Editing The Pen Addict 180/transcript (section)

== Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. From day one, people have been emailing us and saying, you should make a pen.

'''James:''' Really? No kidding.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I totally agree from day one, but you have to kind of know when to spread yourself across new things and learn new things. So we shelved it for a little while, and then we started 14 months ago. And we just learned everything we could about pens. We bought dozens and dozens of pens and would use them in our notebooks extensively to try to educate ourselves even more than we did with notebooks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it was a feat, for sure. A lot of dead ends, I would say. We start down a road, and then we find a roadblock that we just can't figure out. And we start again. And we kept doing it and doing it, and we didn't give up. And finally, man, we're proud to finally be able to put this out tomorrow. Tonight, it's like the night before a big game. We're even going to get steaks.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' So Myke and I have had the privilege to preview the Kickstarter, check out all the specs, watch the video. The video is killer, by the way.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' And so we have a picture in our heads of, you know, we know what it looks like and everything. But I want you to, can you guys explain, like, the look, the feel, the design for people who have not been able to see this Kickstarter launch yet? You know, a lot of people will get this podcast tomorrow. The design will be up, and they can check it out. But, like, right now, for our listeners live and our listeners who are going to download this tonight, paint them a picture of what the Squire is all about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, totally. So you guys hopefully have seen our Confidant notebook right now. By now, it's gray or charcoal gray. It's completely featureless on the front. There's nothing on the cover. It's just a cloth-bound notebook with a beautiful yellow ribbon that opens flat. Right? It's extremely simple. When we put it on Kickstarter at first, we got a ton of messages where people were like, okay, it's a notebook, but what does it do? And it was like, it does notebook things. Like, it is paper. It is the same way with this pen. We're not going into some realm of, like, you know, dare I say gimmicks, but it is a very minimal, well-designed tool just like the Confidant. And our goal in kind of doing all this work and making it happen is we don't want to create a sidekick to the Confidant. The idea is to create a partner to the Confidant and equal. I don't want to just be a notebook company now. We're moving from that to we are tools for thinkers, and that's going to grow starting with this pen and starting with some other things coming along in the next few months. So there is a lot of weight to put on that. So to describe the pen visually, it comes in two colors, a light color and a dark color. We call it silver and charcoal, just like our notebooks. It is shorter than the average pen and longer than the average pocket pen, which it's great for actually sticking in your pocket. It doesn't feel very long, but it's long enough that you can use it all day, unlike a pocket pen, which tends to feel small. And it's made of a solid block of aluminum, anodized all around, engraved with our Squire logo, which is a sword. And the Squire, I'll tell you about in a second.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's almost featureless, right? It's twist to open, and the area that you twist, thanks to Jay's excellent engineering, he's sitting across from us, the area that you twist is the same area that if you turn a little bit more, and it has resistance, so it's not going to fight you on this. But if you turn a little bit more, it's the same place that you put your refill in. So there's one moving part on this entire thing, and it's flush with the body of the pen. It's as simple as we could possibly make it, and it's pretty beautiful.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Yeah, I'm pretty stoked on the design. It's neat and clean. I like how there's a slight taper in it, so it's a little bit wider on the grip area. Not too wide, very standard, but there's a slight taper up towards the twist mechanism. And that was one of the questions I had. There is some resistance in the twist, so there's a little bump, and then you go a little bit further to get the refill in and out of there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and you're not going to twist it too far by accident. It's perfectly tuned that you twist it to open and close, and you have to twist it. You have to put some effort into it to untwist it.

'''James:''' Yeah, so Joey also mentioned, so we spent a lot of time trying to get the weight in the pen just right. I mean, a lot of the pens we tried, especially a lot that were made of metal, had a lot of weight toward the top of the pen. And they look good. They look visually appealing. But when it came to actually holding it and using it, it felt top-heavy. So the bump at the bottom is meant to shift the weight down to make it really fit perfect right in your hand when writing. So a lot of work went into that, and a lot of 3D modeling to get the weighting just right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And as you mentioned earlier, it goes from thin to wide-ish, a little bit wider at the bottom, which, when you're using it, it prevents your finger from slipping down, because it is a metal body. And it ends up being really comfortable to write with. And like Adam said, it's weighted in the center. And the center area is exactly where the pen rests on your fingers. If you hold a pen right now, you'll see there's a spot where it rests on your pointer. The weight sits right on that perfectly. And it feels almost invisible, despite having a nice heft being an aluminum pen.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' And so talk about the refill you guys chose to use with this pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, good question. So we use a Parker-style capless rollerball refill. That's 6 millimeters fine point. And it comes with one in every pen. It has Baron Fig on it, actually. If you pull the refill out, it's printed Baron Fig. And if you spin it around, it says, the pen is a mighty sword, which is kind of what we think of, as opposed to, that's where the name Squire comes from. Instead of, the pen is mightier than the sword, we think that the pen is the perfect metaphor for a powerful weapon or an object, right, to move the masses, to create ideas that really change the world. And so the pen is a mighty sword, for us, was the perfect way to describe that. And to call it the Squire.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Yeah, and spying the refill on the preview, it actually looks like the Schmidt P8126, which is their six-millimeter refill that everyone loves, you know, the rollerball-type refill. It's a nice dark ink. It works perfect with your paper in all the different notebooks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's fantastic. So, you know, you guys know where you'll be able to get it, or you can get it through us. Yep. Pen is a mighty sword, all that good stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You made a very, very wise choice with that refill, guys. Very, very wise choice.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Glad you guys approve. Y'all can't see the chat room, but there was actually someone entered. Please let it be this refill. And I just gave him a little smiley face, and it is. So, yeah, we're very happy about that refill selection. It's an excellent choice. Yeah, it really is excellent. So what's the... So since it's... You know, y'all are pre-gaming tonight for the big launch tomorrow, and I already know the answer to this, but what's the expectations?

'''James:''' Man, we don't know. I mean, we talked about this all earlier, but... No idea, right? No idea. I mean... We really don't. It's just like last time. I mean, beyond our couple best friends and, you know, moms and girlfriends, like other than that, that's it. We don't know. Are people going to buy or not buy? But, you know, we love the pen. We're really proud of it. This thing's... It's a really nice writing instrument. I mean, it's a lot of labor of love went to building this and design.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' So can I mention the price point?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Go for it.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' So, it's priced at $50, which I think is spot on, nailed, like the range for like what y'all have done, what you've designed, the quality, the style, the materials, everything. I think this is going to kill. I think it's going to do really, really well for you guys on Kickstarter. And I mean, not only do you have just a huge fan base of Baron Fig, but you have built-in writers, you know, that love your products. You know what style and aesthetic your customers like because they wouldn't be your customers in the first place if they weren't into this type of thing. And the price point is just like right on the money. I think you're going to... I think it's going to do exceptionally well. And I don't think that would be a shock to y'all either. I think you're pretty... You should be confident on this one, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thank you. Every time we do any launch or anything, we all take guesses. And I'm not going to read them out just because...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that's fine. Don't tempt fate. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But the guesses are very broad, like from low to high. We just have no idea what's going to happen. Gotcha. Gotcha.

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Well, I'm excited to see this launch. I have my email alert set since I, you know, we got to cheat and get the pre... The advanced link. I got the little button there that says email me when this project goes live. So 7 a.m. tomorrow, I expect an email so I can get on it. I will be up and ready to back the Squire. I can't wait.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Great, great. So let me ask you a few questions. Sure. James reached out to you like a couple weeks ago, I guess, telling you about the pen, right?

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What did you think when you first heard this?

'''Adam Kornfield:''' Well, I didn't get any information from James other than... The first one was, hey, we have something coming up, but I can't tell you. And I'm like, well, thanks, James. I appreciate it. You're doing a lot of good. You're doing me, buddy. And then he was like, well, hey, we need to get the guys on the podcast. And I'm like, yeah, I know. We absolutely do. I don't know what's taking us so long. It's ridiculous. We haven't done this yet. And we're going to be launching a pen. And that was pretty much it. And I emailed him back. I was like, a pen? That's all you're going to tell me? You're just releasing a pen? And then finally, I got a little email back from him with smiles and giggles. And it's like he was taunting me this whole time. Then he finally sent me, well, here's the preview link. And I'm like, oh, OK, thank you. It took me basically three emails to get any information about what y'all were doing. And then when he sent it, the first thing I saw was the shape of the pen. And I was like, OK, yeah. I don't really need anything else. Once I saw the shape of the pen and I was done right there. I was in at that point. You know, I know you guys.