Editing The Pen Addict 139/transcript (section)

== 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.