The Pen Addict 450/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	450
Title:	The Friendships We Made Along the Way
Release Date:	February 24th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 450
Audio File:	Audio Episode 450
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 450
Length:	133133 min <br />2.217 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 450. Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure, as always, of being joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad: Hey, Myke, I got a huge smile when you said episode 450, even though we've known this has been coming for at least 449 episodes, that we would get here. But yeah, huge smile. I'm very happy about that.

Myke: And I did just note before we started today, that we have passed our nine-year anniversary of the show. So February 9th of 2012 was when we did our first episode. So we are terrible again and missed it. Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. I hope that we don't miss our 10th. No, we're not going to miss our 10th. We've got a lot of exciting stuff planned for next year.

Brad: Yeah, I think that's what happens when you get older. Like, you start forgetting things, especially dates. Like, birthday. What's that? But yeah, nine years of podcasting, episode 450 today. It just makes me happy. That's it. That's all I have to say. I'm very, very, very, very, very happy to be doing this, be doing this with you, and to continue doing this.

Myke: Today we have a very special episode. So Brad set this challenge for us a few weeks ago. Basically a special episode where we take a look at Kickstarter and its effect on our community by analyzing the projects that we have. What we have done is analyzed a selection of projects that the two of us have backed over the last 10 years or so. I wanted to bring those to the show today to talk about them and to, over the course of the episode, take a look at how Kickstarter has changed the hobby. Yeah, I think.

Brad: Yeah, it's definitely a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? Oh, yes. Played out that way.

Kickstarter Overview

Myke: Perfect way of putting it. This really is the good, bad, and ugly of Kickstarter. Because there has been a lot of that just in the stationary community. I'm on some Kickstarters right now in the stationary community that get a bit ugly, Brad. But we're not going to talk about those today.

Brad: You'll have to tell me offline because I don't think I'm in any active dumpster fires right now.

Myke: Oh, I am, man. I'm in a real bad one. It's bad.

Brad: We'll take that. Just put a dollar on every campaign and run up these numbers. These are all to get something from the project. Six of those unsuccessfully funded. Two were canceled for various reasons. 95 of the 120, Myke, were stationary related or adjacent. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. Like, then the other stuff is like a lot of other Kickstarter creative stuff, books, music, games, whatever products, things like that, bags, all that stuff. But yeah, like a full, like practically 80% of my 120 projects that I backed were stationary related. And boy, are we going to talk about them. How about you? What did your numbers look like? I was a little bit shocked.

Myke: 74 back projects.

Brad: That's a ton. Like, that's a ton. Like, I know I had a bunch, but that's a lot.

Myke: I have been and continue to be a big Kickstarter backer. Three were unsuccessful for me and one canceled. 28 of my 74 were stationary related or adjacent, which is obviously a huge difference in our makeup there because yours is like three quarters and mine is less than a half. The rest of my projects are a mixture of games, a back to a couple of events, movies, apps, and just general tech hardware stuff, which tends to be. And really, like, I think it's kind of funny when you look at it, those are kind of, those statistics and their makeup is actually a makeup of us as people, really. Where, like, you are primarily stationary and I am a mixture of different things.

Brad: Yeah, I go to Kickstarter for the pens and then I might find something else, right? And then you're tended to be drawn there. It's probably generated mostly from tech and, you know, related to that. And then, you know, you'll pick up some stationary stuff. Like, if we talk about it or if we cover it and it seems interesting, things like that. So, yeah, it is very telling the percentages of the categories that we're involved in. But it makes complete and total sense. I couldn't believe that it's been since 2011. June 2011 was my first project I backed. It was not a stationary project, one of the few. It was for Molly Crabapple's Week in Hell, which she's an artist I follow. Now she's an artist, activist, popular figure. But she basically, it was kind of stationary related in that she locked herself in a hotel room for a week, covered the walls in white paper, and drew the entire room. And then she would cut up different sizes based on your backer level of the drawings. So, you would back whatever, like, my backing was for, like, a six by six, you know, cut out of the wall. And, like, I still have that, you know, sitting in my closet. So, it's just kind of funny that it wasn't necessarily stationary related. But I found her because, at the time, like, we had talked about stationary. That was when I was working with Jetpens, and I had contact with her. And we were talking about, like, Sharpies and how they worked with this paper and for this project and things like that. I remember doing all that stuff back at the time. So, I guess it was kind of stationary related. But, yeah, 2011. When was yours?

Myke: 2012. July of 2012. 2012. And it was a book, like, an e-book called The Professional's Guide to Podcast Production. And it's made by a guy by the name of Jim Metzendorf, who we now work with at RelayFM. I saw this. I was like, wait a minute. Jim is an editor of a large selection of our shows, some of mine and some other shows as well. So, Jim, I've known of Jim for a long time, and I was a fan of his work, if you would call it that. You know, like, in the sense of, like, I listened to and appreciated his editing on a bunch of shows I was listening to at the time. And, obviously, back in July of 2012, I mean, I've been into podcasting for a couple of years. So, I was still very new, and I actually still had a lot to learn of editing. And I backed Jim's project to get, I think it was not just the book, but I think I also ended up getting some EQs. So, I would send him, like, my audio, and he created an EQ setting for me, for my voice.

Brad: This is funny because the friendships we made along the way are a very consistent theme of this. And it's funny to see that very first one. And I laughed when I saw that link in there. It had Jim's name in it. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Because a lot of this is, you know, a lot of friends that, you know, we made through the stationary world, through these projects.

Myke: I haven't mentioned this to him. I kind of feel like it, I don't know, something like that. I want to embarrass him, you know? So, I kind of just put it out there in the world.

Brad: Well, I'm not above embarrassing my friends. And I'm going to do that right out the gate, Myke. The second project, number two project, right after the Molly Crabapple one, that I backed, was the CWNT Pen Type A. Which turned out to be one of the most... Historic. Historic, famous, infamous projects in Kickstarter history. Or even just in the stationary world. But I think it crossed over some lines to where it was making, like, articles on, like, tech sites and news sites and things like that.

Myke: It was important to note... I'm sorry if I'm spoiling for you here. So, it raised $281,989 on a $2,500 goal in August of 2011. Now, this is particularly significant because of the date. So, back in August of 2011, Kickstarter was very, very new. And the idea of a $2,500 goal makes a lot of sense. Right? So, like, if you go back to your first one, Molly Crabapple's campaign was, like, $4,500 goal. And she raised $25,000, which is amazing then. But Kickstarter at that point was much more a, hey, I'm an artist. Here's my music.

Brad: And this is when the goals meant something, right? The goals have lost all meaning. Yes. Now. Yes. Back then, goals meant something. Molly took her, said, look, it's going to cost me this much in, you know, nights at a hotel, food, and product to do this project. And CWT says, we've made this pen. We think we can prototype it. And we think we can sell it. This is how much it's going to cost us to get us going. It's not some made-up number so you can run a huge percentage over goal completion number. So you can't have, like, a, you know, funded, you know, 15,000% funded, right? Which is what modern Kickstarter is. So, yeah, it was important at the time that, I guess, to make the point that it kind of blew up and got away from them. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It turned out to be rough for many reasons. There were articles you can find, if you just search it up, about the manufacturing processes that they went through, the failures of the manufacturing processes, the bringing it in-house, the intellectual property theft that took place, and just on and on. Like, right out the gate, I can't think of any project that has superseded this as far as if it could go wrong it did in this one. Like, we've had repeats of this, right? But I'm not sure, like, at least in the projects that I've backed, there's been, like, million-dollar projects that have been, you know, that have gone sideways on a lot of people. But just from our perspective, it was crazy. And, you know, I was fortunate to get to talk to Saewe and Taylor, the people behind CW&T early on, had, like, an early prototype of the pen type A because I love the Pilot High Tech C, which is what it was made for. And I didn't think this pen would do that good, right? Because it wasn't a great design just for, like, day-to-day use of a pen. It's like a desk pen, the way it was built with this basically brick metal ruler, which was the pen holder for people who aren't familiar with it. But it did. And it's telling, as we'll get to later in this episode, that they didn't let this destroy them. Because not everyone, I think, would have handled this, you know, in the future as well as they have. Yeah. And that's also a theme. And that's also a theme.

Myke: And that's also a theme. It was one of those things where it got coverage, and then it was getting coverage because it was doing so well, which then ended up pushing it further. You know, like, we're going to talk about Studio Neat in a little bit, but the original Glyph was like this, too. Like, the Glyph was one of the biggest early Kickstarter campaigns. And it was like, oh, this is a cool product, so people will start buying it. And then it gets coverage because it's cool, but then it starts getting coverage because it's such a success when that was new for Kickstarter.

Brad: Yep. And then, unlike the Glyph, this one ended up getting, like, soap opera-y. Yeah. Before the end, which just, you know, exacerbated any news that had come out before. It just kept going on and on. Like, it was a couple, it was, I didn't look at the end date, like, the final, like, closeout date of, hey, we shipped the last pen. Had to be a year and a half, would be my guess. Like, an 18-month, if not longer, time frame. It was very, very long, so. But, yeah, like, this.

Myke: It was October of 2012 was the update where they'd posted all of them.

Brad: Okay. So, that's not that bad. It was, you know, what's that, 14 months? So. 14 months. So, I mean, I've had projects run that long, you know, with delays. But, yeah, it was crazy. And it dragged on for years afterwards, the fallout from that.

New Buying Experience

Myke: Because it was new, delays were new.

Brad: Right. Right. And people didn't know. People was like, well, where's my pen?

Myke: People were not used to this way of buying things, either. These, like, undetermined, long-term pre-orders, if you ever get it.

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Myke: You know? So, it was all very, very new. So, it stood out and continues to be a standout.

Brad: And one last thing that stood out was Sewe would write these novel-length updates. Like, they did not hold back, right, on the updates, on the details, good or bad. They laid it all out every time. And it was like reading these books every time he would publish a blog update. It was incredible. It was what an incredible project.

Myke: So, again, something like that with that openness and updates probably set a trend, which continues to this day. Yep. Yep. They really were innovators, and for good and bad. Exactly. In whatever it takes to make a Kickstarter campaign.

Brad: Yep. And how you handle that, you know, helps kind of determine your future. As we work through this, there's going to be a lot of recurring themes this way.

Myke: So, my second project, which was my first kind of stationary-related project, was a campaign called I Draw Comics Sketchbook and Reference Guide. This was in August of 2012. You know, the gates are open now. It raised $245,000 on a $10,000 goal. Golly. Yeah. It was a book in kind of the Leuchtturm format, Moleskine format, you know, like with the little elastic that goes around the front. And it was part guide on how to draw comics and like comic art. And then the other half of the book was sketch paper for you to actually draw in. I have no idea why I backed this.

Brad: I don't know why I backed this. Before I saw that in the show notes, I was going to ask. I was like, oh, how's your comic career going?

Myke: I don't think I've ever. Well, I know I don't have the talent for this. Maybe that was why, you know. I will say back in August of 2012, I was still kind of in the world of, I feel like I'm a creative person. And I haven't found the thing that has made me truly successful. Like we were having some success then with the shows, like in the podcast were taken off. But I was like desperately looking for the thing to change my life. Maybe that was part of it. But I have no skill in this area. So I don't know why I did it. I mean, I know I was into reading comics a lot more than I am now. So maybe I had like an idea for a comic and thought, well, maybe if I could learn how to draw, I might be good at this. Because I do not know. But that was why I backed, I draw comics back in 2012.

Brad: You know what you did, Myke? You kickstarted. Yeah. This is what happens. Like you've got things. I've backed so many projects that like I don't know where these products are. Like out of those 95 stationary products, how many of those Kickstarter projects, which is kind of sad in retrospect, how many of those do you think I use? That are at least in my world daily, it's probably like less than 10, which is pretty crazy if you really, really think about it. But that's what Kickstarter was at the time. And that's what we do with Kickstarter. I do it a lot less now. Like my Kickstarter funding has gone way, way down compared to what it used to be. You know, it's changed over the years, which I'm sure we'll get to more.

Brad: This second stationary set that I backed, which I guess was my third project I backed. We're not going to count these down like this. But it just so happened like this was the beginning. And this was kind of the heyday. And all these new and interesting products come up. And this one was called the PHX1 design tool set. The makers were then an unknown pair of gentlemen named Chadwick Parker and Joe Wang. And if those names sound familiar, they are now known as Big Eye Design, which is pretty funny. When you look back at December 2011, this product that they made, they had made some other non-stationary products. I can't remember if they were Kickstarters or not, but like furniture and like things like that. But it's interesting to see someone kind of feeling things out, finding their way, you know, honing their design chops and making a product. At the time, it was very, very cool. You know, looking back, it's super basic now. But it's I wanted to focus on this project because it kind of laid the groundwork for what eventually became Big Eye Design. So this was a singular just tube, like a metal tube. I think it was stainless. I can't remember if it was titanium or stainless. And it was designed so the front end had threading where you could remove, say, a Uniball Signo DX pin front end, the whole nose cone and everything, and put that into this tube. And screw that front end section into the tube. And then there you had a different barrel for your DX. And you could also do this with the Hitec C. It was important at the time because this was like the ramp up of the Hitec C, but the DX didn't have anything. But really until what Spoke did with the DX, because I wanted it so bad, because this was the answer I gave people for years. It's like, I want something nicer for my DX. And I was like, there isn't one. You know, I backed this one called PHX1. It's like, oh, will you send it to me? People would ask me for it. And I was like, no, no. But it just didn't have that compatibility. But the way they did it with a threading, they did it from a threading perspective where you would remove part of an existing pin and put it into this one. Also, this pin on the back of it, Myke, you could put an X-Acto knife. It's like a tool pen. And it's a little dangerous. Yeah. So, but you see it now and you go, well, yeah, of course they became Big Eye Design and made all these things because this is what they were thinking about back in 2011, right? How can we mix and match a few different things into this pen? Was it great at the time? No.

Myke: No, because it's also funny. You can look at it and be like, this is janky. Like, you can look at it and it's like, this is a little janky.

Brad: But you get the, you see the groundwork, right? Of what, look at Big Eye Design now. Like, they make some great stuff. It's very cool. Very cool to see this kind of stuff. And it's really cool to see this next one you put in there because I was not an original backer. And they are now one of my personal favorite stationery brands.

Ajoto Pen Campaign

Myke: Yeah. My second stationery project was the pen by Ajoto. So the Ajoto pen. They had a 15,000 pounds goal. This is in November of 2012. And they raised 46,000 pounds. So they weren't a massive blow away success. I think part of it was it was UK based. So obviously shipping would be tricky maybe for some places. And it wasn't cheap either. Like, to my memory. Yeah, I paid 60 pounds for my version. So it definitely wasn't a cheap pen at the time. It was their first. And I was surprised Ajoto's only Kickstarter campaign. Yeah. Which I was very surprised about. Like, not that I thought I remembered something. Just that I'm surprised that they never did another one. And what I love about that is Ajoto is the exact thing that Kickstarter was supposed to do. Like, unlike pretty much every other company we'll talk about today, especially in the stationery world, they did one Kickstarter campaign. Now they have a successful business. The Kickstarter got them going. And now they just carry on. And the pens done very well. And it continues to do very well. Almost at this point, I consider them one of the only luxury brands in our space. Like, that isn't a huge company. Right? But I kind of look at the Ajoto pens as quite luxury.

Brad: What you would consider more of a maker. Yeah. As opposed to a company. Like, Leonardo is small. And they manufacture their own pens. But I don't. It feels like a different classification than someone like Ajoto. If I'm just kind of comparing that correctly.

Myke: Yeah. That's kind of the way that I look at it. And I remember at the time, like, I was really blown away by the precision of the design. And how beautiful it was. And they were also UK-based. And it was the first luxury pen of any kind that used the Schmidt refill. Yep. These were the first. Right? It was before the Mark I, before the Squire, before anything. They were using the Schmidt refill. And, yeah, it was just fantastic. Great campaign. They had great options. And my Ajoto is still in use. I love it. It's a fantastic pen. And they continue to do great things. Super cool.

Brad: Yeah. I love seeing that. I went through my whole list. So, I hand wrote my notes, right, to prepare for this podcast. I wrote three and a half A5 pages, like, in my tiny handwriting. And I got to the end, and I was typing it up in the doc. And I was like, wait a minute. Where's Ajoto? Because I had one of the earlier Ajoto pens. But I must have just gotten it from him. I was never a backer, anything like that. I was like, I couldn't believe it. Like, it was not in my backer list at all. So, I was glad that you were a backer and put it in the list. So, it was pretty cool. Next one, Myke, is where, let's say, the bad things hit the fan. And I call this one the first successful failure project that I was a part of. It's a project that backed, right? It funded. So, this is the Apollo Technical Pen and Drafting Scale. This probably puts, gives some people the heebie-jeebies. They raised $141,832 in December of 2013.

Brad: This was peak high-tech C time, right? Everyone's making pen barrels for the Pilot High-Tech C. And this was a very pretty, think of it as a Rotring 600 for the Pilot High-Tech C. I think that's fair to, you know, to say this design of this pen was trying to be. It was a capped, metal, faceted barrel. Really nice, really, you know, complex campaign. And they raised a lot of money. And they hit, you know, the manufacturing issues. Like, we used to talk about, when you and I were backing a lot of Kickstarters, just, we would, like, double the dates. You know, just because there's always, it's a given you're going to hit a manufacturing issue and not make whatever date you were planning on. And they hit all of them. Like, whatever failure you could have along the way, they did. And then they started shipping pens.

Brad: And some people got their pens, including myself. It looks like about, they shipped, but they said 75%. It looks more to me like about two-thirds of what they said they were going to ship had shipped. I got one. And it didn't write. Like, not from a refill perspective, but from an engineering perspective, there was a technical flaw in the design. So, like, after all the drama, after all the money, after all the delays, they ship it. Not to everybody, mind you, yet. And it mostly doesn't work. Like, a few people's works. And you'll have to go back through the, if you're that interested in it, you can go back through. There's some diagrams and things in the updates where they didn't depressurize the barrel. And they made the fit so tight that there was no airflow. So, the ink could not flow out the refill because there was, it was airtight. And that's when it really, like, got loose.

Brad: And...

Myke: Got loose is just a beautiful way of putting it. That's when things got a little silly, I should say.

Brad: Not where... Not where... People weren't just mad that they didn't get their pen. The people who had got the pen had now have a pen that doesn't write. Yeah. And so, they were, like, 0 for. And it was, like... So, that was funded December 2013. And Pranay and Paul vanished on everyone in February 2016. That was their last message. No follow-up on the orders not filled. And then no replacement follow-up for the people who had bad pens. They were essentially, like, zeroed out. Like, they may... I'm sure they spent all the money they raised. Like, they didn't vanish with the money.

Myke: Now, I'm not advocating for people's money being stolen, right? Yes. I mean, we've all had it happen to us. I will talk about some... One of mine, since it's in a minute. But, like, in this scenario, unless... Well, it was clearly their issue, their mistake, I think, right? Here, it was in the design. So, the manufacturer is not going to give them their money back, right? Not for what has been made. So, the only way to fix this is to spend more money that they probably didn't have.

Brad: Like, that's fine. You can only make people so mad. So, your last message says, we're broke. We can no longer make a single pen. I'm sorry to everyone that we let down. Which they didn't do. That's your last message. The last message is, here's how we're going to fulfill everything.

Myke: That's a very good point. I didn't... I can't see the last message that they left. It's a backer only thing. I was just going around in it. But, yeah. That's a good point. That you... You know, what you should do is say, I'm sorry, I don't have the money. You're not going to make people feel better that way. But, at least, you're being upfront with it. Yeah. Yeah. But most failed Kickstarters do not end that way. Most failed Kickstarters end with, hello? Is anybody there?

Brad: Well, that's funny you say that, because this project that funded in December 2013 still has an active comment section as of October 2020. There was 2,688 comments in this comment section of people commiserating about how terrible this project was.

Myke: I want to share a guilty pleasure of mine. Now, again, I'm not taking any pleasure in people losing their money, right? It's really frustrating, and it's upsetting, and it's your money. You deserve it. But going through the comment section of failed Kickstarters, it's like stepping into another dimension sometimes. Like, you see all these people super mad, and then you get to this point where people start copying and pasting. I hereby invoke my rights under Kickstarter's terms of use, and they link the terms of use. Project creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any backer. I demand a full refund. And you just see this over and over and over and over again. People copying and pasting. Like, it's going to do something, you know? Right. And these things just get, they get, as I'll say it again, they get real silly.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. So, there's one message from October 2020. Just checking in for 2020. Happy New Year, everybody, except Paul and Prené.

Brad: So, yeah, they get silly at this point. But, yeah, people are burned, and they have an outlet in these comment sections to just go and just lay into them.

Myke: Yeah, I was talking to somebody yesterday about these kinds of things. And we were talking about, like, investing, and they were referencing cryptocurrency and stuff. And they said to be something which was so special. It's like, I treat these kinds of things like I do a Kickstarter campaign. I give them my money and expect I'll never see it again.

Myke: Speaking of which, what you got next? So, my first failed, first successful failure, so funded but didn't work, was a game. It's a video game called Last Life. Last Life was a campaign in May of 2014. It raised $103,000 against a $75,000 goal with nearly 5,000 backers. Basically, like many video game projects, especially around this time, there was a really great trailer. And it was somebody who had a great history. They'd been working on games for a while. People were vouching for it. People would play the early access versions of it, and it was great. But the developers came to realize it costs a lot of money to make a truly great video game. Especially when you've had a successful Kickstarter campaign, and they run out of money. So, in 2018, they spoke about trying to get extra funding for the game. Like, they were saying, like, we've run out, but we're working on extra funding. And then they just disappeared. They went away.

Game Project Failure

Brad: That seems like not nearly enough money. Like, right from the jump.

Myke: People didn't know then, though, Brad. I remember this happened a lot with video games around this time. People would just, they would be indie developers, right? Right. And they think, you know, they do this thing, and it's like, six figures? I can make my game for six figures. Right. But it tends not to work that way if you're doing it without having a job, right? Like, I think a lot of indie game developers, they make their game on the side. But now, what's replaced Kickstarter, really, for this type of stuff, is early access games. So, people will pay you while you're making it. And you kind of make money along the way. I think that's... Play along with it, yeah. That's become the model now. I don't really feel like I see a lot of Kickstarter campaigns for games. And when I do these days, I've seen some where it's like, okay, here's the Kickstarter campaign. We will then use this as a way to help us raise money, right? Like, because if you have a successful Kickstarter, you might be able to get some additional financing. Yeah, this was a really beautiful-looking game, and it just never came to be.

Brad: That's wild. I just remember, I don't remember the name of that one giant studio that blew it out, where it was several million dollars worth. Like, and they made a studio, made it like a real run at making games and things like that. And that seems successful, but like the small dollar stuff for video game creation, even if it's a singular person, like that churn rate on that... You just light money on fire until you can actually deliver something. So, maybe that type of early access helps solve some of that problem.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: There's one problem we cannot solve, Myke. Nobody can solve. Nobody can solve. And that is, what pen do you use to sign your child's birth certificate, Myke?

Myke: The Visionaire. Now, we wanted to include it at this point because it was very successful. Didn't fail as such, but didn't go very well. So, $324,393 raised against a $15,000 goal. 5,803 backers back in June of 2013. I was thinking back on this, Brad. And I don't know if I have forgotten or if it was just weird at the time. I do not understand why so many people backed this project. Like, the marketing of the campaign itself was very good, right? That was the whole thing. Like, the way it was written, the way the video was made, it was good marketing. And, like, the way stuff was written, we make these jokes, the only pen you'll ever need, the one for your son to sign the birth certificate of their child, like, all of that. But it just exploded. And to this day, I don't know exactly why nearly 6,000 people wanted this specific fountain pen.

Brad: Yeah, that's the challenge with this one because there was technically nothing wrong with this product, except it wasn't really, like, from pen people's perspective. We knew this was, like, a basic Chinese knockoff pen. And it was a resale product, which goes against what Kickstarter is. Yeah. But what this was, which you alluded to, was a marketing success.

Myke: Fantastic marketing. So good.

Brad: But I've never been able to grasp why. Because I can't remember the guy's name that ran it. He was literally clueless about fountain pens. Yeah. I remember I was texting him at the time and we were trying to set up phone calls and all these things. And, like, he was using India ink to fill his fountain pens. And it was just a real, real train wreck of, like, what a fountain pen user would think about a fountain pen. But where he hid it out of the park was accessing thousands of $8 pens and selling them for $37.

Myke: The whole way along.

Brad: So there's stuff like... The right price.

Myke: He included a converter, right? And was, you know, saying, like, is this piston filler mech? And, like, really, like, saying, like, he was using it. And then there was, like, this big post about, like, okay, now the packaging's amazing. Just a cardboard tube, right? Like, he would just... He had a very good way of... Then once you gave him your money, you felt like you were continuing to get something good for it. Now, we knew it was a joke, right? Right. We looked at the pictures of it and could see it was both generic and basic, right? Like, it was just ABC fountain pen, right? It was like, whatever. As you say, what probably did happen was the guy bought them from China and resold them. So, but I backed it because we were speaking about it so much, one of us had to have it. Yes. And to this day, it continues to be a pen that people want to see from me at pen shows. I backed the early bird chrome version for $37, which I... Now, looking back at it, it's so expensive for what it is. Right. And like, if you want to know for sure that this pen is basically a knockoff, right? So, they delivered nearly 6,000 pens on time. Yeah. Right? They were on time, which it would have been impossible for somebody to have these pens, quote unquote, made if they were thinking they were going to raise $15,000 and they raised $324,000. Because one of the biggest problems in Kickstarter campaigns is having a big success. Right? I remember the Fidget Cube people spoke about this like really eloquently. Like, and they were very good, right? And they did a really good job of like outlining the fact that a success of their magnitude, it brings more problems. Because you are not ready for the volume that you will be dealing with. You are in completely different territory now. Like, just how do you ship them? Right? Because they've got to go somewhere, right? Like, it ends up being a huge issue. And again, like in the keyboard community, when people were doing group buys of their own, right? Which is like, so they'll create a keyboard, they have it as unlimited, it takes off, and then you've got to bring all these products in and like package them and ship them. But if you're one or two people, now you've got 3,000 boards to do, and they've all got to be quality controlled, like it can be a real issue, right? So, unbelievable that they managed to do it on time, because, you know, the comments are full of people that are unhappy with the pen, basically that it stopped working, you know? And so that's interesting to go through those. Basically, this was a cheap pen, sold for what I expect was a very good profit for the creator, exploded due to great marketing, and then they disappeared. Yeah. So you'll note the project is technically deleted on Kickstarter. Like, oh, sorry, not the project, the BHG design, the creator has deleted their account. And it says that, but you can still, I think this is good of Kickstarter, you can still view the projects, even if the creators have left the platform, which is important for history. The Visionaire will remain a meme forever.

Brad: It was a perfect storm, right? Like, mostly around the timing, right? I think nowadays, if this rolled up today, it might succeed, right? If you had a $15,000 goal and you were selling this pen for $37, it would probably fund, but not at the levels that it did, right? And more people would be aware of what exactly the product is. I think it just really hit at this really strange peak. Like, it couldn't happen this way any other time in Kickstarter's history or future, I don't think.

Brad: To put a little bit better taste in our mouth after the Visionaire, Myke, I wanted to just mention two projects that ran almost simultaneously from two companies that are still out there making things today. That I can't believe it was this long ago that I backed the Tactile Turn in February 2014, the first Tactile Turn, and the first TI2 Techliner in March 2014. So, Will Hodges of Tactile Turn, Myke Bond of TI2 Techliner, they've both been, you know, great friends over the past year since they were making it. But it was cool, it's cool to see these first attempts at making a thing from, you know, people who want to make these things for a living, which both Will and Myke have gone on to do, make very successful pen companies or, you know, pen plus in the case of TI2, making all kinds of different projects. But I thought it was really neat to, like, Tactile Turn raised $48,000 and TI2 raised $55,000. They ran almost simultaneously on the platform, backed them both, still have those pens that I backed from those campaigns, still enjoy those pens. And I just thought it was kind of cool to see what that time frame was for these people that keep doing it.

Myke: They are the kind of modern idea of a modest success on Kickstarter, like, because their first, they did their first campaigns and they raised around $50,000, which is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money when you're selling something, because in that is all the cost, right? Yep. So, like, they had 700, 800 people backing their campaigns, right? Which is not a lot of product, ultimately. And then they went on to create their businesses and do additional campaigns. This is more of the modern way of doing things, as compared to a Joto, as I mentioned earlier, who did one and then started their business from it. But this is not a criticism. This is a very valid way of doing business now, is using Kickstarter as a platform and you continue to bring new projects to it and reduces a lot of risk for you, all that kind of stuff, does market research, basically. But these guys have continued to go on and have a lot of projects of similar kind of sizes to these. And if you do one of these every year or two, along with your additional products that you sell, that's a business.

Brad: Yep. Yep. It's really great. So, it was cool to see that they've kept on and have been successful ever since and that we got to back them in the beginning.

Myke: All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have all of our favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco, so many more. And they're an authorized dealer. They're always adding new products. Every couple of weeks, you're going to find new stuff over at Pen Chalet. And you're also going to find new discounts, too. They're always moving things through, adding new stuff, new brands, new types of product from brands, and then also doing great discounts as well. They also have all of the accessories that you're going to need, whether it's pen, paper, I should say, pen holders, refills. Maybe you want some ink or carrying case. It doesn't matter what it is. Pen Chalet have got it for you. They have fast and reliable customer service, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. They sell internationally as well with great shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices and high-quality pens, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to PenChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password pen addict for this week's special offer, and to get the code you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. What is drawing your eye this time, Brad?

Brad: The first pen in the list is one of those pens that everyone should have. And I don't have it, and every time I see it, I say I'm going to order it. And it's the Monteverde tool pen. So this is on sale, a pretty good sale, like less than $20 for this really cool pen. It's just, you know, it looks like one of those pens you should just have around the house because it's got the ruler and, you know, just the good pen and just kind of, I don't know, it just seems like a thing you should have. So it's a very good price to check that out. But he's got a couple of Conklins, a couple of more Monteverdes, a couple more Benus, which I haven't seen the Benus Supreme on sale for here before on our page. And then as Ron tends to do, he'll sneak something in there. There's a Pelican 805 in there for crazy, like half-off pricing. I probably shouldn't say that out loud. I don't want to get in trouble. So there's an interesting Montegrappa a little bit further down that I have not seen before that, you know, I'm a fan of how Montegrappa pens are and how they write. And then the Platinum 3776, there's some that are a really, really nice price right now. So you should check all these out.

Myke: So go ahead over to penshalet.com right now. You want to click the podcast link at the top of the website, enter the password penaddict for this week's special offer, and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at penshalet. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Our thanks to penshalet for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: All right, you got another one here that was kind of a launch product, if you will. Kind of like the last ones that I mentioned.

Myke: Yeah, I wanted to give an example of like the Tactile Tern and TI2 Techliner, which is the Nexus Minimal Fountain Pen from Nemisu. Now, we know Nemisu is a brand now. I've actually realized, I've backed three of their pens. They had a 104,568 raised against a goal of 10,000 to 2,000 backers in July of 2014. I backed the all-titanium model of this pen. It was my first titanium pen. Do not like titanium nibs is what I learned. They performed great, but mine was really squeaky, and I didn't like that.

Brad: It's an interesting thing.

Myke: Yeah, good flex on it. It feels nice to use, nice and soft, but it makes a weird noise. Not for everybody. They're another UK-based company. They saw delays in this campaign. I think they've had some sizable delays for all of their campaigns, but that's how it goes. Their shipping completed in August of 2015. It was originally estimated for November of 2014. I don't think that was that bad. But the big thing here for the Nexus Minimal is that it put Nemisu on the map, and they've gone on, in my opinion, to make many better products than this, even though I did really like this pen. I love the Nexus pen. But my favorite of theirs is the Nova, which I think is the most controversial, but was a pen that I really, really enjoyed. It was the Nemisu Nova.

Brad: Yeah, the Nova was one that was heavily delayed, but out of their control, it was a nib issue. So that was when Bach was having troubles producing nibs, and then when they came out, they had QC issues on top of that. But they kind of got that in the past. Their last couple of projects have been really good. I think I've backed whatever their most recent one was. I'm pretty sure I backed that one, so I'd have to take a look at that. But again, this is like one is like they got their start. They keep doing cool things, and I'd love to see it.

Myke: You'd love to see it.

Brad: I'd love to see it. When I was going through my list, this one popped up, and I was like, wait a minute. This was a Kickstarter? Do you remember the Bullet Journal launching on Kickstarter, the actual physical notebook? Bullet Journal? Me neither.

Myke: I backed it too, but I didn't remember it was a Kickstarter campaign.

Brad: Yeah, I was like, wait a minute. What is this? And it sure is heck. This was essentially the Leuchtturm launch for the Bullet Journal. That writer worked with Leuchtturm at our behest. We did that, Myke. I'm going to take full credit for that.

Leuchtturm Bullet Journal

Brad: $79,416 October 2014, the Leuchtturm 1917 Bullet Journal launched. Both of us backed it. Both of us didn't realize it was a Kickstarter project. I was taken aback when I saw this on my list. I remember most of the things I backed. Not that one, but it was cool to see. I enjoyed seeing that. But the version 2 Bullet Journal, which I have yet to send you, was not launched on Kickstarter. The writer just launched that directly. And I think it's still sold out. So there you go. Maybe you should have done a Kickstarter. You might have had better numbers in the beginning to work off of. This is an interesting one, Myke. And I didn't realize you were a backer of it as well. It's the Pen Show PENXO 2mm Lead Holder. Yep. How could you not back this product if you're a pen and pencil and stationary fan? So what it was, was a lead holder. But it was basically a single piece lead holder. And if you're not familiar with this, you should go look at the link we're going to put in the show notes. It looks awesome, right? It looks like this is the coolest lead holder I've ever seen. It's won all these design awards. It's reasonably priced. I think it was like $29, something like that. They raised $334,000 in June of 2015 and 5,764 backers. Like, that's nuts.

Myke: Stunning design. So good.

Brad: Turned out it didn't work very well.

Myke: Well, it works fine. It's just a little fiddly. Yeah. It's hard to use. Because you have to kind of pull it apart. Like, you have to kind of separate it to get the lead to come out. I found mine recently and gave it to Adina. Because she was using a lead holder for something else. And I was just like, hey, I have this one. I like it in the sense of it's funny, very beautiful. But I don't use it. Do you want it? So I've been seeing it mucking around on her desk recently. But yeah, I don't think she's using it that much. Because again, it is frustrating to use. But I just think it's a very nice object.

Brad: Yeah, it is. And like, that's okay. I was like, even when I was backing it, I wasn't really a lead holder fan at the time. But I am now, like I'm a huge Caran D'Ache fix pencil fan. But that's got a mechanical part to it. Where this is just a physical splitting of the barrel to extend the lead. And I don't know. It ended up, you said it right. It was just fidgety. And it's not as beautifully functional as it is just straight up beautiful. Right? The functioning is a little bit awkward on it. But I just wanted to bring that up because I forgot how much money they raised on that. Which is just nuts. Because it was a, for Kickstarter purposes, it was a low dollar project. Right? For 29 bucks. That's a very, very high volume for a $29 project. It's crazy. And they executed pretty much perfectly, I think. I don't remember any issues with that campaign. So yeah, very, very cool. The next one is the CWNT Pintype B.

Brad: This is what happens when you believe in what you're doing. And I have that belief from Sayway and Taylor. No matter what happened with that first campaign, the CWNT Pintype A, and how, I don't want to say disastrous. Because they got all the products out there and people liked them. But just the drama. I would be exhausted from that. I was like, I'm never doing this again. But they came out with one of the all-time great designs for me, at least. I'm speaking from my perspective. All-time great pen designs in the Pintype B. To this day, I have two of them that sit on my desk. They raised $171,000 November 2015. Yep. And it's just amazing. I didn't bring it in here so I could pop it off in the microphone, which I'm prone to do. It's just awesome. I'm just happy for them. I was very happy for this.

Myke: It's going to be pretty rare that a company's second Kickstarter would make less money than their first.

Myke: I don't know about that. You think that's the way it would be? I tend to find that your first one, you're establishing yourself. And then the second one, you make more money. Especially if it's the same kind of product.

Brad: Yeah. I don't know. The prices are different. I don't know. There's a lot. A lot of people were maybe turned off from the Pintype A situation.

Myke: I know that that would be the reason. So in this situation, it'd be like, well, they had a struggle the first time. And also, there are similarities between the products. Maybe people don't feel like they would need both. But it wasn't so much a criticism on them in any way. It was just a thought. I can't imagine that that is a very typical thing.

Brad: Yeah. I see what you're saying. And I think as a creator, I think that's how I'd be looking at it, too. I was like, well, I did X the first time. I should do X plus this time, right? And it didn't. It did, what, maybe two-thirds of that or so. But still, it was a big number for... You got to remember, these are, I guess, not mass market products that they make, right? These are very unique, highly specific products that they're making. And this one just, it came off flawlessly, right? They, from funding to fulfillment, was six months. Like, boom. So, you know, they, I guess they learned what they needed to learn through the trials and tribulations. I guess it's no coincidence that these campaigns were four years apart. Because that first one probably took about, probably took them like two years to manage and then recover from. But yeah, this one, this is the one that really set them down the path as, like, kind of great makers and creators, right? The first one got them on the radar, good or bad. But this pen has carried them, I think, to this day to allow them to keep doing other cool stuff. And it's one of my favorites. I love it. Love it to death.

Brad: The next pen was a mistake by me. Not this campaign, the clip pen by Schoen Design, but me not backing Ian Schoen's first campaign. And I've talked about this a lot in the past. When I first reviewed Ian's first pocketable ballpoint pen, he launched it on Kickstarter. I hemmed and hawed about backing it. I was like, you know, like, I'm trying to be responsible, you know, and like, maybe it's not for me. So let's not just back things willy-nilly. And I didn't. And then Ian went on to fulfill it. And a lot of people bought it. And I got to use it and try it. And then I eventually, Ian sent me one and I got to review it. And I was like, huh. I think I missed out on this one. So I didn't miss out on the second one, which was the same pen as the first one, except Ian added a clip.

Brad: I'm glad I got in on that one. Yeah. And Ian's been one of the awesome creators to follow ever since then. Like, he's really doing weird and wild stuff now. I love what he's making. He's really flexing his brain muscles these days on the stuff he's creating. And I'm glad to see these successes that he had on Kickstarter back in the day. I kind of forgot about this one a little bit. But as soon as I saw it, I remembered, I was like, oh, this was his second project. I did not back the first one like I did on some of these other ones. I wasn't first on that one.

Myke: I mean, for me, Ian's pens really took seeing in person to understand.

Brad: Yeah, exactly. Like, once I got it in hand, I was like, oh, okay. This is pretty great. And, you know, I didn't really, you know, think that at first on the campaign. I was like, oh, cool. But I think maybe I have this already or it's not, like, super crazy inspiring to me. But once I got it in my hand, like, all bets were off. And now I own, I don't know, five or six of his pens. So, it's pretty great. Pretty great. Like this next product, Myke. I'm not saying this to butter these guys up. I'm not saying this because they're my friends. I think this is kind of like a Hall of Fame stationary product. And by that, I mean the Studio Neat Pano book. Yep. I think what it encompasses, what the decisions were to make it, and then the actual product itself, all of those things together could not have come out any better for Studio Neat in coming up with this book. It's a notebook, right? It's hard to make a good quality notebook product that's different from every other notebook product on the market. Notebooks have a much lower barrier to entry than pens. So, you have to be that much better than the other products. And the Studio Neat Pano book was.

Myke: And the idea of a unique selling point in a notebook, that is a difficult thing to achieve today in format. But they spotted a gap in the market, which was a notebook that lives between you and your keyboard. Super simple, but makes a lot of sense.

Brad: Which, from their perspective, is that technology buyer that was already their customer, not necessarily our stationary customers like us that listen to the Pen Addict podcast. Yes, there's some crossover, but they weren't looking at it from that perspective. But they took that idea of a good notebook and learned what made a good notebook and really worked hard at making a good notebook. And then also were able to sell it to people who work at a computer the whole time as an accessory. And $187,000. I didn't remember that when I looked up the campaign. For a notebook product, that's astonishing to me. And I really think it's just one of the great products that have come out of Kickstarter. And one of my favorite products Studio Neat has ever made. And I think I've... I was looking back. I had the Simple Bracket app in there. Myke, I was a backer of that. Of course, the Glyphs, the Cosmonaut, all the things. I love the Pano book. They did such a good job on that.

Myke: I use it every day. I mean, I would just say for Studio Neat as well, kind of changed them as a business. Yes. The success of this product. Because now... Yes. They make so many wonderful stationary items as well.

Brad: Yeah. I was going to mention that. Thank you for saying that. Like, it was... It gave them some insight. Like, hey, we have something here that was maybe different. And then they've obviously gone on to make some other cool things, which we're going to talk about here in a minute. I want to slide one in here, though. Real quick, Myke. This is kind of the opposite of the Studio Neat Pano book. But it's also kind of why Kickstarter exists. And this is the Tutu Pen.

Brad: This is an amazing product. I absolutely love it. I want this to exist. I want this to be a thing. And I literally never use it. But I am thrilled with it. But the Tutu Pen, if you recall, we covered it a bunch on the podcast. It's this very tiny acrylic... I don't even know what you call it. It's not even a pen barrel.

Myke: It's just a holder of two refills.

Brad: But at the same... To be used at the same time. Or, you know, you flip it over and can use it. It's an uncapped, uncovered D1 refill holder. Dual refill holder. Like, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous in every way, shape, or form. But I want this product to exist. Like, listening to the maker and seeing how the maker thinks about it. Oh, Mario, I think was his name.

Brad: And it was astonishing to see. And, you know, it raised $9,000, right? March 2019. Like, it's not... Like, people obviously didn't, like, latch onto this as a thing. But I liked it. Because he used, like, fountain pen acrylics, right? The barrel looks like what it would be, like, a fancy fountain pen acrylic. Like a Leonardo. If they made this weird bookmark-looking pen. And I just love it. I have two of them. I just stare at them. I love them. I'll fidget with them. I never use the darn things. But, my gosh, I'm glad they exist.

Myke: I wanted to mention... I know we just spoke about Studio Neat. But I wanted to mention the Mark 1 Apollo. Because this is one of my favorite kind of, like, ideas for a campaign. So, the original Mark 1 was a big success, right? And, you know, now they do a bunch of pens. But this is, like, a special edition version of the Mark 1. Which is made out of stainless steel and PVD coated. But what I liked about it is it was... The pen's existence was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. And the campaign was only available for the eight days of the flight plan, the mission. So, it launched at the time that the Apollo mission began. And ended when it ended. So, they only did an eight-day campaign. And it was beautiful. And I absolutely adore the pen. It's the best Mark 1.

Brad: It is. It's the one I'm using it today. This is the pen I chose to use for the Kickstarter episode. It is the best Mark 1. Agreed. And, yeah. It's fantastic. And that's one thing that Kickstarters improved over the years. Is they became a little bit more flexible in what creators could do. Like, I don't think you could have picked a start and a stop time a few years ago. To be able to tell the story around the campaign. So, that's a cool thing to see. And, yeah. To see it raise that much money. It obviously resonated with people. It's really cool. It's a great pen. Like I said. And you said it's my favorite Mark 1. One of the projects that I backed but did not succeed out of that list. So, I guess there was only like six of them I guess I had. There might have been a few more. The numbers on Kickstarter were not. Depending on which button I clicked. It showed me one number. Then, other page showed me a different number. But, anyway. This was one I wanted to exist, Myke. That did not exist. And we talked about it on the show. So, it's the Vitae Dual Nib Fountain Pen. And the idea of this is that the maker was going to use Lamy Nibs. And if you think of the tip of the pen. The Lamy Nibs were going to be face to facing each other. So, you would have these two nibs. And the actual writing of the nibs would be closer to the center line. You know, you could still only use one at a time. But they would be kind of back to back. They would be close to each other. The interesting thing was not necessarily putting these nibs together. But there was going to be a dual reservoir cartridge kind of thing that you would have to fill. Like a split in between it. That was the ink reservoir for these two refills. I wanted this to happen. I don't know that it would have been good. Right? I don't know that it would have been changing anything. And I think, obviously, it didn't fund. So, they were asking $28,000. And it raised like $17,000. And had 153 backers. Like, this was one of those way back in the day Kickstarter ideas that you like to see pop up. And you're taking a risk. You might just be throwing your money down the drain on this one. But I was in. I wanted to see this exist. Because of what maybe it could be. And it could have been garbage. But that's what Kickstarter was for. It's for someone like me to see a project like this that looks interesting. Send the creator some money to see if they can make this thing. And this one didn't happen. And I wish it did.

Myke: I saw this category. And this would have been my answer, too. Because as I was going through my list, I saw it there. And I was like, oh. Oh, I wish that had actually come to pass. Right? Very, very similar.

Brad: And the backer. I mean, excuse me. The creator. And pardon me. I don't have their name pulled up in front of me. Like, took this dead seriously. Like, there was tons of notes. Tons of information. Like, here's how we're going to do this.

Myke: I don't know if this is going to work. Right? Right. So, is it intriguing in that way? It's Kevin Sinclair. That was the creator of the project. So, I was very intrigued to see how he would go about making it work. But unfortunately, it didn't.

Brad: Yep. Yep. So, that was one I would have liked to see and seen what happened from there.

Brad: That's kind of the list. But we'd, of course, be remiss if we didn't mention some of our own projects. We are also Kickstarter creators. We've made some things. I launched with my partner, Jeff Notco, on Kickstarter. October 2013, Myke, we raised $78,000 with over 2,000 backers. This was a crazy, crazy time in my life with me and Jeff making all of this by hand. So, 2,000 backers, when we did the math, it was somewhere over like 6,000 cases. It's one of those where we definitely, I wouldn't say we got in over our heads, but it's one that like, wow. We now have to make a lot of cases. Yeah.

Myke: You have one of those like, okay, we're going to do this thing and it's going to start us off. But it kind of got out of hand. And I mean, looking at it now, it's pretty easy to see why you had too many options.

Brad: Oh, yes. Yeah. That's like people who come to me for Kickstarters now, that's my number one tip is limit the amount of backer levels.

Myke: Options and configurations. So, you had both production and inventory issues to deal with.

Brad: Yep. So, I remember spending weekends, spending the night in Jeff's apartment on his futon. The second bedroom was the sewing shop. We had like three machines in there and we'd just be covered in like strings and fuzz all day long. And then I'd sleep there on the weekends and Jeff would just be hammering away making. I would, you know, when I was QCing the cases and finishing the cases, I'd have like a pile like as high as my waist of like cases that I'm just working through. It was crazy good times. I mean, it was a lot. It was a lot of work. It was crazy. And we'd definitely done things different since then. But that was a wild campaign. I remember that. It was pretty mind-blowing, pretty eye-opening. But I'm glad it happened, right? Like all these things happen so you can get to where you are now. And speaking of which, our first Pen Addict Podcast Project, Myke. Yep. This was February 2015 to bring you to the Atlanta Pen Show and the first time we would meet in person. Yep. So we raised $13,500 to bring you over to the Atlanta Pen Show. You and I get to meet and then do a live show at the Atlanta Pen Show. So I didn't know what would happen when we did this.

Myke: No. We had no idea, did we?

Brad: Mm-mm. No. It was just like, well, let's try this. And so we can raise funds for travel, but we will give people a thing, right, for backing us, right? That's what we didn't want to do. We weren't just going to take money for travel without people getting something. So we made a case from Nock, one of which I do not have. It's a beautiful high tower in Kelly Green and yellow with a Union Jack tag on there. It's just really, really great.

Myke: It's the Australian case. I think we've called it many times.

Australian Case Success

Brad: Yeah. It kind of did turn out that way. But I love that case. I haven't seen one in years. I would love to see one. And that kind of kick-started, no pun intended, I really didn't mean that, it kind of kick-started what we did for the podcast and gave us ideas to be able to do more, right, in the future and go bigger and add a second show to the calendar and, you know, bring you over here twice and do second. And a third show. Yeah. Yeah. Do all kinds of things. So it really opened the doors up for us. So I just wanted to say thank you all for that, all you podcast listeners and supporters. Like, that's a big deal. Like, a big deal that you would support us in that way. So that was pretty cool. So we've done five of those.

Myke: Five-year run. We're taking a break this year. Because that's how time works.

Brad: Yes, yes, yes. And no Atlanta Pen Show this year. It's officially off. Not that we didn't think that already. But I did get the word this weekend that it's officially going to be canceled.

Myke: Leaving it late there.

Brad: But, yeah, a little late. But that's okay. We weren't planning on coming anyway. So it kind of worked out. But it kind of worked out this year. No traveling anytime soon here. So, wow. That's a bunch of Kickstarters, Myke.

Brad: There's one we can't forget. But there's one more. There's one more, Myke.

Myke: Because if we don't talk about it, we're just going to ask about it. We're going to just very briefly touch on the Scribble pen. Yeah. So the Scribble pen was launched in August of 2014. And this was a pen that included a sensor that could detect any color that you press the pen against. And mix ink inside of the pen to let you draw with that color. The product was written about everywhere in a display of the harm that what I would consider predatory marketing can do. Because this was an absolute fake. And anybody with even the smallest amount of understanding for pens, technology, or physics could see that this product is not possible to do within the confines that they created. It was all in the pen. All the technology was in the pen. Both the sensor and the mixing of ink somehow that you could then just draw with that color. And because they made a video which is full of bad editing and cuts, which you never actually see the pen working the way that they say, every single tech website wrote about it. Look at this amazing pen. And you can go and look at the coverage of the campaign. And you will see the logos of all the companies that legitimately wrote about this product. And you can go and you can click on the links that will take you to the websites that wrote articles about it. And it was just a fake. And it was through people like us and other people in the community raising concerns to Kickstarter. That Kickstarter got in contact with the scribble pen people after they'd raised $366,000. This is still during the campaign. And they said to them, okay, we're not canceling you, but you need to make a new video and send it to us to show this product in use. They went away. They canceled the campaign. It's come back a couple of times. On Indiegogo. Not on Kickstarter. And nothing has ever come of it. I mean, people have given their money to this company and it's an absolute scam. And we can't really talk about it much more than that.

Brad: Why can't we talk about it, Myke?

Myke: Because you've received a cease and desist from them. In the past.

Brad: Like, that's going to prevent me from talking about them. I'm kidding. I know. We're joking. So, yeah, we'll have a link in the show notes to a cease and desist I got from the air quote lawyers from the scribble pen. It's a great email if you want to go read it and you can read my reply to them. I was very concise in my reply.

Myke: But my favorite thing in this is they're asking you to remove links to content that is deflamatory or defamatory.

Myke: Defamatory is not a word, right?

Brad: No. Okay, cool.

Myke: I was just, it's deflamatory is what they're looking for.

Brad: Inflammatory? Or now you've got me confused. Never mind.

Myke: Well, anyway. And one of the links is to episode 156 of this show. What I kind of like there is they consider this episode of the pen addict 156 to be deflamatory, but they never contacted us about it, right? Right, right. So, they're contacting you and saying, don't link to this, but they never contacted me and said, you should change this. I just found that funny.

Brad: Yeah. It's good. This has been one of the more infuriating projects, honestly. Like, it's funny and it's a joke, but it makes me mad. It really makes me angry.

Myke: Defamatory is a word. I just checked it out.

Brad: Okay, all right. So, it's all those things. But, yeah, I was, like I said, we joke about it, but it generally makes me angry that it won't go away. It's just a big scam. About every other year, maybe it's not every year, it seems like, about every other year, this will pop up on Indiegogo. We'll start getting links about it. They had a mailing list for a long time where you could just preorder. Like, they were asking people to, like, send them $150 ahead of time and just weird, weird stuff. No one that we know has ever fallen for that. But it's just a running joke right now and not a good one. So, I hate to say it, Myke. We're probably not done with the scribble pen in our lifetime. So, yeah, we'll see. Just keep on sending us those links and we'll keep calling them out. So, that's it? I think that's it. I can't believe the number between us, like 200 projects backed in almost 10 years. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I love Kickstarter. There's obviously been ups and downs over the last decade. There's been good projects, bad projects. There's been good Kickstarter leadership. There's been bad Kickstarter leadership. Right now, it's different than when we started using Kickstarter where some of the early joy has been taken away as things get popular. It becomes more businessy. So, you do your research. You do a little bit more diligence. And, you know, make sure you're, you know, not putting money out there that you can't risk losing because people do forget what Kickstarter, what the platform is, right? To this day, people don't totally get how Kickstarter works. So, we love it. Obviously, it's been a great platform for some of our stationary makers in this community, myself included, Spoke Design included, you and I included. So, yeah, it's great. And, you know, maybe we'll do this again, you know, when we each have backed another 100 or so projects. Well, episode 900 of the show, we'll come back to this. I don't know. My pace is slowing down, Myke, on how many. I don't think I can back another. Let's see. That would be like, how many years more podcasts is that? 10 more, nine more years of projects? Could I do another 100? That'd be tough. We'll see. See what we can do.

Myke: If you want to find links to these campaigns that we've spoken about, maybe you just want to check them out, they're all on our website. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 450 or should be in your podcast app of choice. You should find the notes there, too. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com. You can also check Brad out at knock.co.com. Knock.co. They both work, right? Both, yes. Both work. And Brad streams live on Twitch at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesdays and Thursdays at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And I'm going to be streaming again. I attempt to stream on Fridays now at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday at mike.live. And Brad, spoiler, I built a new PC. Ooh, nice. And so I am streaming with power this week, which I'm excited about. Awesome. Come check out the stream on Friday.

Brad: I'll get Tyler on that. He's your biggest fan.

Myke: Oh, God. He's a great kid. He understands. He gets it. He gets it.

Brad: He gets it.

Myke: Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for the support of this show. Thank you for listening, especially if you've listened to all 450 episodes of this show so far. You're a very special person. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad.