Editing The Pen Addict 566/transcript (section)

== Sidekick notepad restock and review ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' But, you know, we're still shoring up the Sidekick notepad. We've done our first kind of mini restock and have a larger restock on the way. The product sold much faster than we thought it would with the initial lot. And we're now kind of settling into a more stable place with it and trying to work out how we can adapt the Sidekick notepad to do different things. Like I'm working on some different layouts that we could put in the construction of the book as it is currently. So we can make like spinoff products. And then I'm also working on some updates to existing products that, you know, I was like, oh, this will be done by the end of the year. Nope. It's probably going to be next year now. But once I get back from San Francisco, I'm going to start work on our next product, which I do actually hope and believe there is a possibility of it being available this year because it's way, way, way, way, way simpler than anything I've made so far. So we'll see about that. But that's my plan. We've always got things going on. So we've got some Mark 1s still in stock in the blue and the black. And yeah, but the Sidekick notepad is still going strong.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice. Love to see it. And I gave a shout out, put a link into the Gentleman Stationers review of the Sidekick. Joe did a very thorough breakdown of the notebook. He did a great job reviewing it. I tend not to review my own products or like my super close friends products like yourself. I feel a little bit too close to the products to do that. So I like it when other people like jump in and do things that we're able to share about our own stuff. You know, good or bad, like we're open to like taking like the criticism and loving like if, you know, none of that stuff matters. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a really, you know, I think that Joe does a really good job of like understanding what the product's for and singing its praises. But he also has some criticisms. And yeah. So I'll ask you a question. Yeah. If somebody writes a review and they make a criticism, but you don't agree with it, what do you do about that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nothing. I mean, you just like, so my whole design belief is that I have to have a belief in why I did the thing and in the decisions that I make. And that doesn't mean that those decisions or designs are unassailable. Right. It doesn't mean that they're for everyone, but it means that I did it for a reason and I will stand behind that reason. And if I feel like it's a very big mistake, I will admit to making that mistake and try to correct it. But if I feel like, no, it goes against the design and the reason why I did this. Yeah. I like, I'm okay with the criticism. Like the, one of the biggest criticisms we ever got was a knock product. When we made the Lanier, it was a briefcase, right? It was a thin briefcase that could hold like up to like a 15 inch, like MacBook iPad. It's a very thin product. Like people wanted a shoulder strap for that. I remember that. And I was adamant, adamant that this design would not work well with the shoulder strap. And that did not stop people from just like, kind of like getting like upset about that and saying they're not going to order it. And I'm like, that's okay. Because like, there is a reason why, right? Like our belief is that it would throw off the balance of the, of the product and it would not work like you think it's going to work with a shoulder strap. But so like, I was like, that criticism is, is valuable and it's fine. But we also designed, I believe in specific design, not general design. Like I'm not trying to solve problems for everybody, right? That's my design philosophy. I'm trying to solve specific problems. And if that specific design does not suit your use case, that's okay. And you're allowed to have like your criticisms like are totally fine because like, like, yeah, I did not, maybe I didn't design the product for you and that's okay. Like I don't want to ever design a general product, right? Yeah. I don't want to design. If you design for everybody, you design for nobody. And that's, that's just my belief.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. See, cause I think, you know, if I can use that to talk about what Joe was talking about, one of the biggest things he talks about is the price because it's an expensive product, but that is the design. Like it is expensive to make because of what we wanted it to do. Like they're just, there is not a way for me to build this product and it still makes sense for our business and price it cheaper than where it is. Like it's cause it is incredibly high quality and made by hand. Like similarly, like one of the things that Joe mentions is the idea that it's made in the UK and then it's expensive to ship back to Europe, which is like, this is another design decision in that we choose to tell people because this is not a thing that I think we would have heard at all if we just didn't talk about where it was made, which is how most products are, right? Like if we made this in China and like we didn't talk about that because it wasn't a source of pride necessarily for either of us, we would get, still get people complaining about shipping prices because shipping is always so expensive. But this idea of like, you made it here and ship it there and then ship it back. It's like things are made all over the world all the time, but it's only when you become like, cause this is a choice that we made. And so like you, and I knew like you, you open yourself up to it, right? By us proudly saying it was made in the UK and also getting made in Britain certification, I knew that it would frustrate people, but it was a source of personal pride for me. And unfortunately the logistics can't work out any different. Like we work with a company that only distributes from America, but even if they distribute it from other places, I don't know if we are at the logistical scale and focus that we could manage two sources of distribution. Like we're struggling to do stock management for the one warehouse, right? Like if we had to do it across multiple, like I just, where we are in our company right now, we couldn't do that. Right. Um, yeah, Joe is also interesting to me as well. Cause like Joe talks about like that. He thinks that this product has like, uh, an idea behind it that the show helps explain. And, and that, that is, that's puzzling to me. Cause like, this is the most simple of like compared to the journal. Like, I just think this is a very general use product, but it's always hard to see what people see in it. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't think it's a general use at all. Right. I, I actually agree with more with Joe, maybe not in the direct, Hey, you need to listen to Cortex use this product. I don't think that's the case, but it's the ideas that you put out into the world, whether they're specifically related to this physical notebook product or not. The general concepts that you discuss on the show come out in your design decisions, whether they're specifically, uh, for this product or not. If that, does that make sense? Yeah. Right. Like you have a design aesthetic and you have a creative style and great as too. And those things show in the end result, whether it's a very specific reason or not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I got caught up in this idea that we make a product that requires like a little bit of a manual, right? No, no, no. To use. This one doesn't, but I agree. It's like, yeah. It's also like what Jackie's saying in the chat that like, you know, this is an expensive product. And we are saying that like, this might last you for 60 days and then you're done with it. And like, that is a thing that not everyone's going to get behind. And I understand that. Right. And like, but that's the point. Like I wasn't looking, if I wanted, there were a lot of choices that we made where we knew we were going to exclude a lot of people for their own use cases, but there are already a million products that exist in every single price point forever. And we just wanted to make our one the way we wanted to make it, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. So this is, even though there are different products, this is identical to what we went through with the Knock Lanier. So you make a product and you explain why you make it, right? You laid out, here's why it costs this much. And that's what it's going to be. And we understand like, you're not going to buy it because it doesn't have a shoulder strap. But here is our decision making process that we believe in making the best product for the intended use case of this product. So it's okay if you don't like that. It's okay if you don't want the shoulder, if you won't buy it because there's no shoulder strap. It's okay if this is too expensive for a notebook product. Like all of these things are okay. Because I believe as a designer, it's your job to explain that on the front end. You didn't just go in blindly and say, hey, here's our $35 notebook. You should buy it. Like there's reasons why it costs that. And there's reasons why we make the design choices that we do. And the price ends up being what the price is, right? And like, not everyone understands that. And that's okay. Like I'm totally fine with that. I take, I have learned to take criticism very well. Yeah. And like there's very good, well-meaning and intentional like points like someone like Joe makes. That's a lot more valuable than just like random drive-bys of like, well, this is stupid. It's expensive. Or this is stupid. It doesn't have a shoulder strap. Like those are meaningless, right? That does not affect me. But like, I want to hear like what other people say about like that think about these products like we do. So it's all good stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like, I do feel like compared to the journal, say like you can look at an image of the sidekick notepad and be like, yeah, that's, that's for me. Right. Where I feel like the journal is just so much more complicated. Um, and it like requires the part on the other side. Yeah. On that note, it's like, I'm working on getting imagery now. So like I've taken a bunch of photos. I have a friend, a friend of mine, Ian, take a bunch of photos, but I kind of lucked into the thought that I could hire keyboard content creators. So I've been hiring some keyboard content creators to take psychic notepad photos.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I saw that last one on Instagram. Was that one? Yeah, that was one. I just wanted the keyboard.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But that's the part of it though, right? So like that part of these imageries, images for me are like showing them in these like really interesting environments. And you may be drawn in by the beautiful lavender keyboard, but then you're like, what is this thing? But yeah, some of the imagery that we've got in the bank now is kind of awesome. And this also came from the idea that like eventually we want to get into more like Instagram advertising as a product thing. And because I was talking to Tom and Dan about this because they've really been going down that road a lot with Studio Neat now. And one of the things they said is like, if you want to get into this, you have to have lots and lots and lots of media. Like you have to have lots of imagery and lots of video. Like you just before you even think about doing it seriously. So I'm now working on amassing a lot of that stuff.