Last week, I had a conversation about buying collections that stayed with me.

We were talking about the questions a buyer should ask before making an offer. The conversation moved beyond condition, comps, and price.

Ask how the collection was built.

That question can tell you more than a spreadsheet ever will.

You learn why certain cards were purchased. You discover which players mattered. You hear where the collector found them, how long they have owned them, and why they are ready to sell.

The cards begin to make more sense.

So does the person sitting across from you.

That information can help a buyer evaluate the collection, but it does something else that is just as important: it creates rapport. The seller no longer feels like a source of inventory. They feel understood.

That is the difference between processing a transaction and building a relationship.

Curiosity is a business advantage.

I have been curious for as long as I can remember.

When I was younger, that curiosity was sometimes viewed as defiance. I questioned everything. I did not want to fall in line simply because an adult told me to.

Why are we doing it this way?

Why does this rule exist?

What would happen if we tried something different?

I was not trying to be difficult. I was trying to understand.

I wanted to know the reason behind the decision. Once I understood the reason, I could decide whether the approach made sense.

I learned early that the right question could unlock information. I have always viewed information as power—not because it gives you control over someone else, but because it gives you a clearer view of the situation in front of you.

Clarity will always create options.

When I started working in technology, curiosity became my greatest professional advantage.

I questioned why we continued running marketing campaigns the same way when new technology gave us better options.

I asked enterprise sales professionals—some of whom were making 20 times my salary—to explain how they approached accounts, built relationships, and navigated complex deals.

I was not the most experienced person in those rooms. I was willing to ask the questions other people were either too intimidated or too comfortable to ask.

The further I went into the question-asking business, the further my career advanced.

I learned that questions helped me find gaps.

They exposed assumptions.

They showed me where a process was breaking down and where an opportunity was being ignored.

Eventually, I took that curiosity public.

I started podcasting for the companies I worked for because I was tired of hearing salespeople complain that they could not reach the decision-makers inside their dream accounts.

When I looked at their communication in our CRM, the problem became painfully obvious.

Every message was focused on selling.

My question was simple: How do you expect to sell to someone you have not taken the time to know?

Instead of sending another pitch, I created a podcast around a topic that mattered to our company and invited those decision-makers to share what they knew.

They said yes….like all of them.

The podcast gave us something a cold sales message never could: a real conversation.

We learned how these leaders thought. We learned what they cared about, which problems they were trying to solve, and how they evaluated potential partners.

Each episode became an introduction to our brand and an arsenal of information we could use to create a more relevant sales process.

The sale was no longer built around what we wanted to offer.

It was built around what we had taken the time to understand.

We won more business.

There is an important distinction here.

Curiosity is not firing off questions so you can appear interested while waiting for your turn to speak.

It is not an interrogation.

It is not collecting information so you can immediately force someone into your existing sales process.

Real curiosity requires you to listen closely enough that the answer can change your next question and possibly change your original plan.

That is where the advantage lives.

Most businesses operate from assumptions.

They assume they know why collectors buy.

They assume they know why customers leave.

They assume they know what their employees need.

They assume they know why a product is not selling.

Then they build strategies on top of those assumptions.

Curious operators go directly to the source.

They ask the collector why a card matters.

They ask the seller how the collection was built.

They ask the customer where the experience became frustrating.

They ask the employee which part of the process repeatedly slows them down.

They ask the job candidate what they understand about the community that cannot be learned from a résumé.

Then they listen.

I carried the same approach into Stacking Slabs.

My original plan was not complicated.

Be consistent.

Find the right people.

Ask good questions.

I did not enter the sports card industry believing I had all the answers. I built a platform that allowed me to learn in public.

Every conversation helped me understand another corner of the Hobby. Collectors showed me how personal collecting decisions can be. Business builders showed me where the industry was evolving. Sponsors taught me what brands were trying to accomplish. Listeners showed me which conversations were missing.

The questions helped me find my place.

They also helped me build trust.

I would not have been able to work for myself over the last two years without curiosity. It helped me identify opportunities before I had a product for them. It helped me build relationships before I needed anything from them. It helped me recognize patterns across conversations that other people treated as isolated moments.

Curiosity became the bridge between content and business.

It still is.

The sports card industry is filled with people who believe they already know the answer.

They know what collectors want.

They know what inventory will move.

They know why a customer walked away.

They know what the next growth channel should be.

Certainty can make an operator feel confident. It can also make them blind.

The most dangerous assumption in business is believing your proximity to the market means you fully understand it.

You do not.

Neither do I.

That is why we have to keep asking.

If you buy collections, do not stop at, “What do you want for it?”

Ask how it was built.

If you run a card shop, do not stop at tracking what customers purchased.

Ask what brought them through the door.

If you are developing a product, do not ask whether someone likes it.

Ask what problem they would trust it to solve.

If you are building content, do not only watch vanity metrics like views.

Ask why someone made your show part of their week.

The right question can reveal information that changes the deal, the product, the relationship, or the direction of the company.

But only if you are curious enough to ask—and humble enough to let the answer change you.

Curiosity is not a soft skill.

It is how operators uncover what everyone else is missing.

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Operator Spotlight: Leighton Sheldon — Buying the Story Behind the Cards

After more than 20 years of operating Just Collect, Leighton Sheldon has learned that the buying process should not begin with an offer.

It should begin with a question.

When a potential seller contacts his team, Leighton wants to understand what they actually have before anyone drives across town or spends hours evaluating a collection.

He might ask:

What are some of your favorite items?

Which cards do you believe are the most valuable?

How did you build the collection?

The answers help his team qualify the opportunity. They also reveal how well the owner understands the collection, which cards carry emotional weight, and where more discovery may be needed.

This is where curiosity becomes operational.

It saves time. It uncovers information. It gives the buyer context that cannot be found in a price guide.

Leighton explained that his conversations do not sound like, “How much stuff do you have, and how much is it worth?”

Instead, he wants to understand the collector’s journey.

If someone mentions an unfinished 1932 U.S. Caramel set, he does not immediately push for a price. He asks why they started it, what prevented them from finishing, and which cards still matter to them.

He may discover that the collector is not ready to sell that set.

He also leaves them knowing that when the time comes, he is interested.

That is the long game.

The Collection in the Pink Shoebox

Leighton shared the story of traveling to Arizona to evaluate a collection containing nearly 1,000 Goudey cards.

When he arrived, he found 18 raw Babe Ruth cards stacked together.

Nothing was graded.

The size and quality of the collection were almost difficult to process. Leighton spent hours examining the cards and preparing his evaluation. He initially believed the deal would be straightforward.

Then the seller referenced a Babe Ruth sale for $37,000.

The Ruth card in front of Leighton was not worth $37,000.

This is the moment when a transactional buyer could have lost the collection.

Leighton could have dismissed the seller’s number, applied pressure, or tried to manufacture urgency. Instead, he slowed the process down.

He explained what the family owned. He walked them through how the market worked. He gave them permission to conduct more research and offered to return if they needed additional time.

He remained curious about their perspective while being honest about his own evaluation.

The tension eventually broke. They reached an agreement.

After wiring the money, Leighton found himself walking through Arizona carrying a six-figure collection inside a pink shoebox. Back at his hotel, he spread nearly 1,000 Goudey cards across the bed and took in what had just happened.

The purchase was memorable because of the cards.

The deal was possible because of the trust built around them.

Becoming the Caretaker

Leighton said something during our conversation that captures his approach:

“I’m no longer just buying physical goods. I’m becoming the caretaker for their story.”

That distinction matters.

A seller may be parting with inventory, but they could also be handing over decades of memories, a family member’s collection, or something they spent a significant part of their life building.

The buyer who recognizes that emotional reality has an advantage over the buyer who only sees potential margin.

Leighton calls it his “tie goes to the runner” rule.

When two buyers are offering similar amounts, the seller will often choose the person who made them feel better about the transaction. They choose the buyer who demonstrated genuine interest in who they are, where the cards came from, and why the collection matters.

Curiosity does not replace expertise. Leighton is clear that sellers still need to know they are dealing with someone who understands the material and can support an evaluation with real data.

The advantage comes from combining both.

Know what the cards are worth.

Understand why the person owned them.

Explain how you reached your conclusion.

Leave room for questions.

Make the seller feel like a participant in the process rather than the target of a transaction.

Anyone can ask, “How much do you want?”

The better operator asks, “How did you build this?”

That question may not lead directly to a deal.

It may lead somewhere more valuable: the truth behind the collection, the trust of its owner, and an opportunity that remains open long after the conversation ends.

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Operator Resource: The Curiosity Loop

Curiosity becomes valuable when it produces information that changes your next decision.

Use this five-question sequence before making an offer, pitching a product, solving a customer problem, or committing to a new business direction.

1. Start With the Story

Ask:

“Walk me through how you got here.”

This gives the other person room to explain the situation in their own words. It also prevents you from framing the conversation around your assumptions.

For a collection buyer:

“How did you build this collection?”

For a customer:

“What originally brought you to our business?”

For an employee:

“Walk me through how you currently handle this process.”

2. Find the Meaning

Ask:

“What matters most to you about this?”

Facts tell you what happened. Meaning tells you why it matters.

A seller may care more about finding the right caretaker than securing the highest possible offer. A customer may value speed over price. An employee may be protecting a step in the process because of a problem you have never seen.

Do not assume everyone measures a successful outcome the same way you do.

3. Surface the Friction

Ask:

“What has been the most difficult part?”

This is where opportunities often appear.

The answer may reveal a broken process, an unmet need, a trust problem, or a source of unnecessary work.

Customers will frequently describe the product you should build if you give them enough space to explain the problem they are trying to solve.

4. Challenge Your Understanding

Ask:

“What am I missing?”

This is one of the most useful questions an operator can ask.

Repeat back what you believe you heard, then allow the other person to correct you.

“I’m hearing that speed matters, but maintaining control over the collection matters even more. What am I missing?”

The goal is not to prove that you listened. It is to make sure you understood.

5. Convert Information Into Action

Ask yourself:

“What should I do differently because of what I just learned?”

A conversation has little business value if the information never affects your behavior.

The answer might change your offer, your follow-up, your product, your messaging, or your entire approach to the opportunity.

Curiosity is not measured by the number of questions you ask.

It is measured by your willingness to let the answers change what happens next.

Put It to Work

Choose one important conversation you have coming up this week.

Before the conversation, write down:

• What you currently believe

• What you are assuming

• What you still need to understand

• Which question could challenge your current view

• What decision the information will help you make

Then enter the conversation without trying to prove that your original belief was correct.

Your job is to leave with a more accurate understanding than you had when the conversation began.

Hobby Jobs

Social Media Manager — Blez Online

Blez Online does not have a shortage of content. Big pulls, pack production, customer reactions, and founder moments happen around the business every day. This role matters because it gives one person the responsibility to recognize those moments, capture them, and turn them into a consistent connection with the collecting community.

This is also bigger than maintaining a content calendar. The Social Media Manager will become the digital front door for a growing platform—translating Blez’s hobby credibility into community engagement, app downloads, and sales. As more card businesses compete for attention, operators who understand both the culture and the discipline required to build a brand will become increasingly valuable.

Apply to the is role today

Customer Support Manager — COMC

At the scale COMC operates, customer support is not a department that can survive by closing tickets alone. Every recurring question, escalation, and delay contains information about where the collector experience is breaking down. This manager will be responsible for turning those signals into stronger processes, clearer escalation paths, and problems the company can address before they affect more customers.

The significance of this role extends beyond support. Collectors and consigners are trusting COMC with their cards, money, and transactions. That makes communication and operational visibility central to the company’s reputation. A leader who can translate Zendesk data into improvements across product, operations, and Customer Success can help COMC strengthen trust at scale.

Apply to this role today

Key Account Manager, Power Packs — Collectors

The collectibles industry has no shortage of high-value customers, but it has historically lacked the account-management infrastructure those relationships deserve. This role signals a more mature approach: understand how premier collectors operate, anticipate what they need, and give them one advocate who can navigate the business on their behalf.

The strongest candidate will need more than customer-service experience. They must be curious enough to learn each collector’s goals, buying patterns, and sources of friction—then translate that knowledge into stronger retention and increased trust. As Collectors expands across grading, vaulting, marketplaces, and other services, this role can help turn individual transactions into durable relationships.

Apply to this role today

Retail Manager — WeTheHobby

This shop-in-a-shop concept represents an important experiment for the industry: bringing hobby expertise, education, and community into a mainstream retail environment. The Retail Manager will not simply oversee inventory and transactions. They will help turn curious shoppers into collectors by learning what interests them and guiding them toward an experience that fits.

The role also creates a direct feedback loop between the customer and WeTheHobby. Every conversation can reveal what shoppers understand, what confuses them, and which products or experiences could bring them deeper into the Hobby. If executed well, this model could help expand the collector base by making sports cards more approachable at the exact moment someone shows interest.

Apply to this role today

Editorial Content Writer — eBay

Premium collectibles do not sell on specifications alone. The strongest listings explain why an item matters—connecting its rarity, provenance, condition, and cultural significance in a way that helps a collector understand the opportunity. This writer will be responsible for making that value legible without sacrificing accuracy.

The role sits at the intersection of research, storytelling, and commerce. Curiosity is essential because the writer must investigate what separates one collectible from thousands of others, ask the right questions across multiple teams, and identify the detail that gives an object meaning. In a marketplace built on trust, clear and accurate storytelling can directly influence bidder confidence and final sale results.

Apply to this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees.

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
August 30, 2026

Sure, there are brief moments where I miss the old hobby.

I miss walking into a card shop and seeing the same card sitting in the showcase for months.

I miss thinking it might wait for me.

I miss prices that gave collectors more room to make mistakes. I miss a pace that left more time to think.

When collectors say the hobby used to be better, I understand what they mean.

Prices were lower in many categories. Fewer people chased the same cards. Every release did not feel like an event. Every sale did not become a debate about the market.

Those changes carry a cost.

But I think there is another sentence hiding beneath the nostalgia.

I knew how to operate in that hobby.

That is the part we do not talk about enough.

You built your collecting habits around a set of conditions. Your budget bought a certain type of card. Your shop gave you a source of inventory and information. Your knowledge of one category gave you an edge.

Then the conditions changed.

More money entered the hobby. More cards entered the hobby. More platforms appeared. More people started sharing opinions.

The collector who once felt informed started to feel behind.

The hobby many of us remember was built for the reactive collector.

Beckett arrived once a month.

Product releases told you which rookies mattered.

The shop owner told you what was moving.

The dealer told you what was rare.

The cards placed in front of you became the cards you knew existed.

You reacted to the information, inventory, and opinions that reached you.

The hobby you have now rewards the proactive collector.

Sales history, population reports, checklists, card images, auction archives, saved searches, marketplace alerts, and collector communities sit within reach.

Card Ladder has more than 100 million recorded sales. PSA population reports provide supply information. The Trading Card Database offers checklists and image galleries across sets and eras.

You can find collectors who have studied one player, team, set, or card type for years.

You no longer have to wait for information to reach you.

You can go find it.

That access comes with responsibility.

Information is no longer scarce.

Attention is scarce.

Judgment is scarce.

Curiosity is scarce.

The advantage belongs to the collector who knows what to do with the access.

The hobby now places more cards in front of you than you can own.

More data gives you more numbers to interpret. More content gives you more opinions to filter. More communities give you more collections to compare against your own.

If you do not know what you want, access becomes noise.

If you know what you want, access becomes leverage.

A collector without a plan opens an app and sees an endless stream of cards.

A collector with a plan opens the same app and sees inventory that can be filtered.

One experiences temptation.

The other begins a search.

The algorithm is not your enemy. It is also not your research department.

It knows what earns your attention. It does not know the purpose of your collection. It will not protect your budget. It will not tell you when the best decision is to wait.

If your collecting plan begins with what appears in your feed, you are still reacting.

The delivery system changed.

Your behavior did not.

Beckett arrived once a month. The algorithm arrives each time you open your phone.

Neither should decide what matters to you.

You do not need to turn collecting into a second job.

You need a system built around the cards you care about.

Start with three questions:

• What do I care about?

• What belongs in my collection?

• What am I willing to ignore?

The third question does most of the work.

If every card has a chance to enter your collection, the market will make your decisions for you.

Your answer does not need to last forever. It needs to guide the decision in front of you.

Then decide what each source provides.

A creator can provide context. That context should become an input, not an instruction.

A dealer can provide market experience. That experience also comes with inventory and margin.

A data platform can provide evidence. Data is not the verdict.

Another collector can provide knowledge that never appears in a price guide.

A seller can provide an opportunity to transact.

You provide the decision.

Do not borrow conviction from a microphone, a sales chart, or a follower count.

Use those sources to find the questions worth answering.

Do not begin your research by asking, “Should I buy this card?”

That question pushes you toward a yes or no answer.

Ask, “What would I need to know before this price makes sense to me?”

How many copies exist?

How many have sold?

How often does the card appear?

Did the same copy sell more than once?

Does the reported population reflect the supply?

Is the card important to the player, set, or category?

Who else cares about it?

Can you replace it if you pass?

Would you still want it if nobody posted the sale?

That final question matters.

It protects you from buying visibility instead of meaning.

The proactive collector is not the person with the most free time.

It is the person who uses time with purpose.

Build saved searches with player names, card numbers, parallel names, and spelling variations. Follow the auction houses that handle your category. Track cards before you are ready to buy. Record private sales when the information comes from a source you trust.

Let the tools watch while you work, raise your family, attend practices, make dinner, and handle everything outside the hobby.

When the card appears, you will not be starting from zero.

You will know what it is.

You will know why it matters.

You will know what you are willing to pay.

You will also know when to pass.

Research does not exist to give you confidence to buy every card.

Sometimes its value comes from giving you confidence to walk away.

The hobby you remember is not coming back in the same form.

You can miss the lower prices, the slower shows, and the local shop that taught you how to collect.

You can question the amount of product, the pace of releases, and the incentives built into each platform.

You can hold those thoughts while recognizing what sits in front of you.

You have access to more cards, history, data, and collectors.

You have tools that can monitor the market while you handle the rest of your life.

You can investigate a card before someone else’s conviction becomes your own.

That access does not promise a deal.

It does not promise a return.

It does not make every card fit your budget.

It gives you agency.

The old hobby asked you to react to the information that reached you.

The hobby you have now asks you to decide which information is worth reaching for.

That is an opportunity for the collector who knows what matters.

You do not need to stop missing the past.

You need to learn how to collect in the present.

Your next card does not have to find you.

You can go find it.

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Collectors are joining Stacking Slabs Patreon to consume exclusive content, connect with other collectors, and promote their cards. I’m putting out new collector focused content in the group on a daily basis and it’s the hub for all of SSP’s video content. If you’re enjoying what I’m putting out on the main feeds check out what the group has to offer. I appreciate your attention and commitment to helping grow the damn brand. Join Today

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Auctions to Watch

Auctions to Watch is a benefit for members of the Stacking Slabs Patreon group. Each week, I select cards worth tracking and share the context that makes each listing stand out.

2022 Panini Revolution WWE Jey Uso Galactic SSP #42 PSA 10, Pop 1

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The Galactic is among the toughest parallels to find in Revolution, and this copy carries a PSA 10 grade with a population of one. The Bloodline design also connects the card to the chapter that changed Jey Uso’s career and pushed him into a new tier with wrestling collectors.

2023 Panini Immaculate WWE Liv Morgan Superstar Worn Swatches Red /25 #SML-VM PSA 8

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Numbered 02/25, this red parallel features a two-color superstar-worn swatch that gives the card more appeal than a standard memorabilia hit. Liv Morgan has built a committed collector base, and the low print run gives collectors a chance to pursue a card with scarcity and a strong visual identity.

Reissue: The Proactive Collector Knows Where to Learn

Andy Albert on the Evolving Role of the Hobby Shop

Andy Albert on the Evolving Role of the Hobby Shop

The hobby you have now gives collectors more access than ever.

More platforms.

More data.

More cards.

More content.

More marketplaces.

More ways to buy.

More ways to sell.

More ways to make mistakes.

That last part matters.

Because access without guidance can be overwhelming.

You can have every tool in the world and still not know what to do next.

That is what came back to me from my conversation with Andy Albert, owner of Indy Card Exchange, in December of 2022.

We were talking about the role of the local card shop.

Where it had been.

Where it was going.

And why the best hobby shops still matter in a world where almost everything can be bought online.

The answer was simple.

The hobby shop is no longer just a place to buy cards.

At its best, it is a place to learn how to collect better.

The Old Hobby Was More Reactive

For a long time, collectors reacted to whatever information was available.

A price guide.

A local shop owner.

A new product release.

A hot rookie.

A dealer at a show.

The information moved slower.

The options were narrower.

The collector often had to wait for the hobby to tell them what mattered.

That world rewarded patience in a different way.

But the hobby you have now is different.

You do not have to wait for a monthly magazine to tell you what is happening.

You can track sales.

Study checklists.

Watch auctions.

Listen to collectors.

Follow shops.

Compare categories.

See what is moving in real time.

That is a gift.

But it also creates pressure.

Because now the collector has to do more thinking for themselves.

More Access Requires More Judgment

Andy talked about the different types of people who walk into a shop.

Collectors.

Investors.

Gamblers.

Sometimes a person is one of those.

Sometimes they are a little bit of all three.

That distinction matters.

Because each person needs different guidance.

The collector needs help finding what fits.

The investor needs to understand timing, risk, and entry point.

The gambler needs to know what kind of product they are actually opening.

That is where a good hobby shop owner can still play a critical role.

Not by telling everyone the same thing.

By asking the right questions.

Why are you buying this?

Are you collecting it?

Are you trying to make money?

Are you chasing the thrill?

Are you comfortable with the risk?

Those questions slow people down.

And in this hobby, slowing down is often the first step toward making better decisions.

The Best Shops Educate Before They Sell

One thing that stood out from Andy was how much he emphasized education.

Not content for the sake of content.

Not noise.

Not constant promotion.

Education inside the four walls of the shop.

The conversation at the counter.

The explanation of why a price moved.

The warning that someone may be buying at the peak.

The honest answer when a customer asks what something is worth.

That is the kind of guidance collectors still need.

Especially now.

Because the modern hobby can make everything feel urgent.

Buy now.

Bid now.

Grade now.

Sell now.

Break now.

Act now.

A good shop can interrupt that urgency.

It can help a collector understand the difference between opportunity and impulse.

That is valuable.

The Proactive Collector Uses Every Resource

Being proactive does not mean doing everything alone.

That is a mistake.

The best proactive collectors build a network of information.

They use sales data.

They study population reports.

They listen to collector conversations.

They learn from shows.

They ask questions.

They build relationships with dealers and shop owners who have seen cycles before.

That last part matters.

Because a strong hobby shop owner has pattern recognition.

They have seen people chase peaks.

They have seen hot rookies cool off.

They have seen products sit.

They have seen collectors mature.

They have seen investors leave.

They have seen kids come in with excitement and adults come back with nostalgia.

That tribal knowledge is hard to replace.

You cannot get all of it from a comp.

You get it from conversations.

The Shop as a Filter

The modern collector has an information problem.

Not because there is too little information.

Because there is too much.

A good shop helps filter the noise.

It gives the collector a place to ask:

Does this matter?

Is this price reasonable?

Am I chasing?

Is this product right for me?

Will I care about this card in five years?

That does not mean the shop owner always has the perfect answer.

Nobody does.

But the conversation itself creates clarity.

And clarity is one of the greatest advantages a collector can have right now.

Because the proactive collector is not the person who buys the fastest.

It is the person who understands why they are buying.

The Responsibility of the Hobby Shop Owner

Andy’s perspective was also a reminder that the shop owner has more responsibility now.

The best shops are not just moving wax.

They are helping shape collectors.

They are teaching kids.

They are creating community.

They are building trust.

They are helping new people understand a hobby that can feel impossible to decode from the outside.

That work matters.

Because if the hobby is going to grow in a healthy way, it cannot only be powered by transactions.

It needs places where people can learn.

Places where they can ask basic questions without feeling dumb.

Places where they can be guided toward better habits.

Places where they can become collectors, not just customers.

The Lesson

The hobby you have now rewards the proactive collector.

But proactive does not mean reckless.

It does not mean chasing every trend.

It does not mean reacting to every sale.

It does not mean buying because the market is loud.

It means doing the work.

Studying.

Asking.

Listening.

Learning.

Using the tools.

Building the relationships.

Finding trusted voices.

And knowing when to slow down long enough to understand what you are actually doing.

That is what Andy’s conversation reminded me.

The local card shop still matters because the collector still needs guidance.

Even in a world with unlimited access, collectors need places and people that help turn information into judgment.

The hobby has changed.

The collector has to change with it.

And the ones who will benefit most are not the ones waiting for someone else to tell them what matters.

They are the ones walking into the room, asking better questions, and learning how to see the hobby more clearly.

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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I’ve used the phrase “turn left when the market is going right” since the early days of Stacking Slabs.

Most of the time, I’ve directed it toward collectors.

When everyone is chasing the same players, cards, and categories, there is often more opportunity—and more enjoyment—in looking somewhere else.

But the same principle applies to building a career in the sports card industry.

When I started Stacking Slabs, much of the attention in content was shifting toward short-form video.

That format was faster.

It was easier to distribute.

It offered the possibility of more views, more reach, and more immediate feedback.

I went in another direction.

I doubled down on long-form, audio-driven content.

Not because short-form content was bad. There is room for every medium in this industry.

I did it because I understood the audience I wanted to serve.

Serious collectors wanted context. They wanted stories. They wanted thoughtful conversations that could not be compressed into a few seconds.

I also understood my own strengths.

I had spent years creating shows, formats, and content for technology companies. I knew how to identify an audience, develop a repeatable concept, and build programming around a specific need.

Instead of abandoning those skills when I entered the sports card industry, I brought them with me.

I applied them to collectors.

That led to creating differentiated shows for specific pockets of the hobby. It led to longer conversations. It led to formats that could become familiar and trusted over time.

The opportunity was not in copying what was already working for someone else.

It was in combining what I knew how to do with something the industry needed more of.

That is the part I want aspiring hobby professionals to understand.

You do not have to start your career in sports cards from zero.

You might already have the foundation.

The salesperson understands relationships.

The teacher understands how to make complicated information approachable.

The operator understands systems.

The designer understands how to create an experience.

The customer support professional understands where trust is won or lost.

The engineer understands how to remove friction.

Your path into this industry may not begin with learning an entirely new skill. It may begin with recognizing how the skills you already possess can solve a problem that sports card businesses, collectors, or communities still have.

But skill alone is not enough.

You also need the confidence to use it differently.

Turning left does not mean disagreeing with the market simply to stand out. It means paying attention to what your audience needs, understanding what you can deliver exceptionally well, and refusing to abandon that intersection because another path appears more popular.

The market will always tell you what is receiving attention today.

It will not always tell you where you can create lasting value.

That requires instinct.

It requires self-awareness.

It requires repetition.

Your career might be hiding inside a skill you have spent years developing.

Your opportunity might be sitting in a corner of the industry everyone else is overlooking.

Find the intersection.

Then turn left.

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Operator Spotlight: Shane Walls learned to see what others missed

Shane Walls has spent much of his collecting life going where other people were not.

Living in Indianapolis, he noticed that collectors wanted little to do with Tom Brady.

Shane saw an opportunity.

He began buying rare Brady cards locally. Not because Brady was one of his favorite players, but because Shane understood that the demand outside Indianapolis was much larger than the demand within it.

That instinct eventually led him to a 2016 Select Tom Brady Black Prizm 1/1.

Indy Card Exchange owner Andy Albert pulled the card and called Shane. They agreed on a price of $600.

Years later, Shane graded the card and sold it for $96,000.

It would be easy to make that sale the entire story.

It wasn’t.

The Brady card was one example of something Shane had spent years developing: the ability to recognize where attention might move next.

When basketball cards became too expensive, Shane moved into soccer. He bought heavily into 2017 Topps Chrome UEFA before most collectors around him were paying attention. The collection he eventually built and sold helped him purchase his home.

After the Brady sale, he began researching Marvel cards. He found a 2015 Spider-Man Red PMG, bought it raw, graded it, and sold it for $54,000.

As Shane told me, “I was always trying to go where everybody else wasn’t going.”

That sounds a lot like turning left when the market is going right.

But Shane was not making random bets in the name of being different. He was building pattern recognition.

He had collected since the 1980s. He had bought and sold cards online, attended shows, built player collections, studied products, watched markets, and made plenty of mistakes along the way.

Even today, his routine includes checking COMC and eBay every morning to see what appeared overnight.

Instinct is often experience that has become difficult to explain.

Shane’s collecting instincts helped create financial opportunities. They also became part of the foundation for an entirely new career.

Before joining Indy Card Exchange, Shane spent nearly 16 years working for GameStop.

As the video game business moved toward digital distribution, he saw the direction the company was heading. After navigating a difficult divorce and selling the Brady card, Shane decided to step away.

He took a year off to reset.

During that time, one possibility stayed in the back of his mind: working with Andy and the team at Indy Card Exchange.

Shane had been an Indy Card Exchange customer since 2012. Over time, he became more than a customer. He built a relationship with Andy, established trust, grew his presence as a collector, and became a familiar part of the local card community.

When the opportunity finally arrived, Shane did not walk directly into the role of Lead Buyer.

He started part-time.

When someone called off, he volunteered to come in. When the business needed help, he made himself available. He demonstrated his value before asking the company to bet bigger on him.

Eventually, part-time work became a management opportunity. Today, Shane serves as Indy Card Exchange’s Lead Buyer.

His knowledge of cards matters. Every week, he works through dozens of collection inquiries and determines what makes sense for the shop, its online channels, upcoming card shows, and even the affordable boxes built for younger collectors.

But Shane did not leave his previous career behind when he entered the hobby.

He brought it with him.

His years in retail taught him how to serve customers, hire employees, build teams, manage expectations, and operate inside a structured business.

When Shane helped build the Indy Card Exchange staff, he prioritized people who were passionate, genuine, and capable of creating a strong customer experience. Nearly the entire team was made up of former shop customers.

That is not an accident.

It is the combination of Shane’s retail experience and his understanding of collector culture.

He also knows that buying cards is ultimately a relationship business.

When someone walks into the shop with a collection, Shane is not only evaluating inventory. He may be handling someone’s childhood memories, a family inheritance, or cards the owner does not fully understand.

He has helped customers identify valuable cards, grade them, and explore selling options—even when Indy Card Exchange might not ultimately purchase them.

That requires more than knowing the latest sale.

It requires judgment, empathy, trust, and the ability to educate.

Those are professional skills.

Shane’s story is not proof that one big card sale can magically create a career in the hobby.

It is proof that years of collecting can produce real expertise—and that experience from outside the industry can make that expertise even more valuable.

He recognized opportunities others overlooked.

He built relationships long before he needed them.

He started small when the door opened.

Then he combined his collector instincts with the skills he had developed across 16 years in retail.

That is how passion becomes a profession.

Not by leaving your previous career behind.

By bringing the best parts of it with you.

Operator Resource: Build Your Left-Turn Career Map

You do not need to reinvent yourself to build a career in sports cards.

You need to identify where your existing skills can solve an underserved problem in the industry.

Use this four-part exercise to find that intersection.

1. Inventory the skills you already have

Do not begin with job titles. Break your experience into capabilities.

Ask yourself:

• What problems do people consistently trust me to solve?

• What have I learned to do better than the average person?

• What processes have I built, improved, or managed?

• What skills would remain valuable if my current industry disappeared?

A teacher may understand education, communication, and audience engagement.

A retail manager may understand hiring, customer experience, inventory, and team development.

A salesperson may understand prospecting, negotiation, and relationship management.

Create a list of five capabilities you could bring into a sports card business today.

2. Find the crowded lane

Look at where businesses and professionals are currently concentrating their attention.

What roles are getting the most visibility?

What strategies are being copied?

What platforms, products, or business models are attracting everyone at once?

The goal is not to criticize what is popular. It is to understand where competition is increasing and differentiation is disappearing.

Write down the lane everyone appears to be entering.

3. Identify the left turn

Now look for the problems receiving less attention.

Talk with collectors. Speak with shop owners, dealers, creators, technology companies, and other operators.

Listen for recurring friction:

• What takes too much time?

• Where are customers confused?

• What does the business struggle to execute consistently?

• What work keeps getting pushed aside?

• Which part of the collector experience feels neglected?

• What does the industry need that few people are equipped to provide?

Your left turn sits at the intersection of an overlooked problem and a skill you already possess.

4. Build proof before asking for permission

Do not wait for a company to create the perfect job description.

Demonstrate what the role could accomplish.

Create the content series.

Analyze the customer experience.

Develop the operating process.

Build the prototype.

Help organize the event.

Document what you learned and show the result.

Your first version does not need to become a company. It needs to prove that you understand the problem and can create value around it.

Complete this sentence:

Sports card businesses are overlooking __________. My experience with __________ gives me the ability to help by __________. I can prove it by creating __________.

That statement is the beginning of your career thesis.

Shane Walls brought decades of collector knowledge and 16 years of retail experience into Indy Card Exchange.

I brought my experience creating shows and content formats for technology companies into Stacking Slabs.

Neither path began by chasing the most obvious opportunity.

We recognized where our skills could be useful, built trust, and followed the lane that made sense for us.

Your opportunity may not be where everyone else is looking.

Map the skills you already have.

Find the problem they are uniquely equipped to solve.

Then build enough proof that the industry can no longer overlook it.

Hobby Jobs

Event Marketing Manager — Collectors

Card shows are no longer just places to buy and sell. They are where collectors encounter brands, try services, build trust, and decide which companies deserve an ongoing place in their collecting journey.

This role turns Collectors’ event presence into a complete marketing engine. The Event Marketing Manager will connect everything that happens before, during, and after a show—using audience segmentation, onsite execution, community engagement, and performance data to generate measurable results.

For an organization spanning PSA, PCGS, Beckett, SGC, and Card Ladder, that work carries enormous influence. Done well, an event does more than attract traffic to a booth. It creates new customers, strengthens existing relationships, and helps some of the hobby’s most important brands better understand the collectors they serve.

Apply for this role today

Multiple Retail Roles — CardVault by Tom Brady Indianapolis

This one hits close to home.

CardVault by Tom Brady is opening in Indianapolis and building its local team with Retail Associate, Key Holder, and Assistant Store Manager positions.

These employees will become the human connection between a nationally expanding brand and Indianapolis collectors. They will also serve sports fans who may be walking into a dedicated card store for the first time.

That makes comprehensive sports knowledge more than a hiring requirement. The right employees can use that knowledge to educate customers, create memorable experiences, and turn curiosity into long-term participation in the hobby.

As trading cards enter more mainstream sports and entertainment destinations, frontline retail professionals will play a meaningful role in determining whether new customers feel welcomed or overwhelmed. CardVault’s Indianapolis expansion creates opportunities for local collectors to turn their knowledge into a career while helping build the city’s next major hobby destination.

Apply for these roles today

Cataloger — eBay

Every collectible entering an auction needs to be accurately identified, authenticated, described, and positioned before a bidder can confidently act.

That makes cataloging part research, part operations, and part trust-building.

This role will support Goldin partnerships and eBay Live events, connecting physical inventory with the information collectors see on screen. The Cataloger must recognize important attributes, coordinate authentication, work alongside photography and editorial teams, and keep inventory moving against firm auction deadlines.

As live commerce becomes a larger part of how high-value collectibles are sold, accurate cataloging becomes even more critical. A missed detail can suppress interest or damage confidence. A well-researched listing can help collectors understand an item’s significance and make better decisions.

This is an opportunity for someone with deep sports knowledge and operational discipline to help build the trusted infrastructure behind major collectibles events and auctions.

Apply for this role today

CRM & Retention Manager — VeeFriends

Collectibles businesses are often built around the next launch.

Durable brands are built around what happens between launches.

VeeFriends serves multiple audiences across trading cards, NFTs, animation, events, and retail. This role will turn those separate touchpoints into a connected relationship—using customer data and thoughtful communication to understand what each person cares about and how they want to participate.

The significance extends beyond driving repeat purchases. Effective retention helps a company recognize its most committed collectors, welcome new fans without overwhelming them, and create reasons for the community to remain engaged when nothing is being released.

As more collectible brands develop characters, stories, and experiences across multiple formats, CRM becomes the connective tissue. This role will help VeeFriends evolve from marketing individual products to supporting a collector relationship that can deepen over years.

Apply for this role today

Senior Buyer, Trading Cards — Target

Few roles have the ability to influence what millions of existing and potential collectors encounter in the wild.

Target’s Senior Buyer for Trading Cards will help determine which products reach stores, how assortments vary by market, and how the category is positioned both in person and online. Those decisions affect manufacturers and distributors, but they also shape the first experience many families have with trading cards.

This is bigger than selecting popular products. The right assortment must balance demand, accessibility, profitability, and the needs of different collectors. It requires someone who can interpret data while also anticipating where sports, entertainment, and collecting culture are heading.

Mass retail remains one of the hobby’s largest entry points. By deciding what appears on Target’s shelves—and how customers discover it—this buyer can help make collecting more approachable for the next generation while guiding the growth of the entire trading card category.

Apply for this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
August 23, 2026

What a $1.47 Million Jordan Sale Is Telling Us

I couldn’t help put pause after I saw the sale of the 1997 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems Red Michael Jordan in a BGS 8 that sold for $1,473,988.80.

The price deserves your attention.

The card deserves more.

This was not the first time this copy entered the market. The same card, numbered 52 of 100, sold for $480,000 in February 2021. It sold for $360,000 in June 2023.

Now it has sold for close to $1.5 million.

Same player.

Same card.

Same serial number.

Same grade.

Three sales from three points in the market.

That history turns a headline into a case study.

It shows us that a card can matter and still fall in price. It shows us that demand can return. It also shows us that one sale captures one moment.

It does not predict the next one.

There is a difference between saying a Red Jordan PMG sold for $1.47 million and saying the Red Jordan PMG is now a $1.47 million card.

The first statement records what happened.

The second assumes the next buyer will make the same decision.

We need more evidence before making that claim. We need another copy, another bidder pool and another result near this price.

That does not make the sale meaningless.

It makes it a signal instead of a price guide.

A comp helps us estimate the value of a card that resembles the one sold. A signal shows us where attention and confidence are moving.

For most collectors, this sale is not a comp.

It is a signal.

The Jordan PMG Red is numbered to 100. The first 10 copies are green. The remaining 90 are red.

There are cards with fewer copies.

There are thousands of one-of-ones.

Most will never approach this price.

The buyer did not pay for a serial number alone. The buyer paid for scarcity attached to agreement.

Collectors agree on Michael Jordan.

They agree on the importance of the first PMG set.

They know the design.

They know the image.

They know the place this card holds in hobby history.

The card does not need an autograph, a patch, a rookie label or a one-of-one stamp to explain why it matters.

The meaning came first.

The serial number limits the supply of that meaning.

We spend a lot of time counting copies. We spend less time counting how many people care.

A card numbered to five with 10 interested collectors has one type of market. A card with 90 copies and hundreds of people who want one has another.

Scarcity matters.

Demand decides what that scarcity is worth.

Most of us will never own a Red Jordan PMG.

That does not place the lesson outside our collecting lives.

Money entering a category does not reach every card in equal amounts. It moves toward the cards that collectors understand and trust.

That applies to basketball.

It also applies to football, wrestling, baseball, soccer, racing and the WNBA.

Every category has cards that require less explanation than the rest. They bring together the subject, set, image, history and story.

When attention enters your category, those cards tend to receive it first.

The lesson is not to find your category’s version of this Jordan and expect the same return.

The lesson is to understand where collector agreement lives.

Before buying your next card, ask:

• Does this card have demand or only a low serial number?

• Would collectors understand its importance without reading the label?

• Does it hold a place within the history of its category?

• Who wants it when the market slows down?

• Am I buying the card because it fits my collection or because a recent sale created urgency?

Those questions matter when the price is $1.47 million.

They also matter when the price is $147.

This sale will send collectors toward Jordan, Metal Universe and PMGs.

Some of that attention will create demand. Some sellers will borrow the PMG name or point toward this result to support cards with little connection to it.

That is where your discipline matters.

Do not let a headline lower your standards.

Use it to raise them.

Study why this card earned the price. Study the player, the set, the design, the history and the people who continue to want it.

Then apply that thinking to your collection.

You do not need to own the card everyone ranks first. Your collection should reflect your taste, memories and goals.

You need to know why you own what you own.

Problems begin when we buy for one reason and defend the purchase with another.

The buyer of this Jordan knew what type of card was being purchased.

We should bring that same clarity to our budgets.

I love this sale because it reminds us that collectors create meaning over time. A card from 1997 can command this level of demand without a signature, a piece of memorabilia or a population of one.

The hobby built its importance through years of agreement.

That is the part worth studying.

I’ve wrestled with the tension between meaning, scarcity, and my own personal interests as I enter my next era of collection building.

My first rule before I make a big purchase is that I have to love the card.

It needs to have meaning for me.

But, also I’ve learned to not confuse rarity with importance.

Do not confuse one sale with certainty.

Do not confuse a headline with an instruction.

Study the card.

Study the demand.

Study what remains when the attention moves somewhere else.

Then decide what the signal means for you.

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Reissue: A Big Sales Is Not a Blank Check

Drake McGruder on interpreting the sale without losing your head

Big sales are easy to react to.

They are harder to interpret.

A record number hits the screen.

Screenshots fly around.

Collectors start celebrating.

Sellers start raising prices.

Skeptics start questioning the sale.

Everyone starts trying to figure out what it means for their own cards.

That is the dangerous part.

Because a big sale can tell us something important.

But it can also make people lose their discipline.

That is what stood out from my conversation with Drake McGruder in April 2023 after The Rock 2022 Prizm Black Finite 1/1 sale.

The sale was massive.

It was a real moment for wrestling cards.

But the lesson was not that every wrestling card suddenly got more valuable.

The lesson was that collectors need to learn how to read the signal without turning it into a fantasy.

The Sale Matters

We do not need to downplay it.

A six-figure wrestling card sale matters.

It creates attention.

It validates that there are serious collectors willing to spend real money on the right wrestling card.

It shows that modern wrestling cards can produce tentpole moments.

It gives the category something to point to when people ask whether collectors care.

That is important.

Every niche category needs moments that break outside its own walls.

This sale did that.

It gave wrestling cards oxygen.

It gave collectors a reason to talk.

It gave the broader hobby a reason to look.

But once the excitement settles, the real work begins.

Because collectors still have to ask the harder question:

What does this actually mean?

Not Every Card Gets Pulled Up With It

This is where collectors get into trouble.

A major card sells.

Then people start applying that sale to everything around it.

Every Rock card.

Every wrestling 1/1.

Every Prizm parallel.

Every card from the same release.

Every card in the category.

That is lazy thinking.

A big sale does not automatically reset an entire market.

It resets the conversation around a very specific card.

The Rock.

Panini WWE Prizm.

Black Finite 1/1.

A globally recognized superstar.

A card with clear crossover appeal.

A card with multiple bidders pushing the price.

That context matters.

You cannot take that result and slap it on every adjacent card.

The closer the card is to the original signal, the more relevant the sale becomes.

The further away it gets, the weaker the connection becomes.

That is the work collectors need to do.

Not just asking, “What sold?”

But asking, “What exactly sold, and why?”

The Second Bidder Matters

One of the most important parts of interpreting any big auction sale is remembering that the final number is not created by one person.

It is created by competition.

The winning bidder gets the card.

But the underbidder helps build the price.

That matters.

If one collector is willing to pay $100,000 and the next highest bidder is only willing to pay $50,000, the card does not become a $100,000 sale.

It becomes a $50,000 sale.

That is why real competition matters so much.

In the Drake conversation, we talked about the reported number of bidders who were still pushing deep into the auction.

That changes how you interpret the sale.

It was not one person randomly deciding to spend big.

There was competition.

There was demand.

There were multiple people who wanted the card badly enough to keep going.

That does not mean every related card is now worth more.

But it does mean the sale deserves to be taken seriously.

Collector Intent Changes the Meaning

The best part of that sale was what happened after.

The buyer came forward.

He shared that the card meant something to him.

He talked about his memories ripping 2022 WWE Prizm.

That matters.

Because collector intent changes how a sale is perceived.

If a card gets bought by someone looking to flip it in three months, the market reads that one way.

If a card gets bought by a collector who plans to hold it, the market reads it differently.

A card disappearing into a real collection creates a different kind of signal.

It says the card found a home.

It says the sale was not only about extraction.

It says the buyer had a relationship with the card, the set, and the moment.

That does not guarantee anything about future value.

But it gives the sale more credibility.

Collectors can feel the difference.

Do Not Let One Sale Rewrite Your Whole Brain

This is the part I think collectors need to hear most.

A big sale should make you pay attention.

It should not make you panic.

It should not make you chase every card nearby.

It should not make you overpay for cards you did not care about a week earlier.

It should not make you convince yourself that everything in your box just doubled.

That is how people get hurt.

The right response is not FOMO.

The right response is interpretation.

What does this say about the player?

What does this say about the set?

What does this say about the parallel?

What does this say about the category?

What does this say about collector demand?

What does this say about supply?

What does this say about where serious buyers are willing to concentrate capital?

Those are useful questions.

“Should I buy everything now before it all goes up?” is not a useful question.

That is emotion pretending to be strategy.

Big Sales Create Opportunity and Noise

The tricky thing is that both can be true.

A big sale can create real opportunity.

It can expose a category to new collectors.

It can validate cards that were previously misunderstood.

It can bring attention to older releases, overlooked parallels, or adjacent players.

But it also creates noise.

Sellers raise asks.

Buyers get impatient.

People list cards they were not planning to sell.

Others start drawing weak comparisons.

The category gets louder.

And when the category gets louder, the disciplined collector has to get quieter.

That is when you go back to your framework.

Your players.

Your sets.

Your standards.

Your budget.

Your time horizon.

The sale is information.

It is not instruction.

The Lesson

A big sale is a signal.

It is not a shortcut.

It tells you where attention is moving.

It shows you what at least two buyers were willing to fight for.

It can help identify what the market views as a true tentpole card.

But it does not remove the collector’s responsibility to think.

That is what Drake’s conversation reminded me.

Collectors have to resist the urge to make one sale mean everything.

Sometimes the sale means the exact card is more important than people realized.

Sometimes it means the category has more depth than outsiders assumed.

Sometimes it means the market is maturing.

Sometimes it means two collectors really wanted the same card on the same night.

The job is to figure out which one it is.

Because if you interpret a big sale correctly, it can sharpen your understanding.

If you interpret it poorly, it can wreck your discipline.

And in a hobby that runs on emotion, that difference matters.

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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One of the fastest ways to talk yourself out of building something is to compare your first step to someone else’s tenth year.

You see the established hobby shop with multiple locations. The marketplace with hundreds of employees. The media company with major sponsors. The grading company processing millions of cards.

Then you look at what you have today.

An idea. A particular set of skills. Some conviction. Maybe enough financial runway to buy yourself a little time.

The distance between those two pictures can feel overwhelming.

But you do not need to build the finished company on day one.

You need to build the next brick.

That is how many of the most successful operators in the sports card industry started. They left careers in technology, finance, education, marketing, sales, or another field because they believed their skills could solve a real problem in the hobby.

They did not begin with a massive team, a perfect blueprint, and unlimited capital.

They started with something small enough to test.

They found one customer. Solved one problem. Created one product. Ran one event. Published one episode. Opened one location. Built one repeatable process.

Then they paid attention to what happened next.

This is the part of building a business that does not get discussed enough.

Your first goal is not supposed to prove that you can build a large company. It is supposed to expose what is preventing you from reaching the next goal.

That constraint might be audience growth. It might be distribution. It might be sales. It might be fulfillment. It might be your own time.

Every measurable target gives you information.

If demand is not there, you need to improve the product or positioning.

If demand is there but customers are not returning, you need to improve the experience.

If customers are returning but you cannot serve them without working around the clock, you have discovered a capacity problem.

That is when a process, partner, or hire becomes necessary.

The business tells you what it needs next.

This approach is very different from sitting down at the beginning and designing the org chart for the company you hope to have five years from now.

You can convince yourself that you need employees, technology, office space, inventory, and outside capital before you have earned enough evidence to support any of it.

Capital can help a proven business move faster. But capital invested into an unclear model can allow a business to scale its confusion.

More money does not automatically produce more clarity.

Sometimes it just makes the mistakes more expensive.

Building brick by brick is not a lack of ambition. It is disciplined ambition.

It means refusing to build infrastructure for demand that does not exist yet. It means allowing real customers to influence the business before assumptions become expensive commitments. It means making the next investment because the business has revealed a constraint—not because you are trying to look like the companies you admire.

I did not have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank when I left my career in technology to go all-in on Stacking Slabs.

I did not have a blueprint for building a sports card media business. There was no established model for what I wanted to create.

What I had was experience I could apply, a close relationship with collectors, and a willingness to experiment.

I started small.

I created consistently. I listened to the audience. I tested different formats. I learned what resonated and what did not. I paid attention to what hobby brands valued. I failed quickly enough that the failures became information instead of permanent damage.

Those early signals helped me refine the product.

They showed me where Stacking Slabs could be useful to collectors and desirable to businesses. They helped me understand what the company could become without requiring me to know exactly what it would become before I started.

That distinction matters.

You do not discover the entire business model from a spreadsheet. You discover pieces of it through contact with the market.

The hobby needs more people willing to do that work.

There are talented operators sitting inside companies right now who understand logistics, customer experience, technology, finance, content, community, and sales. They can see problems in the sports card industry that need to be solved.

But too many of them are comparing their potential beginning to someone else’s mature operation.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

It can also be the thief of action.

The established company you admire was not always established. The polished operation you see today was once held together by manual processes, imperfect experiments, and someone doing several jobs at once.

Do not let the finished version intimidate you out of creating the first version.

Put on the blinders.

Identify the smallest meaningful problem you can solve. Set a target that is close enough to pursue but important enough to teach you something. Reach it. Study what broke. Fix the constraint. Then set the next target.

You do not need to know how to build the entire wall.

You need enough conviction to lay the first brick and enough curiosity to let each brick teach you where the next one belongs.

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Operator Spotlight: Stephanie Garcia Built Mama Breaks One Constraint at a Time

If the Operator Note is the theory, Stephanie Garcia’s story is the proof.

Today, Mama Breaks is a 12-person, multimillion-dollar business. But that was never the plan Stephanie started with.

It began during COVID.

Stephanie was teaching remotely, raising two young children, and rediscovering her love for sports cards. She became obsessed with the details of collecting and started spending her nights watching breaks online.

Her husband noticed something before she did.

He told her she could be a breaker.

Stephanie did not respond by purchasing a massive amount of inventory, hiring a team, or writing a five-year plan for the future of Mama Breaks.

She created an Instagram page.

Then she set a small, measurable goal: if the page reached 1,000 followers, she would host her first break on Instagram Live.

It reached that number within a few months.

She ran the break. She learned from it. Then she set the next goal.

That sequence has continued ever since.

“I just started setting small goals,” Stephanie explained. “It’s been goal setting and hitting goals since then.”

There was no plan to build a 12-person company. There was a series of targets that gradually revealed what the business needed next.

Stephanie’s story also demonstrates why your previous career is not separate from the business you want to build. It may contain the skills that give you an advantage.

She did not enter the hobby with experience running a breaking company. She entered with experience as a teacher.

During COVID, Stephanie had been forced to learn how to keep students engaged through a screen. When she watched other breakers sit silently and wait for spots to sell, she recognized an opportunity.

She could make the stream more interactive.

She could create an environment where people wanted to stay—even when the cards were not being opened.

Being one of the few women breaking cards helped Stephanie stand out. Her ability to engage, teach, entertain, and make people feel welcome gave them a reason to come back.

That became the foundation of Mama Breaks.

The business did not grow because Stephanie attempted to imitate the largest breakers in the industry. It grew because she understood what she could do differently.

That is another advantage of starting small.

You are close enough to the work to notice what customers respond to.

Stephanie learned that the most valuable part of the Mama Breaks experience was not simply access to the product. It was her energy, her passion for the categories, and the feeling of community inside the stream.

She did not learn that from a business plan.

She learned it by showing up.

As demand increased, the next constraint became visible.

During the release of 2023 Bowman Draft, Stephanie went from selling and shipping one case per day to filling four cases per day. She could handle the breaking herself. She could not break four cases and still sort, package, and ship everything quickly.

The math no longer worked.

That was the signal to make her first hire.

She did not hire because successful companies are supposed to have employees. She hired because the volume had exposed a specific bottleneck in the operation.

More demand created more work. More work revealed the constraint. The constraint justified the investment.

Brick by brick.

Stephanie still uses that thinking today.

If she sets a new revenue goal, she works backward. How many cases will it require? How many hours will the team need to be live? How much sorting, shipping, and customer service will that volume create? Can the current team support it?

The goal defines the capacity required to reach it.

That discipline has allowed Mama Breaks to grow without pretending Stephanie could predict every stage of the company from the beginning.

It has also helped her take bigger risks where she has earned conviction.

Stephanie recognized opportunities in categories she genuinely loved, including Star Wars, wrestling, and Marvel. She made concentrated bets on products such as Topps Chrome Galaxy Star Wars and built large-scale break formats for communities that were being underserved.

Those bets were not random.

They were informed by years spent close to customers, products, and niche collecting communities. Each smaller experiment gave Stephanie more confidence about where Mama Breaks could go big.

Now the company has reached another constraint.

Stephanie is the CEO, but she is also one of the brand’s most valuable on-air personalities. The more time she spends managing the operation, the less time she can spend doing the work customers value most.

Her next challenge is not figuring out how to do more herself.

It is hiring strong people to manage other parts of the company and teaching additional breakers how to create the energy that made Mama Breaks special in the first place.

The constraint has changed because the company has changed.

That is what building brick by brick looks like in practice.

The first brick was an Instagram page.

The next was 1,000 followers.

Then came the first break, the first employee, the first major product bet, and the development of a team capable of supporting the demand.

Stephanie did not need to see the entire company before she started.

She only needed enough courage to take the first risk, enough self-awareness to recognize what made her different, and enough discipline to let every goal reveal what the business needed next.

Operator Resource: The Next Brick Scorecard

Most early-stage operators do not need a more ambitious five-year plan.

They need a clearer next target.

The Next Brick Scorecard is designed to help you make progress without building a team, process, or expense structure before the business has justified it.

Stephanie Garcia’s first target was not to build a multimillion-dollar breaking company. It was to reach 1,000 Instagram followers and run her first break.

Later, when Mama Breaks grew from one case per day to four, the resulting workload exposed a sorting and shipping constraint. That constraint justified her first hire.

Each target produced new information. That information determined the next investment.

Use the following questions to identify your next brick.

1. What is the next measurable result?

Choose one result you can pursue over the next 30 to 90 days.

Examples:

• Acquire the first 10 paying customers.

• Sell out the first card show.

• Reach $10,000 in monthly revenue.

• Publish 12 consecutive newsletter editions.

• Secure three repeat customers.

• Process 100 orders without a fulfillment error.

Avoid vague goals such as “grow the brand” or “build awareness.” If you cannot measure it, it will not teach you enough.

2. What is the smallest test that could produce that result?

Do not build the full operation before you have tested the underlying assumption.

Ask:

• Can I sell this manually before investing in technology?

• Can I run one event before committing to a series?

• Can I test demand with one product before purchasing significant inventory?

• Can I serve five customers before designing for 500?

• Can I prove people will pay before hiring someone to help deliver it?

The goal is not to look established. The goal is to produce evidence.

3. What will this target help me learn?

Every goal should answer an important business question.

You may be testing whether:

• The problem is painful enough for someone to pay you.

• Your positioning is strong enough to earn attention.

• Customers will return after the first purchase.

• A niche community is large enough to support the product.

• Your current process can handle additional volume.

• The work can be performed by someone other than you.

Revenue is valuable. Learning that improves the next decision is valuable too.

4. What broke as you pursued the goal?

When you reach the target—or fail to reach it—study the friction.

Where did progress slow down?

Was the constraint demand, conversion, inventory, fulfillment, customer service, capital, or your own time?

Do not immediately solve every inconvenience. Focus on the problem preventing the business from reaching its next meaningful level.

5. What does the constraint justify building?

Invest only after the constraint becomes clear.

If customers are not buying, you probably do not need another employee.

If customers are buying but orders are consistently late, additional operational help may be justified.

If your audience is growing but it is not converting, the answer may be a better offer rather than more content.

If the company cannot operate without you, the next brick may be documentation, delegation, or talent development.

The constraint should determine the investment—not comparison, ego, or the desire to appear bigger than you are.

Complete Your Next Brick Scorecard

My next measurable target:

My current baseline:

The deadline:

The smallest test I can run:

The assumption this will test:

The result that would count as proof:

The constraint I expect to encounter:

What actually broke:

The next investment this evidence justifies:

What I will deliberately avoid building yet:

That final question matters.

Every dollar, hire, and process creates additional weight. A business becomes stronger when that weight is supported by evidence.

Set the target. Run the test. Find the constraint. Build the next brick.

Then repeat.

Hobby Jobs

Founding Growth: Hobby — Tradepost

Liquidity is one of the industry’s most important constraints. When shops, breakers, dealers, and consignors can move inventory faster, they can redeploy capital faster and operate with more confidence.

This role will help determine whether Tradepost can make that possible at scale. The Founding Growth lead will not simply market an existing product. They will recruit the buyers and sellers required to create functioning markets for sealed wax, graded cards, and raw cards—then turn those early wins into a repeatable growth playbook. It is a high-ownership opportunity for someone whose hobby relationships and market knowledge can help reshape how inventory is bought, sold, and settled.

Apply for this role today

Director of Operations Strategy — Courtyard

At Courtyard, inventory is not merely something the company holds. It shapes the customer experience, ties up capital, influences liquidity, and determines whether new categories can scale responsibly.

This role brings discipline to those decisions. The Director of Operations Strategy will use marketplace behavior and inventory data to decide what Courtyard should buy, where it should expand, and when it should reduce exposure. As more collectibles businesses combine commerce, entertainment, and instant liquidity, leaders who understand both collector demand and capital risk will be essential to building platforms that can grow without outrunning their fundamentals.

Apply for this role today

Account Manager — eBay

Major consignments are built on more than strong auction results. They require trust, communication, and consistent execution before, during, and after the sale.

Supporting Goldin’s clients, this Account Manager will help protect those relationships by resolving issues, coordinating across internal teams, and giving consignors confidence that their collections are being handled properly. In a relationship-driven industry where one poor experience can cost years of future business, this role helps turn successful transactions into lasting partnerships.

Apply for this role today

Customer Support Lead — Trove

Customer support becomes especially important when a platform combines digital pack opening, card ownership, resale, and physical redemption. Every unresolved problem can create uncertainty about both the experience and the customer’s collection.

Trove’s Customer Support Lead will build the systems that prevent those problems from becoming recurring constraints. By combining hands-on service with automation, trust and safety, and root-cause analysis, this person will turn customer friction into better products and operations. It is an opportunity to shape how an emerging collectibles platform earns trust before support volume—and the team required to manage it—begins to scale.

Apply for this role today

Social Media / Brand Manager — CardCollector2

Few hobby businesses have demonstrated the compounding power of content as clearly as CardCollector2. Ryan Johnson and his team have built an audience that extends well beyond the walls of their card shop and turns everyday activity across the business into stories collectors want to follow.

The next challenge is helping that brand grow without losing the personality and authenticity that made it work. A Social Media / Brand Manager can expand the company’s storytelling, create greater consistency, and reduce the amount of content that must flow directly through Ryan. No formal job description was provided, but Ryan shared the opening on his Instagram for anyone interested in learning more.

Email your resume to Cardcollector2

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
August 16, 2026

A Niche Does Not Need to Explode to Matter

I want more people collecting wrestling cards.

I want more people collecting WNBA cards.

I want more people collecting soccer, Formula 1, Marvel, Disney, college cards and the categories that still do not have a clean label.

I do not believe the hobby grows stronger when every collector chases the same rookie quarterback, basketball prospect or five cards that fill our feeds.

The hobby grows when more people find a reason to care.

But there is a difference between growing a category and selling the idea that a category is about to explode.

We need to understand that difference.

At The National, I stood in a room with around 400 wrestling card collectors during Wrestling Card Takeover.

That room was not full because one card set a sales record.

Nobody had to tell those collectors that the window was closing.

They came because people had spent years sharing cards, teaching history, debating products and forming relationships.

They came because they saw themselves in the room.

That is what category growth looks like to me.

People before prices.

Participation before speculation.

A collector finding a place that fits who they are, then remaining involved after the attention shifts.

The WNBA Card Podcast grew from the same belief. It did not start because WNBA cards had reached an approved market size.

It started because collectors cared.

Those collectors deserved a place for their conversations.

They deserved a show that treated their interests with respect.

The numbers followed. According to eBay, WNBA card sales grew 650 percent from 2020 through 2024. Searches for WNBA cards rose 480 percent during the first four months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.

Caitlin Clark helped bring people into the category. Yet search growth extended to A’ja Wilson, Sue Bird, Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi, Sheryl Swoopes and players from across the league’s history.

That breadth matters.

One star can create attention. A category shows staying power when collectors begin learning about the people, teams and cards beyond that star.

We talk about category growth as if it means one thing.

It does not.

A category can have more content without having more collectors.

It can have higher prices without having more buyers.

It can have more products without having more demand.

It can have one record sale without having a healthy market.

Before deciding that a category is growing, ask what is moving:

• Is the audience growing?

• Is the collector base growing?

• Are more transactions taking place across more price points?

• Are prices rising for a few cards?

• Are manufacturers producing more cards?

Those signals can move together. They can also move in separate directions.

Price attracts the most attention because it gives us a number to share. Yet one sale only proves that one buyer and one seller agreed on a price that day.

It does not prove that another buyer exists.

It does not prove that demand reaches the rest of the set.

It does not prove that new collectors are staying.

We ask too much of a sale when we use it to explain the health of an entire category.

This is the question I keep returning to.

Why do you want more people collecting what you collect?

There are good reasons.

You want more people to talk with.

You want manufacturers to invest in the category.

You want dealers to carry the cards.

You want auction houses to accept them.

You want events, podcasts, checklists and collector groups.

You want to share something that matters to you with people who understand it.

There are financial reasons too.

If more buyers enter the category, the value of the cards you own can rise. If you sell cards, run breaks, host events or create content, more interest can support your work.

Financial benefit does not make someone dishonest.

Hiding that benefit changes how people should evaluate the message.

I am not neutral when I talk about wrestling cards.

I collect them. I own cards that benefit when the category receives attention. I produce content about wrestling cards. I host an event built around the community.

My interest is part of my perspective.

I also know why I would care if prices never rose again.

That is the question worth asking yourself:

If your cards were worth the same amount five years from now, would you still want the category to grow?

If you want more conversations, history, events and people to share the experience with, you are thinking about community.

If your interest disappears when the price growth disappears, you are holding a market position.

There is nothing wrong with a market position.

But we should call it what it is.

Good growth gives collectors context.

It teaches them what came before, which products matter and why certain cards carry meaning.

Good growth creates entry points.

Someone should be able to participate with $20, $200 or $2,000. There should be room for the team collector, set collector, player collector and person searching for one card that connects with a memory.

Good growth also leaves room for questions.

A collector should be able to ask about demand, liquidity or weak sales without being treated as an enemy of the category.

Questions do not hurt a community.

They protect the people inside it.

The goal should not be to make every niche big.

Some categories will remain small. Small is not failure.

A category with a few hundred collectors, active transactions, shared knowledge and trust can serve its people better than one with thousands of buyers who arrived through the same price prediction.

Scale is one result.

Staying power is another.

If you care about a niche, give people something they can stay in.

Share the history.

Teach the cards.

Create the show.

Host the event.

Invite new voices.

Talk about the weak signals along with the strong ones.

Tell people where your interests sit.

Then let collectors decide whether the category fits them.

You do not need to tell people they will miss out.

Give them enough context to understand what they might want to join.

That is how a niche becomes a community.

That is how a community becomes a category.

And that is how a category grows without losing the collectors it was meant to serve.

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Auctions to Follow

2022 Panini Select WWE Jey Uso Auto Memorabilia Black Prizm Patch #1/1 PSA 9

2022 Select WWE Jey Uso Autograph Memorabilia Black 1/1 PSA 9

This Black 1/1 combines Jey Uso’s autograph with a WWE logo memorabilia patch from the first Select WWE release. Graded PSA 9, it brings together the set’s top parallel, a standout patch and one of Jey’s best years in The Bloodline story.

Check out this auction

Reissue: Growth Needs a Guide

Adam Gellman on the Right Way to Build a Niche Category

A niche category does not grow just because people start talking about it.

Attention can create movement.

It can create sales.

It can create spikes.

It can create a rush of new people looking around and asking the same question:

Where do I start?

That is where the real work begins.

Because growth without guidance is dangerous.

It creates confusion.

It creates bad information.

It creates people buying cards they do not understand because someone else told them they matter.

That is why my conversation with Adam Gellman from January 2025 keeps coming back to me.

This was before Booked to Last.

Before Adam became part of the Stacking Slabs Network.

Before wrestling cards had the same level of organized conversation around them that exists today.

But even then, Adam was doing the work.

Writing.

Organizing.

Explaining.

Connecting collectors.

Helping people make sense of a category that was growing fast but still needed structure.

That is the right way to grow a niche.

Not by yelling louder.

By building better pathways.

Attention Is Not the Same as Health

Wrestling cards were gaining momentum.

Netflix was bringing more eyeballs to WWE.

Topps was coming back.

Panini had just created a meaningful modern era.

The Rock was signing.

Fanatics was putting more muscle behind the category.

There was real energy.

But energy alone does not make a category healthy.

A niche can get attention and still be fragile.

A niche can see record sales and still lack education.

A niche can bring in new buyers and still leave them confused.

That is the risk.

When a category grows too fast, the loudest voices often shape the narrative.

And the loudest voices are not always the most responsible ones.

The Wrong Way to Grow

The wrong way to grow a niche category is to treat collectors like exits.

Push the card.

Inflate the moment.

Create urgency.

Tell everyone something is rare without explaining why.

Turn every new release into a gold rush.

Make the category feel like a race where the only way to win is to buy before the next person does.

That might create short-term heat.

But it does not build trust.

It does not build collectors.

It does not build community.

It creates tourists.

People come in fast.

Spend too quickly.

Get burned.

Then leave with a bad taste in their mouth.

That is not growth.

That is extraction.

The Right Way to Grow

The right way to grow a niche is slower.

Less flashy.

More useful.

It starts with education.

What matters?

Why does it matter?

Where are the entry points?

What should new collectors understand before they start spending real money?

What are the parallels to other sports?

Where are the differences?

What mistakes should people avoid?

That is the work Adam was doing with The Main Event community.

He was not just saying, “Wrestling cards are next.”

He was helping collectors understand the category.

Rookie card debates.

Product history.

Panini’s impact.

Topps’ return.

The role of breakers.

The difference between hype and structure.

That matters because new collectors need maps.

Not megaphones.

Standards Help New Collectors Enter

One of the most important parts of Adam’s perspective was around rookie cards.

Wrestling can be complicated.

Some performers have independent releases.

Some have earlier niche issues.

Some have cards before they are fully established in WWE.

Some have a more traditional path.

That complexity can be fun for established collectors.

But it can be intimidating for new ones.

Adam’s point was not that wrestling has to become exactly like every other sport.

It was that collectors need guideposts.

They need ways to understand what they are looking at.

They need some shared language.

Without that, every conversation turns into a fight.

And every new collector is left trying to figure out who to trust.

Healthy categories need standards.

Not to kill nuance.

To make entry possible.

Community Makes the Category Stronger

Adam was building something that niche categories desperately need.

A place for people to gather.

A place for questions.

A place for context.

A place for collectors to feel like they are not figuring it out alone.

That is how categories become stronger.

Not because everyone agrees.

Not because everyone collects the same way.

But because there is a shared commitment to helping the category mature.

Good communities do not just celebrate wins.

They explain why the wins matter.

They challenge bad arguments.

They give new collectors a place to learn.

They preserve history.

They help people understand what came before the current moment.

That is what separates real category growth from a temporary spike.

Breakers, Creators, and Organizers All Have Responsibility

One thing Adam made clear is that wrestling cards would not be where they are without access.

Breakers helped create access.

Content creators helped create education.

Community organizers helped create connection.

All of those roles matter.

But all of those roles also carry responsibility.

If you are breaking a niche category, you are often someone’s first exposure to it.

If you are creating content around a niche category, you are shaping how people understand it.

If you are organizing community around a niche category, you are helping define the culture.

That is not small.

The people closest to the category help decide whether growth feels welcoming or predatory.

They help decide whether new collectors feel educated or pressured.

They help decide whether the category becomes stronger as more people arrive.

The Lesson

The right way to grow a niche category is to protect the collector while expanding the room.

That is the balance.

You want more people to discover it.

You want more attention.

You want more energy.

You want more opportunity.

But not at the expense of trust.

Not at the expense of context.

Not at the expense of the people who were already building the foundation.

Adam’s work in wrestling cards is a reminder that the best niche growth comes from people who care about the category beyond the current moment.

People who educate.

People who organize.

People who explain.

People who make the path easier for the next collector.

That is how a niche becomes durable.

Not through hype alone.

Through stewardship.

Because every growing category faces the same choice.

It can become a place where people are welcomed, taught, and connected.

Or it can become a place where people are rushed, confused, and sold to.

Only one of those builds something that lasts.

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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Most business owners in the sports card industry do not start with a team.

We start with an idea.

Then we become the salesperson, marketer, content creator, customer service department, bookkeeper, and operations team required to keep that idea alive.

In the beginning, this is an advantage.

There are no layers.

There are no approval processes.

We can make a decision in the morning and act on it that afternoon. We remain close to the customer because we are the person talking to them. We understand every detail because we built every part of the business ourselves.

Over time, the business grows.

Not always in one dramatic burst. It usually happens incrementally.

Another customer.

Another product.

Another show.

Another partnership.

Another responsibility added to a list that was already full.

Eventually, we reach a point where we understand two things at the same time:

We cannot continue doing everything ourselves.

We are also terrified of what might happen if we stop.

That is the tension between growth and control.

A big reason I went all-in on Stacking Slabs was because I wanted more control over my future.

I spent 15 years riding the start-up carousel in tech. It was exciting. I learned how businesses grow, how teams operate, and how quickly the direction of a company can change.

I also learned what it feels like to build inside a business without having the final say.

The most important decisions were never completely mine.

Stacking Slabs gave me something different.

I could decide what went out.

I could choose which brands I worked with.

I could determine how the content was developed.

I could build something that reflected what I believed collectors needed instead of waiting for someone else to approve the direction.

That control has been one of the greatest advantages of building this business.

It is also becoming one of my biggest challenges.

Stacking Slabs has reached a point where it needs more than I can personally give it.

I know I need help.

Knowing that and acting on it are two very different things.

It is easy to tell a business owner to delegate.

It is much harder when that business owner is responsible for making payroll.

People are expensive.

Hiring someone creates a real financial commitment. For a small business, one wrong hire is not a minor inconvenience. It can change the future of the company.

What if the revenue does not grow fast enough?

What if the person is not the right fit?

What if I spend months training someone and it does not work?

What if I give up responsibilities and the quality drops?

These are not irrational fears.

Small operators do not have unlimited capital or multiple layers of management to absorb a mistake. Every investment matters. Every decision carries weight.

There is a legitimate cost to hiring before the business is ready.

There is also a cost to waiting too long.

That second cost is much harder to see.

It shows up in opportunities we cannot pursue.

It shows up in projects that remain unfinished.

It shows up in slower response times, inconsistent execution, and important work being pushed to another week.

Eventually, the founder becomes the bottleneck.

The business is no longer moving at the speed of the opportunity.

It is moving at the speed of one exhausted person.

Years ago, I heard a lesson about the importance of “giving away your Legos.”

The idea came from former Facebook executive Molly Graham, who used the metaphor to describe what happens inside a growing company.

At the beginning, there is a giant pile of Legos.

You can build anything.

As the company grows, more people arrive. To construct something bigger, you have to give some of your Legos to someone else.

That sounds simple until they are your Legos.

You found them.

You learned how they fit together.

You used them to build the thing people now care about.

Giving them away can feel less like delegation and more like losing part of what made the business yours.

There is also the question most founders do not like admitting:

What if someone else can do it better?

That possibility should be exciting.

Sometimes, it feels threatening.

When you have connected your value to how many parts of the business you personally handle, giving away responsibilities can feel like making yourself less important.

But the founder’s job is not to remain important to every task.

The founder’s job is to remain important to the future.

I am learning that bringing someone into the business does not mean surrendering its direction.

I can maintain control over the standards without personally completing every task.

I can protect the voice without writing every word.

I can own the relationship without scheduling every meeting.

I can establish what good work looks like without being the only person capable of producing it.

That requires clear expectations.

It requires documented processes.

It requires feedback.

Most of all, it requires trust.

The goal is not to give up control of the business.

The goal is to stop confusing control with doing everything myself.

There are responsibilities inside Stacking Slabs that only I can own. The voice, relationships, vision, and trust built with the audience cannot simply be handed to someone else.

But there are also tasks I continue holding because I know how to do them—not because I am the only person who should.

That distinction matters.

Growth asks us to change our relationship with control.

At first, control means touching everything.

Later, control means building the people, systems, and standards that allow the business to operate without our hands on every individual piece.

That transition is uncomfortable.

It is also a privilege.

You do not face this problem unless you have built something capable of becoming bigger than your individual capacity.

I do not have this figured out.

I am standing directly inside the tension.

I understand that Stacking Slabs needs more support. I also understand the financial and emotional weight of bringing people into something I have spent years building.

If you are wrestling with the same decision, you are not behind.

You are not failing because letting go feels hard.

You are confronting one of the most difficult transitions an operator can make: moving from being the person who performs all of the work to the person who builds the environment where great work can happen.

The next stage of the business may depend on it.

The question is not whether someone else can build with your Legos exactly as you would.

The question is whether you are willing to give them enough pieces to help build something you could never construct alone.

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Operator Spotlight: Dave Thimesch, Owner of DT Sportscards

At one point during my conversation with Dave Thimesch, our interview became a therapy session between two business owners.

We were discussing the future of DT Sportscards when Dave said something many operators feel but rarely admit publicly:

“I am definitely at a max point being able to do things myself.”

There was no attempt to disguise it.

Dave understands that the business has reached the limit of his individual capacity. He also understands that bringing more people into the operation could help DT Sportscards grow.

Knowing that does not make letting go any easier.

Control Protects the Customer

Dave has been building businesses around sports cards for most of his life.

He opened his first card shop at 13. After returning to the hobby during the rise of Stephen Strasburg, he moved into group breaking before recognizing a growing opportunity around card grading.

What began with Dave helping friends submit autographed cards eventually became DT Sportscards.

Today, collectors trust Dave to receive, review, prepare, submit, track, and return some of their most important cards.

At one point, Dave said he was submitting approximately 1,200 cards per week while personally reviewing between 1,500 and 2,000.

That kind of volume leaves little room for error.

A misplaced card is not merely an operational mistake.

It belongs to someone.

It carries financial value, emotional value, or both.

That responsibility explains why Dave built checks into every stage of his process. Cards are verified when they arrive. They are checked again as they move through the operation. Each step serves as a safeguard for the one before it.

“Extreme attention to detail” is how Dave described it.

That attention helped build the trust behind DT Sportscards.

It also makes handing the work to someone else difficult.

Dave is not protecting a collection of random tasks. He is protecting the standard on which his reputation was built.

Systems Before People

As DT Sportscards grew, Dave could no longer communicate with every customer individually.

At first, he could log into PSA and personally answer questions about the status of an order.

Then the volume increased.

Dave created a shared tracking system so customers could find updates themselves. When that system became too difficult to manage and created privacy concerns, he hired a developer to build customer accounts and order tracking into the DT Sportscards website.

Now he is investing in further automation because manually updating information continues to consume too much of his time.

This is an important part of the growth conversation.

Scaling does not always begin with hiring another person.

Sometimes it begins by removing unnecessary work.

Dave is identifying the repetitive responsibilities that consume his capacity and turning them into systems. Those systems can create leverage today while establishing the structure a future employee will need tomorrow.

He is beginning to give up some of his Legos without immediately placing them in someone else’s hands.

The Real Cost of a Hire

Dave knows he will eventually need more help.

His wife already assists with parts of the business, but he remains responsible for most of the operation.

His hesitation comes from a belief that adding more people also creates more opportunities for something to go wrong.

“I have a tough time giving up that control because I’m very worried about quality control and mistakes,” Dave told me. “I feel like the more people I add, the more likely something could happen and go wrong.”

That fear has limited the scalability of DT Sportscards.

Dave openly admits it.

But this is not simply a founder struggling to delegate.

Dave’s wife opened her own optometry practice a few years ago. As she built that business, the family relied heavily on the income from DT Sportscards.

A new hire would not be an abstract investment made with someone else’s money.

It would be a commitment connected directly to the financial future of Dave’s family.

That changes the weight of the decision.

If the hire works, Dave can create more capacity, serve more customers, and spend more time growing the business.

If it does not, the consequences extend beyond the business.

This is the part of entrepreneurship that motivational advice often ignores.

“Hire before you are ready” sounds bold until you are the person responsible for the paycheck.

“Delegate everything” sounds easy until customers are trusting you with cards worth thousands of dollars.

“Work on the business instead of in the business” sounds obvious until the work inside the business is what currently pays your bills.

The Risk on Both Sides

Dave is trying to make sure the operation is ready before he brings someone else into it.

“I want to make that next step when I’m fully ready to go,” he said. “I have the processes in place because I don’t want to give up that quality control.”

That instinct makes sense.

A person cannot fix a broken process simply by being inserted into it. Hiring without clear procedures, expectations, and safeguards can magnify the disorder that already exists.

But complete readiness can become another form of avoidance.

There will probably never be a morning when every risk disappears and giving up control suddenly feels comfortable.

At some point, Dave will have to trust that the standards he built are strong enough to be taught.

That is the next test for DT Sportscards.

The first stage required Dave to prove that he could perform the work.

The next stage will require him to prove that the work can be performed at his standard without his involvement in every step.

Those are two different operating skills.

Turning Care Into Infrastructure

Dave’s story helped me understand why the transition from operator to leader can be so difficult.

The qualities that allowed him to build DT Sportscards are the same qualities now making growth more complicated.

He cares about the details.

He feels personally responsible for every card.

He protects the trust customers have placed in him.

He wants the work done correctly.

None of those qualities need to disappear for the business to grow.

They need to be converted into infrastructure.

The checks inside Dave’s workflow are his attention to detail turned into a process.

The customer portal is his transparency turned into a product.

The automation he is building is his communication standard turned into a system.

A future hire will need to become another extension of those standards.

That is the real work of scaling.

The goal is not for Dave to care less about what happens inside DT Sportscards.

The goal is to build an operation where the quality of the work no longer depends on Dave personally touching every card, answering every question, and updating every order.

Dave has already proven he can build a trusted business.

His next opportunity is to build a business capable of carrying that trust beyond his individual capacity.

That will require him to give up some control over the work.

It may also give him greater control over the future.

Operator Resource: The Control Audit

Most operators wait until they are overwhelmed to think about delegation.

By that point, everything feels urgent.

They know they need help, but they have not defined the work, documented the process, or determined what success should look like. They hire someone and expect that person to create order inside a business that still exists primarily in the founder’s head.

That is not delegation.

It is transferring confusion.

Before you hire someone, conduct a Control Audit.

The goal is to identify which responsibilities truly require you and which ones you continue to own because you have always done them.

Step One: Document What You Actually Do

For one week, keep a record of every recurring task you perform.

Do not limit the list to the obvious work.

Include the customer emails, scheduling, invoicing, social publishing, file management, order updates, research, data entry, quality checks, and follow-ups that fill the spaces between larger projects.

Then estimate how many hours each responsibility consumes during an average month.

This exercise may be uncomfortable.

Many founders believe they are spending most of their time growing the business. Their calendars often reveal that they are spending most of their time maintaining it.

Step Two: Sort the Work

Place every responsibility into one of four categories.

Keep

These responsibilities require your voice, judgment, relationships, or authority.

For Stacking Slabs, this includes developing the editorial direction, conducting important interviews, protecting audience trust, and managing key brand relationships.

These are not merely tasks I know how to perform. They are responsibilities where my involvement creates a meaningful advantage for the business.

Eliminate

Some work should not be delegated because it should not exist.

Ask whether the task still creates value. Operators frequently maintain reports, meetings, products, and processes because they once mattered.

Hiring someone to perform unnecessary work more efficiently does not solve the problem.

It makes the waste more expensive.

Automate

Look for repetitive work governed by predictable rules.

Dave Thimesch did this with customer order tracking. Rather than continuing to answer every status request himself, he invested in a system that allowed customers to access the information directly.

Automation does more than save time. It creates consistency and reduces the number of opportunities for human error.

Delegate

These responsibilities need to happen, but they do not require the founder to perform them.

The strongest early delegation candidates usually share five characteristics:

• They occur frequently.

• They follow a repeatable process.

• The standard can be documented.

• Mistakes can be identified and corrected.

• Removing the work would create meaningful capacity for the founder.

Do not begin by delegating your greatest source of value.

Begin with the work preventing you from spending more time on it.

Step Three: Measure the Cost of Holding On

Operators naturally calculate the cost of hiring.

We rarely calculate the cost of continuing to do everything ourselves.

For each responsibility, ask:

• How many hours does this consume every month?

• What higher-value work am I delaying because I own it?

• Does this task require my judgment or merely my involvement?

• What happens to the business if I continue performing it for another year?

• Could someone reach 80 percent of my standard with the right process and feedback?

That last question matters.

A new person may not perform the work exactly as you do. That does not automatically make the work worse.

If someone can complete a responsibility at 80 percent of your current level while allowing you to spend more time on partnerships, customers, product development, or revenue, the business may become stronger overall.

The goal is not to maximize your control over every individual task.

It is to maximize your impact across the business.

Step Four: Build the Process Before the Position

Do not make a person responsible for extracting a process from your head.

Choose one responsibility and document:

• Why the work matters

• When it needs to happen

• The steps required to complete it

• What good work looks like

• The mistakes that cannot happen

• How the result will be reviewed

• When the person should ask for help

Documentation forces the operator to define the standard they are afraid of losing.

It also exposes whether the process is ready to be delegated.

If you cannot explain what success looks like, you are not ready to hold someone else accountable for producing it.

Step Five: Run a Controlled Experiment

Delegation does not need to begin with a full-time employee and a large financial commitment.

Start with one clearly defined responsibility.

Create a 30-day pilot with a contractor, freelancer, or part-time resource. Establish the scope, expected outcome, review process, and financial limit before the work begins.

At the end of the pilot, evaluate:

• Was the work completed at the required standard?

• How much time did it return to you?

• Did you use that capacity productively?

• What mistakes occurred?

• Can the process be improved?

• Should the responsibility remain delegated?

This turns hiring from one enormous emotional decision into a series of smaller operating experiments.

It does not remove the risk.

It makes the risk visible and manageable.

Start With One Lego

You do not need to give away the entire business.

Choose one responsibility you should no longer own.

Document it.

Test it.

Review the results.

Then decide whether to give away another.

The objective is not to remove yourself from the business you built. It is to remove yourself from the work that prevents you from building what comes next.

The right question is not:

“Can someone do everything exactly like me?”

The right question is:

“What could this business become if everything no longer had to go through me?”

Hobby Jobs

Corporate Counsel, Commercial & Legal Operations — COMC

Legal work becomes increasingly important as a hobby business grows beyond simple transactions.

COMC operates at the intersection of technology, e-commerce, consignment, and fulfillment. This role will help the company manage commercial agreements, protect customer data, strengthen compliance, and build legal systems that can support greater scale.

That work may happen behind the scenes, but it directly affects the trust collectors and consignors place in the platform. It also signals a larger shift across the sports card industry. As hobby companies become more sophisticated, they need professionals who can build the infrastructure that allows growth to happen responsibly.

The industry cannot mature on passion alone. It also needs people capable of protecting the businesses, partnerships, and customers powering its future.

Apply for this role today

Assistant Manager — Dave & Adams

A hobby shop is more than a place to complete a transaction. It is where collectors discover new products, share stories, and form relationships with the people behind the counter.

The Assistant Manager helps Dave & Adam’s deliver that experience consistently. This person will support the team, manage inventory, solve customer problems, and maintain the standards of one of the industry’s most recognizable retail brands.

As the hobby attracts new collectors, knowledgeable retail leadership becomes increasingly valuable. The right manager can turn someone’s first visit into the beginning of a lasting connection with collecting.

Apply for this role today

Consignment Director, Trading Card Games — Heritage Auctions

Trading Card Games have become a serious global collectibles category, and Heritage Auctions is investing in the expertise required to serve that market.

The Consignment Director will help build the category by authenticating and evaluating cards, securing important consignments, and developing long-term relationships with collectors. The role requires more than product knowledge. It needs someone who can translate expertise and trust into business growth.

This hire also reflects the continued professionalization of the TCG market. As more significant collections enter major auction houses, specialists will be needed to establish credible valuations, preserve provenance, and present the stories behind these cards to a wider audience.

Apply for this role today

Sales Coordinator — GTS Distribution

Distributors are the connective tissue between manufacturers and the hobby shops serving collectors. When communication breaks down or orders are mishandled, the effects travel across the entire supply chain.

The Sales Coordinator helps GTS Distribution keep that system moving. This person will support retailer accounts, maintain order accuracy, communicate through major releases and allocations, and coordinate with teams across the business.

The role is also a valuable entry point for someone seeking a long-term career in the industry. It provides direct exposure to products, customers, operations, and account management—with a defined path into sales leadership. The hobby needs more opportunities like this for talented people to enter the business, learn how it works, and grow into positions with greater responsibility.

Apply for this role today

Social Media & Content Specialist - Sports — The Upper Deck Company

Every card product competes for attention before it ever competes for a collector’s wallet.

The Social Media & Content Specialist will help Upper Deck turn product releases, athlete signings, rare collectibles, and major sports moments into stories collectors care about. This person will not simply publish content. They will connect product features such as rarity, autographs, patches, and provenance to the emotions that create demand and loyalty.

The role also serves as a bridge between Upper Deck and the collector community. By listening to feedback, recognizing emerging interests, and engaging directly with collectors, hobby shops, and creators, this specialist can help the company understand how its products are being received in real time.

In today’s hobby, making a compelling collectible is only part of the job. Companies also need people who understand how to make collectors feel its significance.

Apply for this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

Subscribe now

The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
August 9, 2026

The National Is Over. What Did You Bring Home?

The card cases are unpacked.

The pickups have found their place.

The photos have been posted. The messages have slowed down. The hobby has moved on to the next release, the next auction, and the next show.

That is how The National works.

For weeks, the noise builds. We make plans. We study dealer lists. We set meetings. We save money. We talk about the cards we hope to find and the people we hope to see.

Then the doors open, and everything happens at once.

For a few days, the hobby feels like it exists inside one building.

You walk the floor. You look through cases. You shake hands with people you have known through a screen. You buy, sell, trade, eat, talk, and try to take in more than your mind can hold.

Then you go home.

Real life returns before you have time to process what happened.

I came home tired. Fanatics Fest, one week at home, then The National asked a lot of me. It also asked a lot of my wife and my kids. Travel takes money, time, and energy. Time away from your family carries weight.

That sacrifice made me ask a question that has stayed with me.

What did I bring home?

Cards are part of the answer. They are not the whole answer.

If the only return you measure is the value of the cards inside your case, you are ignoring much of what the trip gave you.

You might have brought home a sharper sense of taste.

You might have brought home confidence in a part of the hobby that matters to you.

You might have brought home a relationship that changes your life three years from now.

You might have brought home an idea that needs one test.

You might have brought home permission to stop chasing something that no longer fits.

The show ended when we left Rosemont. The value of the show is still being decided.

What happens after the trip

We spend time learning how to prepare for The National. We spend little time learning how to process it.

That does not make sense.

Think about how much information you took in. You saw more cards in four days than you will see during most months. You had more hobby conversations than you might have during the rest of the year. Your phone filled with names, photos, notes, and messages. Your mind moved from one thing to the next because the next thing was already in front of you.

You were having the experience. You did not have room to understand it.

Now you do.

The lesson is not that effort has no value. The lesson is that experience gains value when you stop and make sense of it.

The distance from The National helps.

The rush has passed. Some moments have disappeared. Others remain clear.

Pay attention to what stayed.

You do not need to preserve every conversation or card you saw. You need to identify the moments that gave you information.

This also requires honesty.

A crowded table does not prove a category has staying power.

A card you wanted on Saturday does not mean it belongs in your collection.

A conversation that felt exciting at midnight is not a business plan.

The National changes your sense of scale. Thousands of people, millions of dollars in inventory, and a stream of content make everything feel important.

Time tests that feeling.

What still feels true without the crowd around it?

What your memory tells you about your collection

The most useful card lesson from The National might not be what you bought.

It might be what you no longer want.

I have a specific taste in cards. That makes a show like The National exciting and overwhelming at the same time. There are cards for everyone. Most of them are not for me.

That is not a complaint. It is information.

When you see that much inventory in one place, your reactions become easier to compare.

Which cards made you stop?

Which cards looked different in person than they did on a screen?

Which price made you realize your interest was weaker than you thought?

Which purchase felt urgent at the show but has lost its pull since you came home?

Which card did you pass on but still think about?

Those answers tell you more than a pickup post.

They help you separate attraction from intention.

You might have entered the show with ten cards on your list and left wanting three. That is a return. You did not fail because you came home without the other seven. You saved money. You removed noise. You raised the standard for what enters your collection.

The show can also reveal a lane you had not named.

You might hold a card from a set you ignored and feel a connection to it. You might see a collector present a run in a way that changes how you think about completion. You might notice that every card holding your attention shares one trait.

It might connect to a team memory.

It might contain an event-used relic.

It might come from one design period.

It might show one player in the uniform that means the most to you.

The National lets you compare your reactions. Your response tells you where your collection wants to go.

Try this without opening your camera roll.

Write down five cards or displays you still remember. Next to each one, write why it stayed with you. Do not write what it is worth. Write what it made you think or feel.

Then make another list.

What did you see again and again that left you cold?

Collectors spend years building want lists. A not-for-me list can protect your money and your attention.

The return starts when the show makes your collection easier to understand.

When a belief gets tested

I entered The National with a belief about wrestling cards.

Wrestling was my way into cards. I collect the category, create content around it, and spend time with the people building inside it. I am not a neutral observer.

That bias matters.

When you care about something, you tend to notice evidence that supports what you already believe. Conviction needs a test.

Wrestling Card Takeover gave me one.

We did not walk the show floor and count wrestling cards in cases. We helped create a place for wrestling card collectors to gather. Then we watched what they did.

The room filled.

Collectors traded cards, shared stories, and met people they had known through a screen. Businesses invested money and time because they believed the category deserved space.

The show floor showed us inventory.

Wrestling Card Takeover showed us participation.

Those signals are not the same.

Inventory tells you cards exist and sellers expect demand. Participation tells you people want to belong.

That gave me confidence in the work we are doing around wrestling cards. It also gave me questions.

What does this community need next?

Where do collectors want more education, access, or connection?

How do we support growth without removing what made the category matter to collectors?

That last question carries responsibility.

Conviction without discipline turns into promotion. If I say wrestling cards are growing because I want them to grow, I am giving you my preference. I am not giving you insight.

The evidence is more specific.

Collectors filled a room built for wrestling cards. Businesses supported the space around them. People who had formed relationships online chose to spend time together in person.

Now we watch whether it happens again.

You can apply the same test to your experience.

What belief did The National strengthen for you?

What did you observe?

What else might explain what you saw?

What needs to happen next for the signal to become a pattern?

Do not let the show tell you what to believe. Use it as evidence to examine.

The relationships that continued

The largest return from The National might be the easiest one to waste.

You meet someone in a hallway. You talk for 20 minutes. You exchange numbers or follow each other. You say you should stay in touch.

Then both of you go home.

The relationship ends as an introduction.

That does not mean the conversation lacked value. It means relationships need another point of contact.

The return does not come from collecting contacts. It comes from continuing the right conversations.

I have been following up since I returned home. I am not sending the same message to everyone. I am thinking about what each conversation meant and what a next step should look like.

Look through your messages and photos. Choose five people, not 50.

For each person, write down why the conversation mattered. Then send a message that proves you remember it.

Great to meet you is polite. It does not move the relationship forward.

Reference the card you discussed. Send the article you promised. Ask the question you did not have time to ask. Set up the call. Share the photo that belongs to the conversation.

Do not force a transaction.

Some relationships will lead to deals or partnerships. Some will lead to a card you never found on your own. Some will give you a person you trust when you need an honest answer. Some will become friendships.

You do not need to know the outcome today.

You need to give the relationship a chance to continue.

An idea is not an outcome

The National shows you what exists. It can also show you what is missing.

You hear the same frustration from three collectors. You watch people struggle to find a category inside a room full of cards. You notice a group creating its own gathering because the event does not give it enough space. You meet an operator with a problem that fits your experience.

Those moments can lead to content, an event, a product, a partnership, or a business.

There is a trap.

Event energy makes ideas feel more complete than they are.

One conversation does not prove demand. A full room does not create a revenue model. A problem does not prove people will pay for a solution.

Do not return home and start five projects.

Capture the opportunity. Then test it without giving it more time or money than the evidence has earned.

Ask yourself:

• Did I hear the problem from more than one person?

• Can I describe it in one sentence?

• Do I have the experience or trust to serve it?

• What is the smallest test I can run?

Host one conversation. Record one episode. Invite ten collectors into a room. Start one group chat. Ask an operator what the problem costs them.

Wrestling Card Takeover was an event. It was also a test of belief.

We believed wrestling card collectors wanted a space built for them. They showed us that they did.

The wrong response is to make everything bigger because the room was full.

The next questions matter more.

Why did people show up? What part of the experience mattered most? What must stay the same? What step would serve collectors instead of using their interest?

Growth is not the only test. Fit matters.

The National can give you ten directions. Your job is to choose one.

Respect what the trip required

There is a return that has nothing to do with cards or business.

Think about the moments when you felt most present.

Was it during a deal?

Was it when someone showed you a card and told you why it mattered?

Was it at dinner with people you talk to every week?

Was it inside a room where your part of the hobby felt seen?

Your answer tells you how you should spend your next show.

You do not need to attend The National the same way each year. One year can center on buying. Another can center on relationships. Another can center on sharing your collection or creating space for a community.

Your hobby life changes because you change.

This matters because your attention is limited. Time away from your family carries weight. Money spent on travel is money that cannot support another part of your life or collection.

Respecting that cost does not mean the trip must produce a profit.

Joy is a return.

Clarity is a return.

A relationship is a return.

Knowing what you want to stop doing is a return.

You owe it to yourself and the people who supported your trip to understand what came from it.

I want to stay in touch is an intention.

The National is not over

You might have come home with a card you chased for years.

You might have come home without buying anything.

One conversation might have changed the direction of your collection. One room of wrestling card collectors might have given you confidence in a community. You might have met someone who will matter to your life years from now.

You do not know the full return yet.

That is the point.

The return from The National is not settled when you check out of the hotel. It grows through the decisions you make after you get home.

Ask yourself one final question.

What will be different because I was there?

If the answer is nothing, the trip becomes a memory.

If the answer leads to a clearer collection, a stronger relationship, a tested belief, or one action, the trip continues to create value.

The National is over.

What are you bringing forward?

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Reissue: The Conversation After the Conversation

Garrett Borba on Turning Hobby Events Into Relationships That Matter

A big event can feel like a blur.

You walk the floor.

You see the showcases.

You shake hands.

You have a few good conversations.

You run into people you’ve only known through a screen.

You leave tired, excited, overwhelmed, and maybe a little unsure of what actually happened.

That is why reflection matters.

Because the value of an event like The National is not always obvious in the moment.

Sometimes the most important thing you bring home is not the card.

It is the relationship.

That’s what stood out to me from my conversation with Garrett Borba of Neighborhood Card Shop during Columbus Card Fest.

We met at the show.

We talked the night before.

We connected around cards, business, and what he was building.

Then that conversation turned into another conversation.

And that is how so much of this hobby works.

One introduction.

One real exchange.

One follow-up.

One relationship that becomes something more than a passing moment on the show floor.

The Event Is Only the Starting Point

Collectors often measure big events by what they bought.

What card did I bring home?

What deal did I make?

What did I sell?

What did I miss?

Those questions matter.

But they are not the whole picture.

The real opportunity at a big event is often hidden inside the conversations.

Who did you meet?

Who did you learn from?

Who understood your lane?

Who shared something that made you think differently?

Who might become part of your collecting life, business life, or creative life going forward?

That is the stuff you have to process after the event.

Because in the moment, everything is moving too fast.

The reflection is where the signal shows up.

Relationships Are Built Through Repetition

Garrett’s story is a reminder that relationships in the hobby are not built through one big moment.

They are built through repeated proof.

He talked about how his wholesale business grew through relationships, referrals, communication, and doing the right things consistently.

Shipping quickly.

Paying attention.

Overdelivering.

Making people remember the experience.

That is not flashy.

But it compounds.

The same idea applies to collectors after The National.

You cannot meet someone once and assume that relationship is built.

You have to follow up.

You have to keep the conversation going.

You have to remember what they care about.

You have to become useful, trustworthy, and easy to deal with.

That is how a show-floor conversation turns into something real.

The Best Opportunities Come Through Trust

One thing Garrett made clear is that the hobby runs on trust.

Product access.

Referral business.

Breaking relationships.

Shop relationships.

Customer relationships.

All of it depends on whether people believe you will do what you said you would do.

That matters after a major event.

Because The National creates a lot of first impressions.

But first impressions are only useful if you do something with them.

Send the message.

Share the card you discussed.

Thank the person for their time.

Introduce them to someone who could help.

Follow through on the thing you said you would do.

That sounds basic.

Most people do not do it.

And because most people do not do it, the person who does becomes memorable.

The Hobby Is an Inner Web of Connections

At the end of the episode, I talked about how this space works like an inner web of connections.

You meet one person.

That person introduces you to someone else.

That next conversation opens another door.

That is how I met Garrett.

And once you see the hobby that way, events start to look different.

You are not just walking through aisles.

You are walking through potential connection points.

Every conversation has the chance to lead somewhere.

Not every one will.

That is fine.

The point is not to force relationships.

The point is to recognize them when they appear.

And then have the awareness to follow the thread.

Reflection Turns Noise Into Direction

The National gives you a lot to process.

Cards.

People.

Ideas.

Market signals.

Category signals.

Business signals.

Personal signals.

If you do not sit with it afterward, it all becomes noise.

Reflection turns that noise into direction.

Maybe you realize there is a lane you want to pursue harder.

Maybe you realize a relationship deserves more attention.

Maybe you realize a business opportunity is real.

Maybe you realize you need to tighten your collection.

Maybe you realize the most important part of the trip was not what you bought, but who you spent time with.

That is the work after the event.

The show may be over.

But the value is still unfolding.

The Lesson

The biggest events in the hobby do not end when you leave the room.

They end when you stop doing something with what happened there.

That is the mistake collectors make.

They spend the money.

They take the trip.

They walk the floor.

They have the conversations.

Then they come home and let the whole thing fade.

That is wasted opportunity.

Because the real benefit of a big event is not only the experience itself.

It is what the experience reveals.

Who matters.

What matters.

Where your energy should go next.

Garrett’s story reminded me that relationships are not accidental advantages.

They are built.

They are maintained.

They are earned through consistency.

And they often start with a simple conversation at a show.

That is why reflection after The National matters.

Not because you need to relive every moment.

Because you need to identify which moments are worth carrying forward.

The card you brought home may sit in your collection.

But the right conversation can shape what happens next.

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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The sports card industry is very good at creating followers.

A collector watches someone buy a certain card and starts searching for one.

A creator sees a format gaining traction and makes their own version.

A business notices a competitor offering a new service and adds something similar.

We look around the hobby for evidence that an idea works before giving ourselves permission to pursue it.

That instinct is understandable.

Following an existing path feels safer. Someone else has already demonstrated that collectors will pay attention, spend money, or participate.

But safety comes with a cost.

By the time an idea feels fully validated, the opportunity to build something distinct may already be disappearing.

Most people want the market to remove the uncertainty for them.

They want proof that collectors care.

They want evidence that the business model works.

They want to see someone else take the risk first.

Then they move.

The result is an industry filled with businesses, content, and products that begin to look remarkably similar.

The same cards receive attention.

The same content formats get repeated.

The same services compete for the same collectors.

The same conversations keep circulating.

There is nothing inherently wrong with learning from what works. Every smart operator studies the market.

The problem begins when observation replaces conviction.

If the only reason you are building something is because you watched someone else succeed with it, what happens when the market shifts?

What keeps you going when growth is slow?

What makes your version worth choosing?

Borrowed validation might help you start. It rarely gives you the endurance required to build something meaningful.

Sometimes the best time to build something you believe in is when nobody else is doing it.

That does not mean every untouched idea is a good idea.

An empty market can represent an opportunity. It can also mean there is no real demand.

Operators need to understand the difference.

Conviction cannot simply be, “Nobody else is doing this.”

It needs to be: “Nobody else is solving this problem, I understand why the problem matters, and my experience gives me a credible way to solve it.”

That is a much stronger foundation.

The most interesting opportunities in the sports card industry are not always hiding inside the categories receiving the most attention. They often exist inside the questions collectors and businesses continue to ask without finding useful answers.

What frustrates people?

What information remains trapped inside private conversations?

What part of the collecting experience is being overlooked?

What do people need that the market is not providing?

Those questions can reveal the openings that trend-watching never will.

One of the biggest reasons I built Stacking Slabs was because I did not see anyone consistently exploring the psychology behind collecting.

There was plenty of content about cards.

What was released.

What sold.

What increased in value.

What someone bought.

What someone should buy next.

But I wanted to understand the person holding the card.

Why do we collect?

Why does one card stay in our minds for years?

Why do we sell something and immediately regret it?

Why does completing a set feel so satisfying?

Why does our definition of a grail change?

Why can a collection containing fewer cards sometimes feel more meaningful?

Those questions were endlessly interesting to me. I also believed they mattered to other collectors.

I did not have an existing media model to copy.

What I had was a combination of experiences that made me believe I could build something useful.

I had spent years working in marketing and thinking about why people make decisions. I understood the importance of human psychology. I loved creating. I was deeply invested in collecting.

Most importantly, I was genuinely curious.

That combination became my advantage.

I did not need someone else to prove that the idea would work. I needed to understand the collector well enough to recognize that the need was already there.

Collectors did not need more instructions about what to collect.

They needed better language for understanding why collecting mattered to them.

That became the foundation for Stacking Slabs.

It did not begin with market validation.

It began with conviction.

Passion is often dismissed in business conversations because passion alone does not create a viable company.

That criticism is fair.

Passion without a real problem, useful skills, or disciplined execution is merely enthusiasm.

But the opposite is also true.

A market opportunity without passion can produce a business that works on paper but lacks the energy required to survive.

The strongest operators in this industry bring both.

They understand a real problem.

They possess experience that helps them approach it differently.

They care enough to remain committed when the early response is quiet.

That final part matters.

When you build before the validation arrives, there will be a period when the market does not understand what you are doing.

People may question the idea.

Growth may feel slow.

You may wonder whether the empty space represented an opportunity or a warning.

Conviction is what keeps you working long enough to find out.

It does not mean ignoring evidence. Strong operators adjust when the market teaches them something.

Conviction means the mission remains steady even as the execution evolves.

The sports card industry does not need another copy of something that already exists.

It needs people willing to notice what is missing.

It needs collectors who understand a problem intimately.

It needs operators whose backgrounds give them a perspective the market has not seen.

It needs people prepared to build before everyone else agrees that the idea is worth pursuing.

If you are considering building something in this industry, do not only ask what appears to be working for someone else.

Ask yourself:

What problem do I understand better than most people?

What do I believe collectors or businesses need?

What combination of experience, skill, and passion allows me to approach it differently?

Would I still care about solving this problem if recognition came slowly?

The goal is not to be different for the sake of being different.

The goal is to develop enough conviction to pursue an important idea before copying it becomes the obvious move.

Sometimes nobody else is doing it because the idea is wrong.

But sometimes nobody else is doing it because the opportunity is waiting for the right person to recognize it.

That person may be you.

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Operator Spotlight: Gabe Encinas

Build Where Nobody Else Is Looking

“I don’t see anyone else doing it. I might as well be the one.”

That sentence from Gabe Encinas stayed with me after our conversation.

Gabe did not enter the sports card industry by chasing a popular format.

He did not study the biggest creators and make a slightly different version of their content.

He started talking about college football cards because he loved college football, understood the cards, and noticed that very few people were serving the collectors interested in them.

There was no obvious blueprint.

There was barely any infrastructure.

That was the opportunity.

The Hobby Rewards Validation

The sports card industry is very good at creating followers.

A collector watches someone buy a certain card and begins searching for one.

A creator sees a format getting attention and produces their own version.

A business notices a competitor offering a new service and adds something similar.

We look around the hobby for proof that an idea works before giving ourselves permission to pursue it.

That instinct is understandable.

Following an established path feels safer. Someone else has already demonstrated that collectors will watch, participate, or spend money.

The problem is that by the time an opportunity feels completely validated, it is often crowded.

The content looks the same.

The businesses offer the same services.

The products compete for the same collectors.

The conversations begin to repeat themselves.

Learning from what works is part of being a smart operator. But observation becomes a liability when it replaces conviction.

If the only reason you are building something is because you watched someone else succeed with it, what happens when growth is slow?

What keeps you working when the attention moves somewhere else?

What makes your version necessary?

Borrowed validation may help you begin.

It rarely gives you the endurance required to build something meaningful.

Gabe Found the Empty Space

Gabe’s path started with genuine interest.

College football had been part of his life since childhood. His dad had Arizona State season tickets. Saturdays meant games, tailgates, and time together.

When 2021 Bowman University arrived, Gabe saw more than another card product.

He saw a category he understood.

He recognized the prospecting element. He understood the players, programs, schedules, fan bases, and attention cycles that could influence demand.

Most importantly, he enjoyed studying it.

Gabe began buying the cards. Then he started sharing what he was learning.

He showed people what he found in value boxes.

He explained why he believed in certain players.

He compared talent, prices, programs, and potential.

He helped collectors understand why a $9 autograph might be interesting when similar players were selling for $20 or $30.

This was not generic college football commentary attached to cards.

It was category-specific intelligence.

Collectors could use it.

That distinction matters.

There is a lot of content in the hobby designed to capture attention. Gabe created content that made people more capable of participating in a category they wanted to understand.

He did not need to manufacture expertise for the camera.

The expertise was the content.

The Absence of Competition Was Only the Beginning

An empty market is not automatically a good market.

Sometimes nobody is building something because there is no meaningful demand.

That is where conviction can become dangerous. Believing deeply in an idea does not guarantee that anyone else needs it.

Gabe’s opportunity was not simply that few people were creating college football card content.

The stronger signal was that passionate college collectors already existed without a consistent source of information or a place to gather.

The interest was present.

The support system was missing.

Gabe’s public content helped people discover players, products, and opportunities. His Patreon allowed him to go deeper. He researched lengthy prospect lists, found available cards, compared pricing, and explained his reasoning. His Discord gave collectors a place to exchange ideas with people who cared about the same category.

He was not only creating content around an underserved lane.

He was helping build the infrastructure around it.

That is the operator opportunity.

Do not only look for something nobody else is doing.

Look for people trying to solve a problem without sufficient tools, information, or community.

That is where empty space can become valuable.

Authority Is Earned Before the Opportunity Arrives

Gabe did not begin creating college football card content because Cardcollector2 had a position available.

There was no job description waiting for him.

He created because he cared about the subject and believed he had something useful to contribute.

Then he kept showing up.

Over time, Gabe became associated with the category. Ryan Johnson noticed his knowledge, his work ethic, and his commitment to college cards. A social media acknowledgment became a conversation. Conversations became a friendship. Gabe began helping Ryan evaluate players, price cards, and think through college inventory.

Eventually, that trust became a career opportunity.

Gabe moved his family from Arizona to Ohio and joined the Cardcollector2 team.

It would be easy to summarize the story by saying Gabe turned his passion into a profession.

That is true, but it skips the most important part.

Gabe turned his passion into demonstrated value first.

The job was a downstream result.

Long before anyone offered to pay him full-time, he had shown that he could understand a category, communicate clearly, help collectors, build community, and make better decisions.

He had already been doing the work.

The opportunity simply gave that work a new home.

Passion Is Not Enough

“Follow your passion” is incomplete advice.

Passion can get you started, but it cannot carry a business by itself.

Passion without a problem is a hobby.

Passion without useful skills is enthusiasm.

Passion without consistency never has enough time to compound.

What made Gabe’s passion valuable was what he built around it.

He developed expertise.

He shared his reasoning.

He helped people make sense of a growing category.

He created a place for an underserved group of collectors.

He remained consistent long enough for the right people to notice.

That is the combination operators should study.

The opportunity was not created because Gabe liked college football cards.

It was created because he transformed what he knew and loved into something useful for other people.

Build Before the Validation Arrives

The sports card industry does not need another copy of something that already exists.

It needs people willing to notice what is missing.

It needs collectors who understand overlooked problems.

It needs operators whose experiences give them a perspective the market has not seen.

It needs people prepared to do the work before a job title, audience, or business model validates the decision.

If you want to build in this industry, ask yourself:

What problem do I understand better than most people?

Who is passionate but underserved?

What information remains trapped inside private conversations?

What combination of experience, skill, and interest allows me to help?

Would I continue doing the work if recognition arrived slowly?

The goal is not to be different simply for the sake of being different.

The goal is to understand a problem well enough—and care about it deeply enough—to move before copying the solution becomes the obvious choice.

Sometimes nobody else is doing it because the idea is wrong.

But sometimes nobody else is doing it because the category is waiting for its operator.

Gabe did not wait for someone else to build the college football card lane.

He stepped into the empty space and started building.

The profession followed.

Operator Resource: The Empty Space Test

An uncontested idea can represent a meaningful opportunity.

It can also mean nobody wants it.

Use this framework to determine whether you have discovered an underserved market or simply an empty one.

1. Identify the specific person

Do not begin with the product you want to build.

Begin with the person you believe is being overlooked.

Complete this sentence:

I want to help __________ who struggle to __________ because they currently lack __________.

“Sports card collectors” is too broad.

“College football collectors who lack reliable prospect and pricing information” is specific enough to investigate.

2. Name the unresolved problem

Ask:

• What are people currently forced to figure out themselves?

• What information remains trapped inside private conversations?

• What process creates repeated confusion or frustration?

• What existing solution feels incomplete?

• What do people care about that the market barely acknowledges?

The absence of competition is not evidence of demand.

The presence of an unresolved problem is.

3. Audit your operator advantage

Your idea becomes more credible when your background gives you a legitimate reason to pursue it.

Identify your combination of:

• Category knowledge

• Professional experience

• Personal obsession

• Existing relationships

• Communication or execution skills

Gabe Encinas combined college football knowledge, card expertise, research, and content creation.

Stacking Slabs combined marketing, human psychology, storytelling, and collecting.

The strongest opportunities often exist at the intersection of abilities that other people do not possess in the same combination.

4. Test usefulness before building the business

Create the smallest useful version of the idea.

That could be:

• A weekly piece of educational content

• A research report

• A collector guide

• A free consultation

• A small community

• A manual version of the proposed service

Do not spend months building infrastructure before confirming that the work helps someone.

Put the idea in front of real people and watch what they do.

5. Look for behavioral evidence

Likes and compliments feel encouraging, but they are weak validation.

Stronger signals include:

• People returning for more

• People asking specific follow-up questions

• People sharing your work without being prompted

• People introducing you to others with the same problem

• People changing a decision because of your insight

• People asking whether they can pay for deeper help

Attention tells you that the idea is interesting.

Behavior tells you that it may be valuable.

The 30-Day Conviction Sprint

Before committing significant time or money, run this experiment:

Week 1: Listen

Speak with five people inside the audience you want to serve. Focus on what they currently do, where they struggle, and what they have already tried.

Week 2: Create

Publish three useful pieces of content that address the problems you heard. Teach something, answer a question, or simplify a decision.

Week 3: Serve

Offer a small manual solution. Help someone directly before trying to automate or scale the process.

Week 4: Evaluate

Review the evidence:

• Did the same problem appear repeatedly?

• Did people use what you created?

• Did anyone return, refer someone, or request more?

• Did working on the problem increase your curiosity?

• Can you imagine staying committed if growth is slow?

If the market remains indifferent, change the idea.

If people respond but the solution misses, change the execution.

If the problem is real, your advantage is credible, and people repeatedly engage, keep building.

Final Question

Am I pursuing this because I understand an overlooked problem or because being different makes the idea feel important?

Conviction should help you move before validation arrives.

Evidence should determine whether you continue.

Hobby Jobs

Content Creator — Layton Sports Cards

Content is often the first point of contact between a collector and a sports card business. This person turns live breaks, new products, customer interactions, and events into stories that help collectors understand what Layton offers and why they should care.

The strongest candidate will do more than follow trends or appear on camera. They will translate the energy of the hobby into useful, authentic content that builds trust, expands Layton’s reach, and gives collectors a reason to return even when they are not actively buying.

Apply for this role today

Director, Vault Growth — Collectors

The vault is becoming more than a storage facility. It is infrastructure connecting authentication, ownership, liquidity, and the collector experience. Growing its asset base tenfold requires someone who can turn partnerships and new markets into services collectors can actually trust and use.

This leader will connect strategy with execution across product, operations, customer care, marketing, and technology. Their success will help determine whether the PSA Vault can expand globally while maintaining the security, simplicity, and service standards collectors expect when placing valuable assets in someone else’s hands.

Apply for this role today

Store Manager — CardVault by Tom Brady Los Angeles

A new store succeeds when collectors trust both the people behind the counter and the operation around them. This manager will set that standard by combining deep card knowledge with strong leadership, customer service, inventory control, and disciplined retail execution.

As CardVault expands into Los Angeles, this person will shape how collectors experience the brand in a major sports and entertainment market. Every interaction—from authenticating a card to resolving a complaint—will influence whether a first-time visitor becomes a long-term customer.

Apply for this role today

Sports Card Sourcing Associate — Courtyard

Courtyard’s high-velocity marketplace depends on acquiring the right cards and moving them through grading, pricing, and inventory workflows without costly delays or errors. This associate will connect card knowledge with disciplined execution—evaluating raw condition, tracking comps, managing submissions, and keeping every batch accountable.

It is a strong example of how hobby expertise becomes professional value. Understanding cards is only the starting point. The person who succeeds will turn that knowledge into accurate decisions, reliable processes, and a steady supply of inventory collectors want.

Apply for this role today

Customer Experience Associate — WeTheHobby

Live commerce moves quickly, but customer trust is built in what happens after the purchase. This associate will own those critical moments—answering questions in real time, resolving shipping and order issues, and making collectors feel supported when something goes wrong.

The role also turns customer feedback into operational intelligence. By identifying recurring problems and coordinating across logistics, procurement, operations, and live production, this person can help WeTheHobby improve its systems while protecting the relationships that create long-term loyalty.

Apply for this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees.

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
August 2, 2026

The Most Valuable Thing I Found at The National Wasn’t a Card

I was back in my hotel room after the first day of The National.

My feet hurt. My voice was fading. I had spent the day moving through crowds, recording content, meeting people, and trying to keep track of a schedule that changed by the hour.

I should have been drained.

Instead, I felt charged.

As I thought through the day, I kept returning to the same question.

Where was that energy coming from?

It wasn’t from a card I bought.

It wasn’t from a sale.

It wasn’t from a showcase.

It came from the conversations.

In less than 24 hours, I spoke with collectors, dealers, business owners, content creators, listeners, friends, and people I had never met.

We talked about cards.

We talked about the market.

We talked about what people were buying and why.

People told me which Stacking Slabs conversations had stayed with them. They shared parts of their collecting lives that would never fit inside an Instagram comment.

Some conversations had no purpose beyond the conversation itself.

There was no deal.

No pitch.

No request.

No plan to turn the exchange into content.

It was two people standing across from each other because cards gave them a reason to talk.

Those conversations became the part of the day I kept thinking about.

Collectors have access to more information than at any point in the history of the hobby.

We have population reports, sales databases, checklists, pricing tools, auction archives, and marketplaces filled with cards.

All of that information matters.

It can tell you what sold, when it sold, and how much someone paid.

It cannot always tell you why it mattered.

That information often lives inside another collector.

It lives in the person who has followed one player for 20 years.

It lives in the dealer who has watched demand change across five National conventions.

It lives in the collector who knows why a card never surfaces, even though its serial number does not make it look scarce.

It lives in the person who made the wrong purchase and now understands the warning signs.

It lives in the collector who sold too soon.

It lives in the collector who held too long.

A database can tell you what happened.

A conversation can help you understand why.

That does not mean every person is right. People defend what they own. They repeat stories they have never checked. They mistake confidence for knowledge.

A conversation does not replace evidence.

It gives you context, questions, and ideas that you can test against the evidence.

The conversations that helped me most at The National did not tell me what to think. They showed me what I had not considered.

Someone would make a comment about a card, a category, a piece of content, or part of the business.

That comment would lead to a question.

The question would open another part of the conversation.

Ten minutes later, I was thinking about the hobby in a way I had not thought about it before.

No purchase was required.

I arrived at The National with meetings, recordings, goals, and people I wanted to see.

I am building a media business. Intention comes with the job.

There is still a difference between entering a conversation with intention and treating a person as something to extract value from.

What can this person do for me?

What information can I get?

Who can they introduce me to?

Can this relationship become revenue?

People can feel when you are listening for an opening instead of listening to understand them.

The conversations that gave me energy did not feel like transactions.

We followed the subject where it went.

Sometimes the value was information.

Sometimes it was feedback.

Sometimes I learned what another collector cared about.

Sometimes we laughed about something only another collector would understand.

Nothing needed to happen next for the time to count.

That matters.

Being relationship driven does not mean every relationship must become useful. It means the relationship comes before the use.

Many of the relationships that support Stacking Slabs began with conversations that had no proposal attached.

We learned how each other thought.

We watched whether words matched actions.

We found where our interests lined up.

Trust formed through repetition.

When an opportunity arrived, we already understood the person on the other side.

The same principle applies between collectors.

If you approach every collector as a source of cards, deals, access, or information, you reduce that person to a function.

If you approach with curiosity, you leave room for the person to teach you something.

A conversation might help you buy a card.

It might help you avoid one.

It might start a friendship.

It might last three minutes and never happen again.

The outcome does not determine whether the conversation mattered.

The hobby runs on speed.

Listings end.

Breaks start.

Releases go live.

Prices change.

Opinions travel through clips, posts, alerts, and reactions.

I participate in that system. Short-form content can introduce you to a card, a collector, or an idea. It can earn your attention.

Attention and connection are not the same thing.

One study across seven experiments and 1,223 participants examined what happens when people switch between online videos. Participants believed switching would reduce boredom.

It did the opposite.

Switching increased boredom and reduced attention, satisfaction, and meaning.

The problem is not a 30-second video.

The problem is building your entire hobby experience around the next 30 seconds.

You can watch 50 clips and leave with no context.

You can see 100 cards and remember none of them.

You can collect opinions all day without examining one.

You can feel involved while doing nothing beyond moving your thumb.

Many questions in collecting require time.

Why does this card matter to the person who owns it?

Why did a collector change direction?

Why did a dealer make a decision that looks wrong from the outside?

Why did one sale affect an entire category?

A clip gives you the answer.

A conversation shows you how someone reached it.

That process holds much of the value.

The clip earns attention.

The episode provides context.

The conversation builds trust.

The next conversation builds the relationship.

When we stop at the first step, we become good at recognizing what is happening and worse at understanding it.

We know which card sold.

We do not know the collector behind it.

We know the opinion.

We do not know the experience that formed it.

We know what is receiving attention.

We do not know whether it deserves ours.

The online hobby can make every card feel like a decision that needs to happen now.

Then you meet someone who has collected the same player for 15 years.

They tell you how often a card surfaces.

They tell you about the copy they passed on.

They explain why they waited three years for the right one.

Your time horizon changes.

You remember that a collection is built across years, not refreshes.

A conversation can also improve the questions you ask.

Collectors often begin with buying questions.

Is this price right?

Should I buy this card?

Do you think it will go up?

A conversation can move you toward questions that have more value.

Why do I want this card?

What role will it play in my collection?

Would I still want it if nobody saw the pickup post?

What am I giving up to own it?

Those questions can protect you from a purchase that creates activity without adding meaning.

Conversations can build conviction too.

Conviction does not come from finding people who agree with you. It comes from understanding your reasoning after someone has tested it.

A collector asks why you want that version.

You explain the set, the image, the history, and the connection.

As you answer, you hear your own thinking.

You either understand the choice with more clarity or realize your reasoning is weak.

Both outcomes help you.

A conversation can change your direction.

You arrive at a show looking for one thing. Another collector shows you a card, tells you a story, or introduces you to a set you had ignored.

You do not buy anything that day.

Months later, you begin building in a new direction.

The transaction happened later.

The collection changed during the conversation.

Cards move through systems.

They enter grading queues, vaults, listings, auctions, shipments, and price charts.

The systems make the hobby work. They can also make us forget that a person sits on the other side of each decision.

The person selling a card might be funding a business.

They might be rebuilding a collection they once lost.

They might be making room for a card that means more to them.

The person who refuses to sell might have received the card from someone they loved.

The collector asking a basic question might be entering the hobby for the first time.

Conversation restores the person behind the card.

Price still matters.

It is not the only information in front of you.

This is why long-form conversation remains the foundation of Stacking Slabs.

It takes time to produce.

It asks something from the guest.

It asks something from you.

When you give one of my conversations your time, I want you to leave with something you can use.

A question to ask.

An approach to examine.

A person to understand.

A decision to reconsider.

I do not want to fill your time. I want to respect it.

You do not need to attend The National to experience the power of a hobby conversation.

Start by asking a better question.

Instead of asking someone what they are buying, ask what changed the way they collect.

If they mention a mistake, ask what it taught them.

If they changed direction, ask what caused the change.

If they show you a card, ask why that copy matters.

Then listen.

Do not spend the answer waiting for your turn to speak.

Ask the next question based on what the person said.

The value is often found one question past the first answer.

Share what you know without keeping score.

Make the introduction.

Send the checklist.

Point someone toward the collector who understands the category.

Follow up after the show, when there is no transaction sitting in front of either person.

That is how the hobby becomes more informed, more patient, and more human.

I will remember the cards I saw at The National.

I will remember cards I wanted, cards I had never seen, and cards that changed hands.

The part I will carry home is what people shared with me.

The feedback.

The questions.

The stories.

The ideas that changed how I think.

The relationships that moved forward because we had time in the same place.

We live in a hobby that can turn every card into content, every sale into reaction, and every opinion into a clip.

I am part of that system.

I still refuse to confuse more content with more connection.

I refuse to confuse faster information with better understanding.

I refuse to confuse attention with trust.

The conversation matters.

The time matters.

The person across from you matters.

Your next step as a collector might not begin with a card.

It might begin when someone asks why you care about it and gives you enough time to answer.

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Reissue: Conversations Are the Hobby’s Connective Tissue

Austin Carlson (@carlson_cards) on Why the Show Floor Still Matters

A card show can look like a room full of transactions.

Tables.

Cases.

Price tags.

People walking by.

People negotiating.

People trying to buy, sell, trade, and move on to the next thing.

But if you spend enough time in those rooms, you realize something.

The cards may bring people to the table.

The conversations are what keep them there.

That’s what stood out to me from my conversation with Austin Carlson back in 2022.

Because Austin’s hobby story is not just about what he collects.

It is about what happened once he started putting himself in rooms with other collectors.

He went to shows.

He set up tables.

He talked to people.

He listened.

He learned.

He built relationships.

And somewhere along the way, the hobby became more than a marketplace.

It became a network of people.

The Hobby Starts to Change When You Meet People

Austin came into cards during a strange time.

Like a lot of people, he discovered the hobby through online content.

The market was loud.

Prices were moving.

People were talking about opportunity.

That may have been the spark.

But it wasn’t what kept him around.

What kept him around was the interaction.

He went to a show and left knowing people.

That part matters.

Because a lot of collectors come into the hobby through content, marketplaces, or momentum.

But the ones who stay usually find people.

Someone to talk to.

Someone to learn from.

Someone who understands the same obsession.

Someone who makes the hobby feel less like scrolling and more like belonging.

That is the power of conversation.

It turns interest into connection.

The Table Is More Than a Showcase

One of the best parts of my conversation with Austin was hearing him talk about setting up at shows.

Not just as a way to sell cards.

As a way to attract the right conversations.

He talked about being intentional with what he puts in his showcase.

Not just chasing the hottest players.

Not just stacking cards that appeal to everyone.

But curating cards that reflect what he cares about.

Peyton Manning.

Tom Brady.

Drew Brees.

Older football refractors.

Cards that make another collector stop and say:

“I haven’t seen that before.”

That is where the conversation begins.

And that is where the hobby gets interesting.

Because the right card in the case is not just inventory.

It is an invitation.

Curation Creates Conversation

There is a difference between a table that is full and a table that has a point of view.

Collectors can feel it.

When a dealer’s case looks like every other case in the room, it is easy to keep walking.

But when the case is curated, people slow down.

They ask questions.

They recognize taste.

They see the collector behind the dealer.

That is where trust starts.

Austin understood that.

He wasn’t just trying to cast the widest net.

He was trying to create the right kind of interaction.

That is a lesson for collectors too.

The clearer your collection becomes, the better your conversations become.

Because people understand what you care about.

And when people understand what you care about, they can help you.

They can send you leads.

They can remember your lane.

They can think of you when the right card appears.

That does not happen without conversation.

Every Deal Carries a Relationship

Austin talked about the difference between someone trying to squeeze margin out of a card and someone who genuinely loves the card.

That distinction is real.

You can feel it at a show table.

You can feel when someone is buying inventory.

You can feel when someone is buying a piece of their collection.

Neither is wrong.

But they create different conversations.

The collector who loves the card usually wants to talk about it.

Why they want it.

Why it fits.

Why they have been looking for it.

What it reminds them of.

That conversation changes the deal.

The card becomes more than a number.

It becomes part of someone’s story.

And when that happens, the transaction feels different for both sides.

Shows Build Networks You Cannot Search For

The online hobby gives us access.

That matters.

You can find cards faster than ever.

You can track comps.

You can message collectors.

You can build from anywhere.

But there are still things the internet does not replace.

The accidental conversation.

The collector you meet because you stopped at their table.

The dealer who remembers what you’re looking for.

The person who sees a card six months later and sends it your way because they know it belongs with you.

That is the invisible value of shows.

You might walk in looking for cards.

But the real ROI is often the relationship you did not know you were going to make.

Austin’s story makes that clear.

He did not just attend shows.

He used shows to build a network.

And that network made the hobby more enjoyable.

More personal.

More sustainable.

The Small Show Still Matters

One of my favorite parts of Austin’s story was hearing why he started a show in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

There was not much happening locally.

So instead of complaining about it, he built something.

That matters.

Because not every powerful hobby conversation happens at the biggest show in the country.

Sometimes it happens in a smaller room.

At a local table.

Around collectors who are not plugged into every comp, every rumor, every content cycle, and every market trend.

They just love cards.

That kind of environment is important.

It reminds you that the hobby is not only driven by the loudest rooms.

It is also built by people creating places for collectors to gather.

That is real work.

And it creates real connection.

The Lesson

The power of conversations in collecting is that they compound.

One conversation leads to a follow.

One follow leads to a DM.

One DM leads to a lead.

One lead leads to a card.

One card leads to another story.

That is how the hobby starts to feel smaller in the best possible way.

Austin’s story is a reminder that collecting is not only about finding the right cards.

It is about finding the right people.

People who understand your lane.

People who challenge your taste.

People who teach you something.

People who make the chase more meaningful.

Because the hobby can be transactional if you let it.

It can become a scroll.

A comp sheet.

A race to the next deal.

But the moment you start talking to people, the whole thing changes.

The cards become entry points.

The conversations become the value.

And the relationships become the reason you keep coming back

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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This week, thousands of collectors will walk into The National thinking about the cards they hope to bring home.

I will be thinking about that, too.

I’ll always love collecting. That did not change when I went full-time with Stacking Slabs. If anything, building a business in the sports card industry has made me appreciate cards even more.

I spend my days listening to collectors, studying the industry, and talking with the people shaping its future. My work constantly reminds me why I fell in love with collecting in the first place.

The passion does not disappear when collecting becomes your profession.

But the decisions become different.

When I was building Stacking Slabs on the side, the money I put into cards and the money I put into the business lived in separate worlds. The business grew slowly because I was funding it with whatever time and money I could spare.

Going full-time changed that.

Running a media business is expensive. Travel is expensive. Production is expensive. Equipment, contractors, software, and new ideas all cost money. Growth usually requires an investment before there is any guarantee of a return.

Sometimes, the money needed to make that investment is sitting inside your collection.

That is one of the hardest realities I have encountered since turning my passion into my profession.

There have been moments when I have looked at a card I genuinely loved and realized it could fund something the business needed more.

Selling that card did not mean I stopped appreciating it. It did not mean I had made a mistake by buying it. It meant the role of that card had changed.

It was no longer only part of my collection.

It had become capital.

That can sound cold when we are talking about objects carrying memories, relationships, and pieces of our identity. Collectors understand that a card is rarely just a card. Selling one can feel like giving up part of the collection we worked years to build.

But sacrifice is part of building something.

The question is not whether you are willing to sell cards whenever the business needs money. That is not a strategy. Continually liquidating your collection to cover ordinary expenses can hide deeper problems inside the business.

The real question is whether you are willing to move a meaningful asset when a meaningful opportunity appears.

There should be a clear reason.

What will the money allow you to build?

What becomes possible afterward?

Are you creating an asset, opening a new revenue opportunity, improving the product, or reaching people you could not reach before?

If I cannot answer those questions, the card should probably stay in the collection.

But when I can answer them, I try to remember what I am actually choosing between. It is not a card versus nothing. It is one asset versus the opportunity to build another.

That mindset has become important to me.

My collection has provided enjoyment, relationships, stories, and identity. At different points, it has also given me the ability to take a bigger swing on Stacking Slabs than I could have taken otherwise.

That is a unique advantage we have in this industry.

Many people trying to turn their passion into a profession already own assets connected to the opportunity they are pursuing. Those assets can provide early capital without bringing in an outside investor or giving away part of the business.

But that advantage comes with an emotional cost.

You may have to sell a card today so you can build something capable of buying back that card—or something even more meaningful—later.

There is no guarantee that happens.

That is what makes it a sacrifice instead of a transaction.

This week is The National, the biggest gathering of collectors and companies in the sports card industry. I will be there recording conversations and creating a significant amount of content to support the future of Hobby Jobs.

There will be cards in the room that I want.

There always are.

But my biggest investment at The National may not be something I bring home in a slab. It may be the conversations I capture, the relationships I strengthen, and the foundation I build for what Hobby Jobs can become.

That is the trade-off.

Turning your passion into your profession does not require you to stop being a collector. It requires you to expand your definition of what you are building.

I am still building a collection.

I am also building a business that I believe can serve this industry for years to come.

Sometimes, building the second requires sacrificing part of the first.

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Operator Spotlight: Beau Thompson, One Million Cubs

Beau Thompson did not set out to build a sports card business.

He set out to collect one million Chicago Cubs cards.

The project began in 2017 with a simple idea. Beau had accumulated more than one million cards, many from collections he had purchased over the years. He decided to trade the cards from every other team for Cubs cards.

What started as a collecting goal quickly became an operation.

Every incoming card had to be counted. Every trade had to be tracked. Beau built spreadsheets, established monthly targets, managed an expanding inventory, and developed a network of collectors willing to help him move closer to one million.

The project eventually took seven and a half years to complete.

Along the way, it gave Beau much more than a number.

It introduced him to collectors across the country. It brought a 1954 Topps Ernie Banks rookie into his collection through a deeply personal connection with another collector who had also lost his father. It created relationships that continue producing opportunities years after the original trades took place.

It also became expensive.

Beau was spending thousands of dollars on postage to complete trades. If the project was going to continue, he needed a way to fund it.

That need pushed him to sell more cards on eBay.

The sales were initially a side hustle designed to pay for the collection. Over time, they became a legitimate business.

The inflection point came at The National in 2021.

Beau attended the Goldin Dinner and found himself surrounded by people building meaningful careers and businesses in the hobby. He left the event asking himself why he had been invited into that room.

Then the question changed.

Maybe he belonged there.

The experience gave him the confidence to examine his numbers and seriously consider whether the business he had built on the side could replace his full-time income.

Eventually, it did.

But turning cards into his profession changed the decisions Beau had to make as a collector.

When selling was a side hustle, the extra money could follow him to a card show. He could buy whatever caught his attention. Once the business became responsible for supporting him, that freedom disappeared.

The money needed a purpose.

Beau had to create what he calls a “solid line” between the business and the hobby.

For him, that line is simple: Cubs cards belong to his personal collection. Everything else can become inventory. He will not use business funds to purchase a large Cubs collection knowing he would want to keep most of it. If he wants those cards personally, he has to be able to afford them personally.

That discipline is one of the reasons his business has remained sustainable.

Beau’s version of sacrifice is not necessarily selling the cards he loves to fund the business. It is accepting that he cannot treat every opportunity like a collector anymore.

He has to know which Beau is making the decision.

Is it Beau the Cubs collector?

Or is it Beau the operator?

That distinction matters because passion can become dangerous when it gives us permission to ignore the numbers. The same love that inspires someone to build a business in this industry can also make it difficult to manage that business responsibly.

Today, Beau conducts most of his sales through eBay Live. He streams four to five hours a night, often six nights per week. His schedule has completely changed. His inventory needs never stop. His days are built around selling, shipping, sorting, and preparing to do it again.

The collector is still there.

But the operator now determines how the business moves.

This week, Beau will return to The National—the same event that helped convince him he could build a career in the industry. He will spend much of Wednesday and Thursday buying inventory for the business.

Then, on Friday, he will leave the show floor and go to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play the Yankees.

That decision may be the clearest expression of the balance he has built.

Turning your passion into your profession will change your relationship with the thing you love. It will require boundaries, discipline, and sacrifice.

But it does not have to take the collector out of you.

The goal is to build a business strong enough that the collector still has room to exist.

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Operator Resource: The Collection-to-Capital Test

Selling a card to invest in your business can be a strategic advantage.

It can also become an expensive habit that hides problems the business needs to solve.

Before moving a card out of your collection, answer these five questions.

1. What exactly will the money fund?

Name the investment before naming the card.

Avoid broad answers like “marketing,” “inventory,” or “growth.” Define the specific purchase, project, or opportunity and its complete cost.

If the use of the money is unclear, the card should stay in your collection.

2. Is this an investment or an expense?

A strategic investment should create something the business can continue benefiting from:

• A new revenue opportunity

• A reusable piece of equipment

• Valuable content or intellectual property

• Inventory with a defined sales plan

• A relationship or distribution channel

• A system that increases capacity

Selling cards to repeatedly cover ordinary operating expenses is a warning sign. The collection should not become a substitute for sustainable cash flow.

3. What must happen for the sacrifice to be worthwhile?

Define the expected return.

That return does not always need to be immediate revenue. It could be new customers, stronger relationships, greater reach, improved production, or proof that a larger idea can work.

But it must be identifiable.

Write this sentence:

I am willing to sell this card because the money will allow the business to __________, which should create __________.

If you cannot finish the sentence clearly, do not sell.

4. Can the business afford to lose the bet?

Every investment carries risk.

Ask what happens if the idea produces no return. Will the business remain stable? Will you resent selling the card? Are you comfortable knowing you may never own it again?

Sacrifice requires accepting the downside before making the decision.

5. Which version of you is making the choice?

Separate the collector from the operator.

The collector may want to protect every meaningful card. The operator may see capital trapped inside an asset. Neither perspective is automatically correct.

Set boundaries before pressure forces the decision:

• Cards that will never be sold

• Cards available only for major opportunities

• Cards that can be treated as inventory

• Business expenses the collection will never fund

The goal is not to remove emotion. It is to keep emotion from making the decision alone.

The final test

Only sell the card when all four statements are true:

• The money has a specific purpose.

• The investment can create lasting value.

• The potential return justifies the sacrifice.

• You can accept losing both the card and the bet.

Your collection can give your business access to capital that many founders do not have.

Use that advantage carefully.

A card should not leave your collection merely because the business needs money.

It should leave because the opportunity on the other side is worth building.

Hobby Jobs

Head of Trading Cards eBay Live — eBay

Live commerce has become one of the most competitive battlegrounds in the sports card industry, and eBay is putting real leadership behind its ambition. The Head of Trading Cards will not simply manage a category. This person will determine how eBay Live wins the trust, attention, and spending of collectors while helping sellers build sustainable businesses on the platform.

The scope reflects how sophisticated the hobby has become. This leader will own revenue, seller growth, programming, inventory strategy, buyer experience, and product innovation—essentially operating a business within eBay. Success will require more than marketplace experience. It will demand category fluency and a genuine understanding of how collectors behave.

A role this senior is also a signal to the industry. Trading cards are no longer a niche experiment inside live commerce. They are important enough for eBay to hire a dedicated general manager capable of building the team, strategy, and infrastructure for the category’s next stage of growth.

Apply for this role today

Now On Air Personality / Live e-commerce Sales — Sports Illustrated Collect

Live breaking has evolved into a legitimate on-air profession. Sports Illustrated Collect needs someone who can entertain an audience, explain products, manage transactions, protect the integrity of every break, and convert attention into sales—all in real time.

That combination makes the breaker one of the most influential people in the customer experience. A great host can help a newcomer understand the hobby, earn the confidence of an experienced collector, and turn a one-time buyer into a repeat customer. Energy may attract viewers, but accuracy and trust determine whether they return.

The role also reflects the convergence of media, commerce, and personal brand building across the industry. Sports knowledge and broadcasting ability are no longer adjacent to the business of cards. They can now become the foundation of a full-time career inside it.

Apply for this role today

Associate Account Executive (Vintage) — Alt

Vintage cards run on trust, history, and relationships. Alt is looking for someone who can turn deep category knowledge into business—sourcing consignments, advising serious collectors, overcoming objections, and closing deals across the full sales cycle.

The role also places the account executive close to product development. Conversations with vintage buyers and sellers will help shape Alt’s auction formats, pricing tools, and seller workflows. Category fluency becomes more than a sales advantage; it becomes market intelligence for the company.

For the right collector, this is the clearest expression of turning passion into a profession. Knowing the difference between Goudey and Bowman matters, but success will require the discipline to build pipeline, prospect every day, and consistently hit quota. Loving vintage gets you into the conversation. Operating like a proven salesperson builds the career.

Apply for this role today

Chief of Staff — Veriswap

Veriswap has reached the stage where growth can no longer live entirely inside the founders’ heads. With 100,000 users, more than $150 million in transactions, and a profitable business, the company needs an operator who can translate the CEO’s priorities into a consistent operating system.

The Chief of Staff will move between strategy and execution without treating either as beneath them. One day may involve tracking company-wide OKRs or building a financial model; the next may require coordinating a trade-show setup, booking travel, or planning a client dinner. The value comes from keeping important work moving across product, operations, support, and partnerships.

This role captures both the opportunity and sacrifice of turning a passion for cards into a startup career. It offers meaningful responsibility and a front-row seat to scaling a marketplace—but Veriswap is unusually direct about the long hours involved. Loving the hobby may create the connection. Bias for action, humility, and operational discipline will determine whether someone succeeds.

Apply for this role today

Consignment Director (Trading Card Games) — Heritage Auctions

Trading card games are becoming important enough for major auction houses to build dedicated category expertise around them. Heritage is not hiring someone simply to evaluate cards. It needs a specialist who can help establish and grow the department through authentication, research, consignment acquisition, marketing, and trusted client relationships.

The opportunity sits at the intersection of scholarship and sales. Deep knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! and other TCGs creates credibility, but the Consignment Director must turn that expertise into inventory, bidders, and long-term business. The best candidates will understand both what makes an object significant and how to communicate that significance to the market.

This role signals the continued maturation of TCG collecting. As valuable cards move through established auction houses, category specialists become responsible for protecting the collector, the consignor, and the reputation of the marketplace. Passion opens the door, but accuracy, relationships, and commercial discipline build the category.

Apply for this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.
Trust with employees.
Trust with candidates.
Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.

For companies, that creates something bigger than recruiting.

It creates a credible way to tell the market who you are, how you work, and why you matter.

If your company is hiring, scaling, or trying to build deeper trust in the hobby, Hobby Jobs can help tell that story.

To learn more email me at stackingslabs@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter.

Thanks for checking out Hobby Jobs. I can’t wait to share more from all of the amazing owners, operators, and entrepreneurs that are making this hobby move.

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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
July 26, 2026

When One Card Creates a New Standard

I left Fanatics Fest with energy.

A week later, I was preparing for The National while trying to keep the content moving and process everything I had experienced.

Then my collection changed.

It did not happen because I saw thousands of cards at a show.

It happened because I made one decision to bring one card into my collection.

I am not ready to identify the card yet. That time will come.

The identity of the card is not the point today.

What happened after the decision is the point.

The card did not take its place beside everything I already owned.

It changed how I saw everything I already owned.

My cards had not changed.

My standard had.

Bringing this card into my collection required sacrifice.

I had to move cards that mattered to me.

These were not cards sitting in a box without purpose. They were cards I enjoyed owning. They had stories. I remembered the searches, conversations, and deals that brought them into my collection.

Some helped define the collection I had built.

That is what made the decision hard.

We tend to discuss large acquisitions through the transaction.

What did you pay?

What did you trade?

What did you sell?

Did you get a good deal?

Those questions matter, but they miss what happens inside the collection after the deal is complete.

When you move cards that helped define your collection, you are not clearing inventory.

You are closing part of an old collection.

That can hurt without meaning the decision was wrong.

I can miss a card and still believe I made the right choice by moving it.

I can appreciate what the card gave me without needing to own it forever.

The search mattered.

The ownership mattered.

The conversations mattered.

The card served a purpose in my collection. Selling it does not remove that history.

A meaningful card does not always need to become a permanent card.

Some cards stay with us for decades.

Others help us understand what we want next.

Both matter.

Once the new card entered my collection, I looked at what remained.

I saw three groups:

• Cards that still matter and fit the direction

• Cards that matter but no longer fit

• Cards I kept because nothing had forced me to make a decision

The second group creates the most tension.

A card can be important to you and no longer belong in your collection.

Collectors often reduce decisions to good card or bad card. That does not account for how collections change.

The better question is fit.

Does this card belong beside the direction I am choosing?

That question turns collection building into more than a series of purchases.

It forces each card to hold a role.

A card can carry a story and still fund one that tells your story better.

A card can help build the last version of your collection and have no place in the next one.

That does not make the old card a mistake.

It means you changed.

A large purchase can create clarity.

It can also create pressure to defend the money you spent.

That distinction matters.

After you acquire a major card, your attention begins supporting the decision. You research the set. You study the player. You compare the card with other examples. You tell the acquisition story.

The card starts to feel more important because you keep giving it more attention.

That can confirm a direction that had been building for months.

It can also produce a new collecting identity designed to make the purchase feel right.

Those situations can look the same during the first few days.

Time helps separate them.

Did the card reveal a preference that was already growing?

Or did the size of the purchase make you feel like everything now needs to change?

This is where patience matters.

One large decision does not require five fast decisions behind it.

You do not need to sell the rest of your collection within forty-eight hours.

You do not need to announce that you are now a one-player collector.

You do not need to label every card below the new standard as clutter.

The intensity of a purchase does not prove that the direction will last.

A card can become the center of your next collection.

It should not become the reason you dismantle the current one before you understand what you want.

The card I acquired raised my standard.

That does not mean every card I buy from this point forward must cost more.

A higher standard can mean fewer cards.

It can mean one player.

It can mean one team.

It can mean cards tied to games and memories instead of rookie cards tied to market importance.

It can mean building a set.

It can mean breaking one apart.

It can mean choosing cards that cost less because variety gives you more enjoyment than concentration.

The direction is personal.

Progress does not require your collection to become smaller, more expensive, or more impressive to someone else.

It requires the collection to become more honest.

Does it reflect what holds your attention today?

That question matters more than whether your current direction matches what you told people you collected three years ago.

You do not owe your past self a completed set, a permanent player collection, or a card you no longer want.

The time and work you invested explain why those cards matter.

They do not decide what you must do next.

Fanatics Fest reminded me how much the environment around a major show affects our decisions.

You are surrounded by cards you have never seen in person.

You meet owners and hear acquisition stories.

You watch deals happen.

The distance between seeing a card and owning it can shrink to one conversation.

That environment can help you complete a decision you have considered for months.

It can also create a decision you never needed to make.

The number of cards in the room is not the main problem.

The problem is entering the room without knowing what makes a card belong in your collection.

Without a standard, every table can give you a new identity.

You can want vintage cards in the morning, GOATs before lunch, one-of-ones in the afternoon, and a set by dinner.

The cards begin making the decisions for you.

A shopping list helps, but a decision standard offers more protection.

Before you bring in a card with the power to change your collection, ask:

• What does this card express about the collector I am becoming?

• What must I give up to own it?

• Would the direction still make sense if the card lost forty percent of its market value?

• Would I want the card if no one knew I owned it?

• Did this card reveal a direction, or am I creating a direction to defend the purchase?

• What decisions should I avoid making while the emotion is high?

These questions will not remove the difficulty.

They will help you understand what is driving the decision.

When collectors change direction, they can become unfair to the collection they built before the change.

A card you loved for three years does not become a mistake because you are ready to sell it.

That card taught you something.

It taught you what you enjoy owning.

It taught you what looks better online than it feels in your hand.

It taught you whether completion motivates you.

It taught you how much market value matters after the purchase.

It taught you which cards you miss after selling and which cards you stop thinking about.

That knowledge is part of the return.

Financial outcomes matter. They are not the full outcome.

A card can decline in value and give you years of enjoyment.

A card can rise in value and feel disconnected from the rest of your collection.

What did the card give you while you owned it?

That is worth measuring too.

I do not need every past decision to fit my current collection.

I need those decisions to help me understand it.

I made one decision.

That decision required sacrifice.

The sacrifice created space.

The space forced me to look at what remained.

What remained showed me where my conviction is strongest.

I do not know every decision that comes next.

I do not need to know yet.

I have a new standard.

That is enough to begin.

One card can change your collection.

It can make an old plan feel complete.

It can give you permission to release cards that have served their purpose.

It can show you that the collector who built the last version of your collection is ready for something else.

The card does not choose the direction.

It shows you that a decision is ready to be made.

The goal is not to finish the collection you once promised yourself you would build.

The goal is not to own the collection another person would respect.

The goal is not to make every past purchase look correct.

The goal is to build a collection that reflects who you are now and gives you a reason to care about what comes next.

Sometimes it takes years of collecting to understand that.

Sometimes it takes one card.

Subscribe now

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Joining the Stacking Slabs Patreon is The Best Way to Show Your Support

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Stacking Slabs Patreon is the one stop shop for exclusive content AND video versions of all the shows that you listen to on the main feed. We’re dropping every new episode of The Football Card Podcast in video format an entire damn day before it hits the main feed. Also, you get full episodes of Patreon exclusive series like Cool Cards. Do you like to watch collectors talk about sports cards? This might be the space for you.

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Auctions to Watch

Each week, Patreon members receive a closer look at cards currently up for auction that caught my attention. It is another way to help collectors spot interesting cards, study new categories, and see what the market reveals when the bidding ends.

2024 Bowman Chrome University Superfractor Taylen Green Rookie 1/1 #169 CGC Authentic

Superfractors are the finish line for any player collection, and this is the only copy of Green’s 2024 Bowman University Chrome rookie. With the former Arkansas quarterback beginning his NFL career in Cleveland, this is a chance to own his defining one-of-one before his professional story takes shape.

Reissue: When One Card Raises the Standard

Tony (@southerncollector14) on the Card That Changed the Room

Every collector has cards they love.

Cards they’re proud to own.

Cards they once thought they’d never move.

Then a different kind of card shows up.

Not just a bigger card.

Not just a more expensive card.

A card that changes the way every other card looks.

That’s what happened during my conversation with Tony.

The card was a 1950-51 Toleteros Josh Gibson.

A card most collectors will never see in person.

A card with deep historical significance.

A card connected to the Negro Leagues, Puerto Rican baseball, and one of the greatest hitters who ever lived.

But what made Tony’s story so powerful wasn’t only the card.

It was what the card did to his standards.

Because when a card like that becomes available, it forces a collector to look at everything else differently.

The Card Has to Be Bigger Than the Price

Tony had never bought a six-figure card before.

That matters.

Because it would be easy to reduce the story to money.

A collector spends more than he’s ever spent.

A massive card changes hands.

A grail enters the collection.

But that isn’t the real story.

The real story is why he was willing to move.

The card had scarcity.

The card had history.

The card had cultural weight.

The card had a story that went far beyond the hobby.

And when you combine those things, the decision becomes different.

You’re no longer asking if the card is expensive.

You’re asking if the card is important enough to reset the collection around it.

That is a much harder question.

Familiar Does Not Always Mean More Important

To make the deal happen, Tony had to move cards most collectors instantly recognize.

A 1952 Mantle.

A Cracker Jack Hannes Wagner.

A signed Jackie Robinson.

These are not filler cards.

These are cards people build collections around.

But Tony understood something important.

Some cards are iconic and still replaceable.

That doesn’t make them less great.

It just changes their role.

A 1952 Mantle is one of the most famous cards in the world.

But you can find one.

You can track one.

You can decide what grade, eye appeal, and price point make sense for you.

The Josh Gibson was different.

You cannot just go buy one.

You cannot assume another will surface.

You cannot sit back and wait for the market to offer you a cleaner opportunity.

That is where a new standard gets created.

Not all great cards carry the same urgency.

One Card Can Clarify the Whole Collection

The best grails do more than enter a collection.

They clarify it.

They show you what belongs near the center.

They show you what can move.

They show you which cards are meaningful and which cards are mostly impressive.

That distinction is uncomfortable.

Because collectors love status cards.

We love cards other people recognize.

We love cards that validate taste.

But Tony’s decision showed a different kind of collecting maturity.

He wasn’t chasing the most obvious card.

He was chasing the card that best matched the collector he had become.

That’s the point.

A collection should evolve as the collector evolves.

If it doesn’t, the collection becomes a museum of old decisions.

The Experience Made the Card Stronger

This wasn’t a normal Buy It Now story.

It didn’t start with a random listing.

It came through relationship.

Through community.

Through another collector knowing what mattered to Tony.

That’s where this maps back to great hobby experiences.

The strongest hobby moments are rarely just transactions.

They happen when trust, timing, knowledge, and connection all meet in the same place.

That’s what makes card shows, conversations, and events matter.

You can walk into a room thinking you know your collection.

Then one conversation changes what you’re looking for.

One collector teaches you something.

One card shows up.

One moment raises the bar.

That’s what great experiences do.

They don’t just give you access.

They change your expectations.

The Standard Becomes Story

Tony collects history.

That was clear throughout the conversation.

He talked about Jackie Robinson.

Larry Doby.

Hank Aaron.

Josh Gibson.

Steve Gromek.

Joe Gordon.

Not just as names on cardboard.

As people connected to stories worth preserving.

That is why the Josh Gibson card mattered.

It wasn’t simply rare.

It carried a story Tony wanted to hold, study, share, and eventually pass down.

That changes the standard.

Because once you start collecting cards as teaching tools, memory holders, and historical artifacts, it becomes harder to buy cards that only look good in a showcase.

The bar moves.

You start asking more of the card.

What does it teach?

What does it represent?

What story does it preserve?

Why does it matter beyond the comp?

Those are the questions that build a stronger collection.

The Lesson

When one card creates a new standard, the collection does not always get bigger.

Sometimes it gets sharper.

The card exposes what is essential.

It challenges what used to feel untouchable.

It forces the collector to decide whether they are still building around old definitions of greatness or a deeper understanding of meaning.

That is what Tony’s Josh Gibson did.

It raised the standard.

Not because it was expensive.

Not because it was rare.

Because it carried enough story, scarcity, and significance to make other great cards feel movable.

That is the shift every collector eventually faces.

At some point, you stop asking:

Is this a great card?

And you start asking:

Is this great enough for the collection I’m trying to build now?

That’s when the hobby gets real.

That’s when the collection starts to mature.

And that’s when one card can change everything.

I appreciate your support for Stacking Slabs. Tell a damn friend.

Take care,

Brett

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I support the expansion of the sports card industry.

I think the variety of people participating in the hobby today makes it more interesting.

Collectors. Dealers. Breakers. Investors. Content creators. Auction houses. Technology companies. Manufacturers. Marketplaces.

Not everyone is going to approach cards the same way. That is the reality of the modern hobby.

It is also one of the reasons the industry has grown.

Different motivations bring new people, new ideas, and new money into the category. That growth has created businesses, careers, products, and experiences that would not have existed otherwise.

But growth creates a dangerous temptation.

Operators begin looking toward the next audience before properly serving the one that built the market in the first place.

The collector.

The thinking becomes:

We already have them.

They are not going anywhere.

They will keep buying.

They will figure it out.

That perspective sucks.

Collectors are not a captive audience. They are the foundation of the entire industry.

They are the end users who give cards meaning beyond their transaction price. They are the people who build sets, chase players, preserve stories, study history, attend shows, join communities, and stay involved long after the hype cycle moves somewhere else.

Without collectors, cards become inventory.

The strongest businesses in the hobby will understand that servicing collectors is not a charitable act. It is a growth strategy.

When collectors feel informed, they make more confident decisions.

When they feel connected, they remain engaged.

When they feel understood, they develop loyalty.

When they feel inspired, they bring other people into the hobby.

There is enormous opportunity for operators willing to invest in that experience.

That could mean providing better education around products.

It could mean designing technology around how collectors actually organize, research, and enjoy their cards.

It could mean creating content that explores history, psychology, fandom, and personal connection instead of exclusively discussing prices.

It could simply mean listening more carefully to what collectors are struggling with.

There are still too many businesses built around extracting value from collectors instead of creating value for them.

That approach may produce transactions.

It will not build a durable industry.

This belief is one of the reasons I created Stacking Slabs.

When I started publishing podcast episodes, I was surprised by how narrow most sports card conversations were.

Almost everything came back to money.

What is the card worth?

What will it be worth?

Is the market going up?

Should I buy, sell, or hold?

Those conversations have a place. The financial component of collecting is real, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

But it is not the entire experience.

There were far fewer conversations about why people collect.

Why certain cards become emotionally important.

Why collectors develop attachments to players, teams, sets, designs, and moments.

Why we sometimes regret selling a card even when the financial decision made perfect sense.

Why collecting can help people connect with their childhood, their families, or a version of themselves they do not want to lose.

Those ideas are not soft.

They are the infrastructure underneath the hobby.

Stacking Slabs was built to give collectors a place where they could feel educated and inspired. I wanted to create conversations that respected the depth of the experience instead of reducing every card to a comp.

That does not mean ignoring the business of cards.

It means understanding what ultimately sustains that business.

People need reasons to care.

The sports card industry should continue welcoming different types of participants. It should keep experimenting, expanding, and building.

But every operator should be asking a simple question:

How does this make collecting better?

Not just faster.

Not just more profitable.

Not just easier to monetize.

Better.

Because the future of the hobby will not be secured by finding more efficient ways to sell cards to the same people.

It will be secured by giving people more reasons to remain collectors.

Growth that strengthens the collector creates a bigger opportunity for everyone.

Growth that leaves the collector behind eventually runs out of people to serve.

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Operator Spotlight: Evan Parker, CEO of ONIT Athlete

Evan Parker has spent much of his career operating at the intersection of content, community, and passionate fan bases.

Before becoming CEO of ONIT Athlete, he worked with brands including Xbox, NASCAR, The Athletic, and Mantel. Across each stop, the underlying challenge was similar:

How do you attract new people without weakening the connection with those who already care deeply?

Evan saw the consequences of getting that balance wrong during his time at NASCAR.

The sport had an established base of passionate, generational fans. But as NASCAR pursued growth, the organization increasingly focused on reaching audiences outside its traditional strongholds.

New entertainment.

New celebrities.

New markets.

New reasons for people to pay attention.

The strategy generated awareness, but Evan believes the sport overcorrected.

In the pursuit of new fans, NASCAR moved too far away from the people who had supported it for decades. Some longtime fans felt ignored or pushed aside. At the same time, many of the new participants enjoyed the experience briefly before returning to the things they already cared about.

The lesson was not that NASCAR should have stopped growing.

It was that growth should not require turning away from the core audience.

Evan sees a similar tension emerging in sports cards.

The industry now serves participants with very different motivations. There are collectors building personal collections around players, teams, schools, history, and emotional connection. There are also participants motivated by prospecting, breaking, resale value, and the adrenaline of the chase.

Both groups can exist.

The danger comes when operators assume the collector will always remain, regardless of how the industry changes around them.

“People who have been doing this forever” cannot be treated as a permanent audience that requires no additional investment, Evan explained. The industry must continue attracting new participants, but it must also make the hobby more meaningful for the people who already love it.

That perspective influences how Evan approaches ONIT Athlete.

ONIT produces officially licensed college cards across football, basketball, baseball, softball, gymnastics, wrestling, volleyball, hockey, and other sports. The company works to include complete teams rather than only the most commercially recognizable athletes.

That model creates room for prospectors searching for the next professional star.

But it also serves a different kind of customer.

The UCLA graduate who wants cards from their school.

The Nebraska volleyball fan who has never had a team set to collect.

The family member who wants a card of an athlete who may never play professionally.

The collector who values owning the card more than eventually selling it.

Evan understands that participant because he is one.

Most of his collection is built around personal meaning rather than financial value. He collects Dodgers and UCLA cards connected to his upbringing, along with autographs from sports broadcasters tied to his early career ambitions.

That experience gives him a useful operating lens.

He knows what a collector wants a product to feel like because he has opened enough products himself.

He understands why someone would purchase a card that may never increase in value.

He understands that the acquisition and ownership can be the entire point.

That kind of category fluency matters.

Operators do not need to share every motivation held by their customers. But they must understand those motivations well enough to build products, content, and experiences that respect them.

ONIT still needs to grow.

It needs awareness, distribution, recognizable athletes, and products capable of attracting people beyond existing college-card collectors.

But Evan’s vision is not limited to chasing the largest names or the fastest transactions.

It is also about finding underserved fans and giving them something worth collecting.

That is how sustainable growth happens.

Not by choosing between the existing collector and the next participant.

By building an industry capable of serving both.

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Operator Resource: The Collector Impact Check

Before launching a new product, feature, campaign, or experience, ask these four questions:

Does this make collecting easier to understand?
Collectors should leave with more clarity, not more confusion.

Does this create more meaning or just more activity?
More transactions do not automatically create stronger engagement.

Who benefits most from this decision?
If the answer is only the operator, marketplace, or seller, the value exchange is probably incomplete.

Will this make a collector more likely to stay involved?
The best growth initiatives do more than create a purchase. They give people a reason to remain connected.

You do not need to build exclusively for collectors.

But every operator should understand how their decisions affect the people who give the hobby its long-term value.

Growth gets stronger when the collector benefits too.

Hobby Jobs

Courtyard — Sports Card Sourcing Associate

Courtyard is looking for someone who can evaluate raw cards, understand grading potential, track comps, negotiate with sellers, manage submissions, and keep inventory moving through the pipeline. It sits at the intersection of card expertise, pricing, logistics, and marketplace operations.

For someone who already spends time studying condition, monitoring the market, and buying across eBay, COMC, shops, and shows, this is an opportunity to apply those skills inside one of the fastest-growing companies in collectibles.

Apply for this role today

The Wharf Sports Cards — Social Media Manager

This role is interesting because The Wharf is not looking for someone to simply maintain a content calendar. It wants an operator who can turn content, community engagement, and collector knowledge into measurable business growth.

The Social Media Manager will own the full creative process while serving as the company’s online voice. With an existing audience of 12,000 Instagram followers, a salary range of $85,000–$105,000+, and performance bonuses tied to growth and business impact, this is a meaningful opportunity for someone who understands both social strategy and collector psychology.

It is also another sign that sports card companies are beginning to treat content as a core growth function rather than a supporting marketing task.

Apply for this role today

Collectors — Supervisor, Customer Relations

The supervisor will lead a customer relations team, improve response times, build training programs, create standard operating procedures, resolve escalated issues, and turn customer feedback into actionable improvements across the business.

For someone with customer service leadership experience, this is more than a call center management role. It is an opportunity to shape how one of the largest companies in collectibles supports collectors when something goes wrong.

That matters. In a business built around valuable and emotionally significant items, the quality of the recovery experience can determine whether a collector remains loyal or walks away.

Apply for this role today

The Pokémon Company International — Category Manager, Technology

The Category Manager will shape how The Pokémon Company International sources technology, manages major suppliers, negotiates contracts, reduces risk, and improves operational efficiency. It is not a product or marketing role, but the decisions made here directly affect the systems and partners that support the broader Pokémon business.

For someone with experience in procurement, strategic sourcing, technology vendors, and financial analysis, this is an opportunity to bring enterprise-level operating skills into one of the most recognizable brands in collectibles.

Apply for this role today

Veriswap — Collector Relations Lead, Sports Cards

This role is interesting because it treats collector relationships as a growth function, not just a support function.

The Collector Relations Lead will work directly with high-value users, provide card guidance, create white-glove experiences, and help collectors complete more trades. That requires more than responsiveness. It requires deep market knowledge, strong judgment, and an understanding of collector psychology.

For someone who knows high-end sports cards and can build trust quickly, this is an opportunity to help shape the customer experience at a fast-growing marketplace built around trading rather than traditional cash transactions.

Apply for this role today

The next great sports card company will not win on product alone.

It will win through trust.

Trust with collectors.

Trust with sellers.

Trust with employees.

Trust with candidates.

Trust with partners.

Hobby Jobs exists to make the invisible work behind hobby brands visible.

We cover the people, systems, roles, skills, and operating decisions building the future of the sports card industry.