IU alumnus finds career in Magic

Some people can turn hobbies into careers. For Douglas Linn, an IU Maurer School of Law graduate, Magic the Gathering was a game he started to play when he was just 10 years old. Now, it is much more.

Linn, who graduated this past December, teamed up with Kelly Reid, creator of www.quietspeculation.com. The online magazine focuses on how to play, trade, sell and finance the game of Magic the Gathering.

Reid, who had moved to New York City and was laid off three times in one calendar year, moved to Lafayette on a whim to find work. He needed a way to make new friends, so he got back into the habit of playing Magic. He began trading cards and making money on the side.

“I found that it was really easy to make money this way, for me. Yet not a lot of people were doing it,” Reid said.

He then started blogging about the trades he was going to make, to see if writing down the records would reveal trends.

“I figured hey, if I’m getting these right, then other people might want to read about it.” Reid said.

He then started the site at 4 a.m. and thought he would be reader number one and that would be it.

The website now has 10,000 subscribers. Most of the content is free, but they do have a modest subscription fee every month to be able to read specific articles about trading and finance with the cards.

Linn, who joined Reid this past November, brought his law knowledge to the small business.

“The website was created so that it could be a way for us to talk to other people who’re interested in trading and talk about how you can get a good collection of cards. You can have fun trading but still be ethical about it and learn how to deal with people who are shady and learn how to help out new people,” Linn said. “You can enjoy the game more because you don’t have to pay as much money for it.”

Linn said his law classes helped shape and improve the website.

“The core of quietspeculation.com is that everything we deal in is intellectual property. The only thing that we sell is information. So we have to make sure that the information is protected. We need to know who owns it, whether it’s the authors or us and when we make contracts with writers we need to know what we are doing,” Linn said.

He joined up with Reid and brought his knowledge about writing contracts. He said he wasn’t practicing the law but was bringing a little of what he remembered from contract classes along with his business and finance classes.

“I needed to make sure that everybody was happy, and that we weren’t breaking any laws and that we weren’t taking any content from people that we shouldn’t,” Linn said.

He uses his negotiation skills from law school to make contracts with several independent writers, and part of that is figuring out how much he is going to pay them, when he is going to pay them and who exactly gets the money, he said.

This past October, Linn said he was reading the Wall Street Journal and saw an advertisement for a small business owners contest. It involved writing an essay about how British Airways could help his business connect with a global community of customers. He contacted Reid, and they entered the contest that afternoon.

“The way you could win was that there was a voting feature and the top vote getters would win the contest. We put it on Twitter, sent it to people we knew and put it on the website saying, ‘Hey, if you guys want to help us out, this would be a real help.’ And the community of readers really came out for us and helped us and voted for us and we ended up winning it,” Linn said.

Reid is now on his way to travel around the world promoting the site and learning about gamers in different countries. 

He is currently in New York City for a three-day conference for small businesses and is then off to London.

“Kelly is going to spend a little time in Europe because there is a huge Magic tournament the weekend after this in Paris. After that he is off to visit hobby shops in Belgium, Germany and France,” Linn said. “He is then taking a 24-hour plane ride to Australia and New Zealand, which sounds pretty daunting to me.”

Reid, who started this website because of a hobby he has practiced for most of his life, is still in shock that he is able to travel around the world because of British Airways.

“It doesn’t even register at this point. It hasn’t hit me that I’m not going to be home for at least another five weeks,” Reid said. “Right now, it’s all very surreal. I can’t believe that there is anyone who reads the website. It impresses me on a daily basis.”

Reid, who has made his career off Magic the Gathering, also owns Dragons Den, a gaming store in Lafayette. It’s what pays the bills and puts food on the table, he said.

Linn said he plans to use his law degree and will take the bar exam, along with continuing to be a part of quietspeculation.com.