Misprint

What do they actually do

Misprint runs a consumer marketplace for graded Pokémon cards and sealed Pokémon products. It uses a bid/ask model: buyers place bids, sellers list asks, and when prices meet, the trade executes automatically, similar to an exchange rather than a classifieds site (homepage; FAQ; YC profile).

Sellers can list quickly from photos, and the mobile app includes a slab-scanner (beta) that reads grading labels to auto-fill item details. Buyers can see live and historical price views, and the marketplace provides buyer protections and seller verification for graded items (App Store; FAQ). The product is live on web and mobile, with a visible "Just Sold" feed showing recent sales activity (homepage).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Casual collectors of graded Pokémon cards: Pricing is opaque and slow to check across multiple sites, so they worry about overpaying or underselling and want simple, trustworthy signals for when to buy or sell.
• Part-time flippers and small independent sellers: Listing many items is tedious and error-prone; manual entry slows them down and reduces margins because matching can be unpredictable and delayed.
• Serious collectors and market watchers: They track values across many cards and need reliable, fast valuations with historical context; current tools don’t provide consistent, real-time quotes.
• Buyers and sellers focused on graded slabs: Typing slab details by hand causes mistakes, and disputes over authenticity/condition are costly; they want easier verification and trustable transaction flows.
• Local shops and small businesses listing inventory online: They need predictable, fast matching and straightforward shipping/payment rules so stock turns quickly; existing marketplaces can have liquidity gaps and operational complexity.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Personally recruit local collectors and part-time sellers from Discord, Reddit, and nearby card shops, offer white-glove onboarding (help scan slabs and list from photos) and waive initial fees to seed visible sales in the Just Sold feed (homepage; App Store slab scanner).
• First 50: Host weekend pop-ups at card shops/meetups to bulk-scan and list shop and attendee inventory; give small referral credits and, where needed, seed the order book by buying targeted low-liquidity items to accelerate matches (YC profile; FAQ on marketplace flow/shipping).
• First 100: Publish how-to listing videos and weekly market updates, run a referral program tied to credits, test targeted paid social to card groups, and onboard a few larger shops with batch-upload support to deepen inventory and tighten spreads (App Store "Live Market Insights"; homepage community/referrals).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Collectibles overall are very large (~$306B in 2024), while trading card games sit in the single- to low double-digit billions; Misprint addresses the secondary resale slice rather than the whole category (Grand View Research; BCC Research, CMI).

Bottom-up calculation:

Observed resale volumes show scale: eBay trading-card sales were about $240M in March 2025 alone; annualizing across platforms implies multi-billion-dollar secondary GMV, of which graded and sealed Pokémon is plausibly in the low single-digit billions (~$0.5B–$5B) today (cllct/Card Ladder). Grading services themselves are a ~$1.4B market, signaling concentrated demand for graded items (Dataintelo).

Assumptions:

• Pokémon represents a large minority to plurality of trading-card resale dollars given production scale and marketplace share.
• A meaningful share of Pokémon resale value is in graded cards and sealed products (higher average order values).
• eBay’s observed monthly trading-card volume is a useful proxy for wider secondary-market activity across platforms.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• eBay: The largest general marketplace for trading cards with auctions and fixed-price listings, plus an Authenticity Guarantee for higher-value cards; it offers broad reach and price discovery but isn’t card-exchange specific (eBay; Authenticity Guarantee).
• StockX: An exchange-style marketplace with bid/ask and centralized verification; it lists graded singles for Pokémon and competes on trust and price transparency for slabs (graded singles; how to buy/sell).
• TCGplayer: A card-first marketplace used by hobby stores and high-volume sellers for singles and sealed product with robust seller tools; less focused on graded-exchange mechanics or real-time bids (TCGplayer; fees).
• Fanatics Collect (PWCC): A large consignment and auction platform with fixed-price options, vaulting, and grading partnerships; targets higher-value consignment sellers and auction buyers (announcement/services).
• COMC (Check Out My Cards): A vaulted consignment marketplace that ingests bulk submissions, scans/lists items, and offers grading pathways; attractive for hands-off bulk selling rather than fast mobile listing (COMC Sell; FAQ).