Editing The Pen Addict 129/transcript (section)

== Backer Research ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' And drift into never, never land? Not yet. I've been lucky in that aspect. And that's another thing from a backer's perspective. You got to do your homework. I, I am not going to rush in a project just to get an early bird from someone that I have questions about. You know, you have time to see how these things play out. You have time to research the companies behind it, you know, as much as you can. And you have time to, you know, go through all the comments and see how the, the creators are answering, you know, their backers to see, you know, if they understand what's going on with their own project or not. I mean, I think there's a lot of things that are super, super telling about, about creators that you can glean from updates and projects and communication style and background and things like that. And just, you know, as a backer understanding, okay, maybe something doesn't add up here and maybe I shouldn't put my money into this. So it's, it's, you, you have to be careful from that aspect. So luckily I have not backed a project that has not delivered. I've had some that have taken a year to deliver like the Apollo pin, which I just got last week. I think it funded last December and it just came in last week and they're not even close to done yet. There's going to be people that are going to be waiting until next year for part of that project. So, you know, it's, it's a tough deal. It's a tough deal sometimes, but you know, backers, you know, you need to do your homework too. I mean, you know, we're fortunate to be, to have a public place to discuss things, you know, for our specific projects like the blog or the podcast and things like that. But for people you're not aware of, ask around, do your homework, read the comments section, read their updates, read the comments in their updates. I mean, there's all kinds of places you can get information from. So, all right, we're running long, but I got one more question, Dan. I want to get into that Drew design asked in the, in the chat room that I think is a really good question. And I'm going to, I'm going to do this. This is specifically directed to you and Kara's customs. At what point, at what point do you abandon Kickstarter and launch a product old school, make a first run and then sell them first comes first serve from Kara's, like from Kara's perspective. Would you, is that an option ever to just, you know, make a project, product, sell it on your site and go that route? Or do you feel like you're just like a Kickstarter pro now and that's the way we're going to do it?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Well, I can address that quickly so that we can end the show. So, the, the advantage of doing, of doing Kickstarter is two things. Kickstarter has a wide audience and people looking for specific things like pens are already there. So that's, that's kind of a no brainer to go from there. But, anytime you do anything, I mean, like I said, we don't do just pens, we do other work, production work. And so, we launch products on Kickstarter to see if there is a market. Like, we have two failed things. Now, if we had shut down production, made what we thought would be a large, you know, an amount that would be useful to have on hand. Because, you know, we have to pay someone to set it up, to run it, to do all these different things. So, it costs money to even prototype. We have to take paying work, set it aside to do prototypes. And this is with any company, not just us. So, you have to pay to, to even have a prototype before you can get to Kickstarter. So, and once you put it on Kickstarter, you can kind of gauge that public demand. And that will allow you, i.e., kickstart the process to where you can start making them in production. Because it's very possible you make something that just nobody cares about. And at that point, I mean, that's how businesses go bankrupt. That's how businesses fail, is you produce something that nobody wants, you know. And you, you put a big effort into it, and then you fail. And so, I mean, people, I don't know what people think about Karis Customs. We're a tiny little shop. I mean, we're in Mesa, Arizona. We've got 10 dudes working there. I mean, we are small. And if we took the gamble and put, you know, shut down production for, you know, weeks or, you know, months, month and a half, to put out a large number of pens, that could potentially cause us to, you know, go out of business. Just like, you know, a bakery or, you know, any other type of place. And so, the success through Kickstarter has allowed us to grow our business. And we probably would not be where we are without it. And so, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship. And, you know, like with NotCo, you probably could have used some of your clout with your blog, but we didn't. We had nothing. We were just some guys in a machine shop making stuff. And so, without it, we wouldn't be able to do new products or to do anything further. We just happened to have the luxury of Kickstarter to help us grow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was a really good answer, Dan.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Thanks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm serious. I was like, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, when you're a smaller shop, you know, everyone, all the Kickstarter creators are coming from a different place, you know. It's a lot of small businesses like us. Or like, in my case, it was trying to launch a business. In your case, it's trying to sustain a business. And putting all your eggs in one basket to, like, shut down and make weeks worth of products and then throw them up on your site and hope they sell. I mean, it's a crapshoot. And Kickstarter at least allows you to have that, you know. Kickstarter don't lie. You know, it's going to tell you whether your product's good or not. I mean, you're going to succeed or you're going to fail right there. And it's certainly helpful for that. So, yeah. That was very good. I appreciate that openness and honesty there. So, that was excellent. So, well, I think we could go for another hour easy just on Kickstarter stuff. But this was really, really awesome, Dan. And I appreciate you coming on and talking about all this stuff.

'''Dan Bishop:''' No, it's my pleasure, really.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Where can people find your work, Mr. Bishop?

'''Dan Bishop:''' That sounds weird. Mr. Bishop's my dad.

'''Dan Bishop:''' They can find my work on kariscustoms.com or Instagram or anything else like that. And if they want to get a hold of me, they can hit us up through the contact page. You can find some of my personal shenanigans through designconcussion.com or through the same name on Instagram. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There you go. If you'd like to catch up with myself and Brad, well, first off, go to the show notes for this week's episode, which you can find at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 129. My name is Myke Curley. I am at iMike on Twitter. I am YKE. And Brad is at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And he writes the fantastic penaddict.com and sells his wares over at knock.co. That's my favorite. That is my favorite domain that you own for the site. So it's the one that I like to use. Thank you. We'll be back next week with another episode of The Pen Addict. Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Linda, Hover, and Karis Customs. And thank you to Dan from Karis Customs for joining us. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad and Dan.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad and Dan. Goodbye, Brad and Dan.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Goodbye, Brad and Dan.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]