Lizard's Rant

I’m all in. Time to take a shot at really changing things.

I haven’t posted in the past few weeks because I’ve been thinking a lot about my last post about how I think blogs will save the card industry. I read the comments, got a few emails, talked to my partners, and then spent some time really thinking about the opportunity at hand and how I/we could leverage the SportsLizard brand to make (more of) an impact. As most of you know by now, my partners and I have our hands full with our e-commerce sites. But we’re always open to interesting opportunities, and the state of the card industry definitely presents one.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

1. A truly free version of the Price Guide, meaning no log in required and unlimited price searches for everyone. I’m also considering renaming it to the SportsLizard Pricing Tool to disassociate it with price guides and better describe what it really does. I want to make it very very obvious to people that the tool is just one piece in the puzzle so I’ll probably display something similar to the process that I use to price a card on the pricing tool page.
2. An aggregated online sports collectible magazine (any ideas for names?). This is the “big idea”. If I think there are a ton of great bloggers out there, wouldn’t it reason to create a place where all of their content is available? This would be automated, so essentially it would go out and grab the best posts of independent collectibles bloggers and put them all in one place. You could sign up for a daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter, or read and comment directly on the site. Essentially - challenge the content of Beckett.com with something far better: content by the collectors, for the collectors. Now, this will require the permission of each participant. I will make a list of the best of the best and then contact anyone who I think fits the bill. The benefits are obvious for both parties: SportsLizard gets great content for this “magazine” and the blogger gets more publicity for themselves and their site.
3. A revamped design focusing on #1 and #2 (and on the marketplace). Other aspects of the site - the customs section, the announcer reviews, etc - will still be available, but just won’t be at the forefront of what we’re trying to do.

Target release date: 9/1 (got a project or two to finish before I can really hammer this hard).

Man I’m pumped. I’ll probably continue to post sparingly about collectibles until that time, using this blog mostly for progress updates until the launch date. There’s only one way this has a chance of working: buy in from you, the collector. We’re a small company and the only way we can take on a giant is with the help of the collectors who are visiting shows and interacting on forums. Hopefully what we come up with will “wow” people enough to make the idea spread like wildfire naturally.

Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? I’m all ears.