research brand communities communities of practice that communities form around shared enterprise shared rituals shared identity and shared responsibility that's the blueprint if a niche category has a shared language reoccurring rituals and a strong identity it stops being a random set of transactions and it starts to be a community and communities do something very important and it is something that i hope every hobby business owner and operator who is running a business in this space is thinking about and that is the fact that communities retain people we are talking about big sales we are talking about transactions we're talking about new products new releases all of this stuff across the hobby my feeds get flooded with it i have not seen heard or listened to another operator demonstrate what they're doing to maintain the base of collectors that they already have and so often in business in in this hobby specifically we lose sight of retention and are so focused and blinded in by net new net new doesn't mean anything if it falls out the bottom you have to make sure you are educating inspiring and building community around niche lanes in order to retain and retention is critical right now in this space now i can already hear the pushback isn't this just fragmenting the hobby no absolutely not it's organizing it a fragmented hobby is when people are alone in their lanes with zero structure an organized hobby is when the lanes are real and each lane has an on ramp another pushback isn't niche stuff illiquid yes when nobody builds structure but curated reoccurring events are literally a way to manufacture liquidity in a thin market by concentrating attention and inventory so what would i like what do i think is attractive there's a lot of things on my mind there's a lot of options and opportunities and if you are listening to this and you build in this space and you're passionate about a specific category now is the time to center your focus around that passion and it is incredible what you can do when you're able to get focused and begin to speak the language of a niche community you are going to attract not only the core group of collectors who you already know but you're going to bring outsiders in who have no idea who you are but here your language that is their language in the specific category that they collect i am an example of this through the content that we produce on stacking slabs there is people i have never met never engaged with but get brought in through some of the focus shows that we create wnba football card podcast book to last wrestling card podcast my thesis is centered around creating niche educationally based focused content and having passionate authentic guests hosting them that that will do really good things for that those markets and i'm seeing that in real time so if you're a seller pick a lane you actually understand and build a reoccurring format around it if you're a content creator you don't need to cover everything i think that's a huge misconception that you need to cover every new piece of news you need to cover every new record high sale it's not true like get focused focus in on what you know and love you need to cover something deeply enough that it becomes a room if you're a platform keep building tools that respect categories outside of the big ones filters indices better search better discovery and if you're a collector stop trying to collect the hobby collect your lane because when you find your lane you'll find your people and when you find your people you'll stop collecting on vibes and start collecting with intent i'm gonna say this again and i'll probably say it a hundred more times before the end of the year the hobby isn't one market it's micro markets and the next phase of hobby growth isn't just bigger numbers we need to get our heads off of that it's not just bigger numbers record high sales it's better structure more lanes more community more identity shrinking the sea building rooms and when we do this the hobby gets more compelling it gets more interesting it gets more focused it gets more connected and it becomes something that transcends our wildest imagination of what is possible in a space like this that we love of course record sales are gonna bring attention of course shiny new things are going to get you to stop in your tracks those things are natural they're reoccurring they're always gonna go down but what is not going down is having individuals who are rolling up their sleeves building the plumbing building the foundation and building the infrastructure around a category that they know more than anybody else just sitting out there the opportunity is endless to connect people the more we as a space can think about not just what's in it or for ourselves but what is in it for people like us if we can serve as that piece as that connection point to bring people together who don't know each other to create opportunities to buy cards that we would love that other people aren't doing right now that is how you build and develop your brand that is how you begin to transcend the current state of the hobby and begin to look towards the future i'm not trying to get up here and just be on a soapbox and rant but maybe i am ranting a little bit because i'm really passionate about this i want this space to continue to grow and elevate and i think we have a misconception right now of what it takes to do that it takes what is not happening enough right now and what it takes is the building the construction and it's not sexy and it's a lot of work and it's really hard but there are individuals out there who might be in the background right now who might be in the shadows doing it and if you're doing it right now around a category around your interest you are on the right track you are you have you are on the right trail and the interests that will come your way from people that love what you love or collect what you collect is endless it's endless i hope that we continue to see collectors brought together around cards and categories that we love i truly believe deep down in my collecting heart that this is what is going to need to happen in order for us to continue to expand and grow this hobby and enjoy the experiences from ourselves we should not just be looking at what's happening right now we should have one eye ahead there is a vision out there for where this hobby is going and what's possible and it takes people not just spinning on the hamster wheel but are charting and paving a new path and i'm confident it's gonna happen because there's so much passion there's so many smart people in this space building and i'm excited to see what's next if you're enjoying what i'm doing here on stacking slabs and the broader stacking slabs network hit the follow button tell a damn friend i really appreciate you being here we'll be back with another one y'all take care talk to you soon