The Pen Addict 548/transcript - Revision history

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	'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, we've discussed it. Like we've discussed it. We've tried to level set expectations. Like this stuff is hard. Like manufacturing is hard, right? Yeah, my best business tip to anyone who's just listened to all of this is don't start your own printing business. Like that's the best advice I can give anyone. It's a nightmare. So it's great that you, and then my second biggest advice, because I get this question in emails a lot and we can wrap it here after this and tell everyone how to email me. If you want to email me, Brad, I have this notebook idea. Where's the best place I should get it printed? It's the place you can walk to or drive to. Like I can't, there is no printer. Like that you can use across halfway across the country and be happy with the results. You have to physically go into that facility, explain your ideas and work with them in a long, drawn out, confusing process to get made what you want to made. That's how we did it at ~~NOC~~. That's how Myke has done it with this product. And it is the best way to get anything you want made like that. So there you go.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, we've discussed it. Like we've discussed it. We've tried to level set expectations. Like this stuff is hard. Like manufacturing is hard, right? Yeah, my best business tip to anyone who's just listened to all of this is don't start your own printing business. Like that's the best advice I can give anyone. It's a nightmare. So it's great that you, and then my second biggest advice, because I get this question in emails a lot and we can wrap it here after this and tell everyone how to email me. If you want to email me, Brad, I have this notebook idea. Where's the best place I should get it printed? It's the place you can walk to or drive to. Like I can't, there is no printer. Like that you can use across halfway across the country and be happy with the results. You have to physically go into that facility, explain your ideas and work with them in a long, drawn out, confusing process to get made what you want to made. That's how we did it at Nock. That's how Myke has done it with this product. And it is the best way to get anything you want made like that. So there you go.

	'''Myke Hurley:''' Our journals were made in Poland and it was very expensive because I had to keep paying for them to make me one-offs and they were like a couple of hundred dollars per one-off. Yeah.		'''Myke Hurley:''' Our journals were made in Poland and it was very expensive because I had to keep paying for them to make me one-offs and they were like a couple of hundred dollars per one-off. Yeah.

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	'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, retro 51 is not something you normally see on this list. And the last one I want to talk about, the Viscont Rembrandt S, which I don't know if we mentioned recently. This is kind of a little bit of a change to Visconti's lineup. I think this is a newer price point that Visconti's trying to hit. And this is even discounted from there. I have never seen. Like, this is one of the most popular Visconti models. And they normally run around $200 or between like $2 and $250, depending on the model. This is outrageously priced and something that I even want to go look at. Oh, yeah. There's the strawberries and cream. So, yeah. There is a ton of stuff on this list. Oh, the Pinaferina. Wow, that's a good price. Okay. Yeah. Go look at the list. There's a lot of things. I've been a good boy this year, but maybe I need to go shopping at Pen Chalet myself here when we're done with the show.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, retro 51 is not something you normally see on this list. And the last one I want to talk about, the Viscont Rembrandt S, which I don't know if we mentioned recently. This is kind of a little bit of a change to Visconti's lineup. I think this is a newer price point that Visconti's trying to hit. And this is even discounted from there. I have never seen. Like, this is one of the most popular Visconti models. And they normally run around $200 or between like $2 and $250, depending on the model. This is outrageously priced and something that I even want to go look at. Oh, yeah. There's the strawberries and cream. So, yeah. There is a ton of stuff on this list. Oh, the Pinaferina. Wow, that's a good price. Okay. Yeah. Go look at the list. There's a lot of things. I've been a good boy this year, but maybe I need to go shopping at Pen Chalet myself here when we're done with the show.

	'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. It's Pen Chalet dot com. Go to the top of the website. You want to click the podcast link there. Enter the password ~~Penn~~ Addict, and you will get your grubby mitts on these special offers. So, thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show at Relay FM.		'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. It's Pen Chalet dot com. Go to the top of the website. You want to click the podcast link there. Enter the password Pen Addict, and you will get your grubby mitts on these special offers. So, thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show at Relay FM.

	'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got something on my desk here, Myke.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got something on my desk here, Myke.
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	'''Myke Hurley:''' It's soft launch season. The next product from Cortex brand is now available. It's called Sidekick Notepad. This is the first podcast I'm talking about it on. Oh, nice. But I felt like this is something ~~Penn~~ Addict listeners would like to hear about. I want to say I'm in soft launch season. We're kind of announcing it on the Cortex podcast in February. But this product has been in development for so long and has actually been sitting at Cotton Bureau since November. It got to the point where me and Gray were completely sick of the fact that it wasn't available for sale and decided to put it on sale. And it has actually been very helpful for me so far in kind of like building the story of the product in a way to be able to explain it to potential customers. You know, like in what imagery we show and trying to explain how to use it, what it is and how it works. And so also today is like my first crack at trying to explain the Sidekick Notepad to people in audio form. It is a desk pad. Like it is a landscape style desk pad with perforated pages. It has 60 pages of Munk and Lynx 100 GSM. So it's the same paper we use in the theme system journal, but slightly thicker. It is made by hand in London, England, which I am immensely proud of. We found a supplier in London. I have spent a lot of time at their manufacturing facility over the last year that we've been working on the product. It has been in development for since June of 2021 is when we started work on this project. And it was in manufacturing on and off for about a year because we had a lot of stuff we needed to work out to make it work the way we wanted it to work.		'''Myke Hurley:''' It's soft launch season. The next product from Cortex brand is now available. It's called Sidekick Notepad. This is the first podcast I'm talking about it on. Oh, nice. But I felt like this is something Pen Addict listeners would like to hear about. I want to say I'm in soft launch season. We're kind of announcing it on the Cortex podcast in February. But this product has been in development for so long and has actually been sitting at Cotton Bureau since November. It got to the point where me and Gray were completely sick of the fact that it wasn't available for sale and decided to put it on sale. And it has actually been very helpful for me so far in kind of like building the story of the product in a way to be able to explain it to potential customers. You know, like in what imagery we show and trying to explain how to use it, what it is and how it works. And so also today is like my first crack at trying to explain the Sidekick Notepad to people in audio form. It is a desk pad. Like it is a landscape style desk pad with perforated pages. It has 60 pages of Munk and Lynx 100 GSM. So it's the same paper we use in the theme system journal, but slightly thicker. It is made by hand in London, England, which I am immensely proud of. We found a supplier in London. I have spent a lot of time at their manufacturing facility over the last year that we've been working on the product. It has been in development for since June of 2021 is when we started work on this project. And it was in manufacturing on and off for about a year because we had a lot of stuff we needed to work out to make it work the way we wanted it to work.

	'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to come back to that part in a moment, the manufacturing part, because I just think that you would find some of this fascinating too. It is the way that the notepad is separated. It's about two thirds dot grid and then one third, maybe like more like a quarter really of a to-do list. So similar to the journal, it's got the little circles of the lines through and boxes next to them. The idea for this notepad is that it's kind of serves two purposes. The one that I use it in the most is I have it sitting in between me and my keyboard. We measured it out in such a way that I think is a very comfortable for a lot of people, for most people. We measured it on people of all sizes to see that this was like a good size, a good depth to put your keyboard behind. It's 18 centimeters by 30 centimeters. We also kind of molded it around about the width of a 13 inch MacBook. It was like that's the kind of width that we wanted. It's a little smaller than that because it just didn't want to match up completely. Basically, the what else can I say? The the cover of the notepad flips over and around the back. So you get this kind of spine across the top and it goes around to the back because really this notepad is supposed to remain open on your desk like that is its ideal form. So you open it and leave it in front of you to take notes whenever you want. And the other place that it is perfect is for meetings. So one of the ideas for this product in my mind is whenever I go to a meeting, I don't like to have a laptop in front of me because I feel like it puts a barrier between me and the people that I'm talking to. And also it's too easy for me to get distracted by what's going on on my computer. And so the sidekick notepad is made in such a way that you would bring it to a meeting, take all your notes down, write your action items down in the to do area and then take it back with you and tear off the page or whatever you want to do. Keep it around until you tear off and start again with the next page. In that element, we had to work with our paper suppliers and manufacturers to laminate the paper that we're using to make it thick enough that when you picked up the notepad, it didn't bend under its own weight. It was very important to me. But the weightage of the paper that we wanted to use did not exist. So we had to go through an expensive process of laminating paper together to get a thickness, like a weight that this product's not offered in. The cover and backboard paper is made of something called Extract by another British company called G.F. Smith, who I worked with a friend, Matt, who works there. You've met Matt, right? I believe you may have met him at my wedding.		'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to come back to that part in a moment, the manufacturing part, because I just think that you would find some of this fascinating too. It is the way that the notepad is separated. It's about two thirds dot grid and then one third, maybe like more like a quarter really of a to-do list. So similar to the journal, it's got the little circles of the lines through and boxes next to them. The idea for this notepad is that it's kind of serves two purposes. The one that I use it in the most is I have it sitting in between me and my keyboard. We measured it out in such a way that I think is a very comfortable for a lot of people, for most people. We measured it on people of all sizes to see that this was like a good size, a good depth to put your keyboard behind. It's 18 centimeters by 30 centimeters. We also kind of molded it around about the width of a 13 inch MacBook. It was like that's the kind of width that we wanted. It's a little smaller than that because it just didn't want to match up completely. Basically, the what else can I say? The the cover of the notepad flips over and around the back. So you get this kind of spine across the top and it goes around to the back because really this notepad is supposed to remain open on your desk like that is its ideal form. So you open it and leave it in front of you to take notes whenever you want. And the other place that it is perfect is for meetings. So one of the ideas for this product in my mind is whenever I go to a meeting, I don't like to have a laptop in front of me because I feel like it puts a barrier between me and the people that I'm talking to. And also it's too easy for me to get distracted by what's going on on my computer. And so the sidekick notepad is made in such a way that you would bring it to a meeting, take all your notes down, write your action items down in the to do area and then take it back with you and tear off the page or whatever you want to do. Keep it around until you tear off and start again with the next page. In that element, we had to work with our paper suppliers and manufacturers to laminate the paper that we're using to make it thick enough that when you picked up the notepad, it didn't bend under its own weight. It was very important to me. But the weightage of the paper that we wanted to use did not exist. So we had to go through an expensive process of laminating paper together to get a thickness, like a weight that this product's not offered in. The cover and backboard paper is made of something called Extract by another British company called G.F. Smith, who I worked with a friend, Matt, who works there. You've met Matt, right? I believe you may have met him at my wedding.

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	'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, you can.		'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, you can.

	'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, retro 51 is not something you normally see on this list. And the last one I want to talk about, the Viscont Rembrandt S, which I don't know if we mentioned recently. This is kind of a little bit of a change to Visconti's lineup. I think this is a newer price point that Visconti's trying to hit. And this is even discounted from there. I have never seen. Like, this is one of the most popular Visconti models. And they normally run around $200 or between like $2 and $250, depending on the model. This is outrageously priced and something that I even want to go look at. Oh, yeah. There's the strawberries and cream. So, yeah. There is a ton of stuff on this list. Oh, the Pinaferina. Wow, that's a good price. Okay. Yeah. Go look at the list. There's a lot of things. I've been a good boy this year, but maybe I need to go shopping at ~~Penn~~ Chalet myself here when we're done with the show.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, retro 51 is not something you normally see on this list. And the last one I want to talk about, the Viscont Rembrandt S, which I don't know if we mentioned recently. This is kind of a little bit of a change to Visconti's lineup. I think this is a newer price point that Visconti's trying to hit. And this is even discounted from there. I have never seen. Like, this is one of the most popular Visconti models. And they normally run around $200 or between like $2 and $250, depending on the model. This is outrageously priced and something that I even want to go look at. Oh, yeah. There's the strawberries and cream. So, yeah. There is a ton of stuff on this list. Oh, the Pinaferina. Wow, that's a good price. Okay. Yeah. Go look at the list. There's a lot of things. I've been a good boy this year, but maybe I need to go shopping at Pen Chalet myself here when we're done with the show.

	'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. It's ~~Penn~~ Chalet dot com. Go to the top of the website. You want to click the podcast link there. Enter the password Penn Addict, and you will get your grubby mitts on these special offers. So, thanks to ~~Penn~~ Chalet for their support of this show at Relay FM.		'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. It's Pen Chalet dot com. Go to the top of the website. You want to click the podcast link there. Enter the password Penn Addict, and you will get your grubby mitts on these special offers. So, thanks to Pen Chalet for their support of this show at Relay FM.

	'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got something on my desk here, Myke.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got something on my desk here, Myke.
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	'''Brad Dowdy:''' Crazy, right? Yeah, I can't believe that. It's cool stuff. Like, you know, we talk about making stuff that makes you smile and that you want to use personally. Like Myke just went through all this with a sidekick. Yeah, it's that kind of feeling I get when I pick up any spoke pen. Yeah.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' Crazy, right? Yeah, I can't believe that. It's cool stuff. Like, you know, we talk about making stuff that makes you smile and that you want to use personally. Like Myke just went through all this with a sidekick. Yeah, it's that kind of feeling I get when I pick up any spoke pen. Yeah.

	'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad streams multiple times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Brad on micro.blog. You can find me. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram. Go check out the Cortex brand Instagram too. I'm trying to do more with it there. Oh, cool. And I'd be interested to know what people think. So that's at Cortex brand. You can go to cortexmerch.com where you can check out psychic notepad, themes, list and journal, stuff like that. Thanks to ~~Penn~~ Chalet and Squarespace for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I've had a blast making it too. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.		'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad streams multiple times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Brad on micro.blog. You can find me. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Instagram. Go check out the Cortex brand Instagram too. I'm trying to do more with it there. Oh, cool. And I'd be interested to know what people think. So that's at Cortex brand. You can go to cortexmerch.com where you can check out psychic notepad, themes, list and journal, stuff like that. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Squarespace for the support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I've had a blast making it too. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

	'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad. Bye.		'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad. Bye.

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{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 548
| title = Emergency Cufflinks
| date = January 25th, 2023
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/548 Episode 548]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_548.mp3 Audio Episode 548]
| length = 68
}}

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