Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the Panatic podcast weekly show where we discuss pens, paper and the analog tools that we love so dearly. My name is Mike Hurley and I have the pleasure of welcoming Mr Moneybags himself. Bradley. I wouldn't go there quite yet, but we are well on our way I guess. We're talking about this in a bit. This is a tease. We're going to do some follow-up first. We're going to make it as rough for you as it is for me. Yeah, I don't know who's more excited about this show. You were me. I think I might be. I think you might be. So in last week's episode, you will remember that I was very panicky about mentioning a listener who I had bumped into a listener of the show, was wearing a 70S bus t-shirt and I was deliberating over the person's name. Yeah, you were very worried whether you were getting it right or not. How'd that work out for you? Yeah, I got it wrong. I actually then went into last week's show notes and updated it after I realized my grievous error, but it was actually Dylan Ian Carter at Dylan Ian Carter who is the fantastic fan of the show who came up to me at the five by five meet up in Portland. So Dylan, apologies, your name is not Jason as much as I do. Do you know what? I actually said that he's face as well. I was like, Jason? He was like, no. I was like, oh, I think you're somebody else. That was why I did it, you see, for some reason. I think that his name is Jason, but yeah, but that's not the case. He's in fact a very, very handsome, very lovely listener by the name of Dylan. So Dylan, thank you for being awesome. And I am ashamed. I will die by my own pen sword for that mistake. Well, glad you got that cleared up indeed. What else do we have? Right. I mentioned that the London Pen Show is coming up. So is that like next week or something? It's this coming Sunday. Oh, wow. So just in a few days. So we had the London Pen Show on the horizon. So there's a couple of things. I want people to send in their suggestions to meet the things that I should be looking out for. I don't really have a very big budget, but I am expecting to be making like a trip out for the London Pen Show. Also as well as that, if you are a UK-based listener and are going to be at the Pen Show, let me know, because if there's a handful of us, then maybe we'll get together and have a beer afterwards or something like that, which might be great. Very nice. Very nice. I need to work on doing more, more meetups. I think maybe that's in the cards in the future, you know. Yeah. Need to get out more. I've never really done any in London. 2014 might be the year for the Panatic Meetup. Yeah. Maybe I might be out. If we're going to arrange it that far in advance, maybe I'll have to show up too. Yeah. Yeah. We'll do some stuff like that. That's always been on my radar. It's just hard to get all that coordinated and stuff, but yeah. Love it. So yeah. Let might know if y'all are going to be at the Pen Show. That'd be cool. And then we can-- He'll get your name wrong there too. Exactly. And then next week I can come back with a list of people and it's just all random people. I list the cast of, I don't know, glee or something like that instead. I received my field notes. Oh, good. Yeah. I want to hear what you think. Here they are right here. All right. I've got the-- did you mention the little thing that they come in? The six-pack holder? Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't remember that. One last little addition. I don't really know what to do with it. I know. But I've got it here. I guess I'll have to find someone to put it because they're currently sitting outside of my archive memo box thing. But I like them very much, the little box. The whole package itself is really nice. You've got the little coasters, which are nice and thick. The books are weird, right? Not in a bad way, but they're not field notes as I know them. What do you think it's the cover? Yeah, the cover. Like to touch them. Mm-hmm. They don't feel like field notes. Yeah. It's a new style cover. I mean, that was one of the add-ons in the right word, but that was one of the specific features of this addition was that satiny type color. And it was funny. I just reviewed that Rodeo R notebook and had the same type of cover. And I've felt those on different other stationary products in the past. It's not a new thing. So I have a theory, a theory about why I think that they are this, like this got that waxy varnished cover. So if you get them wet, it doesn't destroy them. That's right. A piece of your beer on them. You're in good shape. I love the colors. Colors are very all to me. Very, very nice colors. I haven't used one yet. I look forward to it, because I'm kind of, I'm not sure how I feel about the cover. I love them, but also I'm weird about them. Like if you gave me, I would be very happy with it, but it's just because I know what this is and when I pick it up, it feels strange. Okay. But I like the way they look. I think they look fantastic. The colors are great. So the covers are nice if they're removed, but the fact that they're not my normal field notes field strings, but I like that it's more durable. Yeah. I'm interested to see how it wears. I remember now, if you remember back when we had Brian on the show, Brian Bedell from Field Notes. Remember how he said he was carrying a folded up piece of cover in his pocket to see how it would wear? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was this cover. So I'm, I'm interested to see how it's going to wear too, because I've been using mine a ton so far. I, I'm completely in love with the Hepha Visin grid color. That's one of the best things ever in, in my book for me. And, but what I'm seeing is, okay, so like you open it up and the cover, you know, you have that, the finish on the outside cover and then the inside cover, it's a little bit different finish, but it's still different than your normal field notes cover and the inside covers are black. So when you open up the cover, like if I've had it, you know, folded back around itself or something like that, there's a break just like any other book would in the cover next to where the binding is. So that shows up white, right, because you're, you're wearing it. Sure. So like it cracks there, you know, like it, it normally would. I'm just wondering how that's going to wear over time, like if there's going to be any cover issues. So I wonder if that's why he was carrying around so much and I'm interested to see because I have noticed that like, I wonder if that's going to be more prone to, to kind of coming apart there, but to be determined needs needs more wear testing, but I don't think it's going to be an issue. It's just something that I noticed because the covers are black and you can see the white cracking through. Yeah, I had like an interesting, um, on, on my original XO, XO edition, it has an interesting wear in it where the colors just come away, just strange. I don't really know why that, that happened, but I kind of like it. So I wonder if it might be like that, like you've got these cracks in it and it will show the paper underneath, but yeah, I think that's just, I mean, one of my favorite things about the XO XO one that I've got is that it's got these awesome, like white patches on the back. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. It's one of those things where it's just a nice wear pattern that actually becomes, you know, something you like about the book. I like, I see the expedition additions, people that have been using those a bunch. They have that like the wear pattern through the orange cover. Yeah. It's really nice. I like the web. Like saying that it's going to wear, I kind of hope that they do is part of me that really likes it. Yep. Yep. And while we're on the field notes thing, I have a clarification to make from last week a statement I made that was incorrect. So I want to make sure everyone's on the same page. I don't want incorrect information out there. After the, after last week's show, when we were talking about the quantities of field notes and how they print, Brian Biddell reached out to me because I said that they make, that they have print run for the colors, additions and for online sales. And then they have a separate retail print run and that's incorrect information. So for example, the drink local is 60,000 books total, right? So they did 30,000 ails, 30,000 loggers. That's for color subscriptions. That's for retailers. That's for field notes online sales. That's it. That's like the all-encompassing number. It's not double that. Like I said, I don't know where I got that in my head because there's some old additions that had regular additions and retail additions and things like that. So I got confused there and misspoke. So I wanted to make sure that when you see the field, the print runs listed on field notes, that is the total actual print run, which makes sense. Yeah, you confused me because I don't remember I said mentioning that. I don't know what I was thinking. So I was having, I was having a senior moment. We've spoken quite a lot about the field notes group on Facebook. Yeah. They are now, they are now field nuts. Yes. So there was a little, I don't think there wasn't a problem or anything, but they needed to switch the name of the group and I think the Facebook rules are once the group gets over 250 people in size, you can't change the name. So if you were part of the old field notes fan group on Facebook, there's a post that says go to the field nuts page and sign up there and get transferred over. And there's a field nuts website now, fieldnuts.com, and they've got a Twitter account here. Yes. I think it's just because it's, they didn't have their own brand. It was just called Field Notes and then it took off. So it was like, well, yeah, let's make a thing out of it. Yep. Exactly right. It could not be any nicer folks over there. They're very helpful. And you know, they were talking about, you know, the mistake I made on the thing last week. Oh, wait, wait. That's like sweet. Yeah. And they were like, is that right? That doesn't sound right. And I jumped it because Brian had emailed me like either that night or the next by the next morning, just saying, Hey, you misspoke there. So I've went over there and I made sure it was like, Oh yeah, I said this wrong. So sorry about that. And we're going to, I'll put a clarification out next week. So I want to make sure I get that right. You can't be trusted. I know. I know I'm a problem child. You are. So an interesting piece of news before we go into our sponsor and then just spend the rest of the episode talking about what everyone wants us to talk about, I'm sure this sort of permeated my two worlds today. So do you remember the iPad app paper, yeah, by a company called 53? Yes. So it's like, if anybody doesn't know, it's like, it looks like a virtual moleskin notebook that you open up and you can get different brushes and you can, you can use like different pens and colors and stuff and you can create art in the more sketches or whatever. Well, the company 53 have partnered with moleskin to create something they're calling book. So you can turn 15 sheets of a book of 15 sheets into a four by three format moleskin book, which they've created for this project, mosque and created with the 53 people. And they will basically print the artwork that you've created into a moleskin book. Okay, I see. So you, you do the artwork in paper, I think so, and then they printed into a book. I said that. I'm just looking at it right now. And now I feel like I need to go check that. Yeah, it's a stunning custom printed books created right from paper. Yeah. Paper meaning the app for those aren't for, that's the name of the app, which is a really impressive that really impressive that I mean, I never really, I never, I've always downloaded it on my iPad. It lives there. I've never had a huge use for it, but it's exceptionally well done and easy to use. Yeah, kids are kind of crazy. Oh my gosh. Yes. What they're doing. Yeah. So they will then turn them on and it's basically worked with moleskin to create these, which is quite a good, quite a good partnership. Yeah. So it looks. Yeah. Okay. I see. I'm flipping that this page is really nice. Yeah. I'm going through and I definitely see the artwork is definitely the paper style artwork that you've already always been able to create, which is really, really nice. Yeah. This is a great idea. Yeah. Like this, and I can't remember what one it is. I think it might be their Japanese sketchbook. Yeah. Where? Yeah. I don't know. What was it called? Maybe it's folio. Folio sketchbook. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where it opens up as opposed to you, you don't, you don't flip the pages, you open it out. Right. It's like accordion style. Yeah. And that's what this book is. How this book is created. Yeah. For sure. Interesting choice. I don't know if it's how I would want it because yeah, I mean, I'm not that artistic. I wouldn't want to see my, my artwork live on and for me in a book, but I think for some people it would probably work for definitely for the people that create artwork. If nothing else, it's an interesting idea. I mean, I like the, I definitely like the idea of it. I think that it's a perfect pairing. Mm hmm, I think it makes sense to do that. Do we have any more follow-up of any kind? Um, I don't think so, I don't think so, my mind's a little, I'm a little foggy today. Oh, really? You'll have to excuse me. Yeah. I'm not surprised. Right. Let's take a quick break then. We'll, we'll thank our sponsor and then we'll get into the, the real topic for today. All right. So let's take a quick moment to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. They are the all in one platform that makes it faster and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, online store, site for your business, basically any project you want to put online, Squarespace can give you the tools to do that. For a free trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code, tallyhoe10. So Squarespace are always doing great stuff to make sure that their product is changing and evolving and updating. They're always adding new features, new design templates, and they're making sure that their support works even better for you. They have really beautiful designs you to work with. They have 20 highly customizable templates, which have won numerous design awards. And they also feature loads of great style options to allow you to tweak and create your own space online. You can change fonts, colors, and you can create your pages by drag and dropping items around the page. That's how me and Brad create our field notes pages on our respective Squarespace websites. We just drag in image box and drag them around the page. It's very, very easy. But if you need any help at Squarespace, they have a fantastic support team that worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They're always on hand to help you if you need anything at all. Squarespace is beautiful, sort of inside and out, not only did the templates look fantastic. The back end system looks great, too. It's really easy to use when you're like sort of making changes to your site and posting to your blogs and stuff. That's all really looks really good. But they also have very clean code as well. So it's really great for like search engine optimization. So people searching on Google, they're more likely to find your website. They're putting the, you know, relevant keywords and terms in that's a real dark art SEO. And they take care of that bit for you. So you just don't have to. It's just one less thing that you have to worry about. You just don't have to worry about anything with Squarespace. Their plans started just $8 a month and they include a free domain name if you sign up for a year up front. I want you to go and sign up now and try it out for free by going to squarespace.com. There's no credit card required. You just enter in some very basic information and you can start building your website. And when you decide to sign up, make sure you use the offer code tallyho10 as T-A-L-L-Y H-O and the number 10, 1-0. And that's going to show you support for the pen addict and all of 5x5. So thanks so much to Squarespace for sponsoring and for giving you everything that you need to create an exceptional website. All right, tallyho10. Tallyho10. All right. I like it. So. Yesterday at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Read P.M. London time. That's what I meant to say, 10 a.m. Eastern time. The NOCO Kickstarter was launched with a goal of $5,000, went on to the Kickstarter and has a fantastic video. I really liked that you put little bloopers in at the start. That was a lot of fun. I thought I very much enjoyed your video, but the production quality was excellent on the video. Yeah, our French Sharif did a bang up job on that. I loved it. It was very Kickstarter. Good. So it fit in. It fits in perfectly. You know that the nice music and the elegant voice over provided by you and the guy with the close up of Jeffery using the books and with his using dome paper and he's got his NOC pencil cases next to him. I liked it when he was putting all his stuff and arranging them and you're talking about which I really liked. You're talking about the fact that you want to protect your cases so you worked with Jeffery to build them the way that you wanted and I think that especially that bit where you're like, "I have like a thousand dollars worth of pens. I've got to protect him." I was like, "Right. That proves the point, everyone." And then we've got so you have a big range of, you have, is it five or six? So there's, gosh, one, two, three, four, five, six. There are six styles, six models, six models, if you will, on our launch. We had lots of ideas, lots of designs that we went through and sketching and prototyping and things like that to narrow it down to kind of what's going to be our core products, you know, our core launch products. And you know, these are the all the ones we were excited about. We thought there was a need for each of these in some way, shape, or form. And, you know, they each kind of accomplished something a little bit different depending on, you know, what you're looking for in a pen case. So we tried to make a range of products that would fit all kinds of needs for all kinds of people. And that's been one of the coolest things about this so far is the way people are latching on to different products already and seeing a certain style and they're saying, that's exactly what I'm looking for for this use or, you know, I haven't had anything like that before, but and I didn't realize that that's what I needed, but that's, you know, a perfect fit for what I'm trying to do, you know, with my pen storage or notebook storage. So it's been really cool to see the feedback that we're getting on the products. You know, that's been that was the most, that was the most nerve-wracking thing for me really is not the money, but are people going to like the product or are they going to like what they see? Are we going to be able to present it in a way to where they understand what we're trying to accomplish? And so far the feedback's been overwhelmingly like stunningly positive and I'm very, very excited about that. So you have a range of tiers, backing tiers, ranging from $15 to $75 for the products, and then you've got that like elusive kickstarter thing of pay us a chunk of money and you can come make your own thing and have a bunch of us, you know, that's kind of a kickstarter thing that you just kind of do just in case. In case somebody's in it like lives around the area and wants to come hang out. Yeah, we figured Atlanta is a big enough area and has enough places around that if someone wanted to make a custom design case and meet Jeff and I and meet dinner and design your own pin case, we wanted to make that available too. So no takers yet, but 28 days to go. So the interesting thing, the tier which I think is the Supreme tier, which is a $75 tier, which is all of the cases, as got the most backers currently. I didn't see that coming by a long shot. The reason that I think was the same for me is $75 for how many, six, seven, well, there'll be one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, because there's actually two chimney tops, the little one at the very top, there's a small and a medium size. So there's actually those come, they essentially come together. So you get seven for $75, which is just incredible value. So I was like, whatever your top tier was, I was going to do it, except the 250, because it will cost me a lot of money to come over there and $10 shipping for outside the US is awesome. That's a good range. So this went out, I have loads more questions by the way, but I want to carry on the story as it were. So this went out within one hour, you met your goal of $5,000. You currently have 28 days to go, you've just ticked over into your second day and you're at $27,333 with $720. Yeah, that look you see on my face right now is just a huge grin. I'm at a loss for words to be quite honest. So I'm sitting there, let me tell you about the launch. Oh yeah, tell me about that. So we're sitting there and Jeff and I are kind of running around like chickens with our heads cut off yesterday morning, just trying to get everything synced up to launch at 10 o'clock. And we got all that coordinated and set up and the launch went fine. So you push the button, you say launch, then they say, are you sure? And you say, yes, I'm sure. And then it's live, then that's it. I mean, it's like, okay, this project exists now on Kickstarter. And so we coordinated sending out our tweets and our blog posts and all that, just so everyone knew it were live and we sent out the mail that people signed up for and all that stuff. So you're sitting there and then you're kind of relieved and you're just sitting there because there's nothing to do now. You're just waiting and staring at the computer screen and here comes one backer. And then two and then it just started going berserk about 10 or 15 minutes into it. It was just like a countdown ticker in reverse, the numbers were just constantly moving. And I think before we even hit our goal, maybe only $1,000 or $2,000 into it, I'm just sitting there like, wow, this is really happening. I honestly got a little tear in my eyes, I can't believe this is happening. We've been working pretty hard on this and you want people to like it more than anything like I was saying earlier and I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. I mean, it could end right now and I'll be happy and not even meet our goal. But everyone kind of wants that confirmation in their life and to see the positive reaction, not to mention the amount that has been pledged so far is pretty stunning. And it's really hard to explain, to put that in words, like how you feel about seeing something like this. Pretty crazy. No, I know that the reason that you set the 5,000 goals because you're expected to meet it. Well, I assume that you expected to meet it, maybe even 10, 15, 20 days, maybe. I don't know. What were you thinking? Yeah, it was a long process to come up with that number. One, we wanted to make sure it did get backed. And number two, we wanted to make sure that if it did get backed, that we had the enough money to buy the machinery that we needed and buy all the materials that we need to make. If we just sold $5,000, say it just ended at 5,000 and that was our goal. We would then have enough money to buy the machinery that we need because we need an extra machine to make the stitching a little bit nicer on some of the pin pocket seams and things like that. And then give us enough material to make the product and also have some material to stock the store whenever that goes live. And that number we felt was going to be right in that $5,000 range, no more than like $7,000. So we chose $5,000 because we knew if nothing else, if we get to that number, we're going to be okay to launch our store because this, Jeffrey and I's goal is to not be a Kickstarter company, where we just do Kickstarter projects and make money or make a business off of just continual Kickstarter projects. We want to have an online business to sell these cases and to create other things and do a whole world of stuff that we have floating around in our heads. So our goal was to get enough money to get that started. And plus, just kind of ancillary to that, there's not a lot of necessarily, it's not a high dollar project. So we need a higher quantity of backers more than we need a higher quantity of dollars, if that makes sense. So that $5,000 goal seemed to be kind of the right thing to do. We felt that if we just got that number, you know, for 30 days and now is the number, we would be able to go on and begin, you know, the real business that we want to start once this campaign is over. Okay. So I was talking to Patrick Rowan earlier today. How about you? We're talking about your Kickstarter on our show enough. Okay. I'll have to go listen. And he, as I am, very surprised how cheap the cases are because you could charge, you could charge a lot more, especially like in the lower tiers, you know, like when you're looking at the chimney top, two cases of $15, right? These prices are really cheap. So how are you affording to sell them so cheaply? I think the main thing is that Jeffrey and I are doing a lot of the work ourselves. When you see these cases on here, Jeffrey has designed, cut, sewn, stitched, labeled, everything himself. So there's obviously a labor cost and we've actually, we figured in labor into our pricing, but we're not paying external sources to manufacture these. So there's not an extra, I guess, layer of cost, at least at this time. You never know how big it's going to get that we have to have to manufacture these cases. You know, I'm going to be handling a lot of the fulfillment and, you know, shipping and packing, you know, while there is a monetary value tied into my time to do that, I'm not paying a fulfillment and service to fulfill our orders, which would be an additional cost. So, you know, right now, that's the way we're set up, you know, we're able to make these cases that are really great quality, really cool designs, and I think provide a great value. That was my goal. When Jeffrey sat down, Jeffrey and I sat down the very first time, I kind of like, you know, I didn't physically do this, but I basically drew a circle around the price point that I wanted to be at with the materials I wanted to use and said there's a gaping hole right here in the market for a product like this. You know, there's all this high-end leather stuff, you know, that's, you know, 75 to $125 for cases. There's the very cheap low-end stuff that you can get at staples or, you know, the grocery store that's just kind of like bag type storage. I said there's nothing in here in the middle that I want to use in the materials that I want to use and in a style that I like, and I said this is where I want to end up, you know, there's right here in this big circle, there's nothing there, and I want to be in that circle. And so, you know, he came back, Jeffrey is pretty amazing the knowledge that he has in being able to, his experience with manufacturing and tailoring, he is able, he was able to put down, like our price spread sheet is awesome. He was able, he's able to account for everything, we're able to look at the prices and we're going, okay, we can do this. You know, this is where we need to be. This is how much it's going to cost us to get here and, you know, at that point we decided that this was actually a viable thing to do. I mean, because we didn't know until we started putting down the pricing, you know, where we're going to be able to be at on the price point wise. Now, that being said, you know, the Kickstarter prices are probably, are a little bit lower than we will be at retail, but they're close. I mean, I don't want to say, you know, they're not, I mean, they're either going to be the exact same or maybe a few dollars more. So it's not going to be much. So you're getting a little bit better deal, but at during the Kickstarter project, especially for like the, the brass town, the bigger case, that one's kind of complex to make. I can tell you right now that that one's going to be $35 once we go, you know, to retail at our store. So we did have a few minor price breaks on the Kickstarter campaign, just kind of get the ball rolling, but even, even then so, you know, it, it's still at a, at a good price for us to be able to, you know, to be able to be profitable and, you know, put this money into the equipment and everything we need to really ramp this up, you know, in an online store once the Kickstarter campaign's done. So I mean, obviously you would need to do that. I mean, I'm speaking for you, but if you ever wanted to put these in other online stores, you have to increase the price because the retailer needs a profit margin. And then if you're going to sell them on your own store, you then need to match the retail price, which is a simple business and doing it this way. So my question to you is, like you mentioned that, that Jeffrey is going to, I'm assuming you'll make him money, right? Yes. Yeah. These, at these prices, we are profitable. Yes. No doubt. So, wait, is it good? I mean, I haven't obviously got a ton of numbers, but is it good profitable? Like it's, you're not like making a cent, you know, like when you say profitable, you too, will come away with this with some money each. Yes. Yeah. We have the pricing set up right now as a, I don't know what the right terminology is, but basically as a, as a solid, it's solid retail pricing, you know, these Kickstarter prices are a little bit lower than the, what the regular retail is going to be, but the regular retail pricing includes us, you know, being able to price it to, to, we want to sell it to other companies and to other, you know, vendors and other pin stores to be able to resell it on their own. So we do have, you know, all of our pricing figured accordingly. Yeah. I guess that actually makes perfect sense because you've put these, a whole, these are wholesale prices, aren't they? What you're selling them? No. No. No. Okay. No. Oh, so you're making even more money than interest. Well, yeah. I mean, no, we're not, the, the Kickstarter price is not a wholesale price. Like the price isn't going to, you know, double or whatever when we go to our retail. This is, these are going to be close to the prices, you know, like the $15 cases might be 17 or $18 when we're done or, you know, after the Kickstarter campaigns over, you know, something like that. It's going to be in the ballpark. So you say that at the moment, it's mainly with a plan had been for you and Jeffrey to make these, right? Mm hmm. Right. If you have 5,000 of them to make in 38 days, 28 days, sorry, we've already contacted or Jeffrey's contacted the people that in his industry that he knows that are his friends that he's either worked with, works with now or is worked with in other, you know, tailoring, sewing, manufacturing ventures, and we'll be able to contract out to them to help us. If we, if we get like really overwhelmed and it keeps going and I hope we get to that point and we'll be able to handle the manufacturing with without issue, I don't, I don't think at all. And, you know, we have that figured in. And you factored all that into your costs as well? We did. You guys, you guys are real business men. Hey, all the credit goes to Jeffrey for that. Like, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have been able to come up with accurate pricing. Yeah. You know, I need him to do, you know, he's, he's laid out everything. You know, from the, you know, the zipper to the thread to the, the, the length of every single piece that goes in every single case and how much each of those pieces are. I mean, just like, you know, any legitimate business should, you know, we, we have our costs, you know, down to the penny on everything and that's, you know, including, you know, shipping and, you know, a manufacturing time and, and things like that. So, you know, hopefully the math's right. I mean, I don't know if it's obvious to people. I don't know if it's to you. I think it is to you why I'm asking these questions is because I want this to be a massive success for both of you and that this in some way changes both of your lives. That's what I want to happen. So I am just a worried friend that you guys have a Kickstarter campaign that closes at like a quarter of a million dollars. But you can't afford it if that makes sense because I'm sure that happens a lot with these really big campaigns and it's only because, you know, I've, I'm, I spent quite a lot of time with the studio and eat guys. And they, you know, they made a bunch of fantastic Kickstarter stuff and that I consider them good friends and just talking to them about because they've had very, very successful Kickstarter campaigns and the glyph, which is their first one, they didn't expect it to get anywhere near what it did. They were well placed because like you, like you two, it was built in such a way that they knew that they could make most of it themselves regardless. And then they were able, they were very lucky to find some good manufacturers and stuff. But it could have gone very, very wrong for them because they were one of the very, very early Kickstarter's. So they did, they, their product, the glyph, they had a, let me see what their original goal was. They had a goal of $10,000 and they made $137,000. But this was back in 2010, when a $10,000 Kickstarter was pretty big. And they were for a long time, they've made the most money. So that was just my, you know, I just wanted to make sure that you guys that were thinking about all of that sort of stuff too, which you obviously are because you're smart, smart people. Yeah. No, I totally appreciate that and that's, you know, I've gotten to believe me, you know, my parents are asking, you know, do you have this? Is this right? You know, are you doing this? Are you doing that? We're doing that, but you know, and also, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have friends like Dan Bishop at Keras Customs, who I can call up and spend, you know, two hours on the phone and say, you know, this is what we're trying to do. What am I missing, you know, and have things like that? So I've got the benefit of being able to talk to people like Dan and kind of get some feedback to make sure we have all our bases covered. And he's, and he's been like that too, he's just like, now I'm seeing the pricing, like, are you sure you've got this covered in this covered? I'm like, yep, we've got it. It's right here. I'm staring right at it. It's, it's accounted for. Good. So, you know, it's, you know, it's still, there's still a possibility of the unknown happening, but I feel more comfortable about the manufacturing and fulfillment piece of it than anything. Do you have any concerns? Like that you can point to. Not really. I'm feeling pretty good about it. You know, it might get down to, if it really goes berserk, like if something, say it goes to $100,000 and there's, you know, I don't know, whatever, number of backers, thousands of backers, there might be some time, you know, concerns, but I really don't think. Um, on that, on that side of the ledger in January, which is, and that you, you haven't left that. Like, typically people leave it a bit longer for a manufacturing product, but it's because you know you can do it. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you've started working on them. I don't, I don't know, or we'll be very, very soon. Yeah. We haven't decided that yet. Um, well, I think we're going to wait a little bit longer because we'll have to order the, we want to get the quantities right that when we order the fabrics and stuff like that, we don't have all that. Um, so it just depends on how ahead of time we want to do it. Um, I know talking with Dan, you know, it can be, say, after the funding period ends, it can be weeks before the money actually gets into your bank account to where you're able to start ordering and we may just have to bite the bullet and get that ordered, you know, and get that ordered early before the money actually appears to where we can pay for it kind of thing. I mean, you're going to have 30 day terms of a lot of companies anyway to get the product to pay. Right. It's the businesses done the same way. And I guess the benefit you've got is you know, you're going to get the money, whether it takes two, three, four weeks, you know, it's coming. So even if you had to find some of a way to finance it, that it wasn't a problem for you, like if you had the ability to do that, then you could do it, right? You could, if you needed to spend $5,000 to get some stuff in and between the two of you, you can throw that money together, then you'd just do it because it makes the whole thing easier for you, right? Right. Right. Yeah. So like manufacturing and fulfillment, that stuff doesn't keep me up at night, you know, what keeps me up at night is making a product that people like and people want and that people are thinks going to be good. See, I think, I know that for me personally, and when I, because I've been showing this to everybody that I can, just because of how proud I am of you, like all my friends, my family, they've all seen this. I've had to explain Kickstarter to so many people. I actually showed it to my mom and she was like, "Why can't you do this?" I was like, "Thanks, mom." Cheers. Thanks for that. Yeah. I'll get right on that. And because she's seen the number, right? She saw it yesterday and you'd made like 16,000 of them and she's like, "Why don't you do this?" It was like, because I haven't got the great idea, like Brad and Jeffrey, "I don't have that." I didn't have the idea, but I was saying, like, I think people, just comes across in your video, I think, to people that don't know you, but to people that know you, they know you're not, well, this is how I feel. You're not going to make about a product here because you know what you want. And I feel like for being a good friend, we are good friends, that I know that you have very strict levels of what you consider to be acceptable and unacceptable and something. And I believe you wouldn't ship an unacceptable product. Right. You just wouldn't do that. Yeah. There's no doubt. And Jeffrey, you know, that's one of the things that clicked with us right in the beginning is we're both kind of that same way. We're very particular about what we like and what we want and what we want to see. And you know, what the, you know, concerned about the minutia type of stuff. So yeah, yeah, so we're, we're both, we're both very concerned about, not concerned it's in the right word, but we're very, you know, aware of, you know, look and fit and finish and style and, you know, everything that's going to, you know, make a high quality product that people are going to get in their hands and love, hopefully love. So yeah, we, we, we take pride in this and, you know, we're, I guess we're at this point, you know, now we're anxious to like start getting stuff into people's hands. So, but speaking of which, you've, you've been sending some, some, like prototype models out, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I don't have a lot to send out. So I picked out a few of my blogging friends sent some out on Saturday so they would arrive kind of, you know, early this week and just kind of, you know, people who know me, you know, like me, you know, my family, my wife, you know, my family that have actually physically seen these cases. They're like, Oh, it's great. It's fantastic. But they don't use the cases like I use the cases or you would use the cases. So to be able to get it in the hands, we didn't, we didn't send any out like early, early on, like our early prototypes when we were still working on this is kind of our final prototypes that, you know, I wanted to get some other feedback on, so like Ed Jelly made a post today. His photography is always so great and Ed's been a guest on this show and he did, he did a great job. And then the lookout, which is just the, it's the holster style case and he did a really good job of doing some photos. And he actually, when I, when I woke up today and was talking to Jeffrey, he's like, do you see Ed's post? I was like, yeah, do you see all the stuff he was doing with the case and sticking the field notes in there and flipping it over like a stand? I was like, yeah, I didn't know you could do that. So you know, those are the things, you know, you get staring at a product for so long, you need so, you need a fresh set of eyes on it and seek some kind of the neat things that Ed did with it. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, I'm looking at these and like that material, I know this is going to sound insane, but if some ink leaked in there, that's going to look awesome. In my opinion, like if you had like say like the dark blue one and maybe some, some dark blue ink, like say, I don't know, say you had a fountain pen explosion, there's something about that to me that I think would look really cool. I don't think everyone would agree, but for me personally, there would be something about that that I would quite like. I'm not going to pour ink all over my mind when I received them. I will allow the wear and tear to get it for me, but it's just something about that just because they're so, they're very attractive, but they're rugged in a good way. Yes. Yes. And there's something about that once they, once these cases are going to start to look like worn in and used, I think that they're going to take on an individual life for everyone. And I think that's kind of cool. I like that. Yeah. And that's why, Jeff and I both like this material, this nylon cordura material. It's a real durable, I mean, it's essentially like a back exterior backpack material, you know, for all intents and purposes. So it's, it's thick and durable, but it's still pliable and soft, you know, to where, you know, it's going to, it's going to work good, you know, when you're, when you're carrying it around and, you know, putting it out of other bags and things like that is just kind of going to work well for anyone who's, who's using it for pin storage and, you know, being mobile and carrying it around. So that was kind of our goal. That's why we wanted to use this fabric. Just because, you know, Jeffrey and I like it and we think it would, it's a, it makes for a good pin case. Looks good, but it's fit for purpose. Yeah. Exactly. And you, Mr. Mike Dudek. Yeah. I love that. He shared out a picture last night and he's, he sent him a sample case to, he has a different model. His is called the high tower, which has been a very popular case. It's the, it's, it's the three plus one case where you have three pin slots on the left side and then a single pocket on the right side for a memo book. That's the one that I, I can't wait to get my hands on. I feel like that's the one that I'm, we'll use every day. Yeah. Yeah. Same here. And the, the brass town, the zip roll, but then the high tower is probably the second most used one that, that I use, um, it's, it's, it's just super functional. It just fit a need that I wanted. This was, there were two cases that were the first designs that I had to have. It was this high tower, which the three plus one and then the roll pin case, which is the brass town. So I, I knew if we were doing this, those two would be made, um, and I just like Mike's, I just like Mike's picture. I was like, wow, you know, when, once you start seeing it with other people, didn't they go and we made that man, that guy's got a cool case. Where did you get that? Oh, we made that. That's kind of nice. Um, that's, it, it puts a big smile on my face and I love the, I don't know, I just like that shot from Mike and we'll have all this in the show notes and the label came out really good. Um, you know, we, we did go ahead and get a bunch of labels ordered and I like how they turned out. They look good on the case. I can tell, I definitely, I don't know who chose the colors, but if, if it was a mixed effort, I can definitely, I definitely know what ones you chose when, which ones are the orange one. Yeah, no doubt. I did. No doubt. I don't, did you work on it? Obviously the orange was your choice. But did you pick the other colors too? Or was that like a collaborative effort? Wait, actually collaborated on all three of the colors. It was, it's, that was actually kind of a difficult process. I mean, we did it somewhat quickly, but trying to figure out what works well together without seeing like big sheets of fabric, you know, we just have like small like three by three inch fabric samples and trying to put that together and see what comes out well. I'm very pleased that you went with a greenish Kickstarter only. Yeah, it's, it's kind of sort of, kind of sort of green. That's that color is the render case look good in those. Sorry. I just see. I just looked at that picture again and seeing the render case look. One person, even in pictures, this one came out really well with the dark interior. It's the only one with the darkest interior and a lighter outside. It's kind of reversed from the other ones, which I'll have a darker outside exterior material and a lighter interior material. This one's kind of reversed and it came out really good looking. So I keep, I keep throwing business ideas at you, which is probably driving you insane. But I don't know. I have another one for when you guys launched the store is to allow me, is to give me a range of cars that allow me to choose, mix and match them for extra money. So you're saying you want to customize your own case on color. You want to, you want to go and say, all right, I want a high tower case and I want to be able to choose this color for the outside and this color for the inside and this color for the binding. Yep. And this color for the stitching and pay more however much more you deem, but obviously more. Yeah. Maybe we have gotten that question a lot. Because I think that that would be really, I mean, for this purpose for the Kickstarter, just choose the colors that are there, right? Sure. Sure. But for when you guys launch a store just to have that, even if it's simply the case of it's a special page on the site, you select just from like drop, like you just like radio buttons or whatever, select this, this isn't this, send it through as an email order, then you get sent back, this is how much it's going to cost you because there might be differing costs or whatever. I think that would be really cool. I would like that a lot. Yeah. That has come up a lot. And I mean, we're certainly considering it. It'd be a little difficult right out the gate. Oh, logistically. It's a bit of a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. But that is some long term, you know, that, you know, a year or two down the line that could definitely be on the radar. I don't see why not so, but don't know. I just see in a year's time that we have, I just, I just see, I just see great things. I just think in a year's time you will be a like a manufacturing magnate you do and you will just be creating all sorts. I'm so, dude, I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I am for you both and how excited I am. Like, I have been on cloud nine for over 24 hours. And I'm just, I am over the moon just because for as long as I have known you, I have, we said this before, I've tried to get you to do to do something like this. Right. My original idea for you is slightly different, but it was very different actually, but it was, I think that you should use your expertise to, for people to pay you money directly for something. And I, and you've come out with something that was much better than my original idea. I just think it's genius. And I'm, I'm just so, I'm just so pleased that you guys are going to make a ton of money. I've been sitting and doing some maths and just looking at what, you know, yeah, just sitting, obviously not looking at you guys making 20,000 bottles a day, but a fraction of that and what that could be at the end is just mind boggling to me. And I'm very excited. Right. I really appreciate that. I mean, I appreciate your support, your support and you know, your interest in this. And you know, you're, you know, you've always, you've always pushed me, you know, in, in, into, you know, you're, you always keep those ideas in the back of my head. And you know, eventually, eventually I'll get to them. So I'm glad that, you know, this, this one eventually came out onto this, onto, onto the paper, if you will. And I'm sure that you know that you're a featured popular product, right? You've seen that? I have seen that. That's been, that's been kind of cool. You know, watching that pop up there in the, in the popular category, or, you know, on the homepage of Kickstarter and stuff, you know, that's cool. You get that, get that little extra exposure. And, you know, now the key is, you know, I'll be perfectly honest with you. It, when we started this, you know, before we pressed go before anything, I guessed a number of what we would end at. And we've already blown by that. I guess 20, I guess 20,000. Right. I thought 20, I would be, that would be my like, yes, you okay, we did a good job. 20,000. And to have it do this already is, is pretty, not, I don't want to say shocking, but it's, it's been pretty crazy. It's been, it's been a wild ride so far. My fingers were about the cramp yesterday answering all the emails and doing all the support stuff yesterday. But I could not have had more fun doing that. You know, when you have a, you know, like a passion for the product like this, it's easy to talk about. And, you know, when people have questions, you know, you, you, you love answering them and, and, you know, doing that. So, you know, customer support type of stuff, you know, I love doing that kind of stuff. And, and, you know, making, you know, people feel happy about their purchase and, and things like that, you know, it's just a, something, you know, I, I really believe in and Jeff really believes in and we want this to be, like I said earlier, this is a long term business for us. This is not, you know, a one shot fly by night Kickstarter deal. This, the, the ideas we have in our head right now for some of the products we want to make, we can't wait to make them. You know, we don't, we're trying to, we're doing our best not to get ahead of ourselves. I mean, we got a long way to go to for this to finish and fund and, you know, get these products out to everybody. But, you know, after that, you know, I mean, I think, I think it's all there for us. So, you know, you said you had an amount that you thought you'd reach. Would you like to know what I thought that you would make? Sure. Somewhere between 30 and 40. Okay. And you, you will. I mean, yeah, you're going to, you, you will definitely be over 30. I, I now think that you will be over 40,000. I have a number that I think, but I'm not going to say it. All right. And I will tell you at the end, if, well, maybe I will tell you off the air, I just don't want to say it in public. Yeah, we'll see, you know, it's an interesting, you know, being, you know, I've obviously backed other kick starters and seen other kick starters and, you know, kind of how they progress through the cycle. You know, but I've never been involved in one to know. It's like, okay, what happens now, you know, kind of in that, in that middle range, I know it's obviously very busy in the front end and it's probably a little bit busy on the back end. But in that middle, that middle range, you know, kind of seeing, you know, getting the word out and getting some promotion out for the project, project and kind of, kind of keep it rolling. The economics are strange though, right? Because at the moment, like the numbers don't really seem like they make sense. Like, I know when you do the mass, it makes sense. But 724 people is 27 and a half thousand dollars. Like, to me, when I just, I mean, I don't tell me if I'd be stupid. I look at that and that doesn't seem right. It feels like 724 people should be a lot less money. I mean, obviously, you're close to your product. You know, the prices. I mean, I've done the mass. Yeah. Well, like we said in the beginning, I didn't expect the all the cases level to be that popular until people started saying exactly what you're saying. Well, that's just a really good deal. I mean, that's just, you know, that's the best value. I thought, you know, I would just have it there for people that wanted all the storage. I thought people would be buying, you know, you know, one case or like, you know, the, the, you know, the combination, one of the combination cases, you know, with two cases in it or something like that. But, um, yeah, for, I guess maybe that's why with the, I mean, if people did it the way that I did, I was like, when on the pay is like 15, no, don't want that because I assume that's like a t-shirt. Like, you know, when you look at it and you're like, support us, get the t-shirt, like for $15, you couldn't possibly get anything out of it, right? Right. So I'm going down and going down and let right now and then a 25, I can still do more than that. And that's like $75 and it's to $250. I'm like, right, I'll get to $75. I didn't even know what I was getting. I was just like, I'll back that one. I mean, probably that's a little bit different for me because I would have always given you that whatever that amount of money was going to be. But, and then I'm not looking for it. And I'm like, you know, three kicks. And I'm like, hang on a minute, what's going on here? It's all of them. And yeah, I was very, this, I, and I think that's what has, has meant that that is such a, has been such a successful pot for you. I mean, it's interesting. It's so interesting to see. Yeah. And that's a really good deal. I mean, by the time they go to retail, that, that level, for what you're getting in that level, now that will be, you know, if you priced them out, like when we're going to sell them in our store afterwards, that's a an exceptional deal. Like I said, the brass kind of loans going to sell for 35 when we're all said and done and open in our online store. So that's almost half of that right there. Yeah, you'll be like, we've shipping for me. I'd be lucky to get to. Right. You know, I'm getting six and shipping. Right. Right. I'm very, it's very awesome. So I'm glad that's taken off. Yeah. We have another four weeks to talk about this. I mean, I know, I'm not going to apologize. We're going to talk about every week just better than mine. And the last week. So the, the, either the last week or the week after I would like to have Jeffrey on the show. Okay. And find a way to see if we can find a way to get that to work. And then we'll, we'll, I would like the three of us to talk for maybe for me to interview you guys again. Okay. Yeah. We'll do that right when we're getting ready to, to close the, close the project. Yeah. I think that would be good. He actually, when I told him I was getting ready to go start recording, he goes, he goes, one day I want to come on and do an ad read. So I'm going to, we'll put him on the spot. He's like, Oh no, that would be terrible. I have a terrible voice. I love it when, when you go to sleep and the knock code, Twitter account just gets crazier and crazier. I love it. It's so fun. He is so wild. Like, and if you meet him in person, he is like the calmest, shyest guy. But, um, when he starts getting going on the, on the Twitter or the Instagram, he's, he's pretty funny. It makes me love. He just said, he sends me these like random tweets every now and again. And it just makes me smile. Yeah. Earlier, he's like, try to play rock purposes with me. Yeah. You can, you can tell love. You can tell who's made into the Twitter at certain hours a day and who's who's doing responses. It works for you guys, right? Because you can literally hand them off in shifts. Yeah, it's kind of funny. It was like, it's like, all right, I'm signing off now. Jeffrey's on and then he's like, you know, he signed off last night and you know, I was on within an hour, you know. I guess we'll talk about this next week. But I'm interested to talk about comment. I'm going to put, we'll put this in for next week. I want to talk to you about comments and updates. Yep. Had and how, and how that is. So I'm going to. Yeah. I wonder how you're dealing with those and what your sort of thinking is on that sort of stuff. Yeah, I actually have lots to say on that. So that that will be, um, yeah, that would be a long topic to cover right now. So, yeah, excellent. Well, do you have like a short URL of any kind for this? Um, for the Kickstarter, I don't have one that's memorable. I just have the, uh, the kicks, the Kickstarter shortener. Well, let's, I'll tell you what, then go to knockco.com. Yeah, knockcog.com, n-o-c-k-c-o.com. It's right at the top of the page if you haven't, if you haven't for any insane reason gone and even backed one of the 15 dollar cases, go do that right now because you're going to gain excellent product. I am sure of that and Brad will tell you the same. Congratulations for already meeting your goal. Well, thank you, Sarah. And I really appreciate your support. I mean, you, you have been a, um, a very, very huge supporter of us and I appreciate it. You know, I don't ask to, you know, talk about these topics and you're just like, we're talking about this and this is what we're going to do. I'm like, okay. I won't allow it any other way. Um, I am enjoying living vicariously through two of you throughout this whole thing. It's, it's fun to be even to play a small part in it to get to talk with you on the show about every week is fun for me. Um, so if you want to catch up with Brad's stuff, I mean, obviously go to, we're going to have to start doing this now. Go to knockco.com and pan addict.com. Um, they have at knockco on Twitter and Brad is at Dowdyism, d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m. Um, and at Dowdy on app.net and I am at i-m-i-m-y-k-e. We will be back next week for another episode of the pan addict podcast. Until then, goodbye, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. [BLANK_AUDIO]
