Editing The Pen Addict 373/transcript (section)

== Pen Addict Anniversary ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' 2022, the pen addict is 10 years old. So maybe.

'''David Sparks:''' You got anything on your radar?

'''David Sparks:''' Bungbox, of course. They have the Sapporo minis. Yeah, me too. Which are the little bitty sailors, which I really love. And they always come in cool, like little, little candy colors, which I really like. There's a blue one, which might already be sold out. That's kind of the one I wanted. A yellow one and like a coral colored one. I will end up with one of those at some point, maybe Sunday, if I get a chance to go out there and there's any left. Otherwise, there's nothing super specific on the radar for me. How about you, Anna? Anna, do you have anything lined up?

'''Ana Reinert:''' If at some point I can get away from one or both of the tables that I'm working, I'll try to get over to Straits Pens for their inkstravaganza. What's that? They have all of the inks. All of it? I want all of them.

'''David Sparks:''' All of it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Jacqueline tried to offer to go and get ink for me and I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't make a decision.

'''David Sparks:''' Do your hands need to be a different color or something?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Anna had an ink accident. Anna's hands are as pink as her hair right now. Coincidence. They are very similar. What happened to you?

'''Ana Reinert:''' So a customer came up to the table and asked to see what color Organic Studio Unicorn Blood was.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Real name. Real name for an ink.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Real name for an ink.

'''Ana Reinert:''' This is what color.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The color is. Look at my hands.

'''Ana Reinert:''' This is after I've washed my hands five times. Yeah. Maybe six. Did you drop it? No. I unscrewed the cap.

'''David Sparks:''' Oh. Well. Yeah. We did get some close to original photos like right after the catastrophe and it was extremely bad. It was really bad.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Did you have some opening it? Yeah. It got. The color got a little around the cap edge and it was just. A lot around the cap edge. Yeah. A lot. It would seem. Yeah.

'''David Sparks:''' Yeah. So Anna's looking for more inks to finger paint with. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Maybe a different color this time. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Give a little follow up. So we had my wife, Nina, on the show last week. She's sitting right there. And I got lots of great feedback. We both did about the episode. Lots of people here and also by email too. And I got to walk her around the show a little bit today. Yeah. And I got to feel like an expert. That's a rare thing. It is because people come up to us and they're like, oh, I would love it if you'd walk us around the show. And I say, oh, you should get Brad to do that. Because I genuinely, when I walk around, feel like I know a little bit, but Brad knows all of it. So it's kind of a waste for me because people would say, oh, what is this? Like, I don't know. We'll ask Brad. So I figure you may as well be there most of the time. But I thought I could take my own wife around the show. And it was really nice. And we're going to do more of it because she hasn't bought anything yet. Nice. But she's been picking things up, putting things down.

'''David Sparks:''' So have you explained the rule of two yet? No. If you pick it up the second time, you're going to buy it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. If you come back, right?

'''David Sparks:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''David Sparks:''' If you pick it up the second time, just get out the wallet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' See what's now? You've made the decision. Yep. So we have some wonderful guests that we're going to bring up very shortly for our interview for this episode. Because we like to do that when we go to pen shows because we get to have people with us who we can't usually get to talk to. And it's a really lovely environment. But before we do it, I just wanted to very quickly touch on something that we'll be talking more about in the coming weeks, which is Relay FM for St. Jude. So we announced this last night and I'm very excited about it, which is why I want to talk about it now. So St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is an organization that is near and dear to our hearts at Relay FM for many reasons. But nevertheless, our personal connection, it is an incredible place where they are trying their best and doing a wonderful job of making children's lives last longer when they're suffering cancer. They cure things and they provide help and assistance for families that need it and they pay for all of it. And it's an incredible organization and we are very honored that Relay FM is going to be St. Jude's very first podcast partner. So it's a big deal. This is a huge deal. This is massive for us. And so throughout the month of September, but you can start now, you can go to Relay.fm slash St. Jude. There'll be links in the show notes of that and you can donate money. And we're going to be talking much more about this throughout September. We're trying to raise $75,000 last year without the efforts that we're putting in in conjunction with St. Jude. We raised $70,000. So I'm very confident in our audience at Relay FM that we can smash that. And we're going to be doing something extra special, I think, to try and push us over the edge. So myself and Stephen Hackett, who's operating the camera right now, who's my co-founder, September 20th from 4 p.m. 4 to 10 Eastern, we're going to be doing a six-hour podcast-a-thon streamed live on Twitch from St. Jude. We're going to be at the hospital recording there doing who knows what for six hours. But that's going to be our big fundraising push. So again, we're going to be talking about this a bunch more throughout September and sharing some stories about St. Jude. But you should already be wanting to give money. So go to Relay.fm slash St. Jude. They're an incredible organization. We can't wait to see what comes of it. All right. Should we take a break? Take a quick break. We have some awesome guests. All right. Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. They let you easily create a website for your next idea or project. They'll give you the ability to register a unique domain name, take advantage of, and customize awards and templates, and so much more. Whether you want to create an online store, a portfolio, or a blog, Brad has two out of the three on Squarespace. Because that's the kind of guy he is. I have three out of the three.

'''David Sparks:''' You have a portfolio? Yeah. I have one of those portfolio pages. Do you? Yeah, I do. What you got on that? BradDowdy.com. And it hasn't been updated in like two years, but I do have it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's three out of three. Brad has all of them. Yeah. I'm going to go check out your portfolio. Squarespace is an all-in-one platform that will let you build any website or all of the websites if you're BradDowdy. There is nothing to install or patch or worry about. No upgrades needed. They've got you covered and they back it up with award-winning 24-7 customer support. In case you need anything, Squarespace is there for you. So go try it out today. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can sign up for a free trial. No credit card required to do so. So then when you want to launch your website to the world, you can just sign up one of their plans. It starts at just $12 a month. And when you decide to sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you will get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website. You were looking at me funny during that. I mean, you're an attractive man. I don't know what to say.

'''David Sparks:''' I thought you were trying to put me off, but no one can put me off. No, no, not at all. Would you like to introduce our guest, Brad? I would love to introduce Hugh and Carol from Canalea Pen Company. Please come and join us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Give a round of applause, everyone. I have been looking forward to this so much since Brad told me that we were going to be doing this. So, I mean, Canalea and the penaddict, we go back a long way now, I feel like. But there is some stuff about Canalea pens that we don't know, and I would be very interested to know. I think first, how did this start? How did the Canalea pen company begin? What made you want to start this wonderful company that you've built?

'''Hugh:''' Okay. Well, first, aloha!

'''Hugh:''' And thank you. We wanted to share the inspiration that we felt, having been to the Hawaiian Islands and learning about the culture and seeing things with the pen community that we had been a part of and really fell in love with. And we wanted to just bring that in a way that we felt was both creative and provided the same inspiration that we felt for people to use their writing instruments. And really, that's what started it. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you say that the pen community you were a part of, in what way? Were you beforehand, before Canalea?

'''Hugh:''' So we had been, we've been pen and paper people forever and had been going to the Baltimore and D.C. shows for a number of years, gotten to know a lot of folks and had been customers of a lot of the vendors at the shows. And so we began this journey. If you've ever been antiquing with your wife, Adina, you might want to know. Okay. Well, this is coming. So get ready. So I was antiquing with Carol, who said this was going to be fun. And it was. And there are these vintage fountain pens that don't work for $18. And so I decided that I was going to teach myself how to restore these things to occupy my time while we were antiquing. And so I combined that with our visits to the pen shows and started restoring vintage fountain pens and got good at it. So we had just been interacting with the vendors for a long time. How long ago was that? Were you starting on the pens? Maybe six, seven years ago, something like that. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And how long has Canalea been around now?

'''Hugh:''' This is our fourth year in business.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So it wasn't a long time, really?

'''Hugh:''' No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No?

'''Hugh:''' No. It's been quick.

'''David Sparks:''' So I'm sitting here remembering our first interaction. Yes. And honest to goodness, all this prep time I had before knowing that you were going to come on, that didn't cross my mind. But I'm sitting here listening and it was DC, I guess five years ago. We don't know each other. No. At all. And you came up to me, introduced yourself and just said, hey, can I pick your brain about this idea that I have?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''David Sparks:''' You didn't have anything to show. Like you didn't have. No. Yeah. I mean, you didn't have the first like image, the first material, anything. And you said, hey, let me pick your brain. And I don't know. I don't know why that just jumped back into my head right now. And I hadn't remembered it before then. But that was kind of an awesome conversation because exactly one year later, Canalea was at the DC pin show with the full lineup of pins. And that was a pretty cool thing to see from the very beginning.

'''Hugh:''' I remember how scared I was when you walked in and saw the table. I mean, I thought, okay, well, we're here. Let's see if we can, you know, do this right. And it was a whole year in very detailed planning and a lot of work with paper and pencil, trying to figure out what we wanted our inspirational designs to be. And would it resonate with the community, our Ohana family in Hawaiian? And you're right, we didn't know each other. And I recognized you for what you were building. And I thought, well, I want to tip you off a little bit so that at least when I do this, you'll say something like, oh, this is what you were talking about.

'''David Sparks:''' So let me tell you a little something about Hugh and Carol. From that first day that I met Hugh until the day that he launched, and then every subsequent release they have ever had, I've never gotten a sneak preview. So they keep it very close to the vest. Like, it's no joke. They take this seriously. It's awesome. I love it.

'''Hugh:''' I think it's great. It's very cool. We just wanted to make sure that when we do it, it feels right for us. And that's why, and we thank you both and everybody in the community. We Ohana in Hawaiian is family. And we regard everybody in the community as our Ohana. And this thing that we do and the way we do it, it's very much thought through as if we were on the receiving end of it. And we wanted to make sure that from launching something new to the inspirational photographs that we've taken and that inspire our pens, it feels right to us as if we were going to be the person spending hard-earned money to acquire that, that piece of art. It has to feel right as if it were our own money buying it. And when it does, that's when we release it, but not before. And that's why sometimes, and we'll talk about the new Eolani in a little bit, that was a little more than 11 months in the works. And you're right. You didn't know anything about it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I want to talk about that year then. So I'll ask you, Carol, from having these conversations and deciding it was going to happen, how on earth did you in one year manage to pull off what you did? Because the Canalea launched with multiple pens, right? In multiple colors, multiple styles.

'''Carol:''' How did you do that? You know, we really had been planning for several years. You know, a lot of late night talks and long rides in the car somewhere and you start dreaming and planning and then start putting all the puzzle pieces together. And it really, it takes a lot longer than you think. And so when you saw Hugh, we were probably furiously treading water underneath trying to get all of our things to happen. And, you know, when it's up to you, all the things that are up to you, you can make happen when you want. But when you depend on suppliers or other artisans who make things that all go into one package, that's a lot of coordination.

'''David Sparks:''' It was one of the most fully formed launches I've ever seen in my life. It doesn't happen. It was very abnormal. And I mean that in the most positive way. It does not happen that way. And it was just amazing to see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How many pens were in the original lineup?

'''Carol:''' I think it was eight or nine. How?

'''Carol:''' We're very ambitious.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why not do like one or two? Like why did you decide to have such a selection?

'''Carol:''' We really wanted, however abbreviated it ended up to be, a color palette out there that reflected certain aspects of Hawaii. You know, try to get a couple islands in there, some water, some land, some sky. So that's why we had so many ideas. So, yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, Carol, I know that Hugh was very interested in pens. Were you as interested in fountain pens when this idea came about? No.

'''Hugh:''' If you've ever been to the front desk at a hotel, that's where Carol got her.

'''Carol:''' No, that's not true. I proudly used really nice ballpoints.

'''Hugh:''' That's true.

'''Carol:''' And I was, in fact, I'm a little secret. I'm still kind of afraid of fountain pens a little bit. Hugh fills them for me still.

'''David Sparks:''' That's understandable. Yeah. Yeah. That's my goal this year to do it myself. Just look at Ana's hands. I know. I know.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It doesn't hurt. And once I take a good hot shower, my hands will come right up.

'''David Sparks:''' It comes right up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So one of the great things about Canaleo, especially when you come to a pen show, as Brad mentioned, it's like a thing. Like your stand is very involved. It's very detailed. And I want to come back in a little bit to talking about the very strong marketing that you do and where that comes from. But before that is the pens themselves. And Canaleo pens are known for the materials, the way they look. And they're so unique. And we previously interviewed Jonathan Brooks, who I know has worked on the original lineup and has worked on many pens a year. Yes. How important are those materials to the success of your product?

'''Hugh:''' It's integral, Myke. And to say that it's not huge would be a mistake. But as you've acknowledged and our ohana have acknowledged when they come to our table and they go to our website, when they visit our Instagram, everything that Carol does outward facingly, social media, the web store, and working with our graphic designer and brand manager, Emerald Dong, who has been an amazing resource for us and friend, it's our brand that stands. And as much as we, you know, our handmade black walnut keepsake box, the belly band with the wildflower seeds, the way Carol layers the experience of unboxing the pen to the materials that Jonathan and other artisans help us make, the inspirational photographs that they're all based on. These are the things that make Canalea what it is. It is a very different experience.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have spent the similar money on pens and more than, right, at pen shows and other places. But with your pen, I get like a big box and it's all, you know, like it's a, I walk away feeling like, yeah, I got a luxury experience out of this. And I think that it really does add to it, especially in the idea of becoming a repeat customer, which I am now. Yes, you are.

'''Carol:''' Well, and, you know, I was just going to add, we, when you were talking about the materials, how important are they? They're, I think, yeah, they're really critical because through the materials, we convey the meaning of the pen. And like the kaha kai means beach. But in the material, you see the different shadings of the water and you see the sand moving in the water, which is crazy. I still don't know how we pulled that off. But yeah, so that's, that's what it is.

'''David Sparks:''' Yeah, and I think that like you tell a story with each pen, right? And then when someone makes that purchase, I can now share the story of this pen. Like I've learned about it from, from you. I'm holding up the Hanuma Bay pen, which is my personal favorite Canalea pen. And, and you just can't stop staring at it and you want other people to see it. So you can tell them the story of Canalea and like how this happens, the people behind it.

'''David Sparks:''' Like, it's kind of like this little bit of magic in your hand. It's just so cool. So, yeah, I don't know what to say. It's like, it's, it's got me like, you know, I'm at a loss for words.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, we're with you, man. But I have a tricky question. Does this make it hard for you to launch new products now?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because people expect big things now from you.

'''Carol:''' And we expect it of ourselves too. I mean.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's well said.

'''Carol:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because like when you had the original lineup, you could afford to have some that maybe weren't as good as some of the others. Because you had a selection. But now you release one, maybe a year to the line. And so every year, if that is what you're going for. Right. You have to have something that is worthy of standing with the rest of the most successful pens. Yes. That must be a big pressure.

'''Hugh:''' Well, for everyone that you see, there's three to six or seven that were almost launched. And they're not. Because we have to feel that that's the one that our Ohana will be inspired by as much as we are. You're absolutely right. When we launched in 2016, we had that many different designs, inspirational designs on the table. We still have every one of those available. And these are the things that whether we sell, you know, two gecko a year or, you know, dozens of Hanama Bay and Kahakai a year. That doesn't matter to us because it's the fact that somebody came up to the table and with one hand took a pen off the table and with the other hand examined six or seven different pens. And then handed this one to Carol with tears in their eyes. This has happened many times and said, this takes me back to when I was there with myself, my husband, my father, something personal. And they say, this speaks to me. And it doesn't matter to us if we, you know, sell one or two a year of that, we'll always have it. And that's the thing that when it touches somebody and they can tell the story of what that pen brings them back to, then we know that we've done something no ka'oi, good, the best. And that touches them and then that aloha comes back to us. That is what it's all about for us. That's our story.