Editing The Pen Addict 355/transcript (section)

== Topic Shift - TWSBI Eco ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Hard transition. Orange TWSBI eco. Let's talk about it. Um, we mentioned it last week that the translucent, translucent orange eco is coming to the TWSBI eco lineup, which I love. They've done green, pink, and blue so far, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, but, and so translucent orange is coming and it looks like it's going to be, you know, world release. And the reason I bring this up is because I bought the solid orange Japan only release of this very same pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it brings up the ideas of the FOMO that we talk about, the fear of missing out, where I didn't, I didn't jump through hoops to get the orange cap one, but I had a friend who was getting one and said, hey, do you want in? So it was just as easy for him to order two. And I said, yeah, absolutely. I'm in. But the point of this is seeing the orange translucent model, even if you like the orange solid model, it's always okay to say no. It's always okay to miss out on the things because there's always something new and different coming down the pipeline that will be just as good or better or, you know, equivalent to what you think you're missing out on. So it was just, again, another thing to drive home the point, which my original point was back talking about Sailor Apricot inks and how it went away and there was a run on it and FOMO happened and prices went through the roof. And then like four years later, they relaunched it, right? You're never going to really miss missing out on the thing. So that's just a point I wanted to take a second to mention when we talk about the FOMO stuff. Like that's why, you know, I don't have to have all the Sailor pins, you know, there'll be one day that really speaks to me and I'll get it. It's okay to miss out on the things and it's okay to say no on stuff. So not a big, big topic, but I'll be adding this one to the collection. I'll still be buying, I'll still be buying this one because it'll be regular. It'll be like 20 something dollars, right? That's how much these pins are. I think I paid 65 for my big orange one. You would expect it would be. Which I love because yeah, it was a pain, you know, it was a pain in the butt to get. So anyway, that was just, that was just my mini FOMO rant that it's okay to say no because things like this happen all the time where you can get good enough or better. If you just say no now and wait for something really great later when you have the opportunity to buy it. But hey, it's also okay to say yes to. It's okay to say yes to. Speaking of saying yes, this is the big topic of the day, Myke. And there was a specific reason why I wanted to write this, but it's a general guideline that I had in my head about backing Kickstarter projects. So we talk about Kickstarter a lot on this podcast for many obvious reasons. One, I'm a fan of just people making things and want to support them. And two, we use the platform for things like the Pin Addict and Knock and, you know, various other things like that. So I'm a huge Kickstarter supporter. But there are people who are either one, scared of it or two, avoid it completely. And both of those are valid, valid choices to make, right? There's reasons why you should be scared of Kickstarter. So I was actually out walking Toby, my dog, the other day. Actually, yesterday is when I thought of this. Because I just got in two different messages about two different projects on Kickstarter that I wasn't familiar with. And the question I had in my head was, how do I discuss these projects in a meaningful, somewhat rational way? And how do you get to a decision-making point if you're not an experienced Kickstarter backer or an experienced Kickstarter backer, either way? And I think it's as simple to me, and maybe it's an oversimplification, but for Kickstarter projects for me, when I look at them, and I'm speaking from someone who is a super backer, you know, I've backed over a hundred projects. So I've been around the Kickstarter block. But I think it's as simple as a stoplight system with projects. You know, you have your green lights, which are, you know, go, you know, just go for it, back the project. You know, it's a very easy choice to make. I think it's yellow. You know, proceed with caution, you know, take a look and decide on things. And then there's red, which we've certainly run across our, just in our realm alone, a huge amount of high-risk products, right? Or products you should avoid. And over the years, I think these simple definitions have just added, I think it's easy to pick out pretty much any project I've backed and put them in one of these buckets, right? So I've got a bunch of examples, if you would allow me to give them. What do you think?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think you should, because I've read it and it's perfect.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, and I'm doing this with current, mostly current projects, because a lot of them I've missed over our past few weeks of travel and pen show recaps. You know, one of the things I do like to cover on the show is the interesting Kickstarter projects that are always good topics of conversation. So in the green section are two active projects from two friends of mine. And number one, that's why they're in the green, because I know them, they're experienced Kickstarter makers. They've delivered and executed on many, many projects before. And the first one's the Big Eye Design, TI Ultra. And the second one is the Tactile Turn Back, B-A-K. So first up, they've done this before, right? This is not their first rodeo. They have their own business.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Brad says, like all these people are my friends, so he knows that. And it's like, that's true. And you can't be friends with everyone. But the idea of doing it before is like a key thing. And I always look at this, like if I'm, if I'm like come to a project and I'm like, I don't know, like I look at the profile. And if I see like 10 or like, like with the TI Ultra, 27 created projects, right? And then I can look back and see like what funded, what didn't, is what funded kind of like this one. And then if I look at something like the TI Ultra, I can be like, oh, look at all of these pens that they've made that are funded 385%, 14,000%, right? I'm like, okay, this company knows how to make a pen, right? And you can read the comments, right? You can go back and look at it all, yeah. And see like, how late were they? Were there any like issues? How did they deal with them? So, see, it is very public, which is great about Kickstarter that you have these profiles and all this history is kept and that like all the comments are kept and the updates that are public or whatever are kept. So, you can do your due diligence really easily on a, on a, on a creator.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. And the first time I backed a big eye design or the first few times, or the first few times I backed a tactile turn, I didn't really know the person, but I felt that I could get enough information from the campaign to feel comfortable giving my money without being guaranteed a product because that's Kickstarter. There's no guarantees on Kickstarter, you know? So, you're basically, you know, giving companies a loan to, in return, get something of benefit. Um, so yeah, like, and even these green light projects, projects that I would put in that category, sometimes they're going to go wrong. That's Kickstarter, right? You know, um, it's just going to happen, but companies that have been established usually know how to handle these issues. You know, like we talked, you talked to, uh, Tom and Dan at Studio Neat, you know, pretty much any project they do is in a green light situation for me. Like I'm going to back them without much questions, but you know what stuff happens. And it's how those, uh, companies communicate the issues that they run into during the projects. We've had stuff happen on our projects, you know? So it's just getting a feel for that. You got to do your research and your homework when you're going through Kickstarter because those questions come up when you hit these yellow light companies.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There is a project out there now called page one, and they've been active on Twitter. They've been, um, in my email inbox, they've been chatting with me and they're like, Hey, would you share this project? And I don't just blindly share things that people ask me to write. That's not my motive. I just, I choose, you know, what feels right to share, but I asked around about this project and, you know, um, and got some, some replies on, Hey, what do you think about this project? Just from a product standpoint, not the company behind it standpoint. And what page one is, it's a writer's notebook that will help you organize your writing projects, right? They have sections for characters. There's a plot section, setting section, scene section, submission section, research ideas. So there's all these predefined sections in there, right? So this is out of my realm, you know, my realm is, is the notebook technically good, right? Is the binding good? Is the paper quality?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're not answering, will this help me write, uh, the next Harry Potter? Like there's absolutely no way of knowing that, but you can look at it and be like, I can see the way that they're doing this is going to result in a bad product, right? Like it's possible for you to see it. I'd be like, I know enough about how notebooks are made to know that if you go down that route, it's not going to be good. I'm not saying that about this product, but like just in general, you can, you can judge things that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And you can judge about how the companies talk about these things, what words they use, how they describe the product. Do they understand the print process by the words that they're using? And like everything I see on this project looks great, but that's, this is a yellow light because they're not at that experience, right? They don't have a big background and you don't know, is the product going to work for you? So like I asked Sarah who writes for the pen addict, who is a published author. She's written, you know, she's a fiction writer. She's written a novel. I'm reading it right now. And I said, would you, what, what are your thoughts on this? Well, she says every writer has their own structure. So I don't know how useful this would be. That said, I would put it through once for a project. You know, writers always have all kinds of projects they're working on. She's like, that said, you know, the layout looks good and I would be interested in using it, you know, it may not be for me in the end. It may not be for everybody because you're pigeonholed into a system and writers, I think out of most people are probably the least likely to want to be pigeonholed, right? Don't tell me how to organize my stuff. But if you're needing help with that, maybe this is a perfect thing. So there's enough questions about usage, not necessarily about production that, okay, maybe it's something you have to think about. But the tutu pen is a perfect example, right? Brand new manufacturer, super strange product. This one, like I read about, I talked to the maker, I did all kinds of things before deciding to back it. And, you know, I felt comfortable enough that I'm at least going to get my product delivered, right? So it's expensive for what it is. It's strange. It's weird. It's coming from Japan. There's lots of, you know, little flags that go up. So maybe like you could talk yourself in or out of this, right? So I think that's a perfect example.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Looking at that, you can also be like, this doesn't really seem like there's anything technically difficult, right? Like that doesn't look like it's not doing something wild, right? Like it really is just a piece of shaped acrylic.