Editing The Pen Addict 97/transcript (section)

== TWSBI Facebook ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, um, I was stumbling through, as I do, um, Twizby's Facebook page, because I'm pretty sure they just troll us. It's like just a big troll page with all their new stuff that they put on. But they had a pretty funny post I ran across last night. Um, it's about a pin case. And all the, all it says, it's, it says, do you like this type of pin case? And it's basically a small skinny leather pouch with just a zipper top. So there's, it's just a pouch and it's really about maybe two or three pins tall. It's a very skinny, long, skinny pouch. It says, do you like this type of pin case? I have two, can put four pins into it. I found it very easy for me to use. I'm thinking to make Twizby case like this, like or no like. So I don't know how many comments were on this thing, but the prevailing thought when talking about fountain pens, since Twizby's a fountain pen brand in this case is three out of four people said, sure, the case looks fine, but I don't want my pins to touch. For a lot of reasons. And I mean, it's just like, just everything, everything down. Not if the pins would be touching. Yes, the pins will touch. Um, I don't mind pins that touch. And it's just on and on. And finally, what made me put this in there about halfway down, he goes, okay, I see a lot of no likes and then about 30 more comments later, um, Twizby goes, okay, thanks you all got the idea. It was just on and on and on. It just incessantly, I, we don't want our pins to touch. And, um, I, that just brought me back to when we were designing knock. And I think that's probably the first thing that I told Jeff, right, is we're making these cases and none of the pins can touch. Why?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why Brad? So I just don't want mine to knock together. No pun intended.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Well, that's what they, that's what they will do. I mean, in any open style pouch case.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I mean, that's what they're talking about. You know, everyone wants to keep, you want, with fountain pens, it seems to matter more. It does matter more. Um, because you've, most people have paid more for that pen and they want to keep it, you know, a little bit nicer and not get all scratched up and dinged up. That's why, like, we sell a little zip pouch case, but that's really made for, you know, like your high tech C's or your Sharpies or your Secure Pigro Microns. You know, you just put a bunch in there. And those pins, I don't care about touching, right? You know, the, the disposable, replaceable type of pins, you know, Uniball, Sino DXs, all of those type of things. But my fountain pens, I want some separation and segregation in them. You know, I don't want them to touch. And, you know, that's just from a scratching perspective. You know, a lot of these fountain pens have, um, very high attention, attention to details on, you know, things like the clip and, you know, different chrome bits. And you just don't want these things getting scratched up. So when people are buying more expensive pens, um, which fountain pens fall into that category, people just don't want to carry them around in an open case where they're just banging around on each other all day. So I, the more I read the comments on that post, the more I just started laughing because this is the, like the exact thought process I had when we were, Jeff and I sat down for the very first time. There was a, it was a pretty short list of things that we had to have and then that couldn't happen. And, you know, one of the things that couldn't happen was, all right, these pens can't touch. So that's why there's, you know, dedicated pockets and, you know, some cases have flaps. So when you fold the pen case over on top of each other, the clips aren't hitting and things like that. So it was, uh, it was really funny to see that, um, on Twisby's page and just the, the reaction was so strong that it actually made him say, okay, I've got it. Y'all can stop now. We're not going to do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like the Twisby page, the Twisby Facebook page continues to be a source of intrigue for me because it's like now it's written, like probably sometimes, but I'm noticing like it's been written in the first person, like Twisby is this one guy or girl.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think it actually is. I don't, I don't know the, the lineage of the Twisby Facebook page, but there is one guy who's kind of the face of the public facing Twisby, if you will, his name is Speedy. Speedy. Okay. Yeah. Speedy. He's like the son of the founder. And then like the, he's like the, he's based in the U S he's kind of like the U S distribution point. And so I think he does all the marketing and stuff too. So it's kind of like, it's coming from him.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it's like, he's saying like he's going to make it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And you know what? He might. I mean, seriously, that's, that's kind of the way they roll. I mean, it's a very family based organization from what I gather and different things I've read, I've read. So, you know, they've got a, what's that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I wish Speedy good luck.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. No, he's awesome. He's the one that keeps posting these tease pictures on here. Like, did we even talk about this wood one a couple of weeks ago when we're, I don't think that one was up on the, on the page when we were talking about it a couple of weeks ago when we're talking about the aluminum piston filler 580 and things like that. And they're working on a way to make the TWSBI classic post and things. So anyway, it's, they should just call it the TWSBI prototype page because that's pretty much what it is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Nothing wrong with that, but that is what it is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is what it is. So that was pretty funny. In sadder Pen news, which, eh, it's, it's more kind of a meh than sad, but, and I didn't catch this until someone sent me the link a couple of weeks ago or a week and a half ago that Staples is about to close 225 US stores. And, you know, reading the article, it's not really a surprise that this is, this consolidation's happening in this office supply store space. You know, they're all feeling the wrath of Amazon pretty much online and Staples is wanting to focus more online. And this doesn't really relate to Pen's because it's just, you know, Pen's doesn't drive any business to those stores. And, you know, they're not made to, you know, I'm sure they're getting, you know, more killed on the, the, the PC business, you know, falling off a cliff and things like that. And they're trying to move more to just online shopping. But I thought it was interesting just because, you know, that's kind of the gateway drug though for, you know, the pen, pencil, paper, office supply junkies, right? But, you know, before we had this internet that we all love so much, you know, this is some of the places we would go, you know, Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, all those places to just kind of find some new pens and find something different and better. And that's certainly where I found some of my, you know, first pens that I really enjoyed the most. And, you know, I'm sad for any business to, to be hurting and have to close stores, but you see it in places like Best Buy too, where they just have these massive square footage stores that they just don't need. You know, they can't fill the stores up anymore because the products aren't selling and they can get those things, you know, people, people are shopping online more now. And I think that, I guess that's what Staples are moving to. So, I mean, it kind of stinks that, you know, people won't have these options, but I don't know. I guess you can kind of see the writing on the wall for a long time as far as these big, big box retailers go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. Same with all of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Do you, do Staples, Office Max or Office Depot have any UK presence?

'''Myke Hurley:''' We have Staples, but not in big numbers. They're like huge outlet stores and we don't have many of them. Gotcha. We have a, a, a high street stationer. We have a couple, one called Ryman and one called WH Smith, but Ryman is just office supplies. Um, and that, that seems to be doing relatively well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Interesting. So yeah, I mean.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, this reminded me, I meant to bring this up last week. In the mall, which is attached to where I work. So I work in, um, the new financial district in London and there's multiple skyscrapers, but there's a mall underneath all the skyscrapers. Does that building a Moleskine shop?