Editing The Pen Addict 183/transcript (section)

== Kickstarter Risks ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. So, anyway, I thought I'd mention that. Shines a little bit of light on it. I don't know if it's going to help out with anything. Probably not. You know, I just don't know what's going to be done at this point because I think they're just flat broke. You know, I mean, the way they were going through money, redoing all this stuff, I don't see how they have any money left. And if they did, the products would have been delivered already. Because I don't believe they're attempting to. They're not trying to take people's money. I mean, I think they've made a valiant effort at this. Because it's just gone south on them, like, in a really, really bad way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's a shame for everyone involved, really. But they need to be doing a better job at communicating what is going on here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because, you know, to send a tweet to you to say we're working on an update rather than actually saying that in the comments of their own Kickstarter project. Right. It's a bit weird, especially when that update that they've been working on was promised, like, on November 18th. And as of recording today, of course, we're recording this one in a bit of advance. This will come back to Tobias, Brad, I'm sure. I'm sure. Today, which is the 23rd of November. Like, so, you know, I know it's only, like, five days or whatever. But you've got people's money in your pockets, like, or in the pockets of people that you couldn't trust. Like, you need to, even if, you know, even if it's going to be like, look, I'm sorry, but it's gone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's what, that was my question to you. So, if you're a project creator and you're completely upside down and you're not going to be able to deliver any more products, you need to come on there and say it. You know, you need to come to your backers and say, we failed you. We're out of money. We made this mistake, this mistake, that mistake. And own up to that and say, you're not going to get your, you're not going to get your product. You know, I think you owe that to the backers. You know, in this case, I don't feel like, you know, there's been, you know, whatever rogue cases, you know, where people have made like phony Kickstarters and run off with people's money. That's not the case in this one. This one, they're out of money. And I don't know how they're going to fulfill the rest of it. So, it's like they need to come out and say it. You know, you, at some point, you just got to put it on the table and, and take the heat for it. Right? That's what I would think. But, you know, I'm not in that situation. But at some point, you're just going to have to take the heat and end it. Because dragging this on forever, it doesn't do anybody any good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Kickstarter, man.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know. I know. It really sucks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's mostly good. I mean, we do the best we can to vet things as much as possible. You know, I'm not saying us, you know, we're not responsible us as a, as a show, but just as a, in general, people who are on Kickstarter, you know, generally know, are coming at it from an angle where, you know, they need to be shown, you know, that it's going to be legit. And, you know, there's people don't hesitate to question sketchy product projects. And this one didn't seem like one in the beginning and it just failed on the manufacturing side of things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a shame.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a shame.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's talk about a great product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This week's episode of the Pen Addict is brought to you by Uni, a wood-fired oven that is fast, portable, and affordable. Uni takes only 10 minutes to heat up and just two minutes to cook a fantastic pizza. You can just about use the time in between pizzas to get the next one ready, but you have to stay on it as the Uni is fast. Uni makes fantastic pizzas. I have eaten pizza cooked in an Uni. Christian and Darina who make the Uni, I've been to their home some time ago now when they were in London. And I was able to, we had a great lunch and a great, a great dinner from pizza cooked in the Uni. Just absolutely fantastic. It is a tiny little thing. It weighs only 22 pounds. So not only can you easily find space for it in just about any garden or outside space, you can also take it with you on a camping trip or to a park. And coming in December is a new cover bag for the Uni. So it's easier than ever to transport this thing wherever you want to take it. Uni is really affordable. So if you wanted to cook a pizza in a wood-fired oven, you would be used to the cost of upwards of $1,000 to get it installed and everything like that. But the Uni is less than $300. This is actually a key factor in Uni's design. They wanted to be able to give wood-fired pizza to be cooked in a wood-fired oven. They wanted to make that available to everybody. And they really do a fantastic job. I can't remember a pizza cooked at home that I've ever had that has tasted better than the ones I've ever had from the Uni. It's good as restaurant pizza. And I'm being totally serious. I think about that thing and I'm like, oh man, I can't wait until I have my own garden. I'm just totally getting an Uni immediately. The best thing about the Uni is it makes fantastic pizza. That's what it's all about. It's all you need for getting into wood-fired cooking. To find out more, go to uni.net. That's U-U-N-I dot net. And if you use the code PENADDICT to check out when you buy your Uni 2 wood-fired oven, you'll get the Uni cover bag for free, which is really awesome. Thank you so much to Uni for their support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, just as good as pizza is, I think we love pizza and this next product we love pretty much, I think is on par with pizza and that would be Star Wars and the particular notebooks we got.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From our good friend Mel hooked us up in one of her grand tours of Japan. And she's a great listener and a great supporter of the site and the podcast. And every now and then we get a little package from Mel. And this time was quite the find. So why don't you tell us, you got yours first. So when you opened up your latest package from Mel, what did you discover?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I've actually got them right here, right? So I've got this like a manila envelope. And I open it up and like, oh, there's some notebooks in here, right? So I started to pull them out and I was like, oh, these look nice. Oh, there's nice looking notebooks. Oh, what?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So these are like, I don't even know what these notebooks are.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I have asked her, I have emailed her to give me the details. And it's by a company named Subame, which is a Japanese brand. She says it's a very, so a lot of people have compared these, like I put a picture on Instagram with one of the notebooks, the Captain Phasma cover of these Subame Star Wars notebooks. And a lot of people have likened them to the brand Life notebooks because they look very similar in design on the exterior. And so Mel sent me this great email explaining the differences between Subame and Life as a brand. Subame is more of like a mainline brand. She says that, you know, a lot of the youth over there, it's kind of like a main store brand for like stationary, for like school, high schools, college, younger crowd, and where Life is a more sophisticated adult brand. Like I think of Subame like probably like Mead is over in the US. Do you have Mead in the UK, Myke? Just kind of like a mainline stationary brand. Like if you go to a big retailer and that's what all the notebooks are and things like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't recall that brand, but I know the kind of thing you mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's where like the Subame brand fits in. And then Life would be your upscale adult, you know, I've got extra money to spend on things brand. So that's kind of where this falls in. So these were just made for a specific store in Japan called Loft. And she likens Loft to like what a Target would be here in the US.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I love that they're made for something like a Target and they look the way that they do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're fantastic, aren't they?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So they look like, they kind of look like if Star Wars was based in feudal Japan.