The Sneaker Savant

Recap:
1. I re-post the @nicekicksvault x @panini post on my story
2. One of my IG followers posts a very supportive comment (I did a great job editing his name out 😂)
3. @nicekicksvault responds
4. Another one of my followers screenshots the exchange
5. I head on over to the post on @nicekicksvault to respond, but it’s already been taken down

This all happened in a matter of about 4 minutes.

I’m not totally sure what any of this means - but I do know that what Panini is doing and what I am *trying* to do are two totally different things.
* Panini’s focus is on the NBA. My focus is on sneakers.
* Panini has a long, rich, storied history in the sports card hobby. I have a smaller * history in the sneaker world.
* Panini probably has tens if not hundreds of employees working on these products. I am one dude working with a few friends trying to navigate it.
* Panini has probably more than 1,000,000,000 physical cards on the market. I have about 20,000 TOTAL cards on the market.
* Panini’s hourly budget probably exceeds my yearly budget.

I’m not sure what was meant by ‘simply riding the wave of card popularity that’s currently happening’. I definitely saw a wave coming - the one where sneaker collectors have started posting about cards (IMO b/c of lockdown). But creating a card set isn't exactly 'simple.' Just know that I put way more energy, thought and passion into this project than can be quantified by numbers alone.

Is it ‘groundbreaking’ or ‘innovative’? I don’t know. But I have been a sneaker collector for 20+ years I’ve never seen a cohesive, structured, set of sneaker trading cards. Not a single one.

@nicekicksvault could be right and that’s fine. I just wish I had a chance to respond before the exchange was deleted.

@nicekicksvault I’d love to send you a few packs so you can see what I’ve put together. LMK!

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