This interview covers how serial entrepreneur Leore Avidar uses APIs (tools that let software talk to each other) to turn physical mail into something as easy as email, and how he's turning collectibles like sports cards and sneakers into investable assets like stocks. He predicts collectibles will become a standard part of everyone's portfolio in 5-7 years. Key holdings: Lob (his mail API company, aiming for IPO in 2024); Alt (his collectibles platform, planning to cut eBay's 10% fee to 2% or even 0%); eBay (currently high fees, may be disrupted by Alt).
Leore Avidar shared on the program his entrepreneurial journey from founding Lob (enabling programmatic direct mail via API) to launching Alt, a sports card collectibles platform. His core thesis is "creating and selling superpowers"—that is, making the physical world (e.g., mail, trading cards) pro
Leore Avidar is the founder of Lob (API direct mail) and Alt (sports card collectibles platform). The main thread of this episode revolves around "creating and selling superpowers"—making the physical world programmable via APIs, and building collectibles as a new generation of financial assets. The most impactful judgment of the entire episode: Leore Avidar believes that collectibles (sports cards, sneakers, art, etc.) will transform into financial assets, just like stocks, foreign exchange, and cryptocurrencies did in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a "standard" asset class in personal portfolios within the next 5-7 years, with their intrinsic value quantifiable via a DCF model of "cultural appeal."
Leore Avidar argues that the core value of APIs is not the technology itself, but simultaneously solving "business problems faster" and "saving time," thereby giving developers a "superpower." He cites AWS as the benchmark, noting that developers have finally become the "front office" of the company rather than the "IT back office." Lob's API turns physical direct mail (printing, stuffing, mailing) into a black box: input HTML + address, output a physical letter. This abstraction layer lets developers ignore the physical process, similar to how Stripe hides payment complexity. Supporting data: Lob's early handling of Benefitter's 30,000-piece mail order, totaling over $30,000, was done by manual printing + outsourcing — a classic example of "fake it till you make it" iteration.
Leore notes that Lob went through four pricing model iterations, with the key lesson being the balance between "simple pricing" and "customer perceived value." Initially, the all-inclusive price ($1 per page letter, $0.60 per postcard) made customers think it was more expensive than USPS. The second iteration split into a "technology licensing fee" and a "commoditized printing cost," allowing customers to see the technology value ($0.42 vs. USPS $0.45) and be willing to pay for value-added services. The third iteration shifted from "prepaid committed usage" to "prepaid license fee + postpaid actual usage at month-end," similar to the "rollover minutes" problem in mobile plans that forced a change. Leore emphasizes: "Our North Star is customer benefit, even though prepaid was more favorable for Lob, we adjusted." This evolution transformed Lob's perception from a "physical printer" to "software fees."
Lob's physical infrastructure went through four stages: home printer → local mom-and-pop shop → regional commercial printer → publicly traded company partners. The core innovation is the "Print Delivery Network": through a routing engine, it automatically assigns tasks to the printer closest to the recipient based on dimensions such as letter content, color, destination, and partner capacity, optimizing speed. Key data: Lob has a direct partnership with USPS, enabling extraction of mail metadata within the postal system to achieve FedEx-like tracking, making direct mail "data-driven." The biggest challenge was not the physical aspect, but culture: changing the term from "vendor" to "partner" transformed the outsourcing relationship into a win-win ecosystem.
Through extensive buying and selling of collectibles on eBay, Leore accumulated "negotiation at-bats" and concluded: scarcity (e.g., a one-of-a-kind sports card) determines negotiation outcomes more than temporary leverage (e.g., time pressure); kindness is more effective than toughness. He observes that if you miss a scarce item, the next one could double in price. Tough negotiations that "win once" damage reputation, leading to no future trading opportunities. His falsification condition: if a negotiator focuses only on a single win or loss, long-term gains will suffer.
Leore estimates that the five major collectibles categories — sports cards, sneakers, watches, art, and domain names — together exceed $160 billion, with some categories doubling in annual growth rate. He founded Alt to address three core pain points: 1) managing portfolios with Excel (no centralized account); 2) insurance being cumbersome due to daily valuation changes; 3) desire for liquidity after high appreciation without selling. Alt's vision is to "increase transparency and liquidity" — not an exchange, but an open platform providing valuation, insurance, custody, lending, and other infrastructure, allowing other companies (like Rally Road, Masterworks) to build on top of it. Valuation method: by partnering with multiple trading platforms, Alt builds the "world's largest database of verified transactions" and uses quantitative models (similar to Opendoor's pricing of houses) to triangulate the price of any card, even if that card has no direct transaction data.
Leore proposes a unique framework: the intrinsic value of collectibles can be quantified through "cultural appeal." Using the Mona Lisa as an example, its value is equivalent to "how much ticket revenue would drop if it were removed from the Louvre" — that is, the additional revenue it brings to the venue. Similarly, every card, shoe, or game cartridge has an "appeal" that can be calculated, allowing it to be priced like a DCF. This means collectibles can generate "passive income" (e.g., through leasing) and will become financialized in the future. He predicts that in the future, every collectible will have a transparent valuation, and people will be able to lend physical items just like lending stocks.
Leore believes that investors should not be judged solely on absolute returns, but on risk-adjusted returns (Sharpe ratio). Because if an individual takes on extremely high risk, generating high returns is expected and not superior to the market. Key to performance attribution: Good investors have discipline — strict entry points when buying, and the ability to decisively exit when losing (when the investment thesis is disproven), rather than holding on until breakeven. He cites Thinking in Bets to emphasize the decision process over the outcome. For choosing partners, he values complementary skills (e.g., marketing) and kindness (long-term relationships last longer than the average marriage).
Leore predicts that collectibles will become a fixed component of asset allocation, just like real estate: after equities, bonds, real estate, and precious metals, "physical collectibles" will follow. Drivers: 1) legalization of sports betting makes sports cards an indirect way to bet on players; 2) cultural assets (representing a generation's stories) appreciate with income growth; 3) standardization and financialization reduce transaction costs. Specific timeline he gives: Lob aims to go public in 2024; Alt will reduce eBay's 10% transaction fee to 2% or even 0% within a year.
| Position | Guest's Stance | Key Data |
|---|---|---|
| Lob | Founder and CEO, bullish on its IPO prospects | Targets IPO in 2024; pricing model went through 4 iterations; partners with USPS to extract metadata; Print Delivery Network covers globally |
| Alt | Founder, bullish on collectibles infrastructure platform | Five categories market >$160 billion; some categories annual growth rate doubles; personal collection 5-year IRR >150% (includes arbitrage strategies); purchased LeBron James rookie card (most expensive basketball card) as trust endorsement |
| Twilio | Viewed as API industry benchmark | Mentioned as leader in "making the world programmable" |
| Shippo | Viewed as API peer | Mentioned CEO Laura, and shares USPS data with Lob |
| Rally Road | Partner, not competitor | Provides securitized assets, can integrate with Alt |
| Masterworks | Partner, not competitor | Art securitization, similar model |
| eBay | Current main trading channel, to be replaced in the future | Current transaction fee 10%, Leore predicts reduction to 2% or 0% within a year |
| USPS | Partner | Processes >100 million mail pieces daily; election ballots account for less than 1% of its typical daily volume |
| Benefitter | Historical customer | Early order of 30,000 mail pieces, value over $30,000 |
| Ubiquity Networks | Historical customer | First enterprise-level paying customer (publicly traded company) |
1. Leore Avidar: Collectibles will become a standard asset allocation item like real estate, and every 401(k) will have a "collectibles" allocation within 5-7 years. Support: five categories market >$160 billion, some categories annual growth rate doubles, and the value of cultural assets increases with generational income growth.
2. Leore Avidar: The intrinsic value of collectibles can be priced via DCF based on "cultural appeal" — just as the Mona Lisa's value equals the loss in ticket revenue if it were removed from the Louvre. Support: this framework allows collectibles to generate passive income (e.g., via leasing), thereby enabling financialization, such as lending like stocks.
3. Leore Avidar: Alt's goal is not to be an exchange, but an open platform — providing infrastructure for valuation, insurance, custody, lending, etc., enabling other companies (like Rally Road, Masterworks) to build businesses on top of it. Support: transaction fees will drop from eBay's 10% to 2% or even 0% within a year, which is key to increasing liquidity.
4. Leore Avidar: The essence of APIs is "superpowers" — they not only save time but also accelerate developers' careers. Support: Lob's API turns physical direct mail into a black box (input HTML + address, output physical letter), similar to the abstraction layers of Stripe and Twilio.
5. Leore Avidar: Scarcity is more powerful than temporary leverage in negotiations — missing a one-of-a-kind collectible, the next one could double in price. Support: summarized from thousands of eBay trading at-bats: kind negotiation outperforms toughness, and long-term reputation is more important.
6. Leore Avidar: Good investors should be measured by risk-adjusted return (Sharpe ratio), not absolute return — because high returns may simply be the result of high risk. Support: the key quality is discipline — strict entry points when buying, and decisive exit when the thesis is disproven, rather than holding on until breakeven.
7. Leore Avidar: Lob's pricing model went through four iterations, from "all-inclusive" to "SaaS + commodity" to "postpaid actual usage," with the key lesson being that simple pricing must match customer perceived value. Support: the initial all-inclusive price made customers feel it was more expensive than USPS; after splitting into technology fee + commoditized cost, Lob's printing cost was actually lower than USPS ($0.42 vs. $0.45).
8. Leore Avidar: The bottleneck of physical world infrastructure is not technology, but culture — changing the term from "vendor" to "partner" transformed the entire company's collaborative mindset. Support: Lob's Print Delivery Network optimizes speed through a routing engine, but the early manual printing (30,000-piece order worth over $30,000) iteration was the key learning.