Building NOMATIC: How Jon Richards Turned an Idea Into a Global Brand

You can figure out a solution if you just try hard
enough.Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. I’m your
host, Frank Dolce.This is John Richards Nomadic, but it’s spelled with a
T.So, do you get a lot of people saying nomadic? Not really. I keep wanting
to say it like that, butit’s nomadic. Nomadic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we um we
settled on Nomadicbecause there was zero trademarks on the name and we wanted
to own it because theprevious company was called Basics. Basic basics. Yeah.
Okay. And that that hurt us.A lot of people were aligned with basics. There
was like 1,600 trademarks on theword basics. How do you do Wait, how do you
do 1600 trademarks on one word? Cuz you can trademark it for
differentcategories. Oh, so one person trademarks a notebook, one person hair
products, one personwhatever. Right. Right. So, homatic was free. So, we took
that and thedomain was available and it all worked out. Yeah. Amazing. Okay.
And in when did youlearn that lesson that we were just talking about that
some How long were you in your business life before?I’m still learning that
lesson. I’m still we have great leaders on our team and that’s helping a lot
because Ihave confidence in them. So currently our leadership team is just
dialed andfor me that’s the conf that’s the confidence I need to be like I
can let these guys do their thing. But if if ifI could feel like one of them
was doing something wrong or it was like going the wrong direction then
that’s when I startto get nervous and try to take hold again and need to slap
myself and remind myself to back off. You know,do you ever feel like your
cousin, who is also your co-founder, can do anything better than you or are
youHe does everything everything better than I will openly admit that. Except
for maybe golf. That’s the one thing Ican do better than him. Yeah. Nice.
Well, if you do that better than like that’sthat probably eclipses everything
else that he does better than you if you can golf better than him.Trying to
think. Honestly, he can probably do everything better than me. Really? Yeah.
Everything in which sense? In abusiness sense? In a No, no. In a business
life sense? Life? I I would say I’m I I don’t know.Like he’s beat me in a
foot race before, but he kind of cheated. Why did you have a foot race?I
don’t know. It was just one of those things. We just kind of were like in a
parking lot and we just kind of started racing, but then there was like
someice, so he acted like he was going to slip. So, I stopped and then he
finished and beat me, you know, cuz I kind oflike stopped thinking he was
like going to get hurt or something. And he was literally trying to trick
me.Oh, he’s the one who said, “Look out for ice.” And kept running.
Yep. [Music]Dirty. It’s funny. I haven’t thought about that memory in a long
time. No, Jacob is Jacob is one of the mosttalented people I know. And I’ve
said this before, but if I if I were to have interviewed a thousand
potentialbusiness partners, I don’t think I could have found someone who
jives as wellwith me as he does. Our personalities are the exact um opposite
and our skillsets are the exact opposite. So when I say he can do everything
better than me, I think it’s all the stuff that I wish Icould do that he’s
really good at. Um, we balance each other really well. We have very differing
opinions. He’s avisionary. He’s constantly pushing things forward. I’m a
control freak that’s saying, “Slow down. We need toperfect this
process.” Very particular. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very particular.Mhm. A
particular freak. Yes. So, that’s really interesting. Did youHow Okay. How
important is it do you think now that you’ve been in businesshow many years?
10 11 years. Okay. How important is that to have someonealigned with you like
that that where you each have a particular set of skillsthat balance each
other? In my particular circumstance, I wouldsay it’s been everything. Um, I
don’t know that we could have gotten where we are today without a business
partner.the number of times me and him have sat in a room, bounced ideas off
each other, come to what’s right for the business aswe’ve gone back and forth
and that you can’t get that alone. You have to eitherhave some kind of mentor
or someone that you trust that you can shoot ideas off of that they’re not
just going to likepat your back and be like, “Yeah, that’s a really you
should go forward with that. That’s a good idea.” It needs to be someone
that you trust that willactually tell you what they really think. Mhm. And
Jake and I have built that over a long period of time where we just know.And
a lot of the times we’ll walk in a room and our minds are totally aligned.
It’s not like we’re competing at all.It’s more like we know exactly what the
problem is and how to solve it and we would both go about it the right
way.And that’s been comforting too because then I know he’s going to act how
I would hope he would act and vice versa.Right. Have you do you know anybody
have you ever come across anybody who is not thatway? I’m very much that way.
I get a lot of uh comfort out of working withsomebody or working in a team
type scenario and being able tobounce ideas and discuss and negotiate and
then come up with the right gameplan. Have you ever come across anyone who is
solo who can do that all on theirown? soloreneurs, I would say they’reum more
than likely they’re missing something and they don’t see it. If theydon’t
have someone, I I would say finding that person that can do it all and just
know exactly how to moveforward on everything. They’re going to they’re going
to be a unicorn. Do I know that person?Uh trying to think of business owners
I know that have done really well on their own. It’s funny cuz if you were to
askthem, I guarantee they have a mentor. There’s somebody. Yeah. Right. I
think it’s really important to be aligned with somebody.I’m I’m totally I’m
all in on this idea of partnership. Mhm. In fact, I even I even started a
book.I’m like 50 pages into a book on principles of partnership that you’re
reading that I’m writingbecause I’ve learned so much from being Jacob’s
partner that I’m like we need I need to document this somehow so thatother
other people can learn. That’s going to be really difficult for you to write
a book. And let me justtell you why. Oh, I 100% know why. Cuz because
you’reso particular. I would it would feel to me like you had to get every
sentence and every word.The number of times I’ve read the first 50 pages of
my own book is just sad. Thenumber of times I’ve gone over it’s perfectly
proof read all the way, you know? It’s it’s like you can’t I can’tjust brain
dump 500 pages and then go back and have to get it right assequentially as I
go. Yeah. This could I mean it’s a good project. It might take you several
yearsto finish. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, or I guess congratulations. Use AI
tofinish it for me and then just proofread there and fix it. That’s never
going to work.Is it? I don’t know. Maybe to fill in the fluff. Do you know
how we got here? Thatyou know how we got to this point? You said that you met
Tony Fen now at lunch today.It’s a fun little How tall is he in person? Did
he Did he stand up? Did he So, I’m 6’1. He’s said online, I meanonline it
says he’s 6’4. And I looked this up because I ran back to my car to see if I
had anything like nomadic thatI could give him. And I had a jacket that was
large. So I looked him up real quick online. He’s 6’4um 100 or 200 lb. But he
looks more to me. He looks more He looks taller.He’s so long. His hands are
massive. So this is the thing like his it feels likehe has super super long
legs even though he may be 6’4 it seem feels like he’slong super long legs
long arms big handsand when he takes his golf swing he makes the club look
like a little puttputt club miniature I don’t know how he hits the ball like
he does let me just say this super nice guyvery nice guy sometimes a great
family you meet someone famous like that and you can just tell like this
conversationisn’t going the direction I hoped it would or it feels very
uncomfortable. Mhm. For him. I was like we could bebrothers. Like just felt
so comfortable talking with him. He was very kind.Did you Did you ask him
about that? Like I feel like we could be brothers.No, you didn’t. That was
your shot. Uh it seemed a little awkward to ask that. I was happy enough. He
he gave me hisnumber to give him some bags for later. So I was like I was
like sweet. Oh man. See, you have that in your backpocket. You’re like, I
could hook you up with some sweet. It is nice. It’s like a trading card.Okay,
so let me ask you a question about that. This may be jumping prematurely into
the business side of it, but okay,you you meet a guy like Tony Feno and you
don’t have golf bags, okay, travelbags. And so, uh, and you know that he goes
to tournaments all all over theworld and he’s, you know, it’s like he
probably gets there couple days beforethey start play, you know, he has a
couple practice rounds, play on Thursday, hopefully he makes it throughthe
weekend, play on Sunday. Do you have the perfect bag for that scenario?I
mean, do you say to him, Tony, I have the perfect bag. M this is it. The hard
thing is I don’t know how helikes to travel. So it’s tricky because I need to
know is he flying private? Is he flying commercial?I need to know is he is he
carrying it himself or is someone else pushing it for him?Tony. Yeah, he’s
probably doing it himself. OthersJustin Thomas. Yeah, he’s definitely having
someone else do it for him. Then I need to know, do you carry it on yourback
or do you like to push and have all the weight off your body? Cuz there’s
different people that are like, “No, I have to have my gear with me at
alltimes on my back.” He’s both. He has something on his back because he
always has his family with him and so he has tohave stuff for the kids
available like right now constant. And he’s he’spulling something along.
Okay. So in that case, I’m recommending our 20 L travel pack, which is
ourbestseller by the way. It’s a backpack that expands when you travel. So it
looks like an everyday bag, but you canliterally double the size and pack
clothing and stuff in it with just a zipper. So it’s super functional. So he
wouldlove that bag for travel on his back. And then I’d give him a a Method
rollerbag, like a carry-on that we have. And um probably both blackand I
think he’d like them. Do they come in several colors? Yeah, we have black,
moss, navy, gray.Do you have a favorite? I like olive. I’ve been liking olive
a lot. Like these are olive joggers. So,anytime we release something that’s
in the olive tones, I’m It’s a really good color.Yeah. Goes with a lot of
stuff. Okay. Let’s get back to I wanted to get back to your relationship with
with your cousin.Yeah. Did you guys grow up together? So, Jacob is actually
not my cousin.This is this is kind of a funny story. Everyone feels deceived
when I say that. I feel so deceived. He’s my first cousinonce removed. I’m
cousins with his mother. So I’m actually the youngest of 12 kids. So I come
from a massivefamily. But my dad was the youngest in his family, too. So my
grandpa was 100 yearsold when I was only eight. So there’s this massive
generation gap that exists where my cousins all had kids by thetime that I
was born. Oh. So I was born with my cousin’s children,if that makes sense. So
I grew up with all of them. So our parents, my parentsand his parents both
have cabins in Montana. Mhm. A stones throw from each other. We grew up as
kids there playing in the fieldscatching groundhogs and water skiing on the
lake and stuff. So Okay. So let me let’s do the genealogyreally quickly so I
understand this. Okay. So your dadand his grandpa are brothers.My dad and his
grandpa are brothers. Your dad and and Jacob’s grandpa. Mydad. I thought you
were saying your dad and your dad’s grandpa are brothers cuz that I can’t do
that math.That would be weird. My dad I mean we are in Utah. His grandpa
could happen. Brothers and so thenyour dad and your Okay. Your dad and
Jacob’s grandpa are brothers. Okay. Now Okay. Now that’smaking sense. Yeah.
So his his grandpa had a daughter Mary and that’s Jacob’s mother. And that’s
your cousin.It’s my cousin. And I’m Yeah. So it’s a it’s a you call that a
cousinonce first cousin once removed. Cousin once removed. That’s still a
cousin, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But you’rewe’re not first cousins. Gotcha.
But you guys are agewise are you exactly the same?He’s one year older than
me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Perfect. So you guys grew up together? Yep. And were you
always close? Like when youwhen you got together with family functions and
there were like a hundred people around. I mean I bet it was like that.
Therewere probably a hundred people around. So they they all have cabins in
Montana. We would all go there for the summer. Soour we didn’t really do
family reunions. It was more just like the entire summer was a reunion and we
would all play on the laketogether and it was cousins just coming and going
constantly. Gotcha. Yeah. And so did you two kind of always alignor how was
that? When did you figure out you were really close? He was raised in
Arizona. Sowhen we were in school, we never saw each other. And then we would
actually handw write letters to each other. Wewere pen pals. And then, you
know, we’d get back together in the summers. He he sometimes would only have
a twoe turn athis cabin um in the summers. And so there may be a two week
window where I get to hang out with him. But then later his parents
actuallybuilt a cabin up there and then we got full summers together. So, it
was uh hehas an older brother. Jacob has an older brother named Matt Durham.
The Durhams are very awesome by the way. You probably they have lots of
businesseshere locally. Great family. Um but his older brother Matt and I
were alsoreally good friends. And it was funny because we I’d kind of switch
off who I was best friends with between Jacob andMatt because, you know,
Jacob Jacob uh or Matt left on his mission and then I’d spend all my time
with Jacob and thenMatt got back and Jacob left on his mission and I’d spent
all my time with Matt and I was his roommate at BYU. Andso I’ve always been
great friends with that family. But Jacob and I have always ever since we
were little tiny kids, we werebest friends. So Gotcha. So,as you’re uh as
you’re growing up, did you guys ever talk about like, hey, we should do
something together or was itmore just like No, you each had your own path and
Yeah, that’s where you were going.I wouldn’t say we ever talked about
business or like let’s build something together, but we would do crazyshenanigans
like we built forts in the forest. We built, you know, this dancefloor that
you could pull behind a boat. we built um like random contraptions that that
you can’t even wrap your mindaround just as like fun projects, right? Cuz
you’re bored. You’re you’re at the beachevery day and you’re like, “What
should we do?” It’s like, “Let’s get a 2×4 and strap a tarp on it
and if we go fastenough, maybe we can stand on the tarp on top of the water,
you know? Let’s just see if it works.” AndI wouldn’t say it was a huge
success. No one was No one was hurt, but it was afun and learning experience.
That wasn’t the dance floor, was it? Yeah, that was the dance floor. That was
the dance floor on the water.Yeah. Have you ever seen Phineas and Ferb? This
is very much like a real lifePhineas and Ferb where these two best friends
get up every day and they’re like, I know what we’re going to do today. And
they go out and inventsomething to do. Yeah. I I love inventing things.
That’skind of been my my passion my whole life. So maybe that’s we sometimes
werecatching grasshoppers, you know, we whatever. Learned a lot about each
otherthroughout the years. So the one thing I interesting I found out about
you wentto East High School. Yeah. Did you? No. But my spouse did and all of
my kidswent to East High School and we have lots of history at East High
School. We live right What’s your last name?Right near Dolce. Right near East
High School. Yeah. So, we we’re quite a bit olderthan you are. Quite a bit.
Well, that’s what I was wondering about your kids, how old they were, but
they’re they’renot quite as old as you are. Yeah, I’m 37. Yeah, they’re Yeah,
a few years younger,so no crossing paths. Nope. But East was great, you know.
Great school.And then you headed down to BYU. What was your What was your
path at at BYUbusiness or So, it was Let’s see. I started out just like
general communications major orsomething. Mhm. And then um went on my
mission. I only did one semester before mission. Serveda mission for the
Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints in Argentina. Mhm. In Cordoba. And I
spent two years there.Towards the end of my mission, I felt so strongly that
I needed to um become an architect. So, I came back actually wentto the um uh
man I can’t think of the industrial design, not the industrial design.What’s
the name of the program? I’m blanking. At BYU. At BYU. Went to the program
for umuh something management. I can’t remember the name of it. Umwent to
went back to BYU uh studied to become like an architect essentially.Spent a
semester at that. And one of the requirements was that I needed to pass a
calculus class to get into the businessschool. And I couldn’t pass this
class. I’m not goodwith numbers. This is this is one of my favorite things
about Jacob is he is a numbers guycuz that is not me. My brain is my brain is
a creative brain and numbers and me don’t jive. I literally had to studylike
twice as hard as everyone just to pass that class. But it was a pass fail
class. Anyway, finally passed after likethree tries of that class and got
into the business school and that’s that wasa huge shift. But when I got, you
know, I got into the program at BYU and it was weird. It was like I don’t
know why Ifelt guided to do that but I just felt like one day I’m going to
build something.So I just needed some background there. But Gotcha. And did
Jacob have did did he gothrough did he end up at BYU? Did he go to Jacob did
BYU? He did the MAC programthere. So he became an accountant after did
auditing. Oh yeah. Clearly a numbers guy.Definitely a numbers guy. Um but he
wasn’t happy auditing companies. Kind ofburned him out. So he Yeah. went
worked for his family company doing um sourcing products overseas and
stufflike that. Gotcha. Which also helped. Super meaningful. Yes. Super
meaningful. Okay. So, and youguys are in touch this whole time and hanging
out, doing whatever, and youfind yourselves at a jazz game, normal cousin
friends at a jazz game together with our wives.And we’d come up with some
ideas like we should actually try to make some money on the side. Like, let’s
buy somevending machines. Let’s do something to make a buck. Um, at this
point, who who were youworking with or what? I was working at Bamboo HR. Oh,
gotsales. Okay. So, I was out here on the call. 100 calls a day. Oh, man. In
the grind.Yikes. Yeah, that’s rough. It was. Yeah. So, I did that for about
eight months. And um so yeah, I was at Iwas at Bamboo HR. Jacob was at Durham
Brands. Um andI said, “Have you heard of Kickstarter?” Kickstarter
only been around for about a year at this point. Um, and he was
like,”No.” He looked into it, found out that wallets, it’s funded
really well on Kickstarter for whatever reason. Just alow price point.
Everyone needs one. Mhm. Um, so we just started working on functional
wallets. came up with thisidea of a of a pull tab technology inside the
wallet. You know that umhis uh his wife had these headbands on the table and
we literally were makingprototypes out of these like runner’s headbands and
that was the first wallet.So that’s where it all started isn’t in his
basement. No, I know you say that’s where it all started but it all started
on somelakeshore beach in Montana. That’s true. Yeah, I was controlling and
trying tokeep all of the grasshoppers in the little bucket and he was always
letting them go, you know, cuz he felt bad, youknow. Just like a perfect
window in our personalities. Yeah.Oh, that’s hilarious. Okay, so when he
started making or when you guys started make making thiswallet, did you guys
decide together like, okay, yeah, let’s make a wallet. And thenwere were you
the creative like this is the type of wallet we should make and ithad it
should have all of these features or how did that process go? How did you
determine like this this is what weshould do? Well, I mean there’s other
wallets that existed on the market. So we actually looked at some of those,
right? So welooked at minimalist wallets. At the time Krabby wallet was big.
It was like a little elastic band. This is beforeThread even existed. Mhm. Um
there’s another one called the TGT wallet, which is essentially a leatherband
that wrapped around the outside of your cards. So, there’s a couple that were
kind of similar. And so, we startedplaying with this idea of an elastic band
around the outside. That’s why we’re using her headband. And then we got a
piece of paper andripped it. And we noticed when you when you put it through
the middle of the cards, you know, the issue we were seeing islike the cards
you in these elastic wallets, you have to pull them all out at once. Mhm. And
then you’re stuck with a stackthat you’re kind of going through like doing a
magic trick trying to find your card, right? Y where ours you just pull the
taband I’m so glad that you it gives you access to both cards because the tab
pulls out the cards,right? So rather than ejecting all of the cards at once,
you can leave cards in the wallet that stay where they’re atand then you get
access to those as well. And this is a phone wallet. This isn’t our original.
This is not ouroriginal wallet. We just launched this one last year, but we
have umwe have our original version has that same pull tab in it. And that
that tab was at the time it was like this is kindof cool. And as we gave it
to people, they’re like, “This actually like I really like this.”
You know, we’ never made a product before, so we didn’t knowif they were just
telling us that to make us happy. But then it just took off. On Kickstarter,
we had a goal of $10,000.We ended up raising $170,000 in 30 days. And at that
point,and obvious it’s just you two. Yeah. You’ve raised $170,000 now on
Kickstarter. And are youuh where are you are you producing these overseas at
this point? We were actually going to sew them ourselves. So we’relike, you
know, we might sell two 300 wallets to hit our goal. Yeah. And then we ended
up crazy surpassingour goal. And we ordered 13,000 wallets from a factory in
China. We did themath. We’re like, we’d literally be stitching wallets for
like 4 years straight if we wanted to make these. This sounds like maybe your
how yourbook’s going to go. Yeah. It could be a four-year project. Something
in there. Learning your book.Something to learn from that. Yes. Okay. Uh so
the the the Jacobsourcing background obviously that came in came in handy.
Yeah. cuz we were middle campaign whenwe realized we’re making $5,000 a day.
We’re not going to be able to make these wallets. We have to source
thesesomewhere. Uhhuh. And so he immediately started reaching out to
factories in China. And he found one um that agreed to dothe project. Um we
didn’t fly out there to see the factory or anything. We justproduced the
wallets. Um, we ended up going out later that the next yearin that process of
of uh create creating the wallet and were you sewing wallets,too, or it was
just Jacob? Just you didn’t want to sew. I mean, I took like a sewing class
in like junior high, but I wasn’t like Idon’t know. I didn’t feel like that
was I I wasn’t going to be sewing all the wallets. I mean, I guess I would
behelping him if we actually ended up sewing them together. I probably would
have got a sewing machine and just sewed some myself. I don’t know. M how
manydid he end up sewing together? I mean, we made we probably made 20 or 30
different prototypes.Oh, okay. So, you weren’t like in the hundreds of
wallets. You immediat almostimmediately went to Yeah. Yeah. We didn’t make
any of the Kickstarter ones yet. We just were making prototypes at thetime,
testing them out, refining the design. Gotcha. Yeah. Uh Okay. So, based on
your originaldesign, does that still exist or has it been refined over the
lastYeah, it exists. Um, we actually got a patent on that pull tab. It’s kind
of cool. Um, and then on top of that, weevery I would say we learned quickly
that most products you launch, we have we we we coined this phrase, thefatal
flaw. I feel like there’s something that every single product has that we
call the fatal flaw. And everytime you release into the world, you just don’t
know what that is until you get enough people testing it and using it where
you’re like, “Oh crap,that’s not good.” For us, the fatal flaw of
the wallet was it started to fray. So, we didn’t knowwhen you laser cut
elastic band, you either have to like seriously melt thatedge or you have to
wrap it somehow. M so we were laser cutting the area where the pull tab sat
and so we just lasercut it and we’d stitch them together but that was also
the area where the tab is coming in and out of in and out of it and and it
started rubbing. Within amonth or two every one wall every one of those
13,000 wallets we ordered started to fray.We’re like oh my god no like we’re
done. We’re out of business about this. Absolutely. Are people starting to
sendthese back or ask questions? Yeah. So luckily, Jacob was super like
motivatedand was proactive. It was like, “Let’s figure out a solution.
Let’s” and we went back to the factory. We found thatif you place this little
ribbon over it and stitched it in this specific way that it wouldn’t fray
anymore. Wequickly manufactured as many as we could. And we launched the
version two almost immediately to our exact sameaudience. And we said,
“We’re so sorry that happened. We’re giving all of you like a crazy
deal.” I can’t remember itwas like 60 or 70% off or something like come
come buy another wallet. We’re so sorry that happened.So then rather than
replacing all of these wallets and trying to figure that out, we just said
come buy another one.It’s it literally was a $20 wallet. So we were
discounting it to like five bucks or something like that, you know.So we
said, “Come buy another wallet.” And I was shocked, but like
thousands ofpeople came back and bought another wallet really. So that meant
that there was seriously a problem that we fixed. But the happierside to that
was like we did like 85k in sales that day. Yeah. And clearly peoplelove the
wallet, right? They love the wallet. Um anyway, so it was it was one of
thoseproblems where we attacked it quickly and I’m I’m glad we did cuz it
nowpeople love it. There are still to this day people that have that original
wallet that are like I still use this thing.Really? Yeah. Even with the
freight edge, they’ll just cut it with scissors. Really? They just love it.
They’retotally invested in that. Yes. Would you would you say that’s a lesson
that you learned uh about solvingproblems is a problem and you have to attack
it quickly? That’s what you just said, attack it quickly.Yeah, I think that’s
important. I think um the bigger lesson probably is justunderstanding that
not all problems like any problem is solvable. It just takesmore time and
more energy. Like if you if you have a big problem in your life that you’re
facing, spend a little bitmore time thinking about it, focus on it. And
rather than just shutting down and being like, I can’t do this. This is
toohard. Or like, what are we going to do? And freaking out, just say, let’s
just focus hard on trying to solve this andthink outside the box. And that
for me has been a bigger lesson I’ve learned throughout the years than just
like it has to be done quickly. I don’t knowthat it has to be quick. It’s
just more like you can figure out a solution if you just try hard enough.
That’s adifficulty for lots of people is something comes up, an obstacle
comes upand it feels easier like to just turn away ornot pay attention to it
or or whatever it is rather than being thoughtful abouthow to how to solve it
uh or how to find a path around it.Yeah. Uh so interesting. Okay. So, wallets
are going wallets aregoing pretty well. And are you thinking at this point
like look at we’re just going to we’re a wallet we’re a walletcompany. Look
what we did. Yeah. It is weird, right? And we’re going to we’re going to just
keep building and we’re going to keepimproving on this wallet. When you’re in
that mindset of like we sell wallets,like in my mind I was like how many
wallets how many different wallets can we make? Uhhuh. You know, I’m not
thinking big enough.you know, I’m like, can we make leather wallets? Can we
make like we’re going to make lots of wallets. We ended upcreating different
colors, different variants on the wallet. But ultimately, we found that
notebooks, for whateverreason, like pen and paper notebooks, planners did
really well on Kickstarteras well. You mean like a bound? Yes. No. And this
is 14 years ago beforelike people are 100% invested into their, you know,
cell phone routines. But like,yeah, a notebook, a good pen to paper notebook
that helped you track your goals, helped you like set like so we created what
wethought was the best notebook. We added some features to it. That was our
second launch on Kickstarter. Okay. So now the the wallet clearlythere’s
something different about the wallet. You have the pull tab and it separates
the cards. And so you solve ayou solve an issue with standard kind of
wallets. Yeah, for that wallet I think it wasgetting people from carrying a
lot of junk with them to being more minimal. I would say the pull tab solves
an issue,but it was more like it was helping people to just let go of all the
receipts and all the coins and whateverelse they’re carrying with themselves.
my my dad’s wallet to this day I don’t know how he gets as much stuff in
thereas like yeah it’s that thick and he carries that around and and so when
I was looking in fact Iwas going to ask you when you were showing your wallet
like how many cards do you have in your can you carry cash is there anything
else and or is it justlike minimalist you have to go super like you have your
driver’s license couple credit cards that’s ityeah so the initial wallet held
up to 14 cards actually. So, it was elastic so it could it could expand.Um,
had a little tiny pocket in the back for cash, coins, or a key, but you had
to fold the cash into fourths.So, it was a little inconvenient to use that
cash pocket. Um, but it held just like if you’recarrying, you know, a 20, a
10, and a five or something, it holds that fine. But if you’re carrying like
a stack, it’s not pretty.Mhm. Um, so that wallet solved the issue of just
helping people slim down. Thiswallet that I showed you only carries four
cards and nothing else. No coins, no cash. So, three credit cards and an ID
or acouple IDs and two credit something, whatever. Four cards. Four cards.
And uh it’s just this one’s just more for convenience of like beingon the
back of your phone and giving you quick access to your cards. The Apple
wallets that typically people buy forthese types of situations, it’s like
it’s really hard to get the cards out of there. It they get stuck together.
And so thisjust solves that pain. Gotcha. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And and
then you moved intonotebooks. Notebooks. And so why how did you create the
best I would say it was more of a planner. I shouldn’t call it a notebook. It
was aplanner. And we launched a notebook with it that was just kind of like
empty paper just because the features on thenotebook were cool. So we we
scooted the pages down. Um, so there actually was a space for a penbetween
the the and we added an extra elastic that you can then strap insidethe book
as like a bookmark to hold half of the book, you know, closed or whatever.Uh,
we added some whiteboard paper to the back and it came with like a whiteboard
pen so you could like brainstorm in it and stuff. So it had acouple unique
features that made it interesting. M um that one actually raised almost twice
as much as the wallet did on Kickstarterwhen that h or were you just were you
just shocked? I mean your research sounds like you were you wenton
Kickstarter and said well these items are popular. Let’s that’s exactly what
we did.That was your market research. That was our market research. It’s like
this is the platform we’re launching on. These products do well. Can we do
itbetter? And we just would go and do it. And that’s t