Editing The Pen Addict 141/transcript (section)

== Hoban Cards ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So, this episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Hoban Cards. Hoban Cards create affordable, beautiful, custom letterpress printed calling cards. Just stop what you're doing right now and go to HobanCards.com. That's H-O-B-A-N-C-A-R-D-S.com because they're just beautiful. So, you should just stop what you're doing right now and go and look and then you can come back and listen to me say the rest of this. Because their stuff is just fantastic. I've known about these guys forever. Hoban Cards is perfect. People who don't need a lot of business cards but they want a small batch of cards for special interactions. Maybe you're going to a conference and you want to impress people or you're going to a really important business meeting and you want to be able to give a card to someone. They're going to go, hmm, it's a pretty fancy person I've got right in front of me. You want to make that kind of first impression that's like you've made it and you want to make an impact. That's the type of thing that Hoban Cards does because their stuff is just such fantastic looking. They have 18 gorgeous pre-designed templates to choose from. These guys and girls are totally focused on typography and simplicity. The cards that you'll see from Hoban are just beautifully elegant. Elegant is like the perfect way to describe them. Like, because they're just classy, handmade, fantastic goods. This is just what every pen addict needs. It's like a perfect pairing. Each card is hand printed on thick 100% cotton paper with great texture using a £1,500 letterpress from 1902. This is the real deal, right? There is no messing around here. This is like, it's kind of like a pen addict heaven type product, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, totally.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you want as well, Hoban can also provide you matching stationary items like note cards and writing stationary if you so desire. And they can really help you up your correspondence game, you know? Like, if you want to push that up to the next level, Hoban. Hoban Cards, Hoban Press, that's the company that you need. There are free samples that you can get from their website. And when you choose to buy some Hoban Cards, because I'm sure that you will, you want to use this discount code, it's Washburn, that's W-A-S-H-B-U-R-N-E. That's going to get you free shipping anywhere in the world. Hey, guys, anywhere in the world, right? I know that's something that people in the UK and Europe love. You get free shipping. Come on, this is awesome. So it's Washburn of an E, W-A-S-H-B-U-R-N-E, but that will be in the show notes, of course. If you haven't already, go to HobanCards.com to find out and see more for yourself. Thank you so much to Hoban Cards for supporting this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, thank you, Hoban Cards. These are beautiful cards, and I've known about them for a while and have never bought anything from them, but I need to go through this site, and I especially want to look at these gift cards and do some different things maybe with that. So very cool. Thank you, Hoban. All right, so let's talk about Esterbrook for a few minutes. And what, were you going to say something?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, no. Okay, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So everyone's wanting to know my latest opinion on Esterbrook, and we've talked about it on previous episodes in passing and how everyone's kind of disappointed in how the new owners of Esterbrook, which is a company called Harpen Brand Holdings, and Harpen is run by a gentleman named Robert Rosenberg. Everyone's kind of disappointed how the new Esterbrook pens look, and they're not really loyal to the history of Esterbrook as far as the design of the pen goes and things of that nature. And to compound the situation, Mr. Rosenberg has taken a very aggressive, extreme tact in dealing with questions about the brand insofar as deleting comments on Facebook, asking just basic questions like, where's the pen made? He's purposely vague, or he'll just flat out delete. He's banned people from the Facebook page. He's, you know, responded really aggressively from his personal Facebook account to other people questioning. You know, he's called people liars. You know, he's just really, really not handling the question and answer part of what he needs to be doing as his job very well at all. I think he needs help, you know, not from a mental perspective. I think he needs, I don't mean that. I think he needs help in his brand. This doesn't have to be this way. This doesn't have to be this way at all, Myke. I'm so adamant about that. Running a business, it does not have to be like this, Mr. Rosenberg. You need some help in presenting the brand in a better light. The things you're doing in this day and age on the internet for everyone to see don't fly. The way you're trying to build this brand is not going to be successful if you continue doing this type of thing. You have to present a better, you have to be a better representative for your brand. If you don't believe in what you're doing right now, making these pins in China and passing them off as a new Esterbrook, if you don't believe in that, deep down inside, your business is going to fail.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it doesn't have to. You have to enlist the help of the community to understand what you're trying to do with this company. If you need the money from this first batch of pins for this Esterbrook J to build on the company and to make the Esterbrook Made in America pins that we all want to see, you need to tell us. You need to say, look, this is what we're doing. I'm making these pins in China and I'm making them out of this design and I'm making them out of these acrylics because that's what we need to start this company. This is why I'm doing this and this is exactly what I'm doing it, why I'm doing it. And the feedback you'd be getting would be so much different than what you're getting right now. It would make a massive difference. People would understand what you're trying to do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And while they still, they may still not buy the pin, but at least you've put it out there on the table. And you're not doing that right now, Mr. Rosenberg. You have to be accessible and transparent and open and honest. You cannot be vague. Your words will get misconstrued. You cannot attack people on the internet. You cannot threaten people. You cannot call people liars in public forums. Deleting your account doesn't make those words go away. It doesn't have to be this way with Estabrook. You can make this company successful. The community can help you make this company successful. But you have to buy into us. You can't force your will on everybody else. It can be done. We want this to succeed. We want the Estabrook that we all love buying these vintage pins from. You know, none of us were around when Estabrook was around the first time. But we've used their products. They're part of America. We love them. And if you're going to take that name and do something with it, you have to have the buy-in of the community. You cannot just force your will on everyone else and try to mold it into what you want. So we're here to help, Mr. Rosenberg. I'm calling on you. Let us help you. This can be done. It does not have to be this way. It does not have to be contentious. It does not have to be rage-filled. It can be helpful, supportive, open, and honest. And that's my call to Mr. Rosenberg. And I would love to talk to you about it sometime. But I'm not going to take your phone calls if it's going to be like I've heard a lot of these other phone calls have gone. So there's going to have to be some change. There's going to have to be some buy-in from you up front in changing this. It's not too late. So that's my call to you. And that's what I have to say on Esther Brook, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Proud of you, man. I like that. All right. Okay. So basically, I mean, that's what Brad said. Effectively, it just doesn't look like anything good is coming out of it at the moment. And I completely agree with you. Like, there is just a lot of weirdness. And it's a shame. And like, I don't know. Like, initially it was funny, I think. But now it just doesn't feel that way anymore. And it's like, you know, just come on. Like, why do, you know, why do things have to be this way? Let's just, why can't we all just get along? You know? I don't know. Right. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So when I had my minor epiphany this morning, I told Myke that, you know, we, as our theme song, he needed to play Shiny Happy People from R.E.M. today. Because that's what we're trying to do today. I want, when I put together this show yesterday, and when I got done and had my change of heart in the morning, I was like, this is going to be the biggest depressing negative downer show ever. And I do not sit in front of this microphone to do that. That's crap. I want to have fun. We have so much fun on this podcast, Myke. And I don't want to sit here and just kill people left and right because that's not fun for me. And there's more positive ways to go about things. And I'm going to work on that. And this is the first step. So there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good. Because I'll say to you as well, this was maybe the first episode of the show I'd not look forward to doing. When I saw those notes that you typed up, I was like, I don't want to do it. Because I felt like no good will come of it. Like, especially if you, as you have had some recent interesting requests sent to you in a legal matter. Sure. I was like, I don't want to go through this. I don't want to do it. So I'm pleased. But I wasn't going to say that to you because, well, I didn't want to say it because I could tell you were going through a thing. But now, it's good because now you came to what I think is the best thing. This is very, like, we're really going deep today, like, on our feelings. I'm sorry, everyone, for this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I'm not sorry. I mean, I think it had to happen. I mean, I got to a breaking point, to be quite honest. It was too much for me to take. When I'm sitting there and my brain is just fried because of negativity around some pen products, I just got to stop. I mean, I cannot function that way. It's stupid to even try. So I want to have this show and my blog and this whole community. This is the most fun, positive, uplifting community I have ever seen in my life. It's freaking amazing. We talk about that all the time. So I want to focus more on that and all the good stuff and fun stuff we talk about instead of, like, really dwelling on the negative. There's a place to discuss this, and I'm fine with discussing it on the show. But I need to do it in a different manner than I've done some things in the past.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So there you go. Let's talk about some fun stuff, but let's take a second break. Okay. This week's episode of The Pen Addict is also brought to you by Hover. Hover is the best way to buy and manage domains. I'm always seeing Pen Addict listeners. They tweet at us and they tweet to Hover, which I love, by the way, when people do that, to say that they bought a domain from this show. And everybody always says good things. And the reason is because Hover are good people. They know how to do what they do, and they know how to do it with great customer service in mind, right? It's a theme for this week's episode. Hover are in a world selling domain names, which is usually full of scams and just nastiness or shady practices, right? Or just doing things that are icky is kind of a good way to describe it. But Hover don't do any of that. Like, they don't try and upsell you on everything when you go to their site. They give you what's called Whois privacy for free. And this basically means that your private information, like your name and your home address, aren't published on the internet. Because if you don't have Whois privacy on your domains, and you should check this with your registrars because you should have it, all of this stuff is really easily found out about you. Right, Brad? Right. Like, Whois privacy is something that you need.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've gotten a phone call from off my Whois that I didn't know expired, which is honestly on me. But with Hover, I don't have to worry about that because it's never exposed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because they just give you it for free. Hover have all the domain options that you're going to need, like .com, .co, .net, .me, loads of different country codes and some of the new vanity URLs and stuff as well. They have .coms that start at $12.99, so they're really well priced. And you get so much more as well. You get great customer support. They have no hold, no wait, no transfer telephone support. They have great email support that I've used a bunch. If you have a bunch of domains elsewhere, it doesn't matter how many you have, they will transfer them over for free for you using their valet service. So they do all of that. I really love Hover. I've used them for years, and you should go try them. So go to hover.com, and you'll want to use the code ATLANTA at checkout, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase at hover.com and show your support for this show. Thank you so much to Hover for their continued support of RelayFM. And whilst we're mentioning it, thank you again to everyone who has continued to back our project. Where are we now? $12,910, Brad. We're at 414 backers. So I think we're going to make the $13,000 mark. And we've got some little ideas. We're cooking up some little ideas now, and we've had some calls about the video production. So I'm really excited about where we're going with the Kickstarter and the pen show. And it's given me a great idea for something next year. But I'm not going to say anything about that yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. So we'll definitely talk about that more when we get some more firm ideas. But thank you, everyone, for your support on that. Yep. It's been awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' About two weeks to go. We're about halfway through. Well, we're halfway through now. So about two weeks to go. If you still make sure if you want to get the video of me and Brad, you want to go and back the project, I'll put it in the show notes again this week. So you can do that.