NextGem

AI-driven discovery for rare sports cards

NextGem was built to modernize the way collectors showcase, discover, and connect over rare and graded sports cards. With high-quality scans, sleek profile tools, and a social feed that elevated standout inventory, it quickly became a destination for passionate collectors looking to move beyond traditional forums and marketplaces.

As the company faced mounting challenges—declining user engagement, an unsustainable cost structure, and no clear monetization path—Derrick Fountain was asked to step in as CEO. Under his leadership, the focus shifted to restoring operational discipline, testing demand-side features, and narrowing in on what the business needed to survive

Restoring Focus and Financial Control

To preserve runway and keep the platform online, a lean operating model in was introduced. Engineering was shifted to an on-demand setup, cloud infrastructure was refactored, and nonessential spend was removed. These changes materially reduced burn without compromising platform stability, giving the business room to rethink and reset.

Pushing for Product-Market Fit

Despite renewed efforts, broader market trends proved hard to overcome. Collector fatigue, increased competition, and shifting platform preferences caused a 35% drop in monthly active users. In response, the team focused on driving buyer-side engagement with curated collections, personalized drop alerts, and event-driven promos—most notably around the National Sports Collectors Convention.

Rebuilding for Liquidity and Matchmaking

With time and capital limited, the product roadmap was re-scoped toward liquidity and personalization. An automated ingestion and classification engine was built to index Instagram posts of high-value cards, enrich listings with AI-generated metadata, and notify users when inventory matched their interests. Hosted at fetch.nextgem.com, this pipeline enabled real-time catalog growth and more precise targeting.

Testing Real Demand

Campaigns centered on nostalgic grails and timely events brought some momentum back, but most transactions continued to close off-platform. While user engagement was encouraging, it wasn’t translating into retained value for the marketplace.

A Principled Exit

When it became clear the model couldn’t scale in the current conditions, the decision was made to sunset the platform responsibly. A structured wind-down was led with transparency—reaching out to potential acquirers, fulfilling all obligations to users and investors, and ensuring that collectors had tools to export and preserve their portfolios.

What Endures

NextGem showed what’s possible when digital collecting meets great design—and what it takes to make hard decisions in the face of shifting markets. While the venture ultimately closed, the process was marked by clear leadership, rigorous iteration, and a respect for the community it served.