Editing The Pen Addict 421/transcript (section)

== Pen Industry Trends ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' For the conceit of this question, like, I think that Phil is looking a little bit with blinkers on. And, like, this is the trend right now. Before this was fountain pens, right? Like, there have been trends that center around either A, a big success, or B, some kind of technology that will enable an explosion. And so, we had... I mean, first came the pen type A, right? And then there were a bunch of pens like that. Then there was stuff like the Visionaire, Love It or Hate It, which produced many more fountain pens. And then there was stuff like... Honestly, like, maybe Karas Customs. I don't even know what would have started the...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Karas Customs was way in the beginning. It's more like...

'''Myke Hurley:''' They were in the fountain pen phase, really, weren't they? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But they started with a non-fountain pen. They were in the pen type A phase. Sure. Where the phase you're looking at now is the Johto phase.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's it. We're in the Johto phase. Or, like, what could we... Era? They call them eras. We had, like, the pen type A era. We had, like, the Visionaire era. And now we're in the Johto era. And that era is going to come to an end as well. It's funny enough, actually. So I recorded a new episode of Thoroughly Considered yesterday with Tom and Dan. It's not out yet, but it will be out in the next couple of days. And one of the things we were talking about, because they've just wrapped up the campaign for the Mark II, which is a pocket pen, right? But that pen includes a small version of the Schmidt refill that went in the Mark I, goes in the Retro 51. And there are many pens, you know, like, it's not just Parker and Fisher. Like, there are a lot of pens just built around the Schmidt refill, right? Because it's such a great refill. Right. But when they told me about the Mini, and I think it's similar for you, I'd never heard of it. I didn't even know that Schmidt made a small version of it. So I was saying to them, I expect we're going to start to see a lot of pens on Kickstarter in the near future that are pocket pens built around that exact refill. Mm-hmm. And then that will be another, like, little trend. That's what I expect. Because if that refill does work as well as it does, I mean, who wants to use the Fisher Space Pen refill at that point, right? Right. So I can imagine there being, like, we have this, like, similar for the Mark I, right? Like, the way that Tom and Dan pitched it. It's like, we found this amazing refill, but we don't like the pens that it goes in, so we've made what we think is the best pen. Mm-hmm. And I imagine there will be a similar kind of thinking for a smaller pen. So I think that this stuff goes in waves. The market is definitely not too saturated because, in my opinion, because if there's one thing that the pen, well, the stationary market has shown is there can never be too many products.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And even if we, like, just keep seeing, as Phil calls, like, just, like, brass cylinders, there's innovation happening. And it may not be as fast as we all want it. But that pen, that cylinder someone makes today is going to give someone an idea of how to make that pen better tomorrow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, like, what is your mechanism like? Right. What are your treatments like? That kind of stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, like, the design philosophy behind SpokePen was to purposefully go completely opposite of a minimalist style, right? It's a maximalist style. It's very opinionated. It's very opinionated, and it's okay if you don't like it. But that pen was built around a refill, right? It was like, how do we want to tell the story of this refill? And how do we not want to make a brass cylinder? Kickstarter, and, you know, I found a guy in Brian who kind of had the platform and the idea to make these barrels, and we made it work. So, like, that's an idea, you know, that I felt was pretty different than what you see on Kickstarter. But it's a slow rate of change in, like, Kickstarter world because you're always going to have someone out there chasing, and you just got to wait for the next innovation. And it might take longer than you want it to. But I'm okay with all of these pens out there because, like, I'm a huge Ajoto fan, you know? I'm a huge Studio Neat fan. Like, that minimal style, I can enjoy that while also enjoying the maximal style of the SpokePen, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Trends. Trends. I think, yeah. So, it goes in cycles. I mean, and there'll be, you know, I might go a year or more not buying a pen off a Kickstarter because nothing's interesting anymore. But that's just getting ready for the next cycle where everything is interesting again. So, you know, just keep an eye on it. And, you know, there'll be things that'll be different eventually. We need these products to exist because that's how innovation is going to eventually happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a good question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I love it. We could talk the whole show about this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Probably. So, that's a good point. Like, we have our Ask TPA. They typically, like, can you help me with this? You know? Which is great. That's what they're for. And you can always tweet those. Hashtag Ask TPA. Or in the RelayFM members Discord now, you can use the command, like, the question mark Ask TPA. It does the same thing. Like, you can, I think one of the nice things about if you're in the members Discord, they can be longer than a tweet, you know, if you don't want to send an email. But you can also email Brad at hello at penaddict.com if you have long questions. But this type of thing, when you say, like, a topic, these are, like, what are your thoughts on? It's, like, a bigger thing. So, you can ask both. And we can move them around as we need.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, please do. Like, I've saved off four or five more questions that I got on Twitter yesterday that are not Ask TPA questions. They're more of a topic, like, meta thoughts on things. So, yeah, it's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's episode is also brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell all of the stuff that you're looking for, whether you want a rollerball or a fountain pen, a mechanical pencil or a ballpoint. Whether you're looking for a carrying case or a refill or a pen holder or a bottle of ink or even a converter, they've got it. They do fast and reliable customer service. They're adding new products all the time. Every month there's new stuff going on Pen Chalet. We talk about it all the time. They have what you're looking for at great prices from all of your favorite brands. Fast and reliable customer service. And also, you can go to penchalet.com at any time and find whatever you're looking for. And you'll get free shipping on orders of over $50 in the U.S. They sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. And they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high-quality products. If you go to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website, use the password penaddict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. But Brad, what do we have this time for our special offers?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we're going to start needing a longer ad read for me to actually be able to scroll down to the bottom of this and comprehend what's in here. I didn't make it to the bottom. So like one of the highlights that jumps out right up front is a Monteverde 10-piece ink set. I'm trying to see if these are 30-milliliter bottles. So it's a 10-pack, three different types of sets. There's a core set, there's a gemstone set, and there's a noir set where they're, you know, like lavender black and green black and things like that. The price point for essentially, I'm going to say 300 milliliters worth of ink. I can't get the link to come up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is redonkulous. Is that a word? It's going to be a word. Along with...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is 10, 30-milliliter bottles.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The Monteverde inks are fantastic. They do a really nice job. I actually have a couple of the noir series. They're very nice. That would be my selection. That's like the price of one bottle of bung box ink. It's pretty great for a really good quality ink. And then like the rest of the page is just littered with awesome deals. Like the Diplomat Arrow pricing right now, these look really, really good. Like this turquoise one is pretty awesome. And there's an orange one. And then there's like a torched barrel rollerball. That looks super cool. That looks pretty cool. So the Pinnider Avatar is on there. Yeah. It's really, really good. So good stuff from Ron. As always, take a look at those inks. That's mega compelling to me. That price point for really good quality inks and a really good range of colors. Like these sets, like there's a core set. But like the other sets like really take you into like past the core, past your standard ink colors. Into some things that are pretty unique. And that price point is really great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Penshalay.com podcast link at the top of the website. And use the password Pen Addict to get your hands on these special offers. Our thanks to Penshalay for their support of this show and Relay FM.