Built for the Hobby: Hobby Tech Takes the Main Stage at The National with Scott Lock (InfernoRed Technology)

Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of Built for the Hobby sponsored by my good friends at Inferno Red Technology. Today we are discussing Enter the Inferno, what the hobby needs for from its next generation of technology. I'm joined as always by Scott Locke, CEO at Inferno Red Technology. Inferno Red, in partnership with Jeremy Lee from SportsCards Live are putting together a pitch event, Enter the Inferno on the main stage Saturday at 3 of the national where tech founders and entrepreneurs are going to be coming sharing their ideas on how they can build technology to support the Collector. It is going to be a ton of fun and I would encourage you to attend the event if you are going to be there Saturday at the national and in this conversation we dig into all things tech, all things hobby, talk about hobby tech from the perspective of Enter the Inferno event and a whole lot more really fun conversation. If you want to show your support for stacking slabs, hit the follow button, Tell a damn friend. Run on over the Patreon Group. If you are building or have an idea about building something cool for the sports card industry, make sure you run it by my good friends at Inferno Red Technology. But for now, it is built for the hobby. Let's get into it. All right, we are back Built for the Hobby time with Scott Locke. We are going to be talking about an event, Enter the Inferno that is co hosted by Jeremy Sports Cards Live and Inferno Red Technology and it's happening at the National. That's what this episode's about. We're going to talk about why it's happening, what the event is, what, what the goal of the event is and that sort of thing. But yeah, Scott, we're right around the corner from the National. I feel like it was yesterday when we were standing there at the card ladder booth having a conversation. You blinking. A year later, we're going to be back. So are you, are you, how are you doing? And are you ready for the National Grind? Hey Brett. Definitely ready. Yeah, it does feels like it was yesterday. I'm glad that we had that, that impromptu meeting and had a chance to start working together and recording these podcasts. I think it's been fun. Hopefully the listeners and the watchers like enjoy it and they get, you know, they get something out of it from us. But yeah, the national, we're hosting an event. Jeremy Lee came up with a concept of doing a, a pitch event in a style that will seem somewhat familiar if you, if you watch TV without. You know, I don't want to say those words out loud, but the pitch event about the hobby, about technology, we had, we put out a call for a call for participants and we got a great, great response to that and we had a chance to filter that down and meet with people and so we have a good set of participants that will be there at the national live. So Saturday we will, at 3pm we'll be at the main stage, I think, which is upstairs this year in the National. So we're hoping everybody comes and checks it out. I have a box of T shirts to give away that look pretty awesome and I'm excited to talk about the HobbyTech. We've been talking about HobbyTech here for almost a year straight and it's awesome to see it come to life on the main stage at the National. For anyone who has not seen Inferno Red or Jeremy promoting the event, I guess what is the process has already been started. You've been having conversations. But I know this is in collaboration with Jeremy but like what, what is the primary goal of the event? Like what are you both looking to achieve? I think so first of all, like, it's also, I mean the national itself has been amazing to work with and you know, they've been very generous with, with the concept and giving us the platform to do this. And so, you know, Jeremy and Sports Cards Love and Inferno Red is producing this and the Nationals host, it's technically hosting it. I suppose I'm probably getting those words mixed up. But at the end of the day we want the opportunity to give entrepreneurs in the hobby a chance to pitch their ideas. One of the things like this is our second biggest. What's our biggest industry by client number. As I've said in the past, we work with some of the best known brands. I'm going to name them DC Sports, Upper Deck, COMC, eBay, Golden. We've worked with all of these companies and they're both past and active clients of ours. So we're excited about the work that we do. And I think I've been in tech and I've looked at the national and I've talked with so many people in the hobby who are, have a technical background or they're just have a great idea that they now obviously with, you know the, with AI and the barrier to entry for building these things is much lower than it was a couple of years ago. So we want to hear what those concepts are. And so that's what we did and we, and we heard a number of them, like dozens of them and we narrowed it down to people who we thought had some great ideas. I don't know all the details, I know, like the summaries of them. So we're trying to keep like it impartial to the judges who will be on the stage, which is myself, my co worker Ed Snyder, who's a senior software engineer and loves the hobby as a collector, Jeremy who's the host of Sports Cards Live, as you know, and then Dr. Beckett who will be on stage. So he's a legend. And so I think that it's a pretty amazing panel to have the opportunity to hear what these ideas are and support, support the, the growth of, of, of HobbyTech. I don't know, I feel like I'm trying to like coin that phrase, but I think that's good. Yeah, Yeah. I mean I think I, I like the idea of like and I've been trying to do this as much as I can, referring it to that as, as you know, hobbytech. What can we do? So, so the tech landscape has always existed at some level in the hobby. I think the thought of an event like this five years ago would seem almost ridiculous, but the, the infrastructure around our hobby has grown so rapidly. I guess at this point you sit in this intersection of technology and collectibles. Why do you think the hobby needs an event right now focused on tech entrepreneurs? I mean, I think there's the opportunity to really take things that would be, you know, ideas and vibe coded opportunities and help our role in this is to, when we're done, to provide some level of support to the companies that we meet through this event and promote the growth of those ideas by consulting or developing or co working with them and giving them a jump start to what they want to do, at least from the technical perspective as software engineering, in our years of experience of building platforms and products for companies. And I think that there's so many great ideas out there. Like you said, tech has been part of the hobby for a long time. There's a lot of platform companies out there that are building things like you know, Harvest and either Collector, all that like obviously card ladder. Who, who built the, the app for the national itself or at least for Ludo. Yeah, so Ludo, like, so there's all these like different companies out there that are doing things like, and solving very specific problems, which is great. But I just feel like with the gate being opened on the technical side for people to get creative with that, as we mentioned earlier, that low barrier for development, I just, I think like we should be supporting that as much as we can and we should, you know, try to find the next, the next big thing Obviously this event is awesome for hobbytech. I have connected and received more emails about someone starting something new and wanting me to check it out and feedback more than ever before. And I think this is a really good thing and that, that gets me thinking about just overall feedback. Like so many people in this space are working from home or are on, on an island. They're using AI to develop kind of their ideas. But yeah, might not have a place to turn. Like how do you think about just feedback in general? Like outside of this event, obviously the access to tools is at an all time high. More people are building. But do you think there's a good place for hobby tech founders to go to access feedback regularly? I don't. That's a good question. I don't know of any single place to go for feedback. I mean, I think it's one of those things right now where it's like platforms are getting built and pushed out on Instagram and TikTok probably primarily, you know, Christopher, my son, his presence on Instagram and our, you know, our card related work, we see all that stuff floating by is dominated obviously by things like, you know, Fanatics Fest and the national and these other events and, and just people, you know, recording content, ripping or making deals or showing cards or whatever it is and that then occasionally like a platform will pop in there and I don't know how well that gets received. I know it can get caught up in the noise, but there's no specific one place. I get a lot of the same things that you do. Somebody's like, hey, can you check this out? I think this event actually has created a funnel for those type of things. I don't know, maybe I don't think this will be the last time we do this event. We're looking at other, depending on how it goes, we're looking at doing it potentially at other places and maybe this is something that we can turn into more of a funnel for doing these things. I mean we have, internally we have, we have a part of the company called Inferno Red Labs and which is where, you know, we're considering incubating or working with companies like this when you know, frankly there's startups and they're looking at, you know, how can we, how can we get off the ground and get support? And we're looking at it like how can we support the hobby? How can we help build products that are potentially no revenue generating at some point because we run a business and we still have to pay my team and so on. But we want to Find non traditional consulting ways of supporting these things. So Inferno Red Labs is one of the ways that we're doing that. And yeah, we'll see what happens with the event in terms of who kind of comes away with the support. But I like that idea. I'd love to find a way to funnel and create some ecosystem where people can get, you know, I think brutally honest reviews of what they're doing, because I think that's, that's the most valuable. Somebody's just like, yeah, it's a good idea. You should do it. And like, you know, because there's like super common ideas. Like everyone's trying to build, like I think three or four things right now. So like all of the same things. And I, I won't get into what they are because I, I think that it's probably not, not for me to say, but I, I, I think if they're, when the unique ones pop in and you see them, you're like, oh, yeah, like, that's actually pretty cool. Like, I never thought of that. Having a form to help those people and then also the people who, like, you know, like, don't waste your time or make an adjustment that would make it more accessible or more interesting. I think that's the kind of feedback people need. So, I don't know. I like the idea. It's a good idea. Good idea, right? But thanks, Scott. I want to kind of dig into what you're looking for, just maybe in the event and outside the event. But I want to stick on that topic for a minute because I'm thinking about this and just for the audience. I spent 15 years in tech before I decided to jump and do stacking slabs. You've built your career in tech, so there's a level of experience in working with teams to build product. Obviously for the majority of our careers, we didn't have access to these tools to be able to build on our own. Usually they were, we had teammates who were helping us build and scale. And I think there's, this is really good. And I don't want to sound, make this sound discouraging, but there is a lot of exuberance right now with people who have access to these tools but have never built product regularly. And I'm seeing a little bit of a disconnect on how you actually take what you're building, which are cool ideas and they look cool, but take it over the finish line and have it actually add value. There's a lot that goes into it. And this goes back to like having access to People with experience on building products. Like, I don't, what I don't want is, I don't want people to be building a bunch of cool things that just are cool things and never have true application because they didn't have the right voices or they didn't have the right environment to succeed. That's just something I'm thinking about right now. So I don't know, like, is there, do you think there's growth in hobbytech right now to have, I don't want to say some sort of advisors or some sort of company or some sort of enablement structure to make sure that these tools that people are building actually get into the marketplace and actually solve real problems for the hobby that, that truly matter. So. All right, there's a lot to unpack there. But I think, like, I think my personal opinion having, you know, I don't want to be, I've said this to you before, like, I don't want to be a podcast CEO when it comes to AI and these tools. Like, I'm very much, my background is software engineering. I did it for a long time. And then, and then we built Inferno right into the amazing company that it is, doing exactly what you said, which is working with companies to get their products to market and use senior level engineering to do that. And now what you described were like people building and getting over the hump like that. What we found there was this super concern and I mean it's still a concern, but there's like that AI is going to replace all the engineering jobs. That hasn't happened and it still could happen. I mean, obviously like the, the innovation and improvement on the models and for software engineering specifically is like exponential. And so if you're really close to the fire, as I've said, like you're paying attention. So that, that where is where our services come into play to help companies do that. So that's what, that's our market and our niche. Niche. But this question you, the other point you made about like making sure they add value to the hobby. I find like this is an interesting dilemma because I feel like there's different levels to what this can be if you're an entrepreneur or you're just somebody who likes to build things. So I would encourage people like, if you have a personal concept or idea that it's like these just you would be good for you. The, the barrier to build that was always like, well, I don't know how to program and it would cost money to bring in somebody. And like I just, there's no, like, there's no way to get around that. Obviously. Like, everyone knows that at this point. Like, that barrier is pretty much gone. Like, so you don't have to be a software developer. You can use replit and Lovable and other platforms to build mobile, web, whatever it is, you know, Claude, open, AI, whatever. Like you, there's all, there's seven, there's a dozen tools, like it doesn't matter and you can build something for yourself and that's completely fine. Like if you build, if you're like, hey, I really want this thing that like captures my collection and then, you know, maybe pull some comps and like, I don't really need to sell it. I'm not trying to build a platform for it. I just want a tool for myself and like, I want it to be on my phone. So when I'm at the national, it just works. Like, build that. Like, you should do that. Like, and maybe you fall into an idea that's like broader. And then for everyone else who's the entrepreneurial spirit that wants to build a business around something, do that too. And I mean, that's a little bit more of a challenge in terms of just like scale and security and size and what the concept of getting something go to market actually means. There's a lot to it. But I feel like that personal barrier is gone. And I really think, like when you start using these tools and you start to realize what you can do, and you and I were talking about this earlier, like it is a very personal experience. Like you're, you can build this and make it your own and that's fine. And then if you want to build a business like, then you can do that too and you, you can leverage that same thing. It's just, there's just a heavier lift. The biggest risk to the company side is the innovation is moving so fast on the AI side and as we just kind of joked, everyone's kind of building the same thing. There are some real race to zero scenarios where you can do it and then like, you'll make no money because somebody will come right behind you and either build a better mousetrap or the tech companies will, you know, create a feature that does it. Like, there's just, even if you, even if you make it hobby specific. So I don't know, I feel like that's, that's incredibly difficult to find that thing. That is the thing. But, but I encourage, like, everyone should be building something if you're, if you're into it. So, so you have Already For Enter the Inferno, you've already had access to people sharing their ideas, and I'm sure people hit you up on LinkedIn or ad events all the time, pitching you stuff based on them understanding the role you play in hobby tech. When you hear a product pitch, what are you listening for first? Ah, that's a great. So, like, the first thing I just want to hear, like, what is the. What problem does this solve? Or, like, what is. If it's not solving a problem? Like, what experience is this creating? Right. Like what. Like, there's so many, like, everyone's, like, trying to solve a problem for the hobby, but then there's like, some of these ideas that came through where you're like, it just sounds like a cool, fun thing to do that I didn't even know I needed. Right. Like, I can't tell you what they are like, but there's a. There's a few that we're gonna see that you're just kind of like, I didn't even think that that was, like, I needed that, but that actually might be something that's cool. Like, those are the ones that surprise you. And you know, you know, like, it's not a collection, you know, thing. It's not. I'm like, trying to get values and comps and, like, manage my sales. Like. Like, that's what I was talking about, you know, in terms of, like, some of them that are. Are just there just so many people, like, instantly everyone wanted to solve that same problem. And I think I actually talked to you, to Chris about this on your. I don't know. We weren't actually on a podcast. I just talked to Chris from Stacking or from Card Ladder, and we were joking about that. It's like, yeah, this proliferation of, like, Card Ladder already exists. Everybody. Yeah. Like, so they have. Yeah. How many clones or whatever. And they're trying to, like, add features or. But whatever, that's fine. Like, I think people should build, like, just go build stuff and if, you know, see what sticks and what doesn't. But. But for me, when we're looking and we're talking to these. Well, these. These people that have either companies or starting companies, that's what I'm looking for. Like, I just think, because, like I said, like, we've seen so many different solutions to very common problems. Like, when something unique comes along, it's just like, that's cool. Like, let's build that. Like, I don't know, like, see if it works. And don't be afraid to fail, like, completely. You Know, try, fail, move on, do the next thing. Like that's, that's what you, that's the hard part of being an entrepreneur. But like if you, if you can get past failure and accept it and then learn from it, like you're gonna, you're gonna be fine. So I've, I've, I've built over the history of, of my career, I've built a few tech side projects that were cool because I was building something in tech, but literally nobody used, they just like died on the vine. And stacking slabs is like the first thing I've built that people actually use. And it's non tech, which is a bit ironic. But I think the thing I think about is just like demand. When you're this time building something like you better, you could do it for fun and sure, that's great, but like if you're trying to build a business, like there needs to be demand. So I guess when you're evaluating these ideas, what makes you believe that the idea that is being presented will likely have real demand in the marketplace? I'm, I mean, I mean just from experience, I think of like the cool thing about our company and I hopefully, I mean, I'm humbly say for myself is I feel like, you know, we are, have expertise in the hobby itself. We are collectors, you know, we are users of all of these tech. We've built some of this tech. But at the end of the day, like, you know, I'm, I'm collecting and my son and I are buying and selling. And so, you know, we're looking at it from both angles. Like, and myself and Ed Standing Snyder and a few other people in our company have that expertise. So when you pair that up with just the general technical knowledge and experience we have from working with some of the companies, I think that gives us this kind of vision perspective of like, okay, is that a cool thing for the hobby itself? Because we know it so well and we know that like the hobby spectrum is like such an amazing concept that Jeremy Lee came up with because it really kind of like lays out and puts on paper, for lack of better term, like puts a visual to where people are on the collectors in the hobby. Whether you know, you're a pure collector or you're a tycoon and you flip. And so if you kind of use that as that spectrum as the measure and you use that lens and look at the things that you're seeing from the participants or from those people that reach out to you, I think that gives us the unique perspective that we need to be able to, to kind of make a, an educated guess on what's going to work and what's not going to work. You know, I think about it every single day. Like, I mean literally like even for myself, I'm like, you know, Christopher went to Fanatics Fest with some partners and friends of his and like you know, walking that floor and like what could he have done or had with them that maybe makes it easier? Like how could we manage our side business better? Like, you know there's just so many like things that I think about related to business and the hobby. You know, I, I wish I had more time myself. Like how'd you like, like I wasn't like so focused on like building Inferno Res business. Tell. Tell me about it. Story of my life. I think there we. We've talked about this fact and I don't want you to give any spoilers about the event because we're gonna, we want to encourage everyone who is listening to and if you're going to the national, so you're listening box check. Going to the national, box check. We encourage you to go to enter the Inferno. Be a part of the crowd, see this in action. So we don't want to, I don't want to present any spoilers here about the ideas that will be on stage. But I am curious as someone we. We alluded to the fact that it feels like a lot of people are building the same thing. Like what is something hobby related maybe that is enter your hemisphere or ideas that you have that if it is being talked about as something that someone is building or a problem that's looking to be solved. Like what, what gets your attention right now? Like what is something that will like the record will, will scratch and you're like okay, let's cancel this meeting. Let me sit and have a conversation about this. What are those types of things right now, man? Like I said, I think the utility, the hobbytech utility market, right in terms of apps and services, I think it's wide open for people to build something. But I also think to me while that may be an area for business opportunity and I think it's a competitive area, there's a lot of people trying to do a lot of things. I think the collector engagement market, I mean I correlate that to like the fan engagement market, you know, in terms of like our, our actual biggest clients face is sports tech and we work with one of the largest leagues in, in the world where there's a basket and a hoop and you know, when you when you're working with the leagues and the teams, like fan engagement is so important, right? It's like how do you, how can you create experiences that promote the sport, promote the athletes, promote the product on, on the court, on the field, on the ice, whatever it might be. And like how do you pull in fans that are outside of the arenas and like that, that multi use space and like there's all these, there's all this like energy money, tech, non tech put into that and then I feel like that correlates directly to the hobby. For me personally like when I'm eventually done with technology as a primary business and I'm working with my son full time, like no, I'm not shy about that is like that is my dream to do before I like get too old to do anything and he doesn't want to do it with me. So that, but that engagement, that experience like the family engagement, the crossover when you're in a shop and you see like you see a father and a son or a daughter or a mother and they're together and they're like they're coming in, they're so excited to open that pack or like whether, and whether it's you know, you know, TCG or sports, whatever it might be, obviously like Pokemon is massive. So like I just feel like the opportunity to do things that bring in the collector and the engagement and the collector engagement that crosses over with the products and like, like fanatics fest itself obviously like it's supposed to be like a you know, the Comic Con, the you know, festival style. Not festival is the wrong term. Like the, I don't, I forget what they, they build it specifically as but like you know, it's, it mixes all those things together which I think is cool. I didn't go this year. I heard, I mean I heard it was awesome. Hers massive and even the card element to it. I was, I went to the first year and I haven't, I'd love to see you know, year one to year three. I just didn't have an opportunity time to go. But like at the national, like it's so focused on the card side of the world and in the media side with the autographed pavilions and the breaker side. So that's like a full, you know, card and a hobby focused event without you know, the things on the edge and that media are not like part of the celebration of it, it's just part of the experience of it. But I think that's the thing that gets me excited and if I Was, you know, trying to create concepts around. Like that's my goal. That's what I'm going to do eventually when we have time. But that's the part that gets me excited about the, the ideas of, of building and creating new things in the hobby. I think that answer your question. I don't. Yeah, no, no, it did. I actually just, I love it how it's focused on the collector. I think we, meaning us in the industry and the hobby should never lose sight of building for the collector and we shouldn't take the collector for granted. The collector is the foundation. If the collector doesn't exist, everything cr. So I like your perspective there. I want to spend a moment talking about a pitch because we've all been a part of good pitches, we've all been a part of bad pitches. You are going to see some pitches at Enter the Inferno. And I think communication is always very, very important. Like whatever you have, whatever idea you have, whatever flashy features and functionality that can solve the biggest problem ever, it's always good. But like it falls flat if the communication around what you're doing, who you are, what you're building, problem you're solving is bad. So let's talk about just like your expectations with a pitch. Like what from a communications perspective, like what makes a good pitch for you? I mean for me, I feel like I follow the founder led investor perspective, right? Meaning like if I was investing in a startup or concept, I want to see the person, I want to feel the energy from that person behind the concept. I mean, even if it's like, not even if I personally don't think it's the best concept, if the energy and the passion is there from the founder, that's where you're really making the investment because you need somebody. There's the old saying of nobody will work harder on your business than you. As a co founder, I know that my two business partners, at the end of the day we have an amazing team, but we took all the risk and we still own all the risk and we work hard to reduce that. And so if you're hearing a pitch, I want to see that in the founder and in the concept, the concept itself. Obviously if you get those two things right, if you have a strong founder, a strong communication, be able to share like what that passion is for the thing that you want to do. That's what drives me. You could have the best, I don't know, slide deck, demo, proof of concept, whatever. But if I don't think you're genuine and you're passionate about it, it's going to be very hard to get me to buy in. I want to talk about the technical and the non technical component to a pitch. When I think about the hobby as an industry, my impression is that it is the audience as a whole is low tech. And I don't mean that, that doesn't mean we use apps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's non developer, right? Like the, like that's the way that like so, right. And which is this is where like everything's kind of shifted, right. Like the non developer now has the ability to use AI tools to, to become or supplement a developer. Like they're not gonna, they don't necessarily become a developer, right. Like the AI still is, is their development platform but they are, they are, they are now like the project manager, the business stakeholder, like the concept person and they can, if they can actually use, fundamentally use these tools then they get empowered to be that product owner and bring it to life. And they don't even have to know the tech. So this is where it gets like a little bit geeky is like if you're a software engineering company, like we are like we're looking for like high quality ton to market scale security test. Like the whole like that traditional perspective of what soft like shipping a product requires from a technical perspective hasn't changed. We are just much faster at doing it. And so the judgment element and there's all different levels you can go to. Like there's still hands on coding where you feel like you want to be able to do it, that's kind of almost diminished to nothing. But then there's like full agentic and you have multi agents but you're still a human in the loop to be able to. Because AI is not perfect. Like it makes a lot of mistakes and you know that's the, that's the one thing where like people just assume that it's infallible and it's just like it's magic but it's not yet magic. It's not full like you know, AGI magic yet. Like it's really good. And it's amazing at like almost everything from a programming perspective. But you know we still need, you still need humans in the loop to be able to look at plans and add your judgment and be able to orchestrate and steer the AI to do what you need to do for professional level software engineering and shipping products in the hobby. The same people that I just described, like they good enough is good enough, right? Like I think that the Outcome is what they're looking for. And they don't have to know, they never even have to look at the code, they never have to look at the underlying tech to build something that works and may feel and look and is real. You know, there's, there's like a mid level amount of technology experience you, you need to like, I think to ship. But if you're pretty crafty with these tools like you AI will guide you all the way. So that part is like, that's the, I mean, revolutionary tsunami that we're living in where that power didn't exist before. Right. And you were like I said, so, you know, I think, I think that that's the opportunity and good enough might be what gets somebody over the hump. And in a pitch, I, in a pitch, it depends, right? Like if it's a, if it's something where I think it's like this is an incredible business opportunity or like I just think it's a really cool idea that might not even be a business and they should build like, I don't know, I don't know where they're going to fall in like the, the order of like selection, you know, But I don't know. That's a long, very long winded answer to your question. But I think that's really kind of like the opportunities there. Yeah. The thing I always think about when building, for me, in order for it to pass the first step of qualification criteria, it needs to solve an actual problem. And I think there are a lot of people building stuff because they see activity or they're interested or things might look cool and might need to take a step back and say, does this actually solve a problem? So I guess that's weird. Well, it's not weird. I mean, I think that's the nat, like that is the natural reaction or the natural, the natural perspective when you're talking about building something, right? You're like, why am I building this? What problem is it solving? Like that's a business, that's your 415 years of like project management business coming through. But I also think that there's, there's the, I, there's a lot, especially in the hobbies and entertainment in a, in a, an engagement industry, right? Like we just said, like if there's no sports, there's no sports collectibles. If there's no entertainment, there's no, you know, entertainment autographs and products and so on and so forth. But it's engagement at the personal level and there's just some things that are Not a problem, right? Like you can create something that doesn't solve a problem but actually creates an experience. And like that's the part I'm saying like the, like creating something that is an engagement experience, whether it's a game or you know, something like a mission based thing or gamification of like something in the hobby. Like there's just like these concepts that like I think are wildly interesting and the barrier to build them is almost gone. And that to me is like, that's where it's like. Because man, like you said, like how many different ways can we pull comps? Like it's like. Or how many different ways can you try to like use AI to you know, to take a picture of a card and identify it? Like it's like, wow. I don't know, I just feel like those problems are not interesting and they're being solved by like ebay and like those companies like where they have multimillion dollar budgets to knock those things out with like you know, data scientists who can figure out complex problems but like do something that's like entertainment driven. I don't know. That's the part that like I think is cool. This is what I want to get your feedback on because I think about this all the time where right now actively and you and Inferno Red are helping contribute to this. But the, the infrastructure around the sports card industry is forming and I think it is, it's, it's way better than it was when we saw each other last year at the National. It's 10 times better than three years ago, maybe even more so. The infrastructure is forming, it's maturing, new ideas are coming in. I guess where I'm going is where do you think? What's the balance between building to contribute to the growing infrastructure that's going to make this industry more sustainable versus building for some customer feature or some cool idea that someone wakes up one morning and says I'm going to go to Claude and try to crank this out. Like what's the balance between those two worlds in terms of building right now in the hobby? I mean I think the traditional business model, like you said, solve a problem, create a product that somebody will subscribe to or buy or what have you is still there obviously. Like, and you know, the infrastructure as you called it, like to support that is not, you know, it's just built on top of every other type of, you know, industry, you know, products, path, concept, design, build, ship, market, all that stuff. Like did that already exist? Like you're just tapping into like Known, known commodities and known services and best practices. I think the second part of what you said doesn't exist and I don't think it's as mature as maybe you kind of alluding to. I think that's not a real opportunity. And I feel like this event, the Enter the Inferno event is like unexpectedly and Jeremy gets all the credit in the world for this is this opportunity for us to kind of start that discussion and like maybe see where this goes and see if there's something that we can do together, you know, proactively as a, as a com, as a company, as a, as a community to support, you know, these entrepreneurs and have it be you know, steered and focused towards what matters to people in the hobby instead of like trying to like build on top of some generic, you know, business model that's kind of been there, done that and it's successful. Right. I'm not discouraging people from doing those things, but I think there's a, there's an opportunity to try something new. Where do you see, and we, we've mentioned a few times like we don't need something to check comps, we already have that. Or we've got 10 things that can help us do that. Where do you see from your seat kind of the biggest gaps right now in hobby technology today? I feel that's a, that's a, that's a setup and loaded question. Brad. Hi. That's what we do around here. So if, you know, again, I, I still, I feel pretty strongly, number one, like the engagement is like the, there's a huge opportunity there and doing things that are, are not so utility driven like comps and we just discussed, I think that's, that's an open market and you know, it happens like it just said at the grand level of like the national and fanatics and card shows and things like that. So I think there's opportunity there. You know, I don't know if there's like some magic bullet platform or app or what have you that will transform the hobby. You know, I think people, it's funny, I think people and Chris and I actually talked about this too. Like people, they have these ideas of like trying to create some sort of like trading platform or like analytics that like tries to like literally treat cards like commodities in the sense of the market and be able like and that's analytics and all those things exist already. I mean alts and some of these other companies have created analytic, you know, style platforms. I mean card ladder itself built in the, the market. I think what is. What's the number now? Like, some stupid hundreds. Can't even keep track at this point. I've been following you when you put. Where you put those out. But, you know, so I think, like, that's something that people are chasing, like, because they're trying to, you know, And I don't. And I don't fault. Like you said, like, there's the pure collectors and like, that's the foundation, but there's absolutely opportunity for people to. To use collectibles as an asset class. And, and, you know, buy, sell, trade. I mean, that's, that's. It's such a weird thing. It's like, that is if you buy and sell trade stocks. Like, you're like, I don't. You don't get crazy excited because you're like, oh, my God, I had. I had 40 shares on Microsoft stock. Like, it was amazing. Like, did you see, like, the symbol here? It's like, no. But like, people are like, oh, my God, I had the one of one. No go man of, you know, pick your player. And like, that card was beautiful. The design was amazing. And then they're like, yeah, and I flipped it and made like, two grand, right? And like, so you're like, they, they get the joy of the ownership of the asset. And like art, right? Like a picture or something that you enjoy for a while. Again, people compare it to art all the time. And they're like, I had this conversation like, the other day. Like, I don't get it. Like, it's cardboard. It's cards. Like, it's. Why. Why is it even a thing? Like, and you're like, do you appreciate, like, an artist's picture or a print? You don't. And they're like, well, yeah, but that's art. I'm like, okay, but they. Somebody designed it. You don't usually own the first of the kind. Like, you have a reprint of it or you have some copy of it. Like the. I forget what they call, like, the. The pure. Like, the, the actual pieces. But at the end of the day, like, all of those things move and sell. You paid something to have it. Like, and you might sell that picture some other time. And I don't know. Like, I feel like cards, like, if you. If you look at. And this is the thing you. In the shops. And I find it fascinating when people are like, oh, my God, like, the design is amazing. Like, look how pretty that card is. Like, look how sweet that looks. And you're looking at. Some people are like, I don't see it and other people like. And then like in the same. They have the, you know, visceral reaction to things they don't like. They're like, why? What was the product? I don't want to slam any products which. From Tops or anybody, but there was like one of them that like the number of parallels was insane. Maybe it's actually a World cup because Panini, like the World cup product, like there's 500 car base set and the number of parallels is like a hundred and something. And then like so we're trying to figure out how many 101 messies there are. And it's like there's like 30 of them or something stupid. Like I. It was like we're so then like the sheer size of the product and you know, in that case, probably like the money grab is high, but. But we're still ripping them. Go to Target. Find as many hobby boxes as we can or find as many blasters and pull, you know, either rip or sell. I don't know. World Cup's over, but it's still. I don't know. I never watched so much football soccer in my life. Yeah, I mean, I was in New York this weekend. My flight got delayed, so I was there an extra night. And the eve of the World cup and just walking down midtown, it was just blocks and blocks of fans of Argentina and fans of Spain chanting. I felt like I was in Europe or South America and certainly not New York City. So it did. It came and went and was certainly entertaining and I think will elevate soccer cards a little bit. I want to maybe get to back to the event. Enter the Inferno. There are going to be. You said three. There'll be three tech founders. Right? There's. I don't. I think there might be a couple more than that. I don't know the exact number. Off top of my head. I said so. 3pm on Saturday, main stage at the National. That's the time. Enter the Inferno. That's the event. Yeah. So we'll have a group of people pitching their ideas. We're going to have the panel, myself, Jeremy Lee, Ed Snyder from Inferno red, and then Dr. Beckett, who needs no introduction. And we're going to hear the pitches and then decide who. Who gets the support and investment. And we're trying to, you know, shy away from like there being like a winner per se, because I think that we're going to find a way to support everybody if. Or, you know, at different levels for sure. And Inferno Red will. Our thought is like, with Inferno Red Labs that we can offer support and technical guidance to the teams that pitch depending on. And it's going to be awesome. This is the first time that we've ever done something like this ourselves. And again, kudos to Jeremy for coming up with the idea in the sense of the hobby at the national, pulling this all together. And there's a lot of work that goes in behind it. I've never had to do this, but Aaron Grace, who is our chief marketing officer, has been working very closely with the national. And you have to run a show, man. This is, there's like stage setup, there's prep, there's like showrunner. Like, it is a legitimate, produced, professional event. So it's not going to be like, what I'm really excited. It's not going to be like four people sitting up on stage, like talking to people. Like, it is a well choreographed and a professional, professionally produced event. So we're hoping that, yeah, hoping that it comes off amazing. And I have a box of T shirts, man, with that. People love shirts. So come to the event, come hang out in the audience and we'll have shirts for you. I want to maybe give an advantage to maybe one of those tech co founders who is so tuned in and they're listening to stacking slabs and they, they're hearing one of the judges talk and it's very important they know who they are. That. Yes. So, like, here's the, here's the, the pep talk or the. Before the event, what, what advice do you give to these individuals that will be on stage? And you can talk about the way they deliver communication, you can talk about what they're building, you can talk about go to market strategy, whatever. Like, what would you say if you had five minutes with them right now? Like, what advice would you give them before they stepped on stage? I think it's like I said earlier, like what I look for. I mean, I think they, you know, be passionate about your idea, be confident in the concept, like really have it, you know, buttoned down on what it is that you're doing and how to present. You have a limited amount of time. So, like having the capability and the presence to be able to present quickly, get your concept and your idea across and then just be genuine. Right. Be as genuine as you possibly can be. We understand that these are concepts. So you're not coming with. This isn't where we're looking at investing and you have to have revenue and clients and customers or even a base of users. That's not what this is. So the idea of being a passionate founder is the thing that I look for the most. And I mean that's what I would tell each one of them prior to the event for sure. That's awesome feedback. And as we kind of close this out, you think about the next five years of tech. Like where do you see it going? What needs to be built in the hobby specifically? Not just tech as a broad stroke, but in the hobby, like next five years. Like obviously an event like this has never existed at the nationals, so it's setting the stage for something pretty cool in the sports cards days. Like how do you see this shaken out over the next five years? Oh man. That this such a wide window. Like I, I can't like the thing is like AI is such a proliferating of in event in the the world. Literally. Like people, I think people undersell it and they look at like if you're not AI is affecting everybody everywhere at the same time. And I think it's not an understatement. People think it's like you're wow. Like okay. But no, I don't think it's an understatement to say that this is the most important and the most disruptive event in the history of the planet. Because the impact that AI will have not only just on the hobby but like on everyday life, you know, from now. And people joke about the robots coming. I'm like, that is an industry and a thing that's happening. Like you just have to go to CES and like look at what Musk is doing in X SpaceX. And you know, I think when, when AI can build AI and you know, robots can build factories of robots, like these things sound like, sound like they're, they're, you know, science fiction, but it's not like. And it's happening and it's an exponential step. And that's the part which is both exciting and terrifying at the time. Same, same time. Because the impact on what it happens to just industries and, and daily life and like education and healthc care and like there's, there's. I saw this thing and I know this is non hobby specific, so I apologize for the soapbox but I saw this thing recently where it was like, you know, when, when the congen or con. When the, when. When the industrial revolution happened, there were areas of the industries that got improved and automated and then had time to actually move through and people could learn and adjust. And it was like one thing happened. And so if you invested money 10 years ago to improve rocket science, rockets became better. But the thing with AI is that everything is getting better all at the same time. And so rockets, medical education, like everything improves and investment happens and innovation happens to everything all at once. And that is like mind blowing if you actually stop and think about it. But that's actually what's happening. And like people, I feel like they underestimate and they undersell the impact that this is going to have now in the hobby. The one cool thing I would say that we have that AI can't change is we have the physical nature of collectibles and like that, you know, anything that's like physical specifically like even my son, I'm like, he's going to college. I'm like, dude, go into a hot go it not a hobby. Go into an industry where it's like hands on people. Like go into health services. Go into something that requires human interaction with humans because that is not replaceable. And I think that's the cool thing about the hobby. Like all of this technical wave that's happening, yes, it's going to change how cards are comp, the marketplaces, how people share. But at the end of the day, yes, there's digital collectibles and those are important and people live in that space. But the human connection of like a jersey that was worn or a patch that you can see or an autograph, I mean think about it like there's tons of like fake autographs and sent. I say fake as in just like print it. But when people see like their player or their favorite athlete who's had the card in their hand and signed it, like it has value to them, not just monetarily but like, you know, that person, they have a connection to that person. Like that can't be replaced in my opinion by technology and especially AI. So I'm pretty excited about the hobby being able to continue and find new ways to create that connection with human to human connection. Now I understand like human to Pokemon is not the same thing. And the enjoyment comes from the collectibles and the entertainment experience or the gaming itself. That's a little bit different. But I don't know man, that's my soapbox. I'm. I don't know what else to do about or other than, you know, ride the wave and, and stay connected to humans. That's what I'm going to do. Everybody listening, Attending the national Saturday at 3 o'. Clock. Enter the inferno. Be there. Main stage. Main stage. Look at this is no, no side stage. This is the main freaking stage. Enter the Inferno. The right now we're a one of one. Never been done before at the National. First time. It's funny I was looking at the athletes for the Tristar signing autograph pavilion and I like when they show the athletes and they put like in the corner. First national appearance. Like this is not our first time at the national but you know. Jeremy Lee, Sportscard lives Inferno Red technology first time at the national on stage. It's going to be awesome man. I'm very excited. This is great for Hobby Tech Scott. Always good catching up. Looking forward to catching up in person here in a week and appreciate all the listeners for checking this out. All right man, thank you. Appreciate it Brad, as always. I can't wait for that event. I think it is going to be super exciting. It is fun to see the hobby and tech intersect. Hobby Tech Scott is coining the phrase excited to see it grow. Excited to see many of you out at the National. Thank you so much for supporting Inferno Red technology and stacking slabs. Take care. Talk to you soon.