Editing The Pen Addict 180/transcript (section)

== Pocket Notebooks ==


'''Adam Kornfield:''' Oh, my God. Oh, that's amazing. Now, when y'all launched the site, was it just the Confidant or did the Apprentice launch, which is the pocket notebook? Did that launch at the same time or did that come after?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, it was just the Confidant. We had the Confidant and blank dot and ruled. And the Apprentice came like six months later.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Okay. Wow. I didn't realize it was that far after. So what made you want to make a pocket notebook like that, like the Apprentice?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm a big fan of field notes for the size and the utility, but not so much their design. I kind of like when the covers of things are blank so I can make them my own, whereas field notes, they're super grand. Awesome stuff they're doing. Just not my style to have, like, field notes on the cover of all the books. I want to decorate them myself. So we were like, all right, let's do something slightly different for a different audience. And out came the Apprentice.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' And, you know, right when that came out, what was that, mid-2014 or so, something like that? Yeah, so it came out. I think that did well for you. I certainly enjoyed the Apprentice. I like that format. And then, like, almost something changed, like, in Baron Fig. It's like you guys were kind of getting your feet wet. And then the Apprentice comes out. And then the next thing you know, it's like y'all are full on putting the pedal to the metal. With, like, all right, now I've got three-legged juggler. Now I've got time travel apprentice. Now I've got the maker. And so tell me, you know, you had this nice steady pace. You know, you're a growing company. You're trying to figure things out. And then all of a sudden, man, y'all floored it. So was that a conscious thing? I certainly noticed that, you know, as, you know, I've been following you guys since day one. And it was, like, hammer time for you guys. It was just, let's go. And we've got this. And, like, you could tell the confidence was there. And you knew you could nail these products. And you knew your fans were going to love them. So tell us, how did this transition happen? Because to me, it was noticeable as someone who follows you guys.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We didn't have a plan, like I said. We had no idea. Like, we were so focused on delivering the confidants and making it work out well. And then setting up a site. When we finally did all that, we sat back and we were like, holy shit. What do we do now? So we had to, like, create some products and create a plan. And, like, going forward, figure out how that all worked. And that didn't take that long at all. But production takes long. And so it took three to five months to get all that in place. So then it all seemed like it just hit and kept going, I guess. Yeah.

'''James:''' Go ahead. No, I was going to say, it was a blast. Definitely the products kind of figuring out. Especially the limited edition stuff that, I mean, I and we certainly enjoy it. Because it's a little different what we're able to do with the brand and with the different designs and different offshoots. So it might be a product people are familiar with. But it just feels very different and infuses something different with it.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Yeah, so that's what I was going to ask about, getting into the limited editions and kind of how that came about and how you kind of tweak the style a little bit with the three-legged juggler. Or like people notice, like y'all mentioned from the Kickstarter, like you kind of hid the boxes away until they landed in people's mailboxes. And they open them up and they see this great box that this notebook comes in. And then the three-legged juggler like blew all that away. I mean, it was like this is the coolest notebook set up ever. I mean, to this day, that's still my favorite release that y'all have done, the three-legged juggler. I don't know if it was because it was the first one or the colors or just the design on the box. How did all that come together as far as the way y'all are doing your limited editions? Because that continued on through some of your other products like the WorkPlay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, well, as a designer, I like to experiment and kind of make original work. So specifically in comparison to Moleskine, right, we've all seen the Star Wars edition or the Simpsons edition on the shelf. And that's cool. But there's not a lot of original things out there to be had, right? So we kind of took the idea of a limited edition and said, hey, let's make in-house original things instead of using other people's IP.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Right, right. And so did you work with some local artists to do some of these limited editions like the three-legged juggler and the WorkPlay?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. We collaborate with all sorts of guys. The juggler was done with a design house down in South Carolina, I believe.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Called the Half and Half. They're super skilled at what they do. Fantastic design. Fantastic silkscreen printing. And the WorkPlay was a collaboration with a girl named Jen Musari in Brooklyn. And we've got a lot of collaborations kind of brewing too now. And we've done, as you know, the poster project was 12 different artists around the world. So collaborating with people who are working now is a huge part of what we're trying to accomplish here.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Yeah, and I want to talk about that next step. So you've got all this going. And you've kind of gone from the analog into the digital a little bit too. So I want to reach into that. But I need to talk about a sponsor that Joey really needs to listen to. So what do we have next, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I want to talk about Harry's. But before we talk about what Harry's do, I want to talk a little bit about Movember. Brad, are you familiar with Movember?

'''Adam Kornfield:''' I'm very familiar with Movember.

'''Myke Hurley:''' For any of you that aren't, Movember is in the month of November every year where you will see a bunch of guys grow really crazy and awkward looking moustaches. And they do this in support of men's health issues. Like I remember when I worked in the bank and around this time every year, it was in a building with thousands of people in it. And you'd be in the lift and you'd see a guy with a handlebar moustache during the month of November. It's a real fun and great way to benefit a good cause by people who raise donations from family and friends. And it's all to benefit men's health issues. Harry's is the official raiser partner of the Movember Foundation. And they will be donating money and helping raise awareness throughout this campaign. So if you're looking to get involved in Movember, you're going to need a great razor. So you should check out Harry's. Harry's have great products. They have great looking razors. They have fantastic blades. It was started by a couple of guys. This is a familiar story who wanted a better product and stuff that they could find for themselves. Right. And they wanted to make sure that they could do this and not only get a great product, but also to deliver an amazing experience with a fantastic price and ship it directly to your door. This is what Harry's is all about. They have great razors. They have great shaving foams. They have great shaving creams and moisturizers and all of that great stuff. And they package it up in fantastic packaging and with an overall design aesthetic that will appeal to so many people listening to this show. They have a fantastic set that you can get started with. Their starter set is just $15. But with our code that I'll tell you about in a moment, you can get it for just $10. It includes a razor handle, three blade cartridges, and your choice for shaving cream or foaming shave gel delivered to your door with free shipping. And Harry's also give 1% of their sales and time back to the communities that they serve on top of stuff like the Movember Foundation. Over 1 million people have made the switch to Harry's. Their website is really easy to use. It takes less than 30 seconds to place an order. And Harry's really does believe in great customer service. And this shines through with everything that they do. So go to harrys.com right now. And there's a special offer for listeners of The Pen Addict. They will give you $5 off your first order with the code PENADDICT or one word at checkout. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com. And use code PENADDICT to get $5 off your first order. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' So, Joey, how did a company that's cranking out awesome analog products decide to get into the digital mobile app arena?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, boy. Okay. So, digital and analog, in my mind, aren't really segregated. I'll start there. So, for me, it's not so much that they're a different category, but I like to choose the best tool for the job, right? So, with an analog notebook, I think the blank page is the best tool for the job when it comes to ideation, right? Because there's no limitations to, I don't know, pixels, no battery life you have to worry about. You just do whatever you want on a blank page. That's fantastic. That, I think, is the power of analog. But digital has its power, too, such as being able to search, being able to collaborate, being able to store a lot of things and access a lot of things really quickly. And I want to explore both of those equally. I don't have any sort of, like, sentimental preference towards analog, merely the tool for the job. Does that make sense?

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Yeah, I think that makes complete sense. And we talk about that all the time, actually, Myke and I myself. You know, we're obviously proselytizing for the analog, but we're not going to, you know, do it if it's not the best tool for the job. You know, I think that's kind of a thread that runs through all of our discussions that, you know, we want to use the best tool for the job. And everyone's needs are different for that. So talk about the two specific apps that y'all have created. So Mosaic is a note-taking app. And then you just recently released Spark, which is a, it's like an inspiration deck, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, yeah. Mosaic is sort of like self-texting as note-taking. So we did the same thing we did with the confidant. We reached out to people and we said, you know, if you take notes on your phone, what do you like and dislike about it? And when we're doing product design, we always try to keep everything centered out around one question. So that was the question for that product. We got a lot of good responses.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And we learned that Evernote being the leader in the market is actually kind of bloated. And people are not really sure, you know, why they're even subscribed to it. There's so many weird things you're getting now. Like you're paying monthly just to get an unlock thing, for example. It's sort of my analogy is that, my metaphor or whatever is that Evernote is to, I don't know, mosaic what Windows is to Apple. Like especially Windows back in the day being super bloated and full of a lot of stuff that you don't use. So we tried to really create a simple note-taking app. And we designed it around texting, which is an excellent interface. No one really complains about the texting interface. We do complain about getting texts, which can be a pain in the ass. But in terms of straight-up texting, it's super easy. Because you can send a lot of information, a little information, different media, such as like text, video, audio. It all works really well. So we designed mosaic around that. And Spark came out of the idea of I'm the only designer here. So sometimes it's hard to get, to shake things up, right? I mean, Adam, Jay, and James, they do a great job of giving me feedback. But sometimes it's difficult to just get a point of view that helps me think outside my norm. So Spark is simply two decks that you tap. And they give you inspirational prompts and ways of looking at what you're doing differently.