Editing The Pen Addict 355/transcript (section)

== New Product Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' As weird as it is, it shouldn't be any type of technical challenge. Exactly. Which is what brings us to the next one. And it's the Vitae dual nib fountain pen that we talked about, I don't know, December, January timeframe. This was one where I had conversations with the maker trying to figure out what his goals were. I mean, I'm obviously in a position where I can get in touch with people and get a response. You know, not everyone may be able to do that, you know, if they're not being active in their own comment section on Kickstarter. But I was compelled enough to reach out to them blindly and say, let's just talk about what's happening here, right? Let's figure out what you're trying to accomplish, how you're going about it. And here's the questions I have, because I'm interested enough to ask you these questions and I'm going to consider backing it. And in the end, I felt the answers were good enough for me to back it, but not enough other people were. There were too many red flags for people. And I get it. Like, if there's a project I get seeing the red flags on, the Vitae was one, just because it's very cutting edge and weird enough to where people could relate it to other failed projects, right? It was an interesting idea. I thought it was a worthwhile idea. But it wasn't maybe like, not changing your writing style, but it just, I guess people felt like there was too much risk involved in that. And I can't remember the price off the top of my head. I'll have to go back and look. But I think it was under $100 or $125, something like that. But regardless, like I felt after talking to this person that, okay, I'm going to support this. And what's good about Kickstarter is if it doesn't go through, if the project does not succeed, you're not out any money, right? It's done in the beginning. It's other platforms like Indiegogo. Your money is spent the moment you back the project, which, you know, there's good pros and cons about all those things. So I don't know, with the yellow light Kickstarter projects, there's lots of questions, right? You know, there's pros, there's a much bigger list of pros and cons. There's more questioning. Is it worth it? You know, what would happen if my money up and vanishes? So those are the things you have to consider. And what really made me want to write this article, Myke, was this red light project that I see and that I was linked to. And it's called the Indiegraph Fountain Pen. So I don't know anything about this project. I haven't talked to anyone. They haven't emailed me or anything like that. I was sent the link. When you make a project for a niche audience like pen users, you better nail the terminology or I think you don't know what you're doing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And we've seen this in previous projects and we've called out previous projects. Obviously, we all know about the scribble pen and the Visionaire. The Indiegraph, I don't think is that level. But when you tell me that this pen is for use with Indian ink, not India ink, that's a major red flag. I will grant them that it could be lost in translation. Okay? This product is out of Spain. Maybe there's a translation issue. But Indian ink is Krishna ink, fountain pen ink. India ink is an art ink that will destroy your fountain pens, as we all learned from the Scribble project, which is why I can't understand to this day why so many people back the, I mean, excuse me, the Visionaire project, because the maker was using India ink for his videos.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' People don't know. That's why. Right. And I know what you mean. Like with the knowledge that you have, it's like this seems bonkers. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, no. That project jumped outside of our realm and it was off to the races. Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But I would say even a lot of people in our realm, like I didn't really know what the issue was of that until you explained it to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Right. Well, and so it's a comfort level with the creators. Right? You got to be comfortable that the creator is going to deliver a quality product and, you know, your money is going to be well spent. This pen, I can look past the Indian ink mention and say, okay, we have some translation issues. I can work my way around that. And the reason they wanted to make this pen, and I quote, it occurred to us that the important thing was to keep the nib moist and prevent the ink from drying. So their entire reasoning to make this pen is to make a water-filled cap that's the waters in a membrane, a breathable membrane inside the cap that will keep your pen moist so the nib does not dry out when you're using your India ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't in any good conscience say this is a good idea. I can't say for a fact it's an awful idea, but common sense says it's an awful idea. Moisture in the nib is not how you want, I mean, in the cap is not how you want to keep your nibs from drying out. You want to seal the air out of them, right? Like Platinum does with the 3776 and the slip and seal mechanism. The cap gets locked in, mostly airtight. Right? And what they're saying, the reason behind this pen is, it defies common sense to me. Now, other people may read it and go, oh my God, my India ink pens dry out all the time. And, you know, this would be a great product for me to have. Well, that's not why your India ink pens are drying out. They're drying out because it's a very extreme ink, right? It's a super dry, very aggressive art ink. And to add this weird water membrane that's essentially serving to create humidity in the cap is not an idea I can get behind, right? So it's...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me ask you. Do you know this doesn't work or do you feel like it doesn't work?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like it doesn't work. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, but I don't know. It's questionable enough that I would be scared to spend money on it. That's for sure. Like what they're describing is a refillable water reservoir for a cap. So your nib doesn't dry out. It's crazy. Like I... Who has ever needed this? Like I understand the problem they're trying to solve. But I don't think this is actually a real solution. I think you'll run into more challenges having basically a humidity cap around a steel nib. So I don't know. It's very strange to me. So I don't know. But this is what made me... It's like I appreciate you trying something.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you're not giving me a good enough reason to jump. Like to take a chance, right? I appreciate that you want to do something different or try to do something. But when there's a multitude of factors within your campaign that I can just look and read and shake my head about, I'm going to be pretty hesitant. So that's where like the red flags come up. So, you know, it's not that simple. You know, there's... I'm sure red flag projects that I've like balked at have turned out well. I'm sure there's green light projects that have, you know, gone into the ditch and not turned out well. But I think just in general, if you can look at a few of these factors and, you know, help you make some decisions in kind of the way you think about Kickstarter, you know, that's how I look at it. You know, and, you know, if you ever have any questions, reach out to me because maybe I've done some of the research too. But I appreciate that people share these things with me because there's so many questions around Kickstarter to this day that people want to spend their money as wisely as possible. So it's a challenge.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.