The Pen Addict 139/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	139
Title:	This is Gonna Be a Party
Release Date:	January 26th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 139
Audio File:	Audio Episode 139
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 139
Length:	4747 min <br />0.783 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad Dowdy: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 139. Today's show, today's very special episode is brought to you by lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses created by industry experts. For a 10-day free trial, visit lynda.com slash penaddict. My name is Myke Hurley, and I have the pleasure of being joined by The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hey, buddy, how you doing?

Myke Hurley: I'm good. I'm listening to you talk. Even just get through the intro, you can't contain your excitement.

Brad Dowdy: I am so excited. This is the best day ever.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just listening to your voice, and I've heard the intro a million times, and then I can tell you have a little extra pep in your step today.

Brad Dowdy: Got a big grin on my face right now. Yeah, so we may as well just jump into it, but for the sake of austerity, so people can understand what we're talking about into the future. Today, which is the 26th of January 2015, Brad and myself launched what... Brad, what did you call it? I don't want to take your thunder.

Myke Hurley: I called it the Kickstarter sneak attack.

Brad Dowdy: So me and Brad have been planning this for a couple of weeks.

Kickstarter Campaign

Brad Dowdy: Basically, what we've done is we have launched a Kickstarter campaign that will culminate in the first ever in-person recording of The Pen Addict podcast live from the 2015 Atlanta Pen Show in April. And as we speak, at the very start of this episode, we launched it this morning, and we have a goal of $7,500. We are currently at $6,624. For everybody that's currently listening live, I just want to point out how excited I am about this especially, because my dream now is that we meet the goal during this recording. So maybe record for three hours, who knows? But we'll see. I'm going to keep checking the page, and I'm going to keep updating everybody. We have 183 backers. We're going to obviously do this, but I just want to thank you so much to every single one of you for doing this. And for us nearly meeting this goal before we even recorded the episode is kind of mind-blowing to me. This whole thing is insane. And Brad's laughing at me, which I understand. That's because he's been through all this before. Everyone who listens to this show will remember the NotCode Kickstarter. What did you do on day one?

Myke Hurley: $20-something grand, I think.

Brad Dowdy: I'd have to look. You smashed your goal on day one, didn't you?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Did you meet the goal within an hour? Yeah, within an hour. I think right at an hour we hit the funding goal, and then I think it was like $20-something grand by the end of the day. Something like that. I'd have to look.

Brad Dowdy: Which was, you know, I remember, and even playing the tiniest part possible in that was an incredible feeling. But this is totally insane to me because this is money changing hands directly from the listeners to us, and it's this incredible thing that's happening. So should we explain maybe where the idea came from and what the actual Kickstarter is for and that kind of thing in a bit more detail?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let's do that and, you know, talk about how it came about and how we kind of built it and how fast it all happened. Yeah. It was pretty crazy. But, you know, we were talking, we talk all the time, and we've been talking offline just about the pin show and how Knock was going to have a table there. You know, we're based in Atlanta for those who don't, those who are not regular listeners. My pin case company, Knock, is based in Atlanta, so we're going to have a table at the Atlanta pin show. And then me and Myke just got to talking, and Myke's like, you know, we were actually just throwing out there, you know, hey, how about, Myke, if we need to get you over to the pin show one of these years. And Myke's like, well, you know, maybe we could do like a Kickstarter or something like that. I was actually, to be honest, Myke, I was like, yeah, whatever, you know. I was like, okay, sure, we'll do that. Or, you know, whatever. I was just kind of pretty passive on it.

Brad Dowdy: I think we were both a bit like that. It was kind of just like, oh, yeah, that would be a fun idea. And then I think a couple of weeks later, we had Dan Bishop from Karis Customs on. And he was like really insistent about it. You know, it was like, you guys really should do this. Like, this is something that you should really think about. Like, people would be up for it. Like, we could make like a t-shirt or something. And, you know, he said like people would just want to do it because they would want it to happen. And then at that point, I think we both thought a little bit more about what we would do in regards to it, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Then we started putting some brain cells on it a little bit. And it took me a little time to even come up with, you know, okay, how would we put this all together? How would we present it? How would, you know, what do we need to get funded? How would we present any, you know, backer rewards and things like that? And we came up, the first thing we came up obviously was the case. So we're going to, we wanted to do a special case, a special NotCo case for the project. So we kind of designed something around that. We're going to introduce a new color this summer, you know, which will be a fully forest green exterior, sunshine yellow interior. And so we thought we'd give everyone an early access to that. And then to make it different from all the other cases, we wanted to feature a little bit of your flavor and you coming over here. So we created a special Union Jack tag that's going to go in just these cases. So everyone who backed this project will get that special case. So we kind of had it at that. And then I don't know how you got started talking about it. Well, maybe we could do some video on that. How did that even come about?

Brad Dowdy: I don't, I don't remember. I knew that what we would want to do, well, obviously, if I came, we would want to do a live episode of the show. And I think me and Stephen were talking about it. Because, you know, these are the sorts of things we talk about, like it's something that affects our business in one way or another. So we were talking about it. And Stephen had mentioned that kind of his brother has a company, a nonprofit, and he, as part of that, they make like documentaries and stuff. And they have like camera equipment and things like that. So he said like he could film it for us. So it was like, well, this makes sense. If we're going to be together in person, we should have a video of it. Right.

Myke Hurley: So when you told me that, I was like, oh, that's perfect. Because, you know, Stephen's not too far away. Him and his brother can make it to the show easy. And, you know, we can, you know, build in into, you know, what we're trying to raise. You know, build in all the video work and the shooting, editing, any equipment we need to rent, all that kind of stuff. So it was kind of like a no brainer. It's like, okay, so we got the video and we got the case. And, you know, we don't need, you know, $100,000 to get this done. So we just wanted to put something out there that would, you know, make this happen. And it's been pretty cool.

Brad Dowdy: I wanted to do it. And like, and really for me, like there are things like conferences and stuff. Like I'm going to the All Conference and I'll be going to WWDC. And for me, like those things, they're like real, really important for my business. Because I meet people there and we can record shows from there. And those shows are popular shows. You know, all of that sort of stuff is good for us. But this is something that I really wanted to do and would be good for this show. But I couldn't really justify another trip to America. Like I'm only making one trip across to the States this year because it's really expensive. You know, it's very expensive to do. So this is something that I really wanted to do. And we definitely, I reckon I could afford it next year. Because when we're thinking about this, like right now, like there's still a bit of uncertainty. We're a new company and I'm fully employed by RelayFM now. So it's like I don't want to be just spending money that I don't have to spend. So we thought it would be a good idea. Because if people wanted it to happen, then they could help us make it happen. And if they didn't, then we could do it next year.

Myke Hurley: So let's talk about people real quick. Our listeners are amazing. It's like you were mentioning in early on that, you know, you've been like really amped up about this. And I was actually having to calm you down like constantly, you know, just anxious to get this going. It's like push the button, push it, do it now, do it now. And I'm like, chill out. It's going to be fine. You know, I just want to make sure.

Brad Dowdy: I'm just getting like a mixture of too excited and too nervous about it.

Myke Hurley: Right. Right. And since I was building the whole thing, I was like, well, let me I just want to make sure I get this right and not have any mistakes like Dan Bishop does. And did I say that? Can you edit that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I could take that.

Myke Hurley: No. And I didn't want to, you know, it's once you put it out there, it's a pain in the butt to change anything in there. So that's what I was stressing about. I was like, I wasn't worried about the funding. I felt, you know, eventually we would make the we'd make the goal. But our listeners and backers of this project, I can't. That still boggles my mind. It's so awesome what you guys do to help support us and to do something. This this is legitimately cool what we're going to do for this and to have everyone's support in just kind of. It's kind of a dream scenario to get this all together, to fly you over here, to do a live episode of the pen addict, to video it and to have everyone who listens to the show help make that happen. It really kind of hits you right in the middle of the chest. I mean, it's pretty awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because it's and the other thing is like people that are not going to be. I mean, obviously, there are people that are going to be there where it's like awesome. We get to meet like Brad and Myke and we can hang out because that's what we're going to do. Like we're going to for people that are going to be in town or can make it to the pen show. We're going to we're going to organize like multiple times that we can all hang out and talk about what we buy and stuff, you know, and just chat as well as the show.

Brad Dowdy: But the fact that like people are paying and they won't they won't see us. They're just paying to make it happen. And like there was even I've even had some people today that don't listen to the pen addict have backed the project, which is this other like whole next level of emotion for me, which I'm trying to process right now. Right. But it's just it is just it's a very like overwhelming thing. And when we were thinking about doing this, because we as RelayFM as a whole, like we've been thinking about like because we're always getting people say to us, oh, let me find a way to give you money. And so we set up a store. But people want to give like more. They want to give donations or they don't want to buy merchandise, but they want to give us stuff. We were always like we don't know about it. We don't know about it. And this this in my mind would be like a test, because in theory, the pen addict audience are the audience that are most likely to make this kind of thing happen for a couple of different reasons. One, because like the pen addict audience is very, very, for lack of a better word, engaged in what in us. We have a fantastic community that is built around this show, let alone around the pen addict as a whole, you know, including the website. But just this show, it has a real core audience of people. And like you guys send us gifts and like just always talking to us on Twitter, like more than anybody else, more than like I do shows that have four or five times the amount of people listen to. But this is the show that I get the most response out of all the time. So it felt like if there was ever going to be an option for us to try and do something like this, that it would be good for this show. The other reason is like we talk about buying things. The listeners of this show are not averse to putting some money down for stuff. And especially because you are offering a little thing and these, you know, like the Hightower case and these people bought your products before or whatever, then they'd like you to buy it again. So it was like it was an interesting thing for me from a business as well, like to see what would happen. And it is very interesting.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so we're getting the live chat is keeping us up.

Brad Dowdy: Oh my God, I can't cope with this.

Live Broadcast

Myke Hurley: Joe Steele said, I hope this broadcast turns into a telethon. You know, let's go to the phones. And it's like we're raising money while we're live on here. We didn't mean for it to be that way. But now that it's it's just like the timing worked out. Number one, Myke wanted to launch this when we launched the show today, guys. So I talked him out of that. And well, he talked himself out of that because he said, I'll never be able to record the show because I'll be watching the Kickstarter so much. So we decided to launch it this morning and just looks like the the math. So happens we might actually get funded while we're recording this show. So it's happening.

Brad Dowdy: There seemed like a real I don't know, there was a real niceness to launching it when we're on the show because there just seems something that's fun about that. But I think what I said to you in the Slack was I realized I didn't want to do it because it would be 45 minutes of me just screaming.

Myke Hurley: I think we're still pretty much on track for that.

Brad Dowdy: So let's talk about some of the stuff that that's kind of by the way, if you're not enjoying this, like if you're listening to this and you're not enjoying this, I'm sorry. This is all you get in today.

Myke Hurley: If you keep if you keep wondering when the show is going to start, this is pretty much it. This is all you get in. Because I actually before this, I actually had a massive episode planned and maybe we'll get to we might get to some of this stuff, Myke. But I I don't know that you're in the in the in a good place to talk about anything besides this. It would be kind of hard for me. So, yeah, what you're going to say, let's get to some of the questions and some of the feedback that everyone's been asking. Is that what you were alluding to?

Brad Dowdy: One of one of the interesting parts and you can address this is that we've effectively created an Australian themed case here.

Myke Hurley: That did not cross my mind even one time until I started seeing some of the backers come in and, you know, we're getting a bunch of, you know, go Australia. I haven't seen any Aussie Aussie Aussies yet in in in my feeds or in the backer comments yet. But I'm sure those will show up between that and the Union Jack. And it's just like this perfectly Australian themed case.

Brad Dowdy: Green and gold are the national colors of Australia. And then, of course, the Australian flag has the Union, which, by the way, I have yet to correct you on this. Technically, it's called the Union flag. The Union flag. OK, everybody calls it the Union Jack, but it's not actually called the Union Jack. It's it's actually called the Union flag. I don't know why that is off the top of my head.

Myke Hurley: Interesting. Interesting. So I will work on that. Probably not at all.

Brad Dowdy: But we all call it the Union Jack. I call it the Union Jack. Everybody does. But it is like the technical name is the Union flag.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, yeah, we ended up making this perfectly Australian pen case, which was completely lost on me when we were designing it. I just want some really cool colors. These are colors that I've had on since we before we started knock. You know, it takes us a while. Unfortunately, we can't do all colors at once. You know, that's just not how our business runs. As much as we would like to do every color for everybody all the time, we have to pick and choose. And I was dying to get this one out there. So I'm glad we were able to use it for something cool like this. But, yeah, we didn't have the Australian flag in mind or the Australian colors in mind when we were building it. But we are happy to own it now. And we're glad to make all the Australians happy.

Production Limits

Brad Dowdy: So let's talk about the limit. Yeah. We've placed on this and why we've done this.

Myke Hurley: Okay, so my feeling was when we were just brainstorming this, I was like, I don't want to have an open-ended product available for this. Because what we're trying to accomplish here is to not make money off of this necessarily. You know, it's not something, we're not using this to fund a business, right? Or, you know, do something else with the money and like make a profit and put money in the bank.

Brad Dowdy: This isn't to financially fund 10 episodes of the Panatic podcast. Like, we're not funding a season of the show and like this is a way we're doing that. Like, none of that is happening here. It's effectively, it's for a one. And the idea of this is to pay for my airfare and for maybe mine and your hotel. Yeah, hotel. And for the video editing production.

Myke Hurley: Right, right. And then a lot of the cost goes into the case manufacturing and the materials and all that stuff. So there's lots of costs involved in this. And we've got it figured out to where any of the profit basically funds all that travel and video expense and all those things like that. So I wanted to limit it because I didn't want all this extra, you know, I'm saying like it would have been a given. But I didn't want the option of having like all this extra money and having to decide what to do with it. I didn't think that was right for this project. So we limited the cases to 300 cases for that reason. That would give us more than enough to do everything we wanted to do for this project without having, well, you know, number one, you know, we didn't want to make a thousand cases necessarily for this at this time. You know, we have 300 is a good number for us to knock out and get everyone their cases in a timely fashion. And we didn't want to end up having a long, strong, drawn out, you know, manufacturing time to get, you know, backward rewards to everyone. And then secondly, we just wanted to fund this trip and fund something very cool and have a very good result, you know, from the video.

Brad Dowdy: And yeah, the other thing to think about, like we have the cases, but the video is the other part. And we will basically, the current plan is we will record an episode of our show that will be recorded like we always do. It will be an audio show, an audio episode, but there will also be video cameras pointed at us during that episode. So naturally what that does, it will change the dynamic anyway because we're both sitting there, but having the cameras there will change it. So if you want to listen to that episode, I would strongly urge that you do at least throw down the $10 because the episode will be different. And I genuinely, and this is not me trying to push you to give us the money. So it's not, I hope that you don't consider that to be our intention because we're fine for the money. Because we're about to, like, we're very, very close now, Brad. We're at $7,185. This is not like, you know, we were joking about a telethon. I'm not asking that, but like, it's like, if you're thinking about it now, because we will be recording that episode and it will be a video episode. We'll be saying like, oh, do you see this? Like we'll have stuff in our hands or whatever, right? Because it's going to be on camera. So that will be one thing. And then we're also going to try and shoot some other video of like, what was it like in the show floor? And we'll try and get some video of you guys selling your wares and that kind of thing. And that will only be in the video like that. We won't release any audio of that because there's no audio to release. So we are only having the video as part of this Kickstarter. So if you back at either tier, either the $10 tier or you back at the $35 tier, you will get a, we will, once the video is edited together, which will hopefully be pretty quick. Within a couple of weeks after we, after the pen show, we will get that out to you.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. And, and to, to add onto the video stuff, I've got a lot of, of friends and people, you know, I hope to get talking to at the show. So maybe we can do some quick interviews, you know, as long as we're not, I haven't, I haven't asked anyone yet to be part of it. But, you know, I've got some people that we talk about on the show, like the Andersons, I'd love to get Brian and Lisa on, and I'm sure they would be up for it and things like that. And we're going to have a bunch of listeners have already said that they're going to be there. So we'll have a bunch of other people that you hear, hear us talk about, you know, like Jeff Abbott, who writes for the pen addict, you know, he's going to be there. And, you know, it'd be good to get him on video and Dan Bishop in the chat rooms asking if he shows up in Atlanta, does he get to be on the show? He absolutely does. So this is going to be a party and we're going to record it all.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Totally. Like that, that's, that, that is the, that is the plan. Like everything is going to go on that video. Like, and as much of it as makes sense will be, um, will be in the audio, but a lot of it will only really make sense on a video.

Myke Hurley: Right. Right. So the video content will be a lot greater than the audio content for the show for sure. All right. So I want to talk about, um, I want to talk about reactions of people that aren't familiar with this, Myke. Yeah. And like, you've had some interesting reactions from our relay, uh, coworkers. You've had some interesting reactions from family. Why don't you talk about how people, how the outsiders feel about this too. They're kind of getting a glimpse of something today that was a little bit unexpected.

Brad Dowdy: How about before I do that, thank our friends over at lynda.com. Sounds good. You should kickstart this January, kickstart this 2015 and challenge yourself to learn something new. We have a free 10 day trial to lynda.com. Lynda.com is used by millions of people around the world and has over 3000 courses on topics like web development, photography, visual design, and business. And they're adding courses all the time. Courses on Excel, courses on Photoshop, everything. If you want to set new financial goals, you want to invest in a new hobby, maybe find a new job. Lynda.com has something that's going to help you. You get unlimited access to all of their courses when you sign up. And you'll be able to view these on your desktop, on your tablet, on your mobile device with their apps for iOS and Android. And they're adding new courses every single week. You get access to all of those too. We've spoken about some of the stuff that they have in the past. Like maybe you want to learn about typography. I think that's a nice crossover between people that listen to this show and want to learn a bit about stuff like that. So you can effectively learn how to use different fonts and different typefaces for design. They have more general design courses as well. Maybe you want to learn Adobe Illustrator. Maybe you want to learn a bit about drawing. They have like shadowing and paint and all these kind of like different tools you can use and the different ways you can use all of these tools. They have video courses on all of this. It's like a perfect mix for listeners of this show. So lynda.com, they have stuff like documentaries. They have a documentary called Helvetica, which is a great documentary about the history of the Helvetica typeface. That's on lynda.com too. So go and sign up and go and have a look around. And you should go and have a look around by signing up for our 10-day free trial. Go to lynda.com slash penaddict. It's an unlimited 10-day trial. You can go in and try it all out. And you can see why lynda.com will be a fantastic fit for you. Thank you so much to lynda.com for supporting this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: We're pretty close now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's going to happen during the show. I didn't think it would, but $125 to go. Yeah, I hoped it would.

Brad Dowdy: And when I was looking at it, it was like, yeah, it could happen. But now it's like, this is happening.

Campaign Impact

Myke Hurley: Yeah, so this completely changed our entire episode, by the way. I mean, like I said, I had planned out. I have a whole episode planned of like real penaddict stuff. But this kind of got hijacked today just because it's gone a little out of hand, which is good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, my sort of feeling was we would mention it today, talk a little bit about why we're doing it, and then do the rest of the show. And I think this was similar to what happened with the Knock Kickstarter as well. And then I ended up interviewing you for a while.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, we were talking about people's reactions. So one of the really-

Myke Hurley: Yeah, non-penaddict fan reactions.

Brad Dowdy: So one of the really interesting ones is, so with RelayFM, we have like an internal chat room in an app called Slack. And we all chat all day, all the hosts are there. We talk and kind of just gas. And we were saying that we were doing this today because most of the people that are part of network didn't know we were doing it because I just neglected to tell them, didn't really consider that they, you know, like I didn't think to say.

Myke Hurley: There was no need to tell them.

Brad Dowdy: No. So everyone was kind of excited for us. And then as the day is ticking on and they're seeing the number go up, they're like, what is happening? Like, and it was quite funny because like Casey, Casey Liz, who hosts Analog with me, he'd never listened to the pen addict. And he didn't even know you were, well, he didn't, he thought you were British. Yeah. Which was quite funny. So people didn't know that we'd- People don't know I exist. Yeah. Or that we'd never met or anything like that. Like we were talking, oh, Brad, we're $90 away. Uh, we were talking about it on Upgrade a little bit today. Uh, cause it's funny cause Jason hates, hates pens and hates writing. And we, we had a really good discussion about, um, iPad styluses and why I think like an iPad stylus, like, cause there's a rumor that Apple is going to bring out a stylus with the iPad. Um, why I wouldn't want to do that. Cause like, just because I love pens doesn't mean I would love that. Cause it's kind of got nothing, got nothing to do with it. Those two things are totally separate from each other. Mm. Oh, we're so close now.

Brad Dowdy: I can't stop repressing the page cause it's going to happen and I want to see it when it happens.

Myke Hurley: I'm glad, I'm glad I slept all day today so I didn't have to put up with you.

Brad Dowdy: I've, do you know, I've been pretty good about it. I haven't been, I haven't been too, too frustrating. Uh, and, um, so that was quite funny, like just to see people's reactions, but we were talking about it on the show and I was like, well, this show, like it's, it's been the only show that I've like taken with me wherever I've gone in the world of podcasting. You know, this was on 70 decibels and then it went to five by five and now it's here at Relay FM. Like, so it's kind of just the pen addict has followed me around forever, which I'm happy about. But it's, the interesting thing about this show, and we've spoken about this so many times, is that people underestimate it. Mm. Um, because it's a niche and it's a real niche and it's a niche that kind of has no home in audio. Right. Like there is no, there is no logic as to why a show about, an audio show about pens should be something that anybody listens to, let alone has a, as a large audience. And an audience, which will do something like this. And it's to see the, it's, it's not so much that you guys could club together to raise seven and a half thousand dollars for us, because in the terms of Kickstarter, that's not a lot of money, but it's about the, the, the speed.

Myke Hurley: Mm.

Brad Dowdy: Um, and because it's happened incredibly fast. So that's been really interesting. The other thing that's been really interesting for me today is my family trying to, oh, we did it.

Myke Hurley: Are we there?

Brad Dowdy: We're there. Woohoo.

Goal Reached

Myke Hurley: Ah. Yep, there it is. Yay. We hit it.

Brad Dowdy: I love you guys so much. I can't believe we've done this. Yep, there it is. Oh my God, it's happened during the show. This is the best thing ever. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty amazing. I, I, I gotta admit, there's no, you can never plan this in a million years that that would happen.

Brad Dowdy: I'm tweeting about this right now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Are you teary?

Brad Dowdy: I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a little bit choked up. I'm tweeting in all caps.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty amazing. So virtual cheers to you, mate. And we'll, we'll, we'll have a, uh, an in-person cheers now. Um, guaranteed because we've done it.

Brad Dowdy: I'll go for this.

Myke Hurley: Perfect.

Brad Dowdy: You guys are just the best. I love you all. And you're just the greatest. Thank you so much. This is an incredible day, like an overwhelming, uh, just this throughout the time that I've done what I do. And I'm sure that you feel this way as well. There are these things that happen that they, they're kind of like points in the road and, and they're very, and all of these things tend to be very surreal moments. And that's why they stand out as like important things. This is definitely one of them for me, because this is like a totally different thing. And it's so strange that this is something that people are willing to give me their money for, uh, so I can go and hug my buddy in Atlanta, Georgia for a weekend. It's just, this is just one of those things where it's like, I can't even, I don't even understand how this is happening. So that kind of brings me back to what I was just saying about my family. So like my, my parents and my siblings and my girlfriends that they can't fully understand the fact that I've done this. Like that, I was like, Oh, we've made, I said to my mom today, we've made $5,000 so far. And she's like, what? And she's been since, uh, since then she, I think she's been texting me every half an hour to ask me how it's going. Uh, uh, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's so you can't even concentrate now. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling. I'm, I'm struggling. Uh, God, I can't believe this. It's just $7,500 is not all the money in the world. Um, but it, it's not the amount that is important to me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, totally.

Brad Dowdy: It's the fact that it's, the fact that it's happened. Matt just sent me a message to ask me if I could lend him $7,500.

Myke Hurley: We need to borrow from borrow money from him.

Brad Dowdy: I know Mr. VC.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So it's, it's just that thing. It's just like, uh, people, people struggle to understand. I am struggling to understand it. So now we've met our goal. Let's talk about stretch goals. Okay. This is something that so many people are mentioning to me today, especially as our trajectory looked very healthy. Right. I have no desire to, to, to have any stretch goals because, and this comes back to what we were talking about earlier. Like we are not attempting to make money. Like now we already now have 45 more dollars than we, than we'd established that we needed. And one of the big things for me is I believe that every Kickstarter campaign requires, um, accountability because that's what I feel it's for. So if you're selling a product, the accountability is every, every pledge goes towards the product that it is attached to. Okay. Now we have met our goal now and we set the goal below the amount of cases. And the number of cases is set on the fact that if we sold them all out, we'd have more money. But this is a round number and it's a number that you guys can easily produce and deliver on time.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: But we, we could never guarantee, like we couldn't set the exact amount of cases and just leave it at that because then we may have been like, are you familiar with the term? I don't know if it's, if it makes sense in America to cut your nose off to spite your face.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, it's the exact same phrase.

Brad Dowdy: So it's like, we would potentially be doing that. Like we would be, we'd be setting ourselves up to fail if there were like, because we've had, um, 26 or $260 have come through from people just wanting the video tier. Uh, so we, you know, we may never, you know, you can kind of think of it that way. And we may never have got the amount of money that we needed if we would have done it this way. Right. Um, so there was, the idea for me is like, what is our accountability? Like what, what, what is the stretch goal? Like I can't think of anything. And the idea is not for us to continue to, to pursue making more money because now every dollar that we'll have, we'll make sure that we can now make the video better, but we don't need a stretch goal for that. Right. Because now it's just like, well, we've got another 29 days. I'm sure that we're going to get a little bit more money than what we've got today. So now we can put that in. And like, I mean, I don't want to fly business class. Like we don't need to do that. You know, that's perfectly fine. And we're going to stay in the same hotel that we're going to stay in anyway. Cause we, I believe Brad, I believe you're looking after this part. We're going to get the, the, a room in the hotel that the, the convention is attached to.

Myke Hurley: I hope to, we'll, I will, uh, let you know tonight once I book it. Cause I'm going to go book it tonight.

Brad Dowdy: And I hope, yeah, you know, we're going to get one close, but it's not that we're going to like, we're going to now go stay in the four seasons and have a suite each like that. Right. There's no need for any of that. So it's like, if anyone can think of like a stretch goal that makes a lot of sense and they suggest it, then fine. But like people are saying to me, like, what your stretch goal is going to be like, there has to be some. And I think that that is a fundamental problem with Kickstarter these days. Like set your goal. And then your goal is your goal. And that's what it is for us. Our goal is our goal. Now, every penny we make over, we're going to have to find something to do with that makes sense. Now, look, there's a, there might be that now me and Brad might be able to buy a new, a nice pen for ourselves when we're there.

Myke Hurley: You know, And someone mentioned, someone mentioned in the chat room, maybe we buy one for one of the backers and give it away to them. That's a fair, that's a pretty good stretch goal.

Backer Gifts

Brad Dowdy: We're definitely going to do that. We'll do that before we buy ourselves anything, but that's a great idea. Right. So we can do that now. There will be a pen. We will choose either. We will choose one together or we'll choose one each depending on how much money we give away. And then we'll give it away to a back to one or two backers or whatever. That's a good idea. Can you write that down so we don't forget it? Yeah, no, I got it.

Myke Hurley: That's, that's a real good idea. There are a few of them came in. Who said that? Was that Dan maybe said that first? I don't know. Someone, someone said that in there. So yeah, that's a good idea. But yeah. My stretch goal philosophy, and this came about when we did the, the knock project, I'm completely against stretch goals in Kickstarter. And here's my reasoning.

Myke Hurley: It's, what's the right word? It's, it's built into the project. These people who do stretch goals, you're paying for the stretch goals up front. People want to want Kickstarter stretch goals to be give me free stuff. None of it's free. You know, people are building in these stretch goals. The price you're paying is, it's almost like a tease. I mean, it's this after the fact, hey, we're going to make you feel better about yourself by giving you these freebies. It's like a psychological thing, I guess is what I'm trying to say. A lot of these stretch goals. So I've never felt, I've never been involved in any project where I've expected a stretch goal, and I've never seen a stretch goal that's made me go, ooh, ah, this is something different that wasn't already just built into the price that I've already paid. You got to understand that from a Kickstarter perspective, from a project creator perspective, and not necessarily this particular project, but if you think about the knock project, stretch goals cost us money, right? So we're trying, if we're doing something after the fact, when we built the knock project, we are trying to start a business. And, you know, our goal was to make enough money to buy sewing machines and buy materials and things like that. And every other, all the money I pour back into stretch goals, it's less money that I have to purchase this equipment to start my business. And I don't want that to sound, you know, come out the wrong way, but you've backed us at a level you've decided, you've chosen to back us at, right? So you've made that pledge. And now, um, to feel like, you know, there should be stretch goals. You should get more for what you've already committed to. It's a little bit of a weird thing for me to wrap my head around because I think it's mostly phony in my opinion. Kickstarter stretch goals.

Brad Dowdy: Like I've been thinking, there are some instances where it makes sense. Like if you're producing a project where if you meet a certain amount of money, you can upgrade the materials that you're using. Yes. So you can still deliver the, the, the thing, or like, let's say you want to do like a stainless steel version, but you can only do a stainless steel version when you can commit X amount of money to that.

Myke Hurley: Right. Like now that's, yeah, that's usually laid out, but that's usually when the product launches, they say, if we hit 10,000, I can do this. If we hit 25,000, I can do this.

Brad Dowdy: That's the kind of stretch goal I can get behind when you go to the page and they're like, here are a bunch of things that we only need this amount to, to, to do this. Right. If we make this, this, this, we can do this, this, and this, but like, we don't have any ideas. Like we can't like go to another pen show on the way. Like some people have said to me, like, and this is quite funny and I can see what they're saying. Like, why don't you stop off at some different places and do some different shows of other people? It's like, okay, that's fine. But that's not the pen addict. Like that's the Myke Hurley world tour, which is a totally different. That's a different project that I might start looking into.

Brad Dowdy: But you know, like, but like, you know, so I was saying this, like now I'm thinking like, oh, could we do a Kickstarter for a new show that requires an amount of investment? And then if we were to do that, then it would make sense to have stretch goals because we could increase the production. We could increase the thing, whatever the thing is. Let's say it was me traveling around the United Kingdom, interviewing sheep farmers, like whatever. Right. We could say, well, I can go here, here and here to make this amount of money. I can go here, here and here. Or I can maybe go to France as well. You know, if we, if we make half a million dollars. So you can see how I see how that makes sense, but we don't have any ideas for them. So we're kind of, it doesn't seem like something that we want to do.

Kickstarter Rewards

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We're just not going to do random add-ons as stretch goals, just because you should have a stretch goal with a Kickstarter project. That's, I'm just, don't believe in that.

Brad Dowdy: I totally reserve the right that if somebody suggests something that makes perfect sense that we like slap our foreheads and be like, why didn't we think of this? That we might look into that. But as you said, like there has to be like a, a reason that that needs to exist and it needs to cost whatever we're going to charge for it. Because the other thing is like, we would then need to create a new reward tier. Right. To, to, to do that. Can you even do that?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You can, you can add a tier.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So we would need to come up with something else and do another reward tier that would make sense because you would need to raise more than $10 a pop if we're going to have something that made sense. But yeah, that, that's kind of where, where we're thinking with that is like, it didn't make sense to us, which is why we're now not saying, right, here are our stretch goals because there's, there's nothing that we needed.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This project isn't built that way. So it's good just as it is, but, um, and it is really good though, but we're still open. What we're saying is we're still open and doing some really cool stuff for the backers. It's just not going to be presented in the form of a stretch goal.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So like the idea of, if we, well, we, we will definitely make enough money to buy at least one pen and give it away to a random backup. Like I'm confident that's going to happen considering we've just made an extra $150. So, right. So we can at least buy a pen for a hundred dollars or something.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. It'll be, yeah. Yeah. I'm worried about that at all. It'll be, it'll be all good.

Brad Dowdy: What a, what a great, what a great day. What a great day. Wow. Look at this. I can't believe it. I cannot, I just cannot believe it. I'm, I'm going to hate the next 29 days cause I'm just going to be constantly looking.

Myke Hurley: I know. So yeah, that's, that's the hard thing. The, the waiting now is, is going to be tough because we don't get to do this until April and the buildup is going to be pretty awesome. And we're going to have a lot more. I'll be talking a lot more about it for people that who are, you know, in the area are able to attend the show. You know, we'll have a whole kind of a schedule of events and we'll make sure everyone's, you know, in the loop on, on what all we're trying to do there.

Brad Dowdy: So yeah, if you're excited about this, this is April 17th to April 19th. Like if you could make it, make it, start making your plans now. Cause yeah, we're going to have a great time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You can assume we'll be doing something the Friday night and the Saturday night of the pen show. So you can just assume that what it is. We don't know, but you can assume it. Well, I'm pretty sure we're going to have a, a knock party regardless, um, at the shop. So, oh, great. We're working, we're working on that already.

Brad Dowdy: So awesome. Cause I didn't get to go to the first one. So that we're doing that. And of course we'll be in and around the show and oh man, it's going to be awesome. We're going to, we're going to roll in like, uh, we're going to roll in like some celebrities pushing things over, huh? The pen out of cruise here.

Myke Hurley: Actually, I will tell you this. The people at the pen show are going to have no idea what hit them.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it comes that Brit. What's he doing? I'm going to turn a lot of heads with this accent.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Except the Andersons. The Andersons are there. They're cool. And they're, they understand like, you know, social media and you know how things work with customers. But, uh, a lot of the, uh, old timers, if you will, they're gonna, they're going to be, uh, looking at us, uh, a little funnily. So, um, it'll, it'll be kind of cool. Why are you here boy? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it was this Kickstarter campaign that we did to bring me over from London.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Hello.

Brad Dowdy: I do a podcast.

Myke Hurley: So it's going to be interesting. It's going to be really good. It's, uh, I'm beyond excited.

Brad Dowdy: Um, I'm going to book, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about this like later on tomorrow, but I'm just going to book my plane ticket now. Cause I know that the money will come back to me. So we need to talk about that. So you, you book the hotel and then I'll, and then after you've done that, I'll book my plane ticket. Cause that was the thing, right? The sooner I can book it, the better cause it's cheaper. And as soon as we, as soon as we hit the goal, I can just book it because I know we're going to get it. Right. Oh, this is fantastic news. Yep. It's really, really good. This is so great. I am so, I'm so happy. Like, I think we should probably wrap up now before I turn into like a ball of liquid mess of some description.

Myke Hurley: I was going to say, are you ready to start the episode now?

Bags

Brad Dowdy: Uh, yes. Go for it. Talking about bags today or something.

Brad Dowdy: I just, again, like in case I haven't made it abundantly clear already, just in case. I cannot thank everyone who has either a already committed money or after hearing this episode goes and does it. I'm so happy that this episode comes out and there is currently 116. So maybe a hundred, maybe cases available when you're hearing this, which is great because I was concerned that there, that, you know, there might not be a good site, good amount for pen addict listeners. That is a, you know, that's something we might want to think about, Brad. I don't know if what we could do there. I mean, I don't know, but I'm sure, you know, this, I reckon a lot of our listeners have already seen this today because, because of this little website that, that wrote about it in the morning that they're probably reading every day. I don't know. Some, some, some enthusiast blog or some description. Um, so like, you know, I, for everybody that has and everybody that will put any money to this at all. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. You have, you've made my 2015 already. Like this is probably one of the best feelings I'm going to have this year. I just absolutely blown away because as well, Brad Dowdy is one of my best friends in the world and I've never got to spend any time with him in person. And the fact that you are making that happen, like this, it will be something that I'll never forget. So thank you.

Myke Hurley: It's going to be pretty amazing. I look forward to this so much. I look forward to, uh, to being there for you to jump in my arms when you get off the plane, um, and, and kick up your heels and I'll twirl you around. So, uh, yeah, it'll be good.

Myke Hurley: So are you going to make it?

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to make it. I'm fine. Uh, if you want to find the show notes for this episode, which haven't got a lot in, go to relay.fm slash pen addict slash one three nine, uh, go to kickstarter.com and search for the pen addict. You'll find, you might find something there too. Uh, we'll be back next week and hopefully I'll be a little bit more composed. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: We'll have back to our regularly, uh, scheduled programming. Yeah. Maybe. This one caught us off guard for sure.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, just a tad. Uh, if you, uh, I would like to also thank lynda.com for helping support this week's episode. Um, they are fantastic and, and help us make this show possible. Uh, thank you to you, Brad, for keeping me calm and for organizing all of this. Um, and for, you know, being here and making this podcast such a success as it is. Um, if you'd like to find Mr. Brad Dowdy online, he's at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. He is pen addict on Instagram and he is. He is the proprietor of pen addict.com. It is pen addict about the, the, right?

Myke Hurley: It is, but you made me buy the domain, the pen addict.com. Remember that? There you go.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. That's what, that was that. That was that. Well, I mean, cause again, I forgot, right? Even me, the guy who says it every week, I just forgot again. Um, and also you can find me online. I'm at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. And I host a bunch of shows at the, the very lovely, uh, Relay FM. Of which has a great family of people who were all very excited for us today and are learning who that Brad Dowdy fella is. Uh, and we'll be back next week. Thanks so much for listening. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.