The Pen Addict 601/transcript

From RelayFM, this is The Pin Addict, episode 601. Today's show is brought to you by Factor and ExpressVPN. My name is Brad Dowdy, and this week I'm joined by David Parker, aka FigBootOnPins. How's it going, David?

Good, Brad. How are things going with you? I'm going very well, I guess. It has been a long time since we've talked on the podcast, and I always find it weird when I get to interview my friends on the show because we talk frequently. And then I look back, it's like, hey, when's the last time I talked to David on the podcast?

And it turns out that was 2019. That was a long time ago. A lot of things have changed. So how have you been since 2019?

Things have been going fine. The channel's been going well. I can't complain. It's kind of been nice to immerse yourself even more in the hobby, and there's so many new things that come out that it just always makes it new and interesting. That's actually kind of what I wanted to start with because you've been doing this.

So the FigBoot channel on YouTube, a little over eight years? Is that about right? A little over eight years. I want 50,000 subscribers.

Yes. You know, I recently passed 10 million views on YouTube, which is a nice milestone. I'm like 800 short of 50,000 subscribers. And I try not to focus on views or subscribers. I am well aware of the size of the pool that I'm swimming in.

I mean, some random person can post a video of their dog snoring and it gets 10 million views. So you can't really compare yourself to the mass market. Fountain pens are still rather the niche market. Steven Brown has over 60,000 subscribers.

Oh, nice. Oh, nice. You know, Matt Armstrong hasn't been actively doing reviews for five years, and he has like 55,000. Okay. Even though he's not creating content, his information and production value are still top notch and still very good info. For day one, I always kind of strive to make my videos look as good as his.

And I'm not quite up to his level, but I'm kind of like close enough. And sometimes you have to strike a balance between quality and the time it takes you to produce that quality. And I feel that, you know, it's good to know when good enough is good enough.

Yeah. And I, cause I've, I've seen folks who have spent like hours working to perfect their audio or color correction, and then they get burnt out because every video took them 15 hours to produce. And, you know, I would prefer to kind of focus on things that are more like fun and make me happy.

Yeah. And that's, that's a great way to, to think about it. Right. Just, you know, cause you will, you could drive yourself nuts trying to like micromanage the algorithm. Right. And trying to perfect it. Like, like last year at the DC show, I, I actually gave a seminar, which was the first time I had done that.

And, you know, I wasn't quite sure how many folks would attend. I mean, you have that fear that you're going to be sitting up there and there's going to be five people out there and it's going to be embarrassing. but maybe like a hundred people showed up. So that was a nice audience.

And it was kind of funny because, I enjoy magic. and I, I kind of more enjoy like the more technical aspects of tricks and how to perform them and things like that. And, you know, I, I like to analyze things and try to figure them out, but I wanted to open my seminar with a trick.

And, as an icebreaker and I, I wasn't nervous about talking in front of a hundred people for an hour. What I was nervous about was this two minute magic trick because I didn't want to screw it up and look like a fool. Exactly. Because if it works, then it's a fantastic way to start off the presentation.

But if you blow it, then it's hard to recover from that. and, and I, I hardly practice my presentation at all, but I practice that trick over and over and over and over again for weeks. And, I was able to pull it off just fine. And the seminar went well. and I appreciate everyone that, took the time away for the show to attend.

I, on a side note, if, if you want to see the exact trick that I did, you can, on YouTube search for a pedanteller, coin flip. If you do pedanteller coin flip on their TV show, someone came on and did this trick. And that's the exact trick that I did for this audience.

Okay, cool. I'll put a link. I can put a link in the show notes for it. We'll find that and, put that in the notes so everyone can check it out. Cause I want to check it out because I did make the seminar and we were at the same show together.

And I heard a lot of great feedback, from the show. And we're actually going to talk a little bit about pen shows later on. and that was a really cool thing that DC did this year. but I will, I will table that because I actually do have questions about that.

Back on the YouTube front, I had a question in the past few weeks posed to me that if someone was into stationary was in, in, in considering a, doing some content around stationary, their love of stationary. They, the question posed to me was where would you start or what platform would you start?

And my answer was YouTube. How would you answer that same question? I think YouTube is a good place to start. I, I have done videos that kind of, that were, titled like, so you want to be a content creator and it kind of goes over, Hey, you've decided that you want to create content.

These are some of my tips and tricks and what I feel you should focus on. how you want to just focus on your content and focus on making it the highest quality you can. And don't focus on how many views you're getting. when I first started, started doing this channel over my first month of four videos, I did like one video a week for a month that I had like 25 views or 20 views, but you have to know, no one's watching, but then that's the time when no one's watching that you want to find your voice and perfect what you're doing.

And it's better to do that when no one's watching. So by the time you kind of get your act together, then, then people will find you. And if you produce good content, that's interesting, then I I've always had the feeling that people will find you. Yeah, I completely agree.

And, and I wasn't saying, you know, I wasn't answering YouTube to, to, to protect, my, my blog and, and podcast castle and, and attack your castle. We're going to, we actually, we're going to talk about a battle royale here in a minute. but I, I legitimately think that YouTube is still honestly underserved in the stationary community, even though there's probably more stuff out there that I'm missing.

I've only really, gotten into watching YouTube myself, like frequently and going there for information probably in the past couple of years. Like, you know, you know, obviously I've watched like your direct stuff that I, the people know about, like, I, like, I know you, I'm going to see your videos, but actually hunting out information.

That was actually a newer thing to me, probably in the past two or three years. I haven't been much of a YouTube person. Now I'm like, yeah, I've been missing out on all the YouTube content. Speaking of which, how do you keep up with all the stuff you create?

Like that's, that's my, that's my direct question to you as someone who does this, as well and keeping up with the amount of products, keeping up with the amount of reviews and scheduling thing out, everything out. you do a great job at sticking to a schedule and, you know, creating videos, on the regular and always having content.

What's, what, what is that backlog and workflow like for you? you know, real quick, just in regard to your last question about someone getting started, I think FedEx or FedEx, sorry, I just saw my phone, FedEx delivering a package. I don't know why I just saw that. and that, YouTube also could be a great creative outlet. for a podcast, for the most part, you could only go at it.

Like, you know, it's rather narrow the way you could go about it. Totally. But with, with something like YouTube, you could go at it and be as creative as you want or simplistic as you want. And, you know, there's, you know, there's multiple different ways of doing it.

Do you want to be someone that shows their face? Do you want to be someone that just shows your hands and talks? Do you want to, you know, have beautiful tracking shots and product shots? Or do you want it to be simplistic?

I mean, there's all sorts of way of going about it. So you can, you can kind of, like I said before, find your voice. But in regard to how I kind of schedule and create content, I, I try to keep busy. I try to keep the momentum going.

You know, I kind of am fearful that if I stop, that it'll be too hard to like start back up again. You get in a little cycle, like riding a bike. my, my workflow is typically this that I, I usually post on like reviews on Sunday and Wednesday, roughly.

I don't, you know, no one's holding me to a schedule, but I try to keep it somewhat consistent. And I plan on my reviews a bit in advance so I can kind of test pens and live with them for a while before I do the reviews. You know, and I might have a group of five or six or seven pens in the hopper that I'm playing with.

And usually by Thursday, I decide what two pens I'm going to review next. And then on Friday I'll start writing, on a good week, I'll have one review completely done on Friday as far as written. and then on Saturday I'm writing the second review. And, you know, I need to get better about being focused because it has, I have a tendency to like, you know, write three paragraphs and then go play a game or write, you know, write a little bit more and do something else.

And so I might be able to get through the process quicker if I just focused and got it done. But again, I'm trying to do this in an enjoyable way, not making it feel like, you know, work. Right. And then I'll like take all the pictures I need to and create the intros and the measurement pieces parts.

And, depending on how early I get that done, then I might record, like I'll, I'll, write the second review on Saturday and either I'll record either late Saturday afternoon or, or maybe first thing Sunday morning, and then try to quickly produce one of them and get it posted. when I post something, it is typically hot off the press.

I mean, it is literally, I just got done. Boom. It is, it is up there. and then, and then I think what's important is I try to take like Monday off and then I maybe try to edit my, my weekday video on Tuesday or part of it on Tuesday and part of it on Wednesday and then post it on Wednesday.

And then I'll take Thursday off where I'm not doing anything on the channel. and I think it's important to have days where I'm just not working on, let's say the, production side of it because, you know, it's essentially a part-time job and, but I don't want it to feel like a job.

I don't want to push too hard and, and then it's no longer fun, but that's what a typical week looks like for me in regard to a production. But that really doesn't even include kind of working with artisans, retailers, distributors, manufacturers in order to kind of keep a, a healthy, steady supply of new items coming in for reviews.

You know how that is. So that's, that's kind of a constant going on. I was actually giggling while you were explaining, like, you know, you feel like a little bit lost sometimes or whatever. And like, I'm, I'm currently in that, in that cycle where I'm thinking about, I could manage my projects better.

What, where are my apps, where are my tools to do this? And like, I've been doing this for a long time and you still have these up and down cycles of like, I feel like it's getting away from me, you know, you know, like we're, we're like pretty locked into a decent schedule and workflow, which is good.

So, you know, I think for me, a lot about creating the content is about building those relationships. I'm always working on that. I feel it's about professionalism and how you represent yourself. You know, when it comes to reviews, it's really a symbiotic relationship, meaning that, you know, makers, distributors, retailers, manufacturers, they help provide me with pens for content.

And then I help them promote their products in a way, but they're aware that I'm going to provide my honest opinion on their products. Yes. Now I will say this, every once in a while you're presented with a moral quandary though. I won't mention the company, but it was a company that was producing their very first pen.

They did other things and I'm not quite sure what, why they were producing this pen, but they did. And they had contacted me during the design phase to give me some feedback on their early prototypes, which I know you've done as well. And that I've done confidentially. And so they sent me a pen and I pointed out its positives, but there were several issues with it as well that I pointed it out.

And they sent me some more parts and it still had issues. And the company was really inconsistent in their communication. I wouldn't hear from them for like three or four months and they popped back up again. And I was never sure if this pen would actually like make it to market.

But then they recently reached out and said, oh, hey, we fixed all the issues. Can you give us a positive review and provide us with some quotes and then make a video we could use for the launch campaign and we'll use your video as well. And I was kind of like, no, that's not how I work.

I said, the pen I have in my possession was not perfect. And I can only review what is in my hand. I cannot say, I said, if you want to send me a new pen with the issues fixed, then I will review that one and do something on that.

But I'm not going to go on a video and with a good conscience and say, review a pen and say, hey, everything that's wrong with this, the maker has said they promised they fixed for the final version. And so I kind of left it with that and I never heard back from them.

So I don't know what will happen there. But I did see another review channel feature their pen though. So I'm going to ask you, have you ever had that, Brad, where someone asked, basically asked you for a positive review or asked you to step over an ethical line that you didn't want to cross?

You don't need to mention names. Sure, sure. Not recently. And I can't, I'm trying to even like pinpoint any specific. Usually I will straight up in my first communication state that if we're going to take this further, I don't, number one, I'm not guaranteeing I will review a product.

And number two, I will not guarantee, if I do choose to review it, that I don't guarantee that the review would be positive. If you're okay with this, yes, please send me your product. So I try to nip it in the bud in the beginning. Yeah, but I don't think I've had anything really like that.

And I think overall, even like from like, not just the content creator side that we're on, but also from a manufacturing side. And it kind of goes back to just the size of the realm that we're in right now. It's not overly large. We have a pretty good accountability vibe in the community, just from the content side and the manufacturer side.

That I definitely feel anyone who's like reviewing products or sharing products or sharing products. You're getting a pretty, you're getting like the, the real, the real feedback on the product. I could tell you like, you know, my favorite pin from my favorite company. And if there's a flaw with that pin, guess what?

I'm going to tell you there's a flaw with the pin because that's just how it works in this community. Yeah. And I like to keep my reviews positive and let's say a positive tone. Sometimes you have to listen to the words I'm saying to, to understand when I am, you know, criticizing something because I might be saying it in a nice way, but you know, I kind of like to keep that positive tone. and so, so sometimes you have to pay attention to what I'm saying, but yeah, you have to, you can't just whitewash everything.

You have to say the good and the bad, but then I, for the most part, I'm not going to sit up here and just rant and rave and crash something because then in the grand scheme of things, who's going to want to send you pens. If every single thing that you do is you just rip them another one, that's not a good way to build relationships.

But if you do so in a constructive way to where maybe they don't like what I'm saying, but they can go, you know, I, I, I understand where they're coming from and it's legitimate. And he has a point. Then you still have maintained that relationship. Yeah. So I, the most, one of the most interesting comments someone ever said to me about this topic, which I didn't realize until they said it, the, the comment to me was in just in general, not in a good or bad way.

Just like you, you rarely, you know, have negative reviews or review a bad pen. And like, that's kind of not the case, but like, I'm not going to just, I'm not going to go up, just like go hard at a product for no reason. Cause that's no fun for anybody.

But someone replied before I could even reply is like, they say he does it on every review. You just have to realize what he's not saying. And I was, I thought about that for a second. I was like, yeah, I mean, that's a little bit like, you can't expect like, you know, a brand new reader to like maybe clearly understand that.

But once someone said that, once you realize what he's not saying, you can like fill in the blanks and, and really kind of get down to the point, which I thought was an interesting way to look at it. Yeah. Especially if, okay. If someone has listened to you for a long time, they know how you describe things.

They know how you say things. And that when you describe something completely different in a way to where they kind of know you're avoiding certain words in a way you can kind of read between the lines and I'm still being nice in the way I'm saying it and I'm describing it truthfully.

But if you are really paying attention, you can kind of understand where I'm coming from. Yep. Exactly right. Exactly right. Exactly right. All right. I want to keep talking about YouTube and some of the videos you've done. I have three videos that I have pulled here to discuss specifically.

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That's code pinaddict50 at factormeals.com to get 50% off your first box and two free wellness shots. Our thanks to Factor for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right. So, I'm guessing, like if I said, hey, David, I want to talk about a few of your videos, and I picked out three.

I bet you could come up with two of these. So, I'm going to cover those first. Number one, the Enso Bolt review. One of the most recent reviews.

That was a very popular review. That's a very interesting Kickstarter project. And I love these type of reviews. Number one, I'm a big fan of Enso, and I think Carla does a really good job with the brand and manufacturing great things.

And then coming up with something unique and interesting and getting it out there ahead of time and getting someone to take a look at it. I found that video to be excellent and answered a lot of questions about a product that probably people do have a lot of questions about, right?

This is not your standard pen. So, this makes it perfect for review, in my opinion. So, what did you think about the Enso Bolt and that video? Now, I think that when I first saw the pictures of it, I had the same questions that everyone else does about it.

One, does it work? You know, does it dry out? This is an interesting mechanism at the end of the pen. There is a silicone seal that has an X hole in it, so to speak.

There's an X slit in there. And when you go ahead and use the bolt, it physically pushes out of that seal. So, real quick, for people that don't know, this is a retractable fountain pen. So, it's a bolt action pen where you're actually engaging the bolt and pushing the fountain pen tip through the front end.

So, sorry. Well, sorry. I forgot to mention that part of it. No, I did too. It was a new nib that I haven't seen before. I have learned that this is the very same nib that is on the new Endless capless pen as well.

It's the very same nib unit. Okay. So, I was curious about the size and how it would work. And then also curious if it would dry out. And I will say that I have been very impressed with it not drying out.

Over the last week plus, I've made it a point to keep it inked and not use it. Because I wanted to pick it up today to see, did it dry out over a week? Didn't dry out at all. Picked it up. Worked right away. One of the downsides is I will say that as it kind of, well, I don't want to say scrapes, but as it moves in and out of that silicone, it does kind of get a little bit of ink on the nib.

Carlo had said that, you know, hey, that does a good job of keeping the nib wet, which it might, or that might be marketing speak. But it does. And I haven't found that that wetness on the nib causes a mess or anything like that or really causes any issues.

It does get a little inky on the section, on the nib unit inside, but you're really only accessing that when you are inking up the pen. So, I think for the price point, I think it was selling for $84. It's a great price point. It is a bit on the thin side.

It's about the width of a standard section. It was like nine point something millimeters. And so, it's pretty much a normal section. So, it doesn't feel super thin.

But for a barrel, that's a little bit on the thinner side. But if you like some of the pens from like tactile turn, that size of a pen, then this is comparable to that. But so, overall, I was impressed. I was glad to be able to take a look at it to begin with.

It's made from titanium. And it's a little bit lighter than I thought it would be. But overall, I was impressed with it. And it's very simple, meaning that the mechanism is very simple.

It is literally just a bolt, the nib unit with a converter on it, and the seal and a spring. And that is it. And you can completely disassemble it as well. So, I was impressed.

And as you said, Enso and Carla have been coming up with some really unique things. And I always kind of appreciate when companies step out of their comfort zone and try new and unique things. It may work or it may not. But they're trying something different.

And this was certainly different and unexpected. I wasn't expecting this from them at all. Yeah, exactly right. So, I look forward to it. I've backed that project.

So, I am definitely interested to give it a run. The second video I want to talk about is the surprise one. So, I was looking through the list of your reviews. And as best as I can tell, for the single pin reviews, this review has the most views.

And I stopped looking after a year. So, in the past year, what review video of a single product do you think has the most views? And I could be wrong, but I'm just generally scrolling through the page. Was it that Parker?

Was it the Parker I recently did? Yes, the Parker Ingenuity. Why? Why? You know what? I'm not quite sure. That really stood out to me in a big way.

Yeah. Because it was something that I wanted to review and that I had. And maybe it's just name familiarity. Maybe. You know? I did a review of a really, really cool pen from a gentleman named Pens by Casey, which are you familiar with him at all? No, not until I saw your video.

I had not been familiar with him. And that, you know, it was really unique wood. And I thought that the thumbnail would look, sometimes it's the thumbnail. I thought the thumbnail might get some attention because it is some really neat wood.

And that one, okay, when I say underperformed, I mean, of my last 10 videos, it was 10 out of 10. And I was expecting it to do a little bit better than that. But it's nice. But I like featuring kind of individual artisans like that that are doing really good work.

100%. Because it's fun to show someone and make incredible work that someone is doing and also discovering someone new. And something I thought was interesting was I posted that review. And if you look at the comments, there's like a dozen people that were just gushing over, hey, I've done business with this guy.

He's amazing. I can't recommend them highly enough. And I know that Casey was like blown away by that because I was giving him a hard time saying, how much did you pay these people to make all these comments? And he goes, I didn't pay him anything. But it's amazing because I was not familiar with his work.

And he's from Australia. And he does some really interesting work when it comes to a lot of exotic woods and making his own wood and resin combos. But that was interesting. Yes, I have no idea why that one all of a sudden got attention.

Maybe it's just because it's a Parker and people know that brand name more. That might be it. Yeah. So I was like watching the video. I was like, you know, maybe something like did David like fall over in his chair and he left that in the edit or like what's going on here?

And it's like, you know, it's just a straight up, you know, solid review. And it's like, I'm looking at I was I was kind of taken aback by this. I was like, this can't be right. And it sure enough, it sure enough was, which is kind of wild to me.

Yeah. I mean, not complaining. You never know. Yeah. No, you never know. Right. You never know. And there's been, like I said, other videos that I was like, you know, I thought would do well. Like, okay, a couple of years ago, there was a gentleman in England who had made a fountain pen.

It's like a thousand piece fountain pen, a thousand section fountain pen. And his wood making video got like over 2 million views. I mean, just like a ton of views. And he sent me the pen to review.

And okay, I did not have dreams of grandeur, but I was like, okay, the review, you know, him making the pen got like 2 million views. Maybe, you know, maybe the review of it might get a few, you know, might be rather popular or people that watch that.

And I don't want to say it bombed, but it just did perform like a normal review and it wasn't like anything spectacular. And so I was a little disappointed because I was like, man, I, you know, that, that you never know because if you would, if that one video would have all of a sudden got 500,000 views, I would have said, oh, okay.

That's because it's, it's associated with a video that did really well. I'm still glad he lent me his special pen to take a look at, but you. You honestly never know what's going to happen. You never know. You never know, which is why I like it when you sneak in these special videos like pen company battle Royale.

That is always like you, you do this on occasion. You've always done, you need to did like the Rubik's cube wall and you've done some different things, different fun things, over the years. So, how did the pen company battle Royale, come about? Because I've got some good comments about people telling me to make sure I go watch it.

So that was fun. you know what? Okay. It's because I was surfing around YouTube and someone had, someone was doing a state battle. It was like, what state will win type of thing. If, if you're not familiar, what there is a program, it was called ages of conflict where basically you could set up the world and just like, let's say a set up, every single state and then the states battle against each other.

And you know, if you kind of in a random randomizer type of situation, if California beats Nevada, then it takes over their land. And then you basically fight to see what, what state ends up, with the most, you know, taking over the whole country and you can do different maps and maps of the world and things like that.

And they just did it with states. And I just was like, oh, okay, maybe that would be interesting. It might be quick because it was just like one take. I didn't have to edit anything.

I could just do it and record it. And it might be kind of something quick and easy to do. And what I did was I associated every state with a pen company. And then just had narration as, as it went through, again, something very random, very, you know, and I don't look for a series of these, but I like doing something like just random and different every once in a while, just because it's fun.

I was committed to the end. I had to see who won. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who wants to go see, but I was like, when I started, I was like, what is, what is this going on? Then, okay, it's like, can I see what's going on?

And now I'm like yelling. I'm like, go, go. I'm like, sorry, sorry, Jonathan, Carolina Penco. You, you got taken over pretty early in the game.

So yes. Sorry, Jonathan. I, okay. This is something random, but I might have another random video coming out that has actually nothing to do with pens. And this is a good example of a video that might get, you know, 500 views or 5 million. Who knows? Right. Right. have you ever heard about Tom Cruise's cake?

apparently every year for Christmas, he send has a Christmas list and he sends out these coconut bundt cakes from this shop in Los Angeles every year. Okay. You can go on YouTube and find tons of videos of celebrities talking and raving about this cake, saying that it's like the best cake they've ever had in their life.

And they feel so blessed to be on his, you know, on his Christmas list. Cause every year they just can't wait for this cake to show up. And I, it, I'll say it is not a cheap cake. I'm sure. And, but for Christmas this year, I received a very nice gift certificate for a website that could send you food from different restaurants and things like that.

And one of the places was the place that makes this cake. And so I was able to use this gift card. It did not cover the entire cake, but enough to make it like worthwhile. And, that only had to pay a small amount out of pocket.

And then there's like a two month wait for the cake to show up. I ordered it in December and it's scheduled to derive like mid February. Wow. And, and we'll see, I don't know. I might do like an unboxing and a video on this cake. So who knows?

I mean, that's random, but then again, it's silly. And you know, you just want to do things that are fun. I think that's kind of one of the things I want to do is I want to just enjoy myself and do something that's fun. And if people watch it fine, great.

And it's entertaining. If you don't want to sit and watch me talk about a cake for 10 minutes, then, you know, maybe the next video is for you. Yeah. And I think, yeah, I love, I love seeing creators do that and bring out the personal side. Like, I think that's always important and have fun and have fun what they're doing.

So we're going to hop off of YouTube for a second because we are going to come back to it here at the end. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about pin shows because we see each other out on the road several times a year.

And I was curious, I guess the last time we saw each other DC this past year when you did your event. So what is your pin show calendar look like this year? Are you getting out more or less? How many pin shows do you go to a year?

I'm just kind of curious. What's your year like? I typically will make it to Atlanta. And then I go to the triangle show, which is practically in my backyard.

They actually moved it to a new location beginning last year. And it's literally like 300 yards from my office at work where I work. So I can practically see the hotel out the window from the office. So there's no excuse for me not to go to that show.

And then I'll go to DC as well. I'd really like to get out to the California show. I've heard nothing but good things, at least for last year from I think last year was the first year of the show. And heard a lot of really good things.

Much needed improvement over the other California show. And then I'd like to get out to San Francisco again because that was amazing. Had a fun time. Those might need to wait until next year for me.

But I'm going to at least do Atlanta and Triangle and DC. So when you go to pin shows, what are you looking to get out of your pin show experience? Are you going to talk to people? Are you going to investigate new products? Are you going to buy stuff?

What is your pin show experience or expectations when you head out? You know what? Lately, I have not. I think at DC, I bought one pin and that was it. I bought a Santini.

And when I go to shows, if people ask me what I want to buy, I always say that I want to buy what I don't know what I want to buy. I don't know what it even exists. I want to walk up on a table and all of a sudden say, you know what?

I have to have that. Like with the Santinis, I had seen them there a couple of years and a lot of their pins were nice, but none of them really hit with me. But then they had this one that was called the Giant 8 that was just amazing.

And I really loved it. And as soon as I saw it, I'm like, okay, I have to have that. That's the experience I want is to be able to come across something like that. At DC this year, I'm going to do another seminar this year at DC. Same seminar, same concept or different?

No, I'll do a different one. Like if I ever go to like San Francisco and do it, maybe I'll do this other seminar first. But I don't want to do the same one over again. I'll come up with something new.

Plus, I need to come up with a new magic trick to do. You've got to start practicing now. Well, yeah. And then also, see, if you do like a close-up magic trick, that doesn't work for a large audience. It's like a little bit different.

And I'm not like a rabbit out of the hat kind of, you know, alakazam guy to guy. It has to be a certain kind of trick in order for me to do it. But I want to make new discoveries. Like example, at DC last year, how cool was it to walk by and all of a sudden see like NFP?

It was crazy. As soon as you saw them, you were like, that's pretty good. What is this? Tell me more. Tell me more. It's cool stuff. Right away, you could see how quality everything was. And those are the discoveries that I want to make is seeing those people that I didn't even know existed.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the best part about pin shows. And I always get the question, and I'll pose it to you. But I think we're probably kind of on the same page. You know, people always ask, you know, what can pin shows do better?

What would we like to see? You know, I go to about five, you know, give or take shows a year. And I used to be of the opinion that maybe I want to see more of a con, like a convention type pin show. But I really think what we have works pretty well.

What I'd like to see some small tweaks here and there. Yes. What I'd like to see. You know, my thing is always more things to do outside of the show floor. You know, having, like, your class at D.C. last year, that's something different.

Like, our friend Mike Madison had a class about backpacks. Like, that's something different. And maybe it draws, you know, 50 or 100 people. That's still something that those people get to talk about that they did at the D.C. pin show that they may not get to do.

So, do you have any opinions or thoughts on just, like, show setups in general and things you'd like to see? Yeah, it's okay. I, you know, I'm sure that they have, like, a state fair in Georgia that you go to every year or something like that. And if you go to them every year, you'll notice it's, like, always the same booths in the same place.

And, you know, I think sometimes pin shows can get in that same kind of rut. Where it's the same vendors and the same place and the same everything. And that I think that sometimes they need to do a better job of bringing in that newness factor. Now, you still need those, we'll call them anchor tables, in order to do that.

But I think that there's a core group of people that know about the shows and are going to attend no matter what. And it's those fringe folks that you need to kind of lure in to the show. And that can mean the difference between failure and, well, I say failure, but success.

And that can mean, like, there's more seminars or special events or things like that. And, you know, it kind of needs to feel like it's just more than a pen show. I think San Francisco does a great job of that. Last year, D.C. has improved over the last few years with that.

Frankly, I'll admit that I think that the absence of your show in Atlanta kind of hurt them a little bit. Because I think that that live podcast was a great draw for a lot of people and an event that really people enjoyed. And I know that you and Mike have your reasons for not doing it.

But it's a thing like that that turns a show from just being another show into a special and memorable event. Because those people go home and they're going to talk about seeing so-and-so's table. They're going to say, oh, cool, we went to that podcast tape and we went to the seminar.

And those cool things like that that kind of make it above and beyond special. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. Like, we definitely see things the same way. And we go, and I'm speaking for personal experience, like I always try to spend, we're a lot of times, you know, fortunate that we can spend multiple days at a show.

You know, we're not popping in Saturday afternoon to check out a few products and get in and out. We're looking more for the event type of aspects of the show. If I'm going to commit to two or three nights at a hotel, you know, I'd like to do a couple of things other than just, you know, walking in circles, you know, throughout all the tables.

And DC last year being like super overwhelming was kind of impressive how many people were at that show. I don't know that I've ever been to a busier show than that DC show. But it's not much, right? Like, it's just a few little things, few little things on the side that, you know, people can, like you say, talk about later instead of saying, hey, I saw the new Lamy at the thing.

Well, they can see that online, you know. They can get a feel for it at the show, but, you know, they could say, oh, you know, I hung out with, you know, my friends and we went out to eat. And, you know, we were able to come back and we did the seminar earlier in the day.

And those are the kind of memories that are lasting. So I always love seeing pen shows that really lean into that mode. And, you know, I really, I appreciated everyone that showed up at my seminar because it was like at 11 o'clock on Saturday. And I can imagine that, let's just say you're only attending the show for one day, which a lot of people do.

So, you know, so you might show up at nine and maybe you walk the floor for a little bit, but then pretty much right away you have to sit for an hour or so in a seminar. And that's like less floor time. And that I appreciated the fact that people wanted to at least take away from their floor time, especially kind of early in the day in order to do that.

But I think that it kind of made it special. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. I kind of wanted to get your feedback about that because I always see you at shows and we never really talk about shows. And that people are always interested in people who go to multiple shows and what they think about that.

So that's really cool. So I want to bring it back into the direct FigBoot creation realm and talk about some product collaborations that you've done in the past and maybe, hint, hint, have coming up in the future. But before we do that, let me thank our second sponsor today.

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And our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. You make the best product collaborations. Well, thank you. I was going to jump out and say that right now. I really like the style and aesthetics that you've created.

So tell me, when did you first realize or start thinking about, hey, let me do a product collaboration with like one of these makers or these manufacturers that I've been doing all these reviews. Tell me about how your first product collaboration came about. You know, in regard to these collaborations, I always said that it's not my intention to become a traditional retailer.

I don't want to come home from work and find that there was one order and then have to pack that up and, you know, go to the post office or do whatever. And I, you know, I'm sure you've lived through some of that. I, what I wanted to do was have a, I thought it would be fun to have a, because I think maybe I saw Kickstarter projects and things like that and said, well, it might be fun to have a project every so often that I would put up for sale, hopefully sell out quickly and then move on to the next project.

And I also, I wanted to have kind of a personal connection to each of these projects. I didn't want to feel like I was just slapping my name on a pen. There needed to be a reason why my name was on it. Whether it was like I chose the material or I implemented new elements of the design or something like that.

I took an active role in this as opposed to just slapping my name on something. When it comes to fulfillment, you, I do everything myself. I mean, yes, it would be easier to partner with a retailer who would just do everything for me. Yes, but it kind of comes down to that personal element.

If someone likes me enough and likes my product enough to purchase it, I want to kind of provide them with as much of a personal experience as possible. You know, I write a personalized thank you note that goes in every order and that takes many hours to complete.

But, you know, it would be easier if I didn't do it. But then again, I want to have that unboxing experience to be a good one. And I try to think of like, what would I think would be cool if I purchased a pen from somebody? What would be neat that I received?

And I try to do those things. So I know that's a lot, but it didn't necessarily answer the full question. But that's a bit of my philosophy in regard to how I go about these projects. No, that's very valuable and important.

The first one I did was with Leonardo and a Jonathan Brooks resin that he called Earth Magic that I just loved. And I thought it would be fun just to see if I could sell a few pens. Now, Jonathan's Earth Magic material is spectacular. It's a vibrant turquoise with a brownish copper.

But the problem is with that material and with a lot of resins, you have inconsistencies. You might have some pens with more blue, some with more copper, and it can really vary in what you get. And so I worked with Jonathan and we reduced the copper so the pen would have more of a consistent look to it.

And Leonardo was a great partner to work with. And I also really loved the Momento Zero model. I think it's just a really solid model that appeals to a lot of folks. And I wasn't sure how many I could sell.

I just had no clue. Could I sell 100 pens? Could I sell 200? It's kind of scary to put a number out there when you really have no idea.

And so we settled on 111 units just because 11 is my favorite number. And so we did 111. And I put them on sale and it completely sold out in 30 seconds. Yeah, I did not get one of those.

It just blew me away. Part of me was relieved that I sold out. But another part of me was like, dang, we should have made more. And that was a very positive experience that kind of made me want to do more of these projects.

Yeah. So you've now worked with Leonardo three times? Yeah. I will say kind of two and a half times. Two and a half times. So I did the first one with Leonardo.

And then the second one was with Leonardo, which we had more options. It was called Carolina Midnight, which was a very dark blue pearlescent with some gray in it. And for that one, rather than creating a number of units, I left the selling window open for a weekend and pretty much just said, however, almost treated it like a Kickstarter starter.

I was running myself. It's open for a weekend. If you want it, you could have it. And roughly 300 people ordered them.

And I gave them more options. It was like ruthenium and rhodium and basically a number of options to choose. And we sold roughly 300 of those or 300 of those we made. And then after that one, we had a little bit of extra material for that Carolina Midnight.

And so we made, we had enough material for 15 tricked out Memento Zero Grandes. Gotcha. So I made 15 of those. Those had gold nibs. Yeah. Sweet. But then also, that was more of a test because a Memento Zero is like 225 range.

Yeah. But this Grande with a gold nib was more, I think it was like 695, 720. Sounds about right. Right around there. And then that's a question of how many $700 pens could I sell? And I, well, I sold 14 because I kept one for myself. I got to at least keep one.

Sure. And I was, you know, and I was pleased that for that test, I was able to move that many units. And I was very happy with the pen as well. And then the last one I did was with Franklin Kristoff, which it was another custom Brooks resin.

It was one of the resins we created a couple of years ago in that video I did with Jonathan where we made resin together. And when I say we made resin together, that means he did 99% of the work. And then I stirred a few things. Yeah. You pointed and stirred.

Yeah. You know, like when you're a kid and you have that younger sibling and you give them the controller that isn't even plugged in to help you play the video game. That was me with Jonathan and the resin. But I was really pleased with all of those. And that I'm really pleased with ones we had coming up.

You know, real quick, I did actually have one project that fell apart this year before it launched. And, okay. It happens. I'm not going to name names. And it was very frustrating. And I was working with a smaller manufacturer who just completely flaked out on me.

And it was always a challenge to communicate with them. And there was many delays and broken promises. And then one day they just stopped communicating. They just wouldn't answer emails, wouldn't communicate with me at all.

And, you know, I have zero idea why. No idea why they stopped. And maybe one day I'll run into this person at a pen show and find out what happened because they still make pens. They still are active on social media.

They're still out there. But they, for some reason, didn't want to work together but didn't want to, you know, use their words and communicate. But, you know, if they were going to do that to a business partner, then maybe they're not the type of person I needed to do business with.

Yeah, makes sense. And maybe you won't see any of their pens on my channel being reviewed either. So, not to get bitter about it. But I'd rather focus on the positive because on all of my other projects, I have been very fortunate to work with some outstanding people.

And it's been nothing but great experiences. So, let's talk about this next project. So, you just launched a video for the upcoming new collaboration you have. So, tell me about this one.

This is with a company by the name of Radius. Now, you might not be familiar with Radius. Radius is actually owned by Leonardo. It is a historic brand that produced pens in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.

And I believe it was associated with Omos at that point in time as well. And Leonardo has revived that brand and they started making pens using some of the historical designs as well. So, they're not just creating something brand new and slapping a name on it. That when you see pictures of the older models, that they are using a lot of those same elements in the newer ones.

And the idea for this project was kind of a confluence of a couple of things. It was Leonardo having the new brand, which I thought would be interesting. It was the Italian retailer Stilo and Stile. They produced a fantastic pen with Radius called the Prisma, which had a frosted kind of white resin and a rainbow PVD trim.

And then it was Leonardo a couple of years ago producing a line of pens called the Pura, which used this fantastic translucent Italian resin that kind of had a frosted velvety look to it. And I just kind of mashed all those things together into one pen. This is my first project where I haven't had a custom resin made.

Okay. But I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I think that the blue resin really pops. And the rainbow PVD trim on the trim and nib is really subtle and kind of pairs nicely with the resin. It's not kind of like an in-your-face rainbow.

At first, I was going to name the pen Blue Velvet because of the velvet finish of the pen. But a week or so ago, I actually shared a sneak preview with the pen with some folks up on the Pen Addict Slack channel. And someone suggested Blue Flame. And then I held a poll and everyone wanted Blue Flame.

That name won by a lot. And the name stuck. Sometimes, you know, it's not easy naming things. Sometimes it sticks and sometimes you have to hunt for it for a while.

But I think the name fits this pen well because between the blue and the rainbow, it really does look like a natural gas or propane flame. Yeah. And so I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. And I can't wait to get them in people's hands. Yeah.

So it's launching in a few days after we launch this podcast. So tell us about the date of release and price point and availability and all that good stuff. The sale will begin at 9 a.m. Eastern this upcoming Saturday, February 10th. The price point will be $199.

And that it's going to be a limited edition of 300 units. It will only be available on my website, which is figboot.com. Don't go up there looking for any additional content. Right now, I have just used that site in order to run these sales.

One of these days, I might do something else. But as you well know, running a website is a whole different beast on its own. And if I ever got to do that, I would want to commit to it. I don't want to kind of do it halfway.

One thing that's actually really great is if you are located in the EU and purchase a pen, that it will be shipped to you directly from Italy so that you can avoid paying the additional tax. And what has happened is the pens have already been made. They are just sitting in Italy waiting for me to tell them how many of each nib unit to put on them.

And I really like doing sales this way because then everyone who wants to order a pen can get the nib of their choosing. So it's not like it's getting down to the last three pens and you want a stub and the only thing that are left are fines and you don't get your choice.

So Leonardo is really good about turning these around quickly. So once the sale is completed, I should have in my hands at about 45 days. And then the customer hands shortly thereafter. And one thing I've really taken pride on when I've done these projects is that I have always committed to, I've always committed or basically fulfilled my promise of having something in people's hands when I say it's going to be in their hands.

We have all seen Kickstarters or things like that that have had extraordinary delays. There's a Kickstarter I know of that has taken over four years to get the product in people's hands. And I don't know how creators can live with themselves after doing that. I could never show myself in public or at a show or make another review with open comments if I ever did that.

And so I fully plan on committing to fulfilling everything when I say I'm going to do it as well. Yeah, I was asked last week in our in our episode about how small makers can stand out. And I think people were probably thinking I would talk about like design and materials and unique thing.

I said good customer service. It do the little things well and it makes a massive difference. So, you know what? Things are not always going to be perfect either.

Things are our stuff is going to happen. Someone will be sent up. You know, if I said 300 pens out, there's going to be a couple of people who get one that something is not quite right on it. But it's all about you, how you handle those issues.

And that it's always been said in customer service and things like that, that if you handle someone's issue correctly, they are actually a stronger customer and more loyal to your brand than if they never had an issue at all. Because you basically show your true colors. Do I stand beyond my product?

Do I take care of the customer? Or did I just sell you something and I'm running away? But yeah, it's fun to run these projects because, you know, I like to think I'm a very organized person and easy to work with. And I do a lot of project management in my day job.

And so, in essence, this is just another project. And my professional skill set kind of matches well with projects like these. I mean, I put all these lists. I put those Gantt charts and, you know, I have a 50-step checklist that I need to have in order to get things in people's hands.

You try to plan for everything. And that's just kind of what I do. And part of that is the fun of it. It's an extension of the hobby.

You should start using Gantt chart line paper for your product for your written reviews. It's like, that's the last thing I want to do is if I deal with Gantt charts all day is have that in my notebook paper, too. But, you know, it makes it frustrating when something at the beginning is out of tune or is delayed and it just, like, whacks everything else.

You know, like, ah, okay. I just screwed everything else behind it. But it fits well and I think that I have done a good job managing these projects. And then, you know, on top of that, I've been really happy with the project, with the pens themselves and feel confident that it's fun.

You know how it is. It's fun when you send out a bunch of things and you see other people getting excited about it. Totally. How excited when you have a customer that, let's just say, you've never met or heard of and they post something on social media about how excited about their spoke pen that they just got.

That makes you feel really great. It really, really does. Because you've been able to transfer that enthusiasm over. Yep. And honestly, that's why we do it, right?

Like, you know, like, of course, like, in the end of the day, you know, there's maybe a few dollars coming in. But it's really more just like getting good stuff in people's hands and kind of spreading the love of stationery and around. And like, yeah, that's definitely, definitely highlights of my day for sure.

You know what made me feel good a couple of times is, okay, pens will always show up on the secondary market. And, you know, you see one for sale and part of you is like, oh, man, I feel bad because they didn't want it. But a couple of times, people have sold their pens that I produced for more than they bought them for.

And that doesn't happen that often. Right. And by no means should anyone be buying a pen as an investment. And we're talking more, we're talking like $15 or $20 more. Right. It was not like greatly.

But it was nice to see that, you know, it wasn't like someone was selling it at half price. It wasn't on the bargain. Right. And that was just kind of nice to see because whatever anyone has gone up for sale, they get snatched up right away. And so at least makes you feel like there's at least a demand for that and that other people have enjoyed it as opposed to you feeling like you're just pushing on everyone and hoping you sell this much.

Exactly. Exactly. So that's the good stuff. All right. Well, we're about to wrap this up. I need to know what else you have coming up here in the queue. Is there anything you're excited about that you can tease ahead of time as far as product reviews?

I know the Blue Flame release, that's a big deal coming out. But how about on the review spectrum? Or is there any product reviews you're really anxious to get out there? As far as the queue coming up, I have a few things that are in the mail to me I'm looking forward to.

The latest quarterly release from Tactile Turn should be showing up in the next day or two. Icefall, I believe. Icefall. And they just kill it every single quarter. I know. It's really hard. I thought the Nitro was outstanding. Now, some of the themes hit closer to home, but they just execute their theme extremely well.

And so I enjoy doing that four times a year and taking a look at it. And the reviews are a little repetitive just because how much can you say about the Bolt pen? But I enjoy giving them attention because they do such a good job and they're so cool.

I have something coming my way from Shiube North that Ruth does some amazing work. There's not too many women making pens, especially making metal pens and doing metal work. And she does fantastic work. Not that her being a woman has anything to do with that, but she does amazing work.

Yeah, I was hoping to get her to meet her in D.C. last year. I was too, and I kept visiting her table waiting for her to show up, and then she had some... Yeah, she had some things come up. Yeah, and I was disappointed because that was one of the people that I really wanted to meet because she does some amazing work.

Yep. I have a retailer exclusive Leonardo that just showed up in my mail today. And then just as a little bit of a teaser, I do have two additional projects coming in later on this year that I'm very excited about. I'm working with a couple of manufacturers that I haven't worked with before.

And also doing some resin with other folks that... With folks not named Jonathan Brooks. Not that Jonathan doesn't do fantastic things, but part of my goal with doing these projects is to work with different manufacturers, work with different people, work with the people I like and whose work I like and come up with new and creative things on a regular basis.

And I'm a little nervous about the projects coming up because they're at a bit of a higher price point. But I'm very excited about them and can't wait until later on in the year when I can share more. I don't want to jinx anything until it's closed, but I'm very excited about some of them.

Well, all of them. Yeah, all of them. For sure. For sure. Well, I'm excited to get this one out there. Blue Flame will be out later this week.

Where else can people find you out there on the internet? I'll have all the links to the YouTube and everything. But anywhere else you want to send people to that we can mention? YouTube is FigBoot on pens.

On Instagram, I'm FigBoot11. And that's pretty much between those two is the majority of where I post. I haven't ventured out to other things just because it's like I want to commit to it if I do it. So I kind of hang.

Those are my places I hang. And as well as hanging out sometimes on the Pen Addict Slack, as well as on Reddit, our fountain pens is a nice community. So those are kind of the four places that you'll see me most. Nice. Nice. Love it. And I will see you at a pen show near us, hopefully soon.

Hopefully Atlanta for both of us this year. If not, we will see you somewhere out there on the road, I am sure. So thank you so much for joining me today. And this has been episode number 601 of the Pen Addict Podcast.

Thank you all for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, David. Goodbye, David.