Editing The Pen Addict 279/transcript (section)

== Field Notes Origins ==


'''Jim Coudal:''' Well, there wasn't a plan. And then.

'''Brian Bedell:''' Oh, as I say, we didn't want to do advertising anymore. That's pretty much why it happened. Yeah.

'''Jim Coudal:''' We were working for clients and had run a couple of other businesses, which we don't have to get into here, that were moderately to very successful. And long story short, Aaron, our partner in this, Aaron Draplin from Portland, sent, made up some Field Notes-y sort of things and sent them out. And we thought they were cool. And we said, Aaron, let's make a company. And he said, okay. And we started selling them. And we sold, I think, 13. We made 13 sales on the very first day that they were available on the website. From nothing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's pretty good, though. Yeah.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Although, we were joking before the show that somebody had mentioned something about our blog at kudal.com. And, of course, this is pre-Twitter and pre-Facebook and pre-Instagram. And so blogs had a little more swing at the time. And Aaron was pretty well followed as well. So when we said, here's this new thing we're doing, it kind of went around. And so, but I think that is about four or five years ago when we realized that this thing was becoming bigger than, we didn't really plan for anything.

'''Brian Bedell:''' Right. Yeah, we never, I mean, I think all of the little businesses we started along the way there, we hoped they would, you know, take over and be great. But we never really planned on it or expected them to. So this is sort of the one that stuck and we grew with it. And it's worked out pretty well. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So Brian told me before the show that he's actually worked with Jim for 20 years. Very close. Yeah. Very close to 20 years. So that's, you know, their work together goes back a long ways before Field Notes. So it's interesting to me to see all the different businesses y'all have tried and they were all successful in their own right. In one way or another. In one way or another. Yeah. And what was different about this one you think that made this one stick? Right. I mean, you just said it took you almost four or five years to even realize that this was really going to be a thing that's going to go forward.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Well, first and foremost, they were selling. So there was that and there was growth and people were stores were taking them. And there's we can tell stories about the moments in the history of Field Notes that sort of made a big difference. For example, I don't remember what year it was, but J.Crew, for the first time in their history, instituted a program called In Good Company. And it was the first time ever in their catalog or their stores that they sold non-J.Crew goods. And they partnered with some American brands, including Levi's and Timex and Wolverine Shoes and out of nowhere, Field Notes. And so and then they opened the liquor store in Brooklyn or Soho, I guess it is. And they stocked us in there and they put us in their catalogs. And we didn't sell a huge amount through J.Crew, but it really gave us credibility. Yeah. That J.Crew all of a sudden had decided to choose us among all the brands in America for six or eight brands they were going to partner with. So that made a big difference. That impacted how other retailers felt about us. They said, well, if J.Crew is carrying this. And J.Crew, maybe today, the brand doesn't have the cachet it had. Eight years ago, maybe it does. But that was a moment. So they were like, oh, whoa, maybe there's something here. Like, so that I think actually from a personal satisfaction standpoint, too. I mean, we do these additions and we get to have a whole new project four times a year. Yeah.

'''Brian Bedell:''' Absolutely, yeah. We had, you know, from doing client work that sort of, you know, it was all good work and we liked doing it. But to work on something for ourselves, for our own satisfaction, really made a big difference. And our original blog audience was mostly designers and web nerds and stuff. So really the product spoke to them. And that was just a great audience to pitch it to right away. And, of course, it spread from that. And, you know, just the appeal of a notebook pretty much appeals to anyone. We've got people all walks of life, all ages and everything using them. So, you know, we had that nice starting point to kind of get our foot in the door.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you mentioned the J.Crew thing. And I assume in the history of Field Notes, that's probably one of the most surprising things that has happened.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Yeah, I'd say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What other things over the history have happened with the company that you maybe wouldn't have expected?

'''Jim Coudal:''' Well, the biggest one is that people collect them. We had never had a plan that we're going to like, oh, good, we're going to sell these to a majority of the population. But let's isolate about 10,000 people who are crazy for them and need every edition. So I guess we could have predicted it when we started doing the limited editions, but we didn't. But I think Michelle here got an email from Italy once. This was pretty early. And it said, oh, I need a copy of that Fire Spotter because I'm a completist. And she showed the email to us and we're all like, well, what does that mean? Little did we know it wasn't just one guy in Italy who was trying to get all the editions. So that, I think, was a surprise to us.

'''Brian Bedell:''' I remember writing the original website copy for subscriptions and saying you get one three-pack to use and one to put in a PVC sleeve and keep for posterity. And I totally was joking when I wrote that. And I think a lot of people took it seriously.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was subliminal messaging. Yeah. Like I wouldn't even thought that at the time. I mean, I guess in retrospect.

'''Brian Bedell:''' I mean, the proof is we don't have anything from the early years.

'''Jim Coudal:''' If we had been calculating, we would have put some aside, but we didn't. So yeah, that was a pretty big surprise, I think.

'''Jim Coudal:''' I think the attachment that people outside of the collectors find to the analog process of keeping a notebook with them surprised us in how important it is to some people. Mm-hmm. And it was satisfying as well. Because we're trying to make a practical notebook. We're trying to, you know, the collecting aside, we're trying to make a notebook that's inexpensive, well-made, well-designed, and practical. And you can write milk, butter, vodka, eggs, or you can write an ode to the Spanish Steps in Rome. You can either, it doesn't matter. You don't need to be Van Gogh to use the field notes, you know, or Rimbaud or somebody.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I think that's important because over 10 years that hasn't changed no matter what, at least from the outside perspective. And I'm sure, I'm assuming you guys feel that way, from the very first edition to the most current edition, they're the most just usable notebook. This is a notebook you buy to be used. And that's never changed from edition one to the most current release, I think.

'''Brian Bedell:''' Well, since, I mean, since notebooks were invented, I was just earlier looking. We've got a Selectric over there and an Atari XT. And, you know, I was thinking that's sort of like a little history of taking notes. But, I mean, I was also thinking you could have that, you know, field notes, you know, you'd be using a notebook along with your computer, along with your typewriter, along with your, you know, whatever system of reproduction you're using or whatever kind of technology you have, a notebook goes along with it. So, yeah, we didn't, you know, we didn't invent it and they're not going anywhere. So, we have that working for us.

'''Jim Coudal:''' We, there's, so to your question, Brad, a phrase that gets thrown around here a lot about any idea or execution is, is it field notesy enough? And what, we don't really know what that means, but we sort of know it when we see it. Like, is it, does it fall within this idea of a authentic heritage brand? Does it have a voice that makes it feel like it's part of the field notes family? Can, is that too clever of a headline or is that too overproduced of a documentary? So, I guess that sort of speaks to trying to maintain the voice of the brand in the marketing as well as in the product design.

'''Brian Bedell:''' Yeah, and that goes back to the original project. I mean, the original product, Aaron had such a clear vision of what they should be. He, as you know, he collects the old farm books and everything and sort of distilled that to its most essential basic standard, but then also cluttered the hell out of it and put a bunch of silly copy on there. So, you know, going back to that original product is our template for everything we've done since. And, you know, we base, we base all the text we write and all the, you know, the design and everything we do is based around that original product. And it makes it fun, actually, because it restricts some of the things we can do and makes you think about other things.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Yeah, constraints are how good creative gets made.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, we asked for questions from our listeners and we had so many great ones and we picked out a few. And one comes from Anna and Anna asks, if you were starting Field Notes today with the market retail and stationery being exactly how it is right now, do you think it would be harder or easier for the company to have succeeded?

'''Brian Bedell:''' I'd say harder for sure. There's more competition.

'''Brian Bedell:''' There's, I mean, we're, I think, like I said, with our original blog audience, we kind of had our foot in the door with a certain crowd of people. And, you know, we might still have that now, but maybe not. I don't know. There's, it's hard to say.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Another way to look at that is that when we started it, we didn't need it to succeed. Yeah. We were working for clients. We were running the deck and online advertising network. We were doing another company called The Show where we were recording concerts and selling mixes of live performances to people. So, we didn't need it to succeed. And to be quite frank, for the first couple of years, we worked on it, but we worked on a lot of other stuff too. And I think if the question is, would it be harder to get to where you are now? It would be scarier because it would be do or die, whereas we kind of could sort of gradually get into the business in a way. I don't know if it would be harder or easier.

'''Brian Bedell:''' We were kind of doing it for fun all along in a lot of ways. Yeah, maybe that's it. If we hadn't done it that way, it probably wouldn't have succeeded if we didn't put ourselves into it and do what we wanted to do. And if we didn't have that luxury to experiment and have fun with it, I don't think it would have done as well.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Yeah, I don't think we ever had intentions of being notebook kings. Sure. Like, we didn't know what we wanted. I didn't know I was going to be a notebook guy. And the notebook is the middle of the company and it's the essential part of the company. But it is also the vehicle that allows us to make films that we like and to write copy that we like and to use printing techniques that we like and to edit code that we like and to do. Like, so it's sort of that is the means by which we can use the talents that we've developed working for other people on behalf of ourselves. And I think that's where the fun is. Yeah, absolutely. And learning new things. I mean, we could talk about that for the rest of the hour. Yeah, sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, so I think one of the things that is undeniable about Field Notes today is that there is a large community of people that focuses on the company quite heavily. You know, people want to know what you're up to. People are very keen to find out the new additions, whether just because they're excited or because they're going to be going into a safe somewhere. You know, like for whatever reason it is. Do you do anything to try and manage the community's expectations? Is this something that comes into your mind at any point when you're maybe thinking about some of the products that you want to make, maybe the way that you want to market and hype the product? Like interacting with people that love the products? Like what goes into this from your perspective?

'''Jim Coudal:''' It would be disingenuous to say that we don't. When we read the online communities and we get tons of emails and we meet people here. And so, yes, the people who are most devoted to our products, their opinions are important to us. And yet, at the same time, on a percentage of the number of products we sell to the world, that's a relatively small sliver of the audience. But there are evangelists and there are best customers. So, we do, I don't think we do much to manage expectations. If anything else, I think we sometimes over-promise. And then, and that's, I will say, I'm guilty for that. It's not really. I don't know. What do you think?

'''Brian Bedell:''' I don't know. I don't think we might.

'''Jim Coudal:''' Over-promise is too strong, maybe.