Editing The Pen Addict 66/transcript (section)

== The Visionaire ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's go there. I said last week that I was done talking about The Visionaire.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's too big a story, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. It is. I'm just tired of talking about it because I don't think anything's going to change. Morgan emailed me last week. I don't know. It was a couple of days after the podcast. I don't even know what day. Morgan's the project founder on Kickstarter for The Visionaire Fountain Pen. If you've listened to the show, you know all about this story that I've been dealing with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm kind of over it. But Morgan, to his credit, sent me an email. Well, unfortunately, the email is pretty standard issue to the way he's been answering all the other questions. You know, everything's lumped in together, and it's just one big generic pile of stuff. You just kind of got to read between the lines and pick out some of the pieces. So, I mean, it's an epic-length email. I'm on a 15-inch MacBook Pro in my Gmail account, and the text, the body of the text does not fit on a single full screen. So, that's the email he sent me. But to recap, the first episode we talked about it, I had sent Morgan an email with a list of questions. So, he says, you know, in his email to me recently, he says, you know, he apologizes about the day and the delay. And he's getting lots of emails and trying to keep up. And then he goes into answering my questions. So, let me recap a couple of the questions because they're really short. I tried to keep them short for him. And just so, you know, I didn't want it to be, you know, I didn't want to try to kill the guy and have all kinds of deep, detailed posts, detailed questions. So, he lumped, I asked him five questions. He lumped the answers to one, two, and three into one answer. So, let me read those questions real quick. So, my question, one, was you talk about designing the Visionaire, but you also talk about not having much fountain pen experience, how much of the actual design is yours, and how much is pre-made parts. Second question is, did you fit your specs into an existing design, or is this 100% original design? And the third question is, are any new tools or dyes being made to produce these pens, or will existing tooling be used for the manufacturing? So, that's all kind of around design.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's three, like, pretty important, pretty sort of technical but high-level questions, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah, and those are all around the design and building of the pen, right? I mean, they all kind of sort of go together. So, his answer, his reply, it says, one through three. The answer says, it's true, I'm not a pen expert. I really like fountain pens. As I learned to write with one of these, to write with one and use them for quite many years at school since it was compulsory at the time. And then, right there, he goes straight into side story. When I was a kid, there were some plumes, a stick with a nib that you dip into ink at my grandparents' house. And this goes on for several sentences. I'm not going to. So, that's what I'm dealing with here, okay? So, he does what he does best. This is how he answers lots of his questions. So, then when he gets down to it, he goes, I have imagined and designed what would be my perfect pen, not from the technical aspect, but more from the emotional side of it. What I mean is more look, feel, hear. So, I wanted a simple, slick look, the weight in your hand when you hold it or write with it, the sound of the nib on the paper, and of the cap when you close it. To me, these are the most important features. So, I did send a design of the pen with these specs, and he put specs in quotes, which are all the touchy-feely stuff he's talking about, I'm guessing, to the chosen manufacturer and asked them if this could be done. They said yes, they could make a pen like this and sent me a prototype after a few weeks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do know they took some standard parts to make it, but believe the body cap details on the clip were done for me since it matches my design. And really, I did not think about asking what percentage of exclusive manufacturing is done on specific tools since the pen came out the way I wanted.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If I can stop you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so that's, no, that's the stopping point. So, go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All of that is perfectly valid. Yes. It would have just been so much better if that was the way he wrote it. Yes. Because that is a perfectly, in my opinion, that is perfectly fine. So, unfortunately, I don't know how to make this stuff. I know exactly what I want. These are the things that I want. I sent them to a manufacturer. They sent me a prototype, and it matches all that stuff. If this is stuff you want, we've got the pen for you. The problem is, you say you design it, and you show CAD images, so it will show that you designed it. You. Right. You, Bob Smith, opened AutoCAD and created a pen. That's the problem. Right. Yep. We're on the same page. But those reasons that he gave, and that explanation, I find that perfectly acceptable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But. It just wasn't presented that way. Exactly. Not at all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So. Please continue. No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know that there's much to continue on. The questions four and five were, you know, it was about the, you know, it being a Chinese pen, watching someone buy this instead of a hero. And then, you know, my question five was mentioned that the margins are low for the product. But he increased the early bird backers. And let's see what he says about this. This answer wasn't as interesting as the first one, I thought.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me just. I'm sorry. I'm rereading this part real quick. But.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. He was just talking about, you know, wanting to create something meaningful, meaningful. And manufacturing expenses are going down because the quantities are going up. And that's all. That's all good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And that was what we established. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So then. Yeah. And that's. Yeah. And the answers to question four and fives really aren't. It's just nothing really interesting out of there. And he just said, you know, Brad, I hope it. I hope this answers your questions and you'll be able to understand a little bit better what Visionaire is about. So he sent me this three days ago. And then yesterday on the Visionaire project page. You got an update. Right, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, the updates, even if you're not a backer, you can click on updates and see. And to Morgan's credit, he did what pretty much everyone had been asking him to do. One, get in front of the camera and show me you're a real person. And two, some people had some questions about the filling mechanism. So he did two videos. And you know what? Just like everything else he's done for this project, he does a really nice job. I mean, you watch him do the updates and it's like, I don't want to talk bad about this guy because he seems like a totally likable guy. I mean, either we're getting epically trolled or he's as genuine as can be. And I think it's probably the latter. I mean, he seems pretty genuine.