Episode 07 My Story: How I Got Here

Released: July 1, 2025 | Duration: 19:23

Prefer audio-only? spotify slabnomics podcast linkslabnomics apple podcasts link

About This Episode

This episode is a departure from frameworks and case studies. It is the origin story of Slabnomics, told through the lens of the host's background in finance, his entry into sports cards, and the lessons learned from both successes and spectacular failures.

The host grew up in a small Wisconsin town as the oldest of eight kids, collecting everything from rocks to Pokemon cards to silver bullion. Early entrepreneurial wiring showed up in Cub Scouts, where he sold the most popcorn in the region and second-most in Wisconsin by hustling door-to-door for two weeks straight. That same obsessive curiosity carried into chess, Latin studies, and eventually finance, where he worked as an FX analyst during Brexit and learned the hard way that it pays to be prepared and rarely pays to be passive.

Sports cards entered the picture in 2024. The host experimented with grading lots from Facebook Marketplace, learned that grading is brutally difficult even when you quadruple-check every card, and quickly realized there is no get-rich-quick scheme. The real edge comes from grinding out small wins and positioning yourself to pounce on big opportunities when they arise. The episode walks through rookie mistakes like not sleeping on big purchases, being emotional in negotiations, trying to pre-grade vintage cards digitally, and most importantly, failing to have an investment thesis. Over time, discipline emerged: write a thesis for every major buy, define the time frame, identify the catalyst, and plan the exit. Without a thesis, emotions run the show, and the market punishes that.

The episode also introduces the market-legacy-design valuation framework that became the foundation for Slabnomics. It is a reframing of supply and demand that accounts for who is buying and selling, how that changes over time, and the expression of demand through specific sets and cards. In the short term, all three must align for a card to pop. In the long term, the question is simple: will it stand the test of time? That is where compound interest happens, because as more people enter the hobby, the same proportion still wants the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan. Demand continues to rise. Supply is capped. Price follows.

Topics Covered

  • Growing up in a small Wisconsin town as the oldest of eight kids, collecting rocks, Pokemon cards, and silver bullion
  • The Cub Scout popcorn hustle: selling the most in the region and second-most in Wisconsin
  • Early signs of obsessive curiosity through chess, Latin, trivia bowl, and muttonbusting at a Texas rodeo
  • The professional career arc from PNC Bank to FX analyst at World First, covering cross-currency transfers for high net worth individuals
  • Writing for Seeking Alpha, Forbes, and Motley Fool in the mid-2010s, focusing on overlooked opportunities
  • The Brexit vote in 2016 and betting against the consensus with long JPY over GBP trades
  • The lesson from Brexit: it pays to be prepared and rarely pays to be passive
  • Entering the sports card market in 2024 after flipping EDM jerseys successfully
  • The grading disaster: submitting 100 cards and getting only three PSA 10s with many 5s and 6s
  • Experimenting with auction arbitrage, misspellings, off-hours auctions, estate sales, and ads in the paper
  • The realization that there is no get-rich-quick scheme, just grinding small wins and positioning for big opportunities
  • The market-legacy-design valuation trinity: a reframing of supply and demand that accounts for the human element
  • How market, legacy, and design must align in the short term for a card to pop
  • The long-term question: will the player, card, and set stand the test of time?
  • Why the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan continues to compound as more people enter the hobby
  • Structuring a sports card portfolio like a traditional portfolio: blue chips, small cap long shots, and emerging plays
  • The host’s biggest weakness: pride, and the expensive habit of holding cards waiting for the market to agree
  • Rookie mistakes: not sleeping on big purchases, being emotional in negotiations, pre-grading vintage digitally, buying before knowing where to sell, and failing to have an investment thesis
  • The discipline of writing a thesis for every major buy: define the time frame, the catalyst, and the exit
  • Why Slabnomics exists: to bring rigor, structured thinking, and comparative analysis to a market dominated by hype
  • Core beliefs: 99% of cards go down over time, buying strong comes from relationships, selling strong comes from systems, narrative is the real engine, attention compounds faster than ROI, and being forced to sell is death to ROI
  • The collection philosophy: cards as portals, especially iconic rookie signatures that capture a moment in time

Full Transcript Summary

Growing Up: Curiosity, Hustling, and Collecting

The host grew up in a small town in Wisconsin in the 90s, the oldest of eight kids. They did not have much, but they had books, Packers football, cheese curds, and cold winters. The host challenges anyone to outnerd him growing up. He played chess obsessively, took Latin for eight years, started a chess club in high school, dominated trivia bowl, and once won a rodeo in Texas riding a sheep. He has the belt buckle to prove it.

More than anything, the host was a curious kid. He always wanted to understand the why behind even the simplest things. He was not particularly interested in fitting in. He was too busy building chess strategies, tinkering with what he could tinker, and seeing how high he could push the boundary of how things worked. That curiosity has shaped every decision since.

The entrepreneurial wiring clicked during Cub Scouts. His dad is in sales, so he pushed the host to go out every single day for two weeks selling popcorn door-to-door around the neighborhoods of Hudson, Wisconsin. Picture a pasty, round little boy in a scout uniform pulling a red wagon full of popcorn boxes, working toward the goal of a color TV radio and the fabled stomp rocket. This motivation was enough. He sold the most popcorn in the region and second-most in the state of Wisconsin. This exercise taught something fundamental: hustle compounds, and sales are at their heart emotional.

The host has always been a collector. Rocks as a kid, Pokemon cards before his mom threw them into the garbage, and silver bullion as he got older. He got into weird custom jerseys for the EDM community. He loves the thrill of the hunt. When he fixates on something, it sticks in his head until he can cross it off the list. He creates opportunities to go after the things he is obsessed with, because otherwise they occupy too much space in his brain.

Professional Career: Finance, FX Trading, and Brexit

The professional career shows a focus on shoring up weaknesses by challenging them. Even though he had a liberal arts degree with a history major, he decided to go into finance. He asked friends in banking and investment firms how to get his foot in the door. That led to a job with PNC Bank, but with a twist: it was located in a grocery store. He was not natural at striking up conversation with people about their finances as they were picking out their bananas, but he gained introductory experience in sales, lending, and the financial system in general.

This led to a position as an FX analyst at a firm called World First that provided cross-currency transfers for high net worth individuals and international businesses. He grew into the role to the point where he became the economist for the U.S. client base, writing daily updates on geopolitical events that impacted currency markets. He moved into a sales role for high net worth individuals and later into the corporate side.

While doing this, he was moonlighting as a writer for Seeking Alpha, Forbes, and the Motley Fool. This was around the mid-2010s. A lot of it was clickbait that gave a little value and then told you to subscribe to an email list. Seeking Alpha was a platform where you could expound your own ideals and expand on whatever investment theory you had. The host looked at opportunities that arose from overlooked tailwinds or market-ignored headwinds.

At World First, the Brexit vote happened. World First was a British-owned company. For months leading up to it, everyone was dismissing the idea that people in the UK would vote to leave the Eurozone. The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb was very popular at the time. As a contrarian, the host was always on the lookout for popular bets to go against to get outsized returns. With everyone betting on continuity of the Eurozone, he took the opposite side with cheap long JPY over GBP trades, a great proxy for the Brexit vote.

The day of the vote came. Everyone was in early, 4 AM, just in case. Phones were quiet. They messed around, had breakfast from Paperboy in Austin, and chatted about the usual stuff. Most big clients were waiting for the UK to vote to remain so the British pound would get a nice lift and they could move big chunks of money into dollars. Noon came. News of the vote came through on the big TVs. They voted to leave. Yen over pounds moved 20%, a massive move for a currency pair that affects many trillions of dollars. It was immediate chaos. The phone started ringing and did not stop until they moved the calls over to the Australian desk at 11 PM.

The lesson from that time: it often pays to be prepared and seldom pays to be passive.

Entering the Sports Card Market in 2024

Fast forward to when the host entered the sports card market in 2024. He had been flipping EDM jerseys successfully through Facebook groups, but he needed a market that had structure, history, and durability. Something he could build systems in and play long games with.

The first few months were about experimentation. He started sourcing lots from Facebook Marketplace and thought that with grading being one of the highest leverages for profit, he could quickly get up to speed with his grading eye. If he bought from people who bought storage units but did not want to spend the time and patience to know cards, he could leverage his time and patience into an ROI.

He learned some quick lessons about how hard grading is. Even quadruple-checking through his first batch of cards, a bunch of 70s and junk wax baseball, basketball, and football, he did not get more than three 10s out of the entire 100-card submission. He got many more 5s and 6s than he cares to admit. He quickly learned he was not above statistics.

From there, he tried a bunch of different things: auction arbitrage, buying on one platform and selling on eBay, trackers on garage sales and estate sales, ads in the paper to ferret out collections, searching misspellings and off-hours auctions on eBay. But at the end of the day, what he learned again is there is no get-rich-quick scheme. There is just grinding out small wins and positioning yourself constantly better and better so you can pounce on big opportunities when they present themselves.

The Market-Legacy-Design Framework

For the host, thinking in terms of systems is just how he is wired. Cards clicked for him once he reframed the market into a three-part lens: market, legacy, and design.

The market-legacy-design valuation trinity came as he was thinking through the concepts themselves. It is really just a stretching of supply and demand to encompass the human inputs a little more fully. Supply and demand for who is buying and selling, or who is a fan of that player, how they will change throughout time, and the expression of that supply and demand for the set and for the specific card.

In the short term, these things are hugely important. All three have to be in sync for a card to truly pop off. One advantage the host has is experience in many different financial markets. From events like Brexit, COVID, and the U.S.-China tariffs in 2016, he has a really good pulse on watershed moments. It is a sixth sense you develop by being curious and cognizant in those moments and then stringing those moments together into a web so you can feel the tremors from future events. This has freed him up from emotion so he can recognize how quickly these elements are changing and be nimble enough to pivot his thesis.

In the long term, it is all about the question: will it stand the test of time? Will the player, will the card, will the set? Because the real compound interest comes when the sports card demand side continues to grow and the same proportion still wants the card of the new people coming in. As more people enter the hobby, they still want that 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan. They always will. With the supply being capped, demand continues to rise forever. Price will correspondingly rise long-term.

Weaknesses and Rookie Mistakes

The host's biggest weakness is pride. Like many, he likes to be right. But in cards, that gets expensive. He used to hold a card waiting for the market to agree with him. There is no prize for being early if you cannot exit.

Here are some rookie mistakes he has made: Not giving himself a night to sleep on a big purchase. Being emotional or frustrated with people he is trying to do a deal with. Trying to pre-grade vintage baseball cards digitally, especially big cards where hundreds of dollars are made and lost through different grades. Buying cards before understanding how and where he could sell them. Failing to have an investment thesis.

Over time, he built a discipline: write a thesis for every major buy. Define the time frame, the catalyst, and the exit. If you do not have a thesis, your emotions are going to run the show. The game is going to punish that.

He has also learned to recognize the trap of falling in love with the story. Just because he wants a narrative to play out does not mean the market will agree. Players get injured, scandals break, spotlight shifts, liquidity dries up. That does not mean the thesis was wrong. It just means the timing was. But sometimes timing is everything.

Why Slabnomics Exists and Core Beliefs

The host started Slabnomics because he saw something missing. There was good content in the hobby. Plenty of hype, breaking news, showing pictures of cards, chasing down new collections. But what there is not enough of is rigor. Not enough structured thinking about why prices move. Not enough comparative analysis between sports, between sets, between eras.

He wanted to bring a voice that mixed investor logic with a love of collecting. A voice that helped people treat cards like a portfolio without losing the magic of the hobby. This is a $13 billion market and it is still growing. There is room for frameworks, there is room for discipline and intelligent optimism.

Here are some things the host truly believes: 99% of cards go down over time. Buying strong comes from relationships. Selling strong comes from systems. Narrative is the real engine of sports card investment. Attention compounds faster than ROI. Being forced to sell is death to your ROI.

The part of his collection the host is most proud of is the cool moments he gets to capture within it. As a historian, he likes iconic stuff, especially iconic rookie signatures. He likes to think that when a player held that card and signed it, they got to think back to that time when they were just a fresh-face rookie. He likes to think of the concept of cards as portals.

If money is energy and attention is currency, then what you are really doing every time you buy a card is voting for a story to become true. The best investors vote early, exit clean, and keep their ego out of it.

Related Episodes