Editing The Pen Addict 63/transcript (section)

== Kickstarter Projects ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, so we saw an article come up this weekend on TechCrunch on Sunday by John Biggs. And our good friend, Anna Reinert, from the Well-Appointed Desk, had a really nice quote in it. And it was from, the article was about why pens are popular on Kickstarter and what it means for crowdfunders. And John is, John's always been kind of a pen fan. I worked with him a couple times when I was at JetPen. So he kind of, he at least has an idea of what he's talking about, unlike, you know, someone that's just picking up the topic for the first time and trying to extrapolate, you know, pens and Kickstarter and what all that means. And so he at least has a basis of an idea to write an article like this. And I thought, I mean, it wasn't anything, you know, new or novel in the article. He was just basically trying to figure out why pens do so well on Kickstarter. And, I mean, his basic point is, well, you know, the fans are rabid. It's not going to cost you too much. And you're not going to get crushed if something happens, you know, to the project because you're not, generally not spending a lot of money up front, right? There's not a lot of, there's not a huge risk on the consumer's part to take part in some of these Kickstarter projects for pens. And, you know, the reason why they're so popular, which is what Anna's quotes were about, is, you know, how people like myself and you and really just anyone in any office, any setting, any home working setting, you know, uses the pens that they use on a daily basis that they've, you know, gotten from Staples or Walmart or whatever. And they're not using the regular old Bic ballpoint. And they found a good pen they like, like a Pilot G2 or a Pilot V5 or something like that. And they want to, I guess, customize it isn't the right word, but they want to make it more special to them. And that's why these pen projects have been so cool, I think. They make these, take these pens that we all like and use on a daily basis and give them, give us something nice to put around that pen refill that we like so much and something different and something special. And, you know, I think that's been the majority of the success for all these Kickstarter projects. And, you know, I think John's right in the article saying that, you know, you're most likely not going to get burnt on a pen project. Although there's been some that have not been funded. There haven't been too many that have just completely gone up in flames. There's been some notorious projects that have been hugely, hugely delayed and things like that. But nothing that's just really where the guy's vanished or, you know, someone's run off with the money. There might be one or two notes, nothing I've been involved in. What do you think about the Kickstarter and the whole pen thing and why you buy, you know, why are you interested in backing some of this stuff on Kickstarter, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I guess there is some pretty interesting stuff that comes out of the Kickstarter world, you know. I mean, you look at the Retract, which is up to like $85,000 now, which is amazing. But, you know, you get some really cool ideas that come out of people wanting to create pens through the Kickstarter route.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But then there are pitfalls, like I'm still waiting on that pen that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I know there are people that are getting them now, but I don't seem to be having much luck. Mine still hasn't arrived. I have no idea why. Yeah, there's some delays. Yeah, it seems that way. It seems that way. But a lot of it is because, you know, they're trying to make the best product that they can, which I can sympathize with, I think. You know, I'm happy to receive it late if it means I'm going to get something excellent rather than them rushing it and me getting something poor. But I think it's just because people have ideas, but they're not a huge company. And then because they're not a huge company, they don't have anybody to answer to. So they can create something that they really want to make and they can charge whatever price they want for it. And if people are willing to buy it, it will get made. And I think it's kind of cool. I like it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And I think one of the things that Keras and pins like the Retract and Render K have done, I think they've got the price point figured out, I think. You know, just like the starting pin under $50. That's a good price point. You know, it's going to be hard for a lot of people. Well, I won't speak for a lot of people. I'll speak for me. But to back a pin that's, you know, around $100 from a manufacturer or someone I haven't, you know, seen their work before or, you know, at least have a pretty safe feeling about. But, you know, for $40 or $50, I'm willing to take that chance. Whereas, you know, for the other projects, you know, if you've seen some like been around $100 or so, that's a little more. That's a bigger pain point if something goes wrong, you know, for me and I imagine for a lot of people. So I appreciate the fact that you can go on Kickstarter. You can find a machine pin made by, you know, a group of guys in a machine shop by hand and, you know, pretty much handling all the parts themselves. And you can get that for under $50. I mean, that's pretty good. I mean, that's a pretty good deal. And I think that's why these pins like the Retract and the Render K and, you know, all the other ones that have done so well, the Premiere pin and the TI pin and things like that. So, yeah, it scratches that itch that we have. And, you know, we're willing to, you know, guys like us and people that listen to the podcast, we're willing to own more than one pin too. So we're filling the coffers there at Kickstarter for sure with these pin projects. So I think it's pretty cool. And, you know, it was nice to see this article on TechCrunch and I got a link in it. And so I was happy about that. And Ana did a great job on her quotes. So she was excited about that. She had reached out to me when John was reaching out to her. She's like, what do I do? Should I talk to him? And I'm like, yeah, go for it. So it was cool. It was cool. Good to see. And speaking of Kickstarter, before that article came about, my friend on Twitter, Wu Sang from Australia, sent me a link to another Kickstarter project that I hadn't seen. And I'm going to butcher this name because it's a German name and we'll have to get our German pronunciation guru to record this and send it to us. But it's the Lernstift. Is that where we're going with? Lernstift.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would say Lernstift.