Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► How are you feeling, Myke?

00:00:01 ◼   ► (Myke groans)

00:00:04 ◼   ► - This is like the worst possible feeling for me to have

00:00:08 ◼   ► is what I'm feeling right now.

00:00:10 ◼   ► - No, you should feel amazing because it's finally here.

00:00:14 ◼   ► It's finally real.

00:00:15 ◼   ► So much work made tangible.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Why would you feel, "Blah"?

00:00:20 ◼   ► You should feel, "Blah!"

00:00:21 ◼   ► - No, 'cause this is that point of,

00:00:23 ◼   ► you obviously feel this when you work on videos, right?

00:00:26 ◼   ► Of like you work on something for so long.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And that feeling of you're about to like tell everyone about it or show it to everyone.

00:00:33 ◼   ► It just feels horrible. It's very strange.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the "well there's nothing else to do, now I get to see how it goes" feeling.

00:00:44 ◼   ► That's how you're feeling?

00:00:46 ◼   ► That's how I'm feeling.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Well, it's time to talk about the Sidekick Notepad.

00:00:50 ◼   ► So this is the second big product from Quaddix brand.

00:00:56 ◼   ► So we have the theme system journal, and we've had some little bits here and there, right?

00:01:01 ◼   ► So we have the subtle notebook, and obviously we have the subtlety, the subtle sweater,

00:01:07 ◼   ► we have the Cortex Mark 1 pen in collaboration with Studio Neat.

00:01:10 ◼   ► We've done lots of little explorations, but this is the second product that we kind of went and did the whole thing.

00:01:19 ◼   ► came up with the idea, design, arrange, manufacture, like, you know, it was like a real thing from

00:01:25 ◼   ► nothing.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the biggie.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Everything else was some kind of like 0.1 type of project.

00:01:33 ◼   ► But this is this is the thing where, God, I don't know, what when must we have mentioned

00:01:37 ◼   ► it years ago when we started to say like, oh, we're working on a second project.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Yeah, this this project began on the first of July 2021.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:01:46 ◼   ► - God.

00:01:47 ◼   ► - That was when I sat down and drew out

00:01:50 ◼   ► what I was looking for.

00:01:51 ◼   ► So let's say, so today we're gonna talk about

00:01:53 ◼   ► what this product is, but the majority of the conversation

00:01:56 ◼   ► is gonna talk about the 18 plus month manufacturing process

00:02:01 ◼   ► and kind of what that has been like for us.

00:02:03 ◼   ► And then also talk a bit about what 2023 means

00:02:07 ◼   ► for the company that we run together

00:02:09 ◼   ► and how we're thinking about that, right?

00:02:10 ◼   ► So I just wanna set that out upfront,

00:02:12 ◼   ► just so you know that we're gonna give you

00:02:14 ◼   ► our sales pitch on this product,

00:02:15 ◼   ► but then we're gonna talk about everything

00:02:16 ◼   ► went into making it and how I think it's,

00:02:19 ◼   ► it sounds like a horrible thing to say like at this point,

00:02:22 ◼   ► but like how it is hopefully going to change our business.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, putting it on the line there, Myke.

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:02:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I am, yeah.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - This is going to end up being like,

00:02:31 ◼   ► now we can tell you a lot of the things

00:02:33 ◼   ► that we could never quite tell you

00:02:35 ◼   ► as the project was going along.

00:02:38 ◼   ► In this way where we always saw like,

00:02:40 ◼   ► oh, it will make sense shortly, right?

00:02:43 ◼   ► Soon we'll be able to talk about this.

00:02:45 ◼   ► It's just very interesting how we wanted to talk about this as it was going on,

00:02:49 ◼   ► but the very process itself kind of made that completely impossible.

00:02:53 ◼   ► And so now it's like, ah, there is a long story about how this came to be.

00:02:58 ◼   ► And like, I think this is also interesting if like, if you are trying to make a

00:03:02 ◼   ► product, this is why it takes so long.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And it's like, it's been, I've said this with the theme system journal and it's

00:03:10 ◼   ► like 10 times more for Sidekick Notepad.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It's amazing to me how long it takes physical products to get made.

00:03:16 ◼   ► It's astounding to me that anything gets made in the physical world.

00:03:21 ◼   ► And now we can tell you some of why is it like that.

00:03:24 ◼   ► First off, here's what it is.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Sidekick Notepad is a landscape format notepad.

00:03:31 ◼   ► It has 60 perforated pages.

00:03:34 ◼   ► We use the same great papers, the theme system journal.

00:03:37 ◼   ► It is laid out as about three quarters of dot grid for note taking.

00:03:42 ◼   ► and then one quarter of the page is to-do list.

00:03:44 ◼   ► It's 30 centimeters wide by 18 centimeters deep,

00:03:49 ◼   ► and it has been designed to sit comfortably

00:03:51 ◼   ► between you and your keyboard.

00:03:53 ◼   ► We'll talk about the soft launch of this product

00:03:55 ◼   ► in a little bit, but it's been really interesting to me

00:03:57 ◼   ► to see people putting them on their desks

00:03:58 ◼   ► and the way they put them.

00:04:00 ◼   ► It works great in front or behind the keyboard,

00:04:02 ◼   ► depending on how you sit.

00:04:04 ◼   ► We did a lot of testing for ergonomics,

00:04:06 ◼   ► like if people put this in between them and their keyboard,

00:04:08 ◼   ► is it good?

00:04:09 ◼   ► And I would answer yes,

00:04:10 ◼   ► but your own mileage will vary.

00:04:13 ◼   ► But it also just works as a great notepad

00:04:15 ◼   ► in meetings as well.

00:04:16 ◼   ► That's kind of like the dual purpose of the product.

00:04:19 ◼   ► We've made it so it's fantastic as the product

00:04:21 ◼   ► to sit on your desk, so as you're taking notes

00:04:24 ◼   ► throughout the day, as you're typing things,

00:04:26 ◼   ► you're writing things, you want something to scribble down.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Maybe you've got some to-do items you want to write down,

00:04:30 ◼   ► and then at the end of the day,

00:04:32 ◼   ► you can kind of transport those into your apps

00:04:34 ◼   ► and services that you want,

00:04:35 ◼   ► tear off the page and start fresh.

00:04:37 ◼   ► But also it's the perfect product

00:04:39 ◼   ► take to a meeting environment so you don't have your computer on the desk. It's not distracting

00:04:43 ◼   ► you. You can write down all your notes from the meetings, write down all of your action items on

00:04:48 ◼   ► the side, take it to your desk and then transport that information into the places that it needs to

00:04:52 ◼   ► go to. That's kind of what we've made this product for. Yeah, and it's where the name

00:04:57 ◼   ► sidekick notepad comes from is because we were really just thinking about this as like,

00:05:02 ◼   ► it is your sidekick while you're working. It's there to help you do whatever it is that you're

00:05:09 ◼   ► trying to do. And the vision of this notepad that is perfectly sized to sit in between you and your

00:05:18 ◼   ► laptop on a table, that is really the core idea of this. And like you said, in addition, the,

00:05:23 ◼   ► I need to go to a meeting, I want to be able to take notes, those notes are going to be actionable,

00:05:29 ◼   ► and they're part of like what my day is,

00:05:32 ◼   ► but I don't need to bring my whole computer along.

00:05:34 ◼   ► And it's like, that can just be distracting.

00:05:36 ◼   ► - And I've never liked to do it.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Like this goes back to when I would work in the bank,

00:05:40 ◼   ► you know, I'd be sitting around the table with 12 people

00:05:43 ◼   ► and you know, 10 of them would have their laptops.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And you could see that they weren't focused on the meeting.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Like emails would come in,

00:05:50 ◼   ► notifications would come in and distract them.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And like, you know, that's fine.

00:05:54 ◼   ► But if I was gonna be in a meeting,

00:05:55 ◼   ► I wanted to be able to get the value out of it.

00:05:57 ◼   ► otherwise there was no point being there in the first place. And so I would like

00:06:01 ◼   ► to just have a notebook of some kind in front of me and that was what I used.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Yeah. And so that's where this product comes from, it's why we went to great

00:06:08 ◼   ► lengths to make it like structurally sound so it can easily move around. I

00:06:12 ◼   ► have a great story about that later on in the episode about what that took to do. It's like you can pick it up and it

00:06:17 ◼   ► doesn't like flop down. But it's also the idea of it being your companion, your

00:06:22 ◼   ► sidekick that's why this is not a notebook it is a notepad it is for

00:06:28 ◼   ► things that you take notes on throughout a day or throughout a session and then

00:06:34 ◼   ► you put them somewhere else this is not a notebook for you to save this stuff in

00:06:39 ◼   ► forever it is intended that you will tear the page out and start fresh now

00:06:43 ◼   ► you can keep pages I do like if I've got something important I'll keep the page

00:06:47 ◼   ► and you can even like slot the page kind of like in the back which is just a

00:06:51 ◼   ► little hack that I've done to my own notebook that I made, which is like a funny thing,

00:06:54 ◼   ► you just like tuck it in the back and it works great behind there, you can keep it for later.

00:06:58 ◼   ► But the idea is with this product, where it's coming from, it's like reason for existing

00:07:04 ◼   ► is I've been calling it like an in-between. So it kind of fits like in-between in your

00:07:11 ◼   ► actual setup, but it is also like an in-between between like something you're doing right

00:07:17 ◼   ► now and your to-do app or it's an in-between between what I'm thinking about and what eventually

00:07:21 ◼   ► goes on my computer. I'm sitting there sketching out an idea then when I'm happy with what

00:07:25 ◼   ► I've got I'll type it into notes or obsidian or whatever right? That is like the as we

00:07:32 ◼   ► would call it the insight that created this product. I was like I just want something

00:07:36 ◼   ► that when I get a phone call and I'm now on a phone call that I wasn't expecting I don't

00:07:41 ◼   ► have to hunt for a pen and paper. The paper's right there always. My Sidekick notepad is

00:07:48 ◼   ► 100% of the time open between me and my keyboard and that is like the cover has been designed

00:07:55 ◼   ► with specific folds so it can stay comfortably open on the desk. That is where it comes from,

00:08:03 ◼   ► being this ever open canvas for you to take whatever notes or whatever to-dos that you

00:08:08 ◼   ► you ever need to at any point during the day.

00:08:10 ◼   ► It's like, it just removes that friction of,

00:08:12 ◼   ► let me grab a piece of paper, like it's always there.

00:08:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's very easy,

00:08:16 ◼   ► I think a lot of people have this experience,

00:08:18 ◼   ► I definitely have this experience of that exact thing.

00:08:21 ◼   ► You've been caught off guard and some like actionable thing

00:08:23 ◼   ► has just come across your radar, like someone called you

00:08:25 ◼   ► and I was like, oh, I need to do this thing,

00:08:26 ◼   ► I need to get back to this person about something.

00:08:29 ◼   ► And I have definitely made some digital note on that

00:08:32 ◼   ► in a hasty way.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And then because digital has no physicality,

00:08:37 ◼   ► It's just poof, gone forever.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And it's like, oh no, right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► Like it's very easy to lose stuff that way.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And my vision on this is a bit like paper products exist on a kind of spectrum

00:08:50 ◼   ► of like ephemeral to archival.

00:08:53 ◼   ► How long do you expect something to last?

00:08:56 ◼   ► And the theme system journal is way more on the archival end of that spectrum.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Like you're writing things in here.

00:09:02 ◼   ► You're specifically going to look at them later.

00:09:04 ◼   ► In a future year, you may want to look at the previous year.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Like it is an archival kind of product.

00:09:09 ◼   ► This isn't exactly ephemeral, like a, like a scrap of paper would be

00:09:14 ◼   ► the most ephemeral kind of thing.

00:09:15 ◼   ► But I sort of imagine that each page on the Sidekick notepad is designed to

00:09:22 ◼   ► last for somewhere between like a day and a week's worth of work, depending

00:09:27 ◼   ► on like how much you write down.

00:09:28 ◼   ► And it's, it's there to exist as like, this is the buffer of that size.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Do you have stuff that you're like, you're brainstorming something today and you just want somewhere to write it physically?

00:09:40 ◼   ► Because I still maintain that like physically writing out stuff is much more helpful under lots of circumstances.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Like you have this pad of paper that's right in front of you.

00:09:49 ◼   ► It specifically has a dot grid, so it makes it very easy to do any kind of brainstorming on there, like, or you can write on it.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And it also has this little task list on the side of like, oh, right, this I need to get back to this person by the end of the week.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And I just want to put it here in this place

00:10:05 ◼   ► where I'm always going to physically see it in front of me.

00:10:08 ◼   ► So that's kind of my idea of where does this product sit

00:10:11 ◼   ► in the one day to one week per page.

00:10:15 ◼   ► And then ultimately it does go somewhere else.

00:10:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll very frequently take some notes

00:10:20 ◼   ► on something I'm thinking about

00:10:22 ◼   ► and I will leave that page, I won't tear it off.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And that also works for me.

00:10:27 ◼   ► If I'm working on some kind of bigger project,

00:10:30 ◼   ► it's just there all the time in front of the keyboard.

00:10:32 ◼   ► and it kind of helps me with then the further brainstorming

00:10:35 ◼   ► of that thing, it's like a little reminder,

00:10:37 ◼   ► it's like this physical reminder of this idea

00:10:39 ◼   ► that I'm working on, and I kind of like that

00:10:41 ◼   ► as like a way to help me noodle through things.

00:10:44 ◼   ► So like it's 60 pages, so essentially it could be two months

00:10:47 ◼   ► but I think I keep mine for about three to four months

00:10:49 ◼   ► 'cause I don't use a page every day.

00:10:51 ◼   ► I don't need a full page every day.

00:10:53 ◼   ► Like sometimes I'll just make a note here

00:10:55 ◼   ► and then tomorrow's notes can also go on that same page,

00:10:58 ◼   ► like it doesn't need another whole page.

00:11:01 ◼   ► So this product, the Psycic Notepad, the price is $32.

00:11:05 ◼   ► It has been made with very particular materials

00:11:08 ◼   ► and processes which have created a quality product.

00:11:11 ◼   ► We'll talk about those a little bit later on in the episode.

00:11:13 ◼   ► This is expensive for a notebook of any kind.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I understand that, but I know what it took

00:11:19 ◼   ► to make this thing and I believe in the quality

00:11:22 ◼   ► of this product at that price point.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - I mean, look, I'm just gonna say it.

00:11:25 ◼   ► So like with the Cortex stuff,

00:11:28 ◼   ► One of the things that's really important to me is that these products

00:11:32 ◼   ► are physically nice to use.

00:11:34 ◼   ► They feel good.

00:11:35 ◼   ► They fold right.

00:11:37 ◼   ► The paper tears right.

00:11:38 ◼   ► The paper is high quality.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Like you want things that just are a pleasure to use as much as possible.

00:11:45 ◼   ► And that just means that the price of materials has to go up.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And so like that is the place in the market that we're trying

00:11:53 ◼   ► to sit with these products is we want to be making the things.

00:11:57 ◼   ► That's like, yeah, it's more expensive than a random pad of paper that you could keep

00:12:02 ◼   ► next to your computer, for sure.

00:12:05 ◼   ► But it's purpose designed and it feels very nice.

00:12:09 ◼   ► Once again, the amount of effort spent on how does it tear is just outrageous.

00:12:15 ◼   ► But like that's a key part of the thing, like you want it to feel good.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Put a pin in that, right?

00:12:20 ◼   ► I'm gonna write on my Sidekick notepad that's in front of me right now, I'm gonna write

00:12:24 ◼   ► tearing versus folding.

00:12:27 ◼   ► We're gonna get to that later on in the episode,

00:12:29 ◼   ► and you'll see what I'm talking about

00:12:30 ◼   ► when it comes to this thing.

00:12:32 ◼   ► - You just made me realize I actually need a second one

00:12:35 ◼   ► for my podcasting computer,

00:12:36 ◼   ► because this is exactly the kind of thing that like,

00:12:40 ◼   ► I have my Cortex show notes open in front of me right now,

00:12:43 ◼   ► but I keep them all on the computer,

00:12:45 ◼   ► and I don't really want to type on the keyboard too much

00:12:48 ◼   ► while we're talking,

00:12:49 ◼   ► 'cause it means editing work for you,

00:12:51 ◼   ► and it also kind of distracts me a little bit somehow

00:12:54 ◼   ► when I'm typing.

00:12:56 ◼   ► This is exactly the kind of thing like,

00:12:57 ◼   ► oh, I need a second one for my podcasting desk

00:13:01 ◼   ► for like things to follow up later on

00:13:03 ◼   ► during the Cortex conversation.

00:13:04 ◼   ► That's exactly what it's for.

00:13:06 ◼   ► - That was a part of the insight that I had

00:13:07 ◼   ► of why I wanted it,

00:13:08 ◼   ► is I've always had a notebook of some kind in front of me.

00:13:11 ◼   ► We work with Studio Neat on the pens

00:13:14 ◼   ► and they helped us get started with the journal

00:13:16 ◼   ► and they make a great product called the PanaBook,

00:13:18 ◼   ► which I've used and love forever,

00:13:20 ◼   ► but I was looking for something slightly different

00:13:22 ◼   ► 'cause it's a notebook, right?

00:13:24 ◼   ► But I wanted something that was intentional

00:13:27 ◼   ► in the idea of you just tear it and move on.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And that's what it's for.

00:13:31 ◼   ► I was looking for this kind of thing.

00:13:33 ◼   ► But the idea of having a notebook in front of me

00:13:37 ◼   ► all the time has been something that I've been doing

00:13:38 ◼   ► in some form forever.

00:13:40 ◼   ► I used to use field notes like this,

00:13:42 ◼   ► Rodea notebooks, all these kinds of things.

00:13:46 ◼   ► So again, this is similar to what we've said

00:13:49 ◼   ► about the journal.

00:13:50 ◼   ► And the journal leans more on this end than Psychic Notepad,

00:13:53 ◼   ► but you can take the idea, right?

00:13:54 ◼   ► Like if you just think this sounds like an interesting idea

00:13:58 ◼   ► and you don't want to pay $32 for our product,

00:14:00 ◼   ► I just endorse the idea of having a notebook

00:14:02 ◼   ► between you and your keyboard, right?

00:14:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:04 ◼   ► - They're not all gonna fit as well as this one,

00:14:06 ◼   ► but you'll be able to find something that probably can.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Even if it's just like a legal pad,

00:14:10 ◼   ► like just turn it on its side and put it in front of you.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Or even if you're thinking like,

00:14:14 ◼   ► "I'm not sure if I want to spend that right now."

00:14:16 ◼   ► Try it with something that's cheaper

00:14:18 ◼   ► and you will get an idea as to whether

00:14:20 ◼   ► this is a useful thing for you in your life.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And then I'll tell you, buy ours,

00:14:23 ◼   ► 'cause it will be the best one you can get.

00:14:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm totally behind that as well.

00:14:30 ◼   ► It's like all of this kind of stuff,

00:14:32 ◼   ► you don't need to get our exact notepad

00:14:36 ◼   ► to have something to write on your desk,

00:14:38 ◼   ► but we're just trying to make one that's really nice to use.

00:14:42 ◼   ► That's what we're trying to hit.

00:14:43 ◼   ► But that is why the price just has to be higher

00:14:46 ◼   ► than it's going to be for a regular notepad

00:14:49 ◼   ► that you're gonna find.

00:14:50 ◼   ► So as always, you can go to cortexmerch.com to get this.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Again, we'll talk a little bit later on in the episode

00:14:56 ◼   ► as well about that URL, but cortexmerch.com

00:14:58 ◼   ► is where you can go to buy this.

00:15:00 ◼   ► I think you can also go to sidekicknotepad.com,

00:15:02 ◼   ► but that's just like a way longer URL.

00:15:04 ◼   ► So just go to cortexmerch.com.

00:15:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Myke, we've been training people

00:15:07 ◼   ► on cortexmerch.com for a while.

00:15:10 ◼   ► - Yeah. - So it's like,

00:15:11 ◼   ► go to cortexmerch.com.

00:15:12 ◼   ► - You can go to cortexmerch.com.

00:15:13 ◼   ► But before I talk about the manufacturing part,

00:15:16 ◼   ► I wanna talk about one more part of the money part,

00:15:18 ◼   ► which is shipping.

00:15:19 ◼   ► I just want to get this out there, all right?

00:15:21 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:15:22 ◼   ► - So people stop asking me.

00:15:24 ◼   ► And if you hear this and still ask questions,

00:15:26 ◼   ► I can't help you anymore, right?

00:15:27 ◼   ► Like this is the thing.

00:15:28 ◼   ► So shipping is expensive for this product

00:15:31 ◼   ► because of its size and because right now shipping is high.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Shipping at the moment, I check frequently.

00:15:38 ◼   ► So US shipping is fluctuating by a dollar a day,

00:15:42 ◼   ► some days for this product.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Sometimes it's $11 to ship, sometimes it's $12 to ship.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Like that is just what shipping is like right now.

00:15:50 ◼   ► Shipping is expensive.

00:15:51 ◼   ► It has been since the start of the pandemic.

00:15:53 ◼   ► And I don't even know if it's logistics anymore.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I think maybe just the logistics companies like

00:15:58 ◼   ► that the shipping costs what it costs.

00:15:59 ◼   ► So they're just not changing it.

00:16:01 ◼   ► But US shipping on this product costs $12.

00:16:04 ◼   ► It's a complicated product to ship.

00:16:06 ◼   ► We get a lot of people outside of the US ask us,

00:16:10 ◼   ► why don't we stock in another place?

00:16:12 ◼   ► Like the simple answer for that is,

00:16:14 ◼   ► the logistics partner that we use,

00:16:16 ◼   ► Cotton Bureau have been great to us,

00:16:18 ◼   ► they only have one location.

00:16:20 ◼   ► We, for about 100,000 reasons,

00:16:24 ◼   ► can't set up another location on our own.

00:16:26 ◼   ► We would need another storefront, another URL,

00:16:29 ◼   ► like it would be very, very complicated,

00:16:31 ◼   ► way more complicated than me and Grey

00:16:34 ◼   ► as the only people in this business can handle.

00:16:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just too much.

00:16:38 ◼   ► - I hope that one day in Cortex Brands' future,

00:16:41 ◼   ► we will be able to have multiple fulfillment locations,

00:16:44 ◼   ► but with the size and age of our business right now,

00:16:46 ◼   ► that's just not realistic for us,

00:16:48 ◼   ► especially because me and Greybov

00:16:50 ◼   ► have other things that we do.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Like if I quit podcasting and he quit YouTubing,

00:16:54 ◼   ► then we could probably find a way to do that,

00:16:56 ◼   ► but that would also be catastrophic for our families.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So we're not gonna do that.

00:17:01 ◼   ► So I just wanted to give a fact

00:17:03 ◼   ► that people may not be aware of

00:17:05 ◼   ► as to why shipping sometimes appears to be very high

00:17:10 ◼   ► when they go to buy this product.

00:17:11 ◼   ► And that is because since 2021,

00:17:15 ◼   ► especially this is for Europe and the UK especially,

00:17:18 ◼   ► there was a new rule brought in that taxes must be paid

00:17:22 ◼   ► at time of purchase, and then that money will be passed on

00:17:27 ◼   ► to the governments, right?

00:17:29 ◼   ► So you are paying your sales tax, VAT,

00:17:32 ◼   ► whatever it is upfront.

00:17:35 ◼   ► So you may see, for example, I did this with the UK recently,

00:17:38 ◼   ► you know, like it's $32 plus $12 shipping,

00:17:41 ◼   ► so the same shipping price,

00:17:42 ◼   ► plus around $8 to cover taxes.

00:17:45 ◼   ► That covers VAT and some other kind of customs duty stuff.

00:17:49 ◼   ► - VAT is like the UK sales tax for anyone outside the UK.

00:17:52 ◼   ► - If we sold Sidekick Notepad from the UK,

00:17:57 ◼   ► from Germany, from whatever,

00:17:59 ◼   ► we still have to charge the same taxes.

00:18:03 ◼   ► So the price may be a dollar or two different,

00:18:08 ◼   ► but it wouldn't really be that much different.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So what I just want people to be aware of

00:18:12 ◼   ► that they may not know is that their taxes

00:18:15 ◼   ► from their governments are being included

00:18:17 ◼   ► in the purchase up front.

00:18:19 ◼   ► That means you will not get a customs notice afterwards.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And they were worse because, especially in the UK,

00:18:27 ◼   ► you would also get charged a fee for handling.

00:18:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is one of these things that changed

00:18:31 ◼   ► and it's just a subtle way that life changed for the better

00:18:36 ◼   ► that I didn't really think about

00:18:38 ◼   ► until we really started shipping a lot of notebooks.

00:18:41 ◼   ► But it used to, like, I used to constantly run into this problem in the UK of, I would get something shipped to me from America, and then it would be like, lost in customs for forever.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I would sometimes get a slip that told me I needed to go to a website to like, pay some ransom money to get that thing sent to me.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Sometimes I would just never get the slip and it would be sent back and it would just take forever to get some product.

00:19:05 ◼   ► It was genuinely such a nightmare.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Um, but the UK and the EU did do this rule change.

00:19:12 ◼   ► That's like, no, no.

00:19:12 ◼   ► If, if you as a company are shipping into the UK, you as an American company

00:19:19 ◼   ► need to collect the VAT sales tax ahead of time and then pay it to the UK.

00:19:24 ◼   ► It actually has made my shipping life so much better because now I actually get

00:19:29 ◼   ► products because the thing is all handled in advance and it just arrives at the door.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And like you said, it's actually cheaper because they don't have this additional

00:19:37 ◼   ► BS like handling fee at customs.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Which I think was either like eight or 12 pounds.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Like used to drive me mad.

00:19:43 ◼   ► It was ridiculous.

00:19:44 ◼   ► It was absolutely ridiculous.

00:19:46 ◼   ► And there was no way that you can handle this ahead of time.

00:19:48 ◼   ► But it has, even for me buying products from the US, I do have this like, sometimes

00:19:53 ◼   ► I, it takes my breath away when I look about how much it's going to cost to ship it.

00:19:57 ◼   ► But it's just because previously I would have bought it and then later have gotten

00:20:03 ◼   ► this bill basically to have the thing actually be received from me.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And so the price would have been split up into those two things.

00:20:11 ◼   ► But yeah, so we do get a ton of questions about like, I'm in the EU or I'm in the UK

00:20:16 ◼   ► or I'm somewhere else and I'm trying to get this sent and like, why is it so high?

00:20:21 ◼   ► And it is because of this rule change.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And I have a suspicion that because the system I do think just kind of works better for all

00:20:27 ◼   ► parties involved, I think more and more countries are going to be doing this kind of like, no,

00:20:32 ◼   ► no, you just need to collect the taxes ahead of time thing.

00:20:35 ◼   ► So it's going to be happening more and more.

00:20:37 ◼   ► But yeah, like you said, if we have basically like $8 to cover it for selling one of these

00:20:43 ◼   ► notepads in the UK, well, that would mean that we would just have to sell the Sidekick

00:20:47 ◼   ► notepad for $40 in the UK, but now we set it at $32 and then it's also the $8 for the

00:20:55 ◼   ► VAT.

00:20:56 ◼   ► So that's where the pricing comes from.

00:20:57 ◼   ► - The price is effectively the same.

00:20:59 ◼   ► So we would hopefully one day have some more spread distribution just for speed.

00:21:05 ◼   ► That's the only difference.

00:21:06 ◼   ► The difference is speed.

00:21:07 ◼   ► So like, if you're in the US, you might get it in a few days.

00:21:09 ◼   ► If you're in the UK, you wait a couple of weeks.

00:21:11 ◼   ► Like, that would be the reason I would do it.

00:21:13 ◼   ► But it's not a price thing.

00:21:14 ◼   ► I think there is speed is part of it.

00:21:16 ◼   ► One of the reasons I would like it is genuinely just so it's like it's less confusing for

00:21:21 ◼   ► the buyer.

00:21:22 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:21:23 ◼   ► I just think as a user experience, nobody likes it when they go to buy a thing and then

00:21:27 ◼   ► they're like, "Ah ha, but did you know that there's a hotel fee as well?"

00:21:31 ◼   ► It's like, "What?

00:21:32 ◼   ► I'm at a hotel.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Why is there like a room fee?

00:21:34 ◼   ► That's what hotels do.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Why is this extra?"

00:21:36 ◼   ► Like that kind of thing is just unpleasant.

00:21:38 ◼   ► So that for me would be the main thing.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Like we would want more distribution

00:21:43 ◼   ► simply to eliminate confusion because this is,

00:21:45 ◼   ► this has gotta be by far like the number one

00:21:48 ◼   ► most frequent asked question for Cortex brand as a company

00:21:52 ◼   ► is why on earth if the two of you are located in the UK,

00:21:56 ◼   ► does it cost so much to ship to the UK?

00:21:58 ◼   ► - Definitely not made easy about the fact

00:21:59 ◼   ► that this product is made in London,

00:22:01 ◼   ► but like that's like a whole other reason for that,

00:22:03 ◼   ► which I'm going to get to in a minute,

00:22:04 ◼   ► but like it has to be made somewhere.

00:22:06 ◼   ► it just so happens that it's made here instead of where the journal's made, which is in Poland.

00:22:09 ◼   ► It is going to be more absurd in a moment, yes. So that's our way to try to explain what is

00:22:16 ◼   ► actually happening when someone goes to purchase this. And like, what's this additional cost to

00:22:20 ◼   ► ship it to where I live and where I know you live? And also there's just this thing of like,

00:22:24 ◼   ► now I'm plugged a little bit more into like the independent small company maker kind of world.

00:22:29 ◼   ► everyone hates Amazon because what Amazon did for Papal's mental model

00:22:35 ◼   ► including mine, yours, everyone's bought shipping costs.

00:22:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:38 ◼   ► Shipping costs nothing.

00:22:40 ◼   ► Nothing, yeah.

00:22:41 ◼   ► But it doesn't, right?

00:22:42 ◼   ► Like Amazon have their own logistics network, you pay every year, right?

00:22:47 ◼   ► Like a chunk of money and they make it up in volume.

00:22:50 ◼   ► We are not making any money on the shipping.

00:22:52 ◼   ► It is all going to the logistics companies that put these things on whatever it is type of machine.

00:22:58 ◼   ► they put them on and send them somewhere.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that's another good point to raise.

00:23:02 ◼   ► This isn't like on eBay, right, where you're making all your margins on a BS shipping cost.

00:23:07 ◼   ► That's not the situation here.

00:23:08 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, that's actually what it costs to move it from one place to another.

00:23:12 ◼   ► But yeah, Amazon has completely watered people's minds as to what it costs to ship product

00:23:17 ◼   ► because of just the way that they work.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Including mine.

00:23:20 ◼   ► When I buy stuff that's not on Amazon, I'm always surprised like, shipping!

00:23:24 ◼   ► I pay once a year for this!

00:23:25 ◼   ► What is this doing here?

00:23:26 ◼   ► I'm buying toothpaste and literal individual batteries and having them shipped with Amazon

00:23:31 ◼   ► and it costs nothing.

00:23:32 ◼   ► It's like, oh right, it doesn't cost nothing at all.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I have like a great example of this.

00:23:36 ◼   ► So you're familiar with comic relief like Red Nose Day, that kind of thing, right?

00:23:40 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:23:41 ◼   ► So it's a big thing, it's a big charity event here in the UK.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Johnny Ive made the Red Nose this year.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Okay.

00:23:46 ◼   ► So he designed it, which is just like a cool thing, it's like a really interesting design

00:23:50 ◼   ► thing.

00:23:51 ◼   ► I wanted one.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:23:53 ◼   ► And Tom and Dan were like, can you- we want them, because you know, we're just like design

00:23:56 ◼   ► fanboys or whatever, right? So I was like, "Yeah, I'll get you some." So I went to the Red Nose Day

00:24:00 ◼   ► website and I bought three of them and I think I paid more in shipping than I did for the product.

00:24:06 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, yeah, for sure, you had to. - Then I saw the next day that Amazon are doing it and the

00:24:09 ◼   ► shipping's free. - Oh, right, right. - I was like, "Yeah, you see?" - All right, but enough of that shipping.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Let's talk about the timeline of this product, Myke. - This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Issue.

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00:26:42 ◼   ► So with the journal, when we made version 2 of the journal, it was from scratch but

00:26:47 ◼   ► we were basing it on something that had existed, which was the first version the studio Neat

00:26:52 ◼   ► helpers make. So I was like, "Alright, I have an idea of what I like and don't like about

00:26:56 ◼   ► this product and what I want to change and how I want to redo it." And I could kind of

00:27:00 ◼   ► build it up from a starting point. With Psychic Notepad, I was going from zero. There wasn't

00:27:06 ◼   ► anything that I owned that existed like this. I bought lots of products to do competitive

00:27:11 ◼   ► research.

00:27:12 ◼   ► enjoyed visiting you at Mega Studio and seeing just the stacks of other notebooks where you

00:27:18 ◼   ► were just like trying to get some kind of design reference for what we wanted to do,

00:27:24 ◼   ► the result of which was like, "All of these are terrible."

00:27:26 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:27:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it helped inform to me how the cover should open, but again, it's like you would

00:27:32 ◼   ► then use it and the paper was terrible, or you'd use it and the perforation was really

00:27:37 ◼   ► bad and would be messy at the end.

00:27:40 ◼   ► I couldn't find anything that, and that's it for me.

00:27:43 ◼   ► If I can't find something,

00:27:44 ◼   ► then I know we can go and do it, right?

00:27:46 ◼   ► If the product doesn't exist, we can go and do it.

00:27:49 ◼   ► And this product initially,

00:27:51 ◼   ► I was kind of code named it Scratchpad,

00:27:54 ◼   ► because it's like initial idea was

00:27:56 ◼   ► it was just gonna be all dot grid.

00:27:58 ◼   ► And as we were talking,

00:28:01 ◼   ► I don't think you were super sold on it.

00:28:03 ◼   ► And then just the idea of,

00:28:05 ◼   ► well, what if I put a to-do list on the side,

00:28:07 ◼   ► and it was, we were off to the races.

00:28:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, like now this is a thing.

00:28:10 ◼   ► - 'Cause then it was like, it has more of a story,

00:28:13 ◼   ► more of like a purpose in that idea

00:28:15 ◼   ► that you just have in front of you,

00:28:16 ◼   ► take your notes, put your to-dos down,

00:28:18 ◼   ► like it's got more of a reason to exist, right?

00:28:21 ◼   ► Because it's opinionated in its own way.

00:28:24 ◼   ► And plus like the design, it was simple in a way

00:28:28 ◼   ► 'cause we didn't need to redesign

00:28:30 ◼   ► because we just used the assets that are in the journal.

00:28:34 ◼   ► But I loved that and wanted to do that

00:28:36 ◼   ► because then it builds like a visual consistency

00:28:38 ◼   ► between our products.

00:28:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's, for me,

00:28:41 ◼   ► that was like a big moment in this timeline,

00:28:43 ◼   ► is one, when we discussed the to-do list on the side,

00:28:48 ◼   ► they said, I do really like that both of our products now

00:28:53 ◼   ► have this, like there's a thing that it's intended

00:28:55 ◼   ► to be used for, but it is quite flexible,

00:28:58 ◼   ► you can do whatever you want with it.

00:28:59 ◼   ► But yeah, that first version of it is like,

00:29:01 ◼   ► it was too far in the do whatever you want,

00:29:04 ◼   ► it's just a dot grid.

00:29:05 ◼   ► It's like this doesn't, it doesn't suggest to me a intended use.

00:29:11 ◼   ► Whereas like once those to-dos were on the side, it's like, ah, okay, I get it.

00:29:14 ◼   ► You've got like brainstorm, jot down whatever, make notes on the left hand

00:29:19 ◼   ► side, then like, here's the results of this on the right hand side.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And like, these are the things I, you know, like I was thinking

00:29:27 ◼   ► about it for when I was a teacher.

00:29:29 ◼   ► Like that, that right hand side would totally be for me the like, what must

00:29:33 ◼   ► I do before I can go home today kind of things of like, all right, this came up,

00:29:37 ◼   ► this came up, this came up, like, I'll just put these things down here.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Uh, and then feeling like, oh, we can borrow the design language

00:29:46 ◼   ► from the theme system journal.

00:29:48 ◼   ► For me, that was really like a, this is an actual company kind of moment of like,

00:29:53 ◼   ► oh, look at this, like we have this visual similarity between these two products.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I just absolutely love that.

00:30:00 ◼   ► and that's where it settled in my brain,

00:30:03 ◼   ► is like, this is a thing.

00:30:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so then it's like, yeah, okay, we've got this,

00:30:07 ◼   ► we know where we're going.

00:30:08 ◼   ► So I was like, easy peasy, I thought to myself.

00:30:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:12 ◼   ► We have a company we've been using

00:30:14 ◼   ► to produce a product for us for two and a half years now.

00:30:18 ◼   ► The first one was really easy,

00:30:20 ◼   ► we just sent them to the specs,

00:30:22 ◼   ► and they were like, yeah, we can do that.

00:30:23 ◼   ► So I was like, awesome.

00:30:24 ◼   ► So I hit up my contact and was like,

00:30:26 ◼   ► can I get a new spec request form?

00:30:28 ◼   ► I got a new product.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And she's like, "Yeah, sure."

00:30:30 ◼   ► Sent me the form, filled it all out.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I knew how to fill it out now

00:30:33 ◼   ► because I understand what paper means.

00:30:35 ◼   ► You know, it wasn't like last time where I was like,

00:30:38 ◼   ► "Uh, white paper?"

00:30:40 ◼   ► Right, like, you know, it's just like, I don't know.

00:30:42 ◼   ► But now it's like, I can say,

00:30:43 ◼   ► "Well, I want this kind of paper in this way,

00:30:45 ◼   ► "and I want this kind of cover and this kind of binding,

00:30:48 ◼   ► "and here's some images and here's some reference

00:30:50 ◼   ► "and here's some diagrams."

00:30:52 ◼   ► And she was like, "Great, we can't do this."

00:30:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:56 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh my God, not again."

00:30:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - Like it just, it took me back to

00:31:02 ◼   ► when we were trying to get the journal like redesigned,

00:31:06 ◼   ► or even when we were trying to make it

00:31:07 ◼   ► in the very beginning.

00:31:10 ◼   ► And like, and I couldn't find anyone

00:31:12 ◼   ► that would produce the product

00:31:13 ◼   ► and I couldn't understand it back then.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And I didn't get it now.

00:31:16 ◼   ► And I was just like, I was like, why?

00:31:18 ◼   ► Like, what's the reason?

00:31:20 ◼   ► And she just said to me, what you want is hard to make

00:31:23 ◼   ► and we would need to buy tools for it.

00:31:25 ◼   ► and the volume that you want to start with,

00:31:29 ◼   ► that is not a thing that we wanna do.

00:31:31 ◼   ► And so I was like, okay, you know what, that's fine.

00:31:34 ◼   ► - That's understandable.

00:31:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that's understandable as a reason.

00:31:37 ◼   ► - Like for us, I said, I'm hoping that we'll be able

00:31:40 ◼   ► to order this same amount once, twice a year.

00:31:45 ◼   ► And she's like, well, if you can confirm that, then great.

00:31:48 ◼   ► But I'm like, well, but I can't.

00:31:50 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - So.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - It's like, I mean, we could say we could confirm it,

00:31:54 ◼   ► but then that would not be true.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Like we don't know.

00:31:56 ◼   ► - If it was the size of the journal,

00:31:58 ◼   ► then they would be happy and I hope it will be,

00:32:01 ◼   ► but they're just like,

00:32:02 ◼   ► unless you can give us some kind of like,

00:32:04 ◼   ► you're willing to put down, you know,

00:32:07 ◼   ► that you will order 10,000 a year or whatever, we'll do it.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And it's like, hmm. - They were like, no.

00:32:11 ◼   ► - I don't want to say that for sure.

00:32:15 ◼   ► So I was kind of at a loss and then decided to play a card

00:32:22 ◼   ► that I've had as a potential escape hatch kind of card

00:32:27 ◼   ► for a while.

00:32:28 ◼   ► We have a friend, his name's Matt,

00:32:30 ◼   ► who works for a British paper company called GF Smith.

00:32:33 ◼   ► I met Matt years ago at a conference

00:32:35 ◼   ► and we've become good friends.

00:32:36 ◼   ► And he's always said,

00:32:38 ◼   ► "You know I could help you with all of this."

00:32:40 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Well, yeah, but as soon as that happens,

00:32:43 ◼   ► we now have a business relationship rather

00:32:47 ◼   ► than just a friendship."

00:32:49 ◼   ► And I don't want to necessarily do that

00:32:51 ◼   ► I said Matt you need to understand when it comes to this stuff I'm really demanding.

00:32:55 ◼   ► I want very specific things done in very specific ways and like and I want it done just right

00:33:00 ◼   ► and he's like don't worry about it because I can help you so I was like okay I called Matt and I

00:33:07 ◼   ► was like look this is what I want to make this is how I want to make it our existing supplier

00:33:12 ◼   ► doesn't want to help us or can't help us what shall I do and so he put me in touch with a

00:33:18 ◼   ► a number of manufacturers in the UK, because they're a British company, who he thought

00:33:24 ◼   ► would be able to help us produce it. So I had a bunch of phone calls, which was super

00:33:28 ◼   ► weird to me. But like, you know, I'd send these people an email of what I want and they

00:33:32 ◼   ► call me on the phone. Like, what's happening? Why is everyone calling me? And I remember

00:33:37 ◼   ► saying this to you at the time and you were like, oh God. They were just unprompted phone

00:33:42 ◼   ► calls.

00:33:43 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is, this is also

00:33:44 ◼   ► This is how this stuff's done.

00:33:45 ◼   ► It's how it's done.

00:33:47 ◼   ► And I can also, in retrospect,

00:33:50 ◼   ► I can also understand this much better

00:33:52 ◼   ► because in a conversation, lots of things can come up

00:33:56 ◼   ► about little details that really matter

00:33:58 ◼   ► that would just take forever in email back and forth.

00:34:01 ◼   ► - They're sussing me out, I'm sussing them out.

00:34:03 ◼   ► They're like, "What about this, what about that?"

00:34:04 ◼   ► It would have taken way longer to email back and forth,

00:34:07 ◼   ► and it never would have been as clear.

00:34:08 ◼   ► - And there's a little bit of a first date vibe

00:34:11 ◼   ► to this as well of like,

00:34:12 ◼   ► "Well, do we want to work with you?"

00:34:15 ◼   ► Which is still, I find these business

00:34:19 ◼   ► to business relationships just very strange

00:34:22 ◼   ► in the way it all works.

00:34:23 ◼   ► And it's just not the consumer world at all

00:34:25 ◼   ► where you just buy stuff and people sell you stuff.

00:34:28 ◼   ► It's like, "No, no, no, how much do we like you?

00:34:30 ◼   ► How much do we want to enter into a relationship with you?"

00:34:33 ◼   ► So yeah, I can, in retrospect,

00:34:35 ◼   ► I totally get the phone calls, but yes,

00:34:37 ◼   ► I remember talking to you about it and you're like,

00:34:39 ◼   ► "Ah, someone just called me.

00:34:41 ◼   ► I was just finding my own business.

00:34:43 ◼   ► And now I want to answer this phone call right away

00:34:45 ◼   ► because we're trying to find someone to work with.

00:34:47 ◼   ► And it was a little stressful.

00:34:48 ◼   ► - I understand the idea of like,

00:34:49 ◼   ► "Hey, let's have a phone call.

00:34:50 ◼   ► "How you set for next Wednesday?"

00:34:52 ◼   ► But no, all these people just call me.

00:34:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:55 ◼   ► - Like just randomly.

00:34:55 ◼   ► It's fine, but it was weird

00:34:57 ◼   ► 'cause I don't work that way with anyone.

00:35:00 ◼   ► And I haven't for like 10 years at this point.

00:35:04 ◼   ► So we looked at these two,

00:35:06 ◼   ► we had two companies that were interested

00:35:09 ◼   ► and looking at the product and I sent them some basic specs

00:35:12 ◼   ► and they produced me some basic prototypes.

00:35:14 ◼   ► And it was like I must have been talking

00:35:17 ◼   ► in two different languages to these companies

00:35:19 ◼   ► because one was good and one was bad

00:35:22 ◼   ► in every single possible way.

00:35:24 ◼   ► I would try and tear the pages out

00:35:26 ◼   ► and the whole page would just come out.

00:35:28 ◼   ► It's like it wouldn't tear,

00:35:29 ◼   ► like it would just completely come out, right?

00:35:31 ◼   ► Like every little bit, it was very strange.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And it was just like an interesting part

00:35:36 ◼   ► of this whole process, but one that I was happy

00:35:38 ◼   ► that I actually got options.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Because if I feel like if I would have gone,

00:35:43 ◼   ► if I would have only had the one option,

00:35:44 ◼   ► it was the company where it didn't work the way I wanted,

00:35:47 ◼   ► the product would have ended up changing.

00:35:49 ◼   ► We would have had to have gone

00:35:50 ◼   ► in a different direction potentially.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And I just find that like super interesting.

00:35:54 ◼   ► And was why I was super happy that I had options

00:35:56 ◼   ► for these prototypes that was made.

00:35:58 ◼   ► So we ended up working with a company based in London,

00:36:02 ◼   ► which is unbelievable.

00:36:04 ◼   ► - I know, it's shocking to me.

00:36:07 ◼   ► And like on that idea of the first date,

00:36:09 ◼   ► like when I was talking to them,

00:36:10 ◼   ► I was like, please let those be good

00:36:12 ◼   ► because I can get on a train and be there

00:36:15 ◼   ► in like half an hour.

00:36:17 ◼   ► It is just unbelievable to me that I can do this.

00:36:20 ◼   ► Like that there is a company based in central London.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - I know.

00:36:26 ◼   ► - That is a print shop.

00:36:29 ◼   ► They don't have an office there.

00:36:31 ◼   ► They assemble the products there.

00:36:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:35 ◼   ► - Unbelievable.

00:36:36 ◼   ► It's like magic and I had the same first date jitters

00:36:40 ◼   ► when you started talking to me about this

00:36:42 ◼   ► because it was like, oh my God, this beautiful girl

00:36:45 ◼   ► and she lives down the street, it's impossible.

00:36:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:50 ◼   ► I was like, please let this work out, please.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - It worked out super great.

00:36:54 ◼   ► We started the project with them

00:36:56 ◼   ► and we started going through all the necessities

00:36:58 ◼   ► and we started to prototype things

00:37:01 ◼   ► and work through various challenges, there were many.

00:37:04 ◼   ► So like originally, to keep visual consistency,

00:37:07 ◼   ► I was like, well, what if we did the perforation,

00:37:09 ◼   ► like the perforation is on the journal,

00:37:11 ◼   ► where it's like the circles.

00:37:13 ◼   ► So we tried it out and it was so ugly.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Because across that entire stretch of the notebook,

00:37:19 ◼   ► all right, so like 30 centimeters across,

00:37:21 ◼   ► it just ended up being like this little sharp points

00:37:25 ◼   ► the whole way across.

00:37:26 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:27 ◼   ► - It just did not work across that long strip,

00:37:29 ◼   ► which I never would have imagined.

00:37:30 ◼   ► I was like, this looks so cool.

00:37:31 ◼   ► It did not look cool.

00:37:32 ◼   ► So we ended up going with a more standard perforation.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was way more visually prominent

00:37:37 ◼   ► than you would have expected.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And this is the kind of little stuff

00:37:41 ◼   ► that just really adds up.

00:37:43 ◼   ► You go like, "Oh, we're gonna save time this way."

00:37:45 ◼   ► And you go, "Oh no, this actually looks terrible."

00:37:47 ◼   ► - It was cute in the journal,

00:37:49 ◼   ► visually distracting in Sideki Notepad.

00:37:51 ◼   ► It just did not look right to have across the top.

00:37:55 ◼   ► It was great when there was nothing torn,

00:37:58 ◼   ► but as soon as you torn one, it didn't look good.

00:38:00 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's also because the way that this works,

00:38:03 ◼   ► it's like you're working down through it on your desk,

00:38:06 ◼   ► so you are getting like a tower then

00:38:08 ◼   ► of this semicircle pattern, and it just, it looked bad.

00:38:12 ◼   ► But yeah, like, keep in mind, listeners,

00:38:14 ◼   ► every time for the rest of this conversation,

00:38:17 ◼   ► Myke mentions like something that needs to be changed,

00:38:20 ◼   ► that means like a new physical prototype needs to be built.

00:38:25 ◼   ► Like it just, it takes forever to do this

00:38:29 ◼   ► if you really care about the details.

00:38:32 ◼   ► And this is where I am so appreciative

00:38:35 ◼   ► for your pickiness on this,

00:38:36 ◼   ► because you also, just for the paper

00:38:40 ◼   ► and for lots of other details,

00:38:41 ◼   ► you're very sensitive to changes

00:38:45 ◼   ► that are small changes in a quality direction

00:38:47 ◼   ► that all add up.

00:38:49 ◼   ► But it does mean that, oh, it's gonna take a while

00:38:52 ◼   ► for us to get this product actually made.

00:38:54 ◼   ► - From when we began manufacturing

00:38:55 ◼   ► to when it was completed, it was 12 months.

00:38:57 ◼   ► So we had what would have been the final prototype,

00:39:02 ◼   ► what was expected to be the final prototype,

00:39:04 ◼   ► one year before production ended.

00:39:07 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:39:07 ◼   ► - And there were many things that went into that,

00:39:09 ◼   ► which I'm going to talk about,

00:39:10 ◼   ► but it took so much longer.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And this is, remember what Gray was saying earlier

00:39:15 ◼   ► about can we talk about this as we're going along?

00:39:18 ◼   ► No, because at every single point in that 12-month span,

00:39:21 ◼   ► I thought we were a month away from Sharepeng.

00:39:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, we kept having this feeling like

00:39:26 ◼   ► There's no point in talking about it now because we're almost done.

00:39:30 ◼   ► But then also, and then as it started to go on, it was like, we obviously

00:39:35 ◼   ► can't talk about this because we could still be another six months away.

00:39:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:39 ◼   ► From being able to show anything.

00:39:40 ◼   ► That was like the second half that we transitioned into is now that it's taken

00:39:46 ◼   ► this long, what are we going to do?

00:39:49 ◼   ► Are we going to start talking about a thing that we've spent months and months

00:39:54 ◼   ► and months on, but that might still take a year before it can be in people's hands.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Like that just seems like a terrible idea.

00:40:00 ◼   ► It's been very weird, I think for both of us, to have this major project running in

00:40:07 ◼   ► the background that has been in this position of like, "Oh, it's almost done.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Oh, it'll never be done."

00:40:14 ◼   ► And that also just like, we can't really talk about this product in any kind of useful

00:40:19 ◼   ► way on the podcast itself.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And also the further we got down the road the higher the risks became because the product kept getting more and more expensive

00:40:27 ◼   ► And so yeah, it was like the further we went down the bigger a hole we were digging

00:40:32 ◼   ► Yeah, right

00:40:33 ◼   ► And so it made it very daunting that like if it would have cost that price and it was done in a month

00:40:38 ◼   ► It just you wouldn't have enough time to think about it. Mm-hmm, but like when you're a year into manufacturing

00:40:43 ◼   ► It's like okay if you want to do it this way

00:40:46 ◼   ► it will cost X amount more per product.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And it's just like, oh my God,

00:40:50 ◼   ► this just keeps going and going and going, you know?

00:40:52 ◼   ► Because there were like all these little things

00:40:54 ◼   ► where like I would get a unit and I'd be like,

00:40:57 ◼   ► I'd prefer it if it did this.

00:40:58 ◼   ► And they're like, okay,

00:41:00 ◼   ► but we need to buy a new machine to do that,

00:41:03 ◼   ► which we're happy to do,

00:41:05 ◼   ► but it's gonna be another process

00:41:06 ◼   ► and it's gonna cost X more per unit.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And this just like kept going

00:41:12 ◼   ► over the course of that one year span.

00:41:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, a couple of times when you told me

00:41:16 ◼   ► like Effie Berman is gonna buy new equipment

00:41:18 ◼   ► for something that you wanted to do,

00:41:20 ◼   ► I definitely had a bit of a like,

00:41:21 ◼   ► ooh, like this is getting into like scary territory here

00:41:26 ◼   ► for what we're doing.

00:41:27 ◼   ► - So here's the thing about them and equipment,

00:41:29 ◼   ► which is different to the other company that we use.

00:41:32 ◼   ► The company we use in Poland is a very like modern place.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Like they have like also modern machinery.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Effie Berman is very much,

00:41:40 ◼   ► they have like these incredible,

00:41:41 ◼   ► wonderful printing machines that are very modern

00:41:44 ◼   ► printing machines.

00:41:45 ◼   ► But a lot of their assembly machines are old fashioned.

00:41:49 ◼   ► They're like old reproduction machines.

00:41:51 ◼   ► So like, one of the things they needed was I wanted

00:41:54 ◼   ► rounded corners, right?

00:41:56 ◼   ► And they went and bought a vintage machine

00:42:00 ◼   ► where they were able to create like a blade,

00:42:04 ◼   ► a corner blade, and then someone would load all

00:42:06 ◼   ► the notebooks in and they would step on a pedal

00:42:09 ◼   ► and it would cut down like a guillotine.

00:42:12 ◼   ► It's like that was the kind of stuff they went and bought.

00:42:13 ◼   ► And it's like, that was the kind of thing

00:42:15 ◼   ► as we were like working it out together.

00:42:17 ◼   ► But it was one of the things that I loved working with them

00:42:19 ◼   ► is so I, you know, I've said like hand assembled in London

00:42:22 ◼   ► and people were like, what does that mean?

00:42:23 ◼   ► I'll be like, let me tell you,

00:42:25 ◼   ► I have met and seen the people putting this stuff together.

00:42:29 ◼   ► This product is not put together by a big printing machine.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Like you might imagine,

00:42:34 ◼   ► like it's not going through this machine

00:42:35 ◼   ► and then there's robots cutting it

00:42:37 ◼   ► and another robot's glue in it

00:42:38 ◼   ► and then another, no, these are human beings.

00:42:41 ◼   ► I have watched them glue the product.

00:42:43 ◼   ► I have watched them cut the edges off.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Like it's done by hand in a way that I didn't even think

00:42:49 ◼   ► was done anymore, let alone feasible within the cost

00:42:53 ◼   ► that we were able to get it at.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Like it's one of the reasons I've loved working

00:42:57 ◼   ► with this company is like I know,

00:42:59 ◼   ► I've met all of the people that had something to do

00:43:02 ◼   ► with putting this thing together.

00:43:04 ◼   ► It should have been so great for me to see it all unfold

00:43:07 ◼   ► in front of me.

00:43:08 ◼   ► But like, talk about folding, let's talk about folding.

00:43:11 ◼   ► I told you about tearing versus folding, right?

00:43:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:14 ◼   ► So we assume, oh, the hard part will be the perforation.

00:43:18 ◼   ► The hard part was the math on the folding of the cover.

00:43:23 ◼   ► So the cover of the notebook folds over the top of itself

00:43:27 ◼   ► and back around.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And it leaves you this kind of like border spine,

00:43:32 ◼   ► like at the top.

00:43:34 ◼   ► And we put the word sidekick on there,

00:43:35 ◼   ► like it's branded, it looks nice.

00:43:37 ◼   ► One of the great things about having such a long manufacturing process is I was able

00:43:40 ◼   ► to take the prototypes and I could use it for like a couple of weeks, a month, and see

00:43:44 ◼   ► how it would fare.

00:43:46 ◼   ► One of the things that was happening with some of the earlier models is the fold almost

00:43:51 ◼   ► like would continue forever, like and over time it would start to split away from the

00:43:56 ◼   ► notebook.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Right.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Right, so like it would, the kind of like the edge of the cover that folds back would

00:44:01 ◼   ► just lift and you'd start to see the paper underneath more and more and more.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So we had to like work out what is the point where the stress doesn't exist anymore on

00:44:15 ◼   ► the fold because if there was stress on the folds it would pull everything to try and

00:44:20 ◼   ► relieve the stress.

00:44:22 ◼   ► And so we had to find a level of which to reduce that stress.

00:44:26 ◼   ► Then it got even harder when I was like, oh, can we print on the backside?

00:44:31 ◼   ► Like can we do another debossing and foil in like on the backside of the notebook?

00:44:36 ◼   ► when it flips over it will say the word psychic.

00:44:37 ◼   ► And it was kind of one of those things where they were like,

00:44:40 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, but this is so much harder.

00:44:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, like we already have an engineering problem

00:44:48 ◼   ► that we're trying to solve here.

00:44:49 ◼   ► And then like, and that's an engineering problem

00:44:52 ◼   ► where you want something smooth, right?

00:44:55 ◼   ► 'Cause like in physics, you don't want there to be

00:44:57 ◼   ► more stress at one location than another location

00:45:00 ◼   ► to pull back the top of the notepad

00:45:02 ◼   ► to reveal all the torn off bits.

00:45:04 ◼   ► It's like, oh, you want things nice and even.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Okay, great.

00:45:06 ◼   ► That actually turns out to be very hard to do, but we've got it.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Cool.

00:45:09 ◼   ► Can we put an uneven elements that structurally changes the stress through

00:45:13 ◼   ► the whole thing by, you know, stamping a logo on one side is like, Oh, okay.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Because it's also, it's like, Oh yeah, there's loads of ways you can do it, but

00:45:23 ◼   ► then I'm like, but I still want it to be attractive though, like the fold.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, and then it's like, you have to change the design file

00:45:30 ◼   ► because the caustic logo's on the front, but then the fold went

00:45:32 ◼   ► right through the middle.

00:45:33 ◼   ► So now you're going to move that down now.

00:45:34 ◼   ► "so we've got to change where that goes,

00:45:36 ◼   ► "gotta change all the dies,

00:45:37 ◼   ► "gotta change all the plates."

00:45:38 ◼   ► Just went on and on and on.

00:45:40 ◼   ► And then with paper running out,

00:45:43 ◼   ► global supply chain issues, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:45:47 ◼   ► It took a year because sometimes we were six weeks

00:45:50 ◼   ► of nothing happening, 'cause there was no paper anymore.

00:45:53 ◼   ► So it was like all of these things led up to this.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And then it ended up that they were completed

00:45:58 ◼   ► at the exact wrong time of the year

00:45:59 ◼   ► to have them completed for us.

00:46:01 ◼   ► So like the product was done ready to ship

00:46:05 ◼   ► in the middle of November.

00:46:07 ◼   ► And then we put it on a boat.

00:46:09 ◼   ► It's the first time we put something on a boat.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Usually we'd flown stuff,

00:46:12 ◼   ► but this time we put it on a boat,

00:46:13 ◼   ► which was an interesting experience

00:46:15 ◼   ► because when you book something for a cargo freight

00:46:19 ◼   ► on a plane, it's very reliable.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Like, you know when your window is,

00:46:24 ◼   ► a lot of the time the way they do this is like,

00:46:26 ◼   ► they fill the unused space on a commercial airline,

00:46:31 ◼   ► is the way that this stuff is typically done.

00:46:34 ◼   ► So there's empty space because there's not enough luggage

00:46:36 ◼   ► or whatever, so we just put it on.

00:46:38 ◼   ► So you have like a small window, sometimes it's like a day,

00:46:40 ◼   ► but usually they know where you're gonna be,

00:46:42 ◼   ► so you get that window like a week before.

00:46:44 ◼   ► It goes on the plane and it finds its way

00:46:46 ◼   ► and it's picked up and it's done,

00:46:47 ◼   ► and just like a few days and you're done.

00:46:49 ◼   ► But with shipping freight, it was like,

00:46:51 ◼   ► "Oh, well it's gonna be this day."

00:46:53 ◼   ► And then it's like, "Actually no,

00:46:54 ◼   ► "No, it's gonna be two more weeks now."

00:46:56 ◼   ► And then it'd be on the boat, and then it's like,

00:46:58 ◼   ► "Well, now you've got like four weeks at port."

00:47:00 ◼   ► And it's like, "What has happened?"

00:47:01 ◼   ► It just like, it was very flexible.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And again, like in talking to people that do this

00:47:06 ◼   ► all the time, it's like, "Yeah, no, that's what

00:47:07 ◼   ► "putting things on a boat is like."

00:47:09 ◼   ► Like, things are much more like,

00:47:11 ◼   ► "Yeah, well, you know, maybe there's some space

00:47:13 ◼   ► "on this one, or maybe there isn't, and we'll kinda see."

00:47:16 ◼   ► And it just is what it is.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the mental model for me for shipping,

00:47:21 ◼   ► like planes versus boats is that it's a latency and throughput situation where it's like,

00:47:28 ◼   ► "Oh, on planes, latency is very low, but the throughput is also much less."

00:47:33 ◼   ► So deliveries arrive on a more reliable schedule, but there's just few of them because planes

00:47:39 ◼   ► are smaller.

00:47:40 ◼   ► And those cargo ships – man, if you've ever actually stood next to one of those cargo

00:47:45 ◼   ► ships, it's like you're just confronted with the vast, like you just can't even conceive of how

00:47:52 ◼   ► big they are volumetrically if you're near one of them. It's like the throughput on global freight

00:47:57 ◼   ► shipping on the sea is mind boggling, but it does mean that the latency is extremely high because if

00:48:06 ◼   ► something goes slightly wrong it's like, oh it takes forever to get everything off of this boat

00:48:12 ◼   ► and you can just have these huge knock-on effects.

00:48:14 ◼   ► So there's advantages to each system,

00:48:17 ◼   ► and there's a reason why most stuff is shipped on the seas,

00:48:21 ◼   ► if it possibly can.

00:48:23 ◼   ► But that means companies that are doing that,

00:48:26 ◼   ► they have to be built in such a way

00:48:27 ◼   ► so they can account for like,

00:48:29 ◼   ► hey, stuff might not arrive

00:48:31 ◼   ► for two months out of your schedule,

00:48:33 ◼   ► and you just need to build your company around that

00:48:35 ◼   ► if you're gonna do that.

00:48:36 ◼   ► - Which is like going into the future

00:48:37 ◼   ► is like a new logistical challenge for us.

00:48:39 ◼   ► That's how I wanna be shipping stuff more.

00:48:42 ◼   ► So that's just gonna have to be a thing that we build into.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And I don't know what that's gonna look like

00:48:47 ◼   ► in the long run, but it's just gonna be one of those things

00:48:48 ◼   ► that we learn, like we have so many other things

00:48:50 ◼   ► of like how to plan.

00:48:53 ◼   ► And once a product becomes,

00:48:54 ◼   ► once it's been around long enough, it's easier to plan for.

00:48:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, things do become easier.

00:48:59 ◼   ► - We struggled with the journal at the start

00:49:01 ◼   ► for like a bunch of reasons.

00:49:02 ◼   ► We never knew how many to order,

00:49:03 ◼   ► we never knew how quick they were gonna sell,

00:49:04 ◼   ► but now we have like a real good idea.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So it's much easier to fulfill that product.

00:49:09 ◼   ► We don't know what's gonna happen with Psychic Notepad.

00:49:12 ◼   ► We've had it on sale for a couple of weeks.

00:49:14 ◼   ► We did like a soft launch.

00:49:16 ◼   ► We've sold more than I thought we would

00:49:17 ◼   ► in that period of time, but we still got lots left.

00:49:19 ◼   ► Like we just put it up on our Instagram and stuff like that.

00:49:22 ◼   ► By the way, you can follow us

00:49:23 ◼   ► with Cortex Brands on Instagram.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And I've just been putting it up there

00:49:26 ◼   ► and people have been finding out about it.

00:49:28 ◼   ► That's been super useful for me to kind of like understand

00:49:31 ◼   ► how to more effectively tell the story of the product,

00:49:34 ◼   ► like from questions that people have had.

00:49:36 ◼   ► So that was really useful in a way,

00:49:38 ◼   ► like to be able to get more information from people.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think actually that's something we should just talk about for a second.

00:49:45 ◼   ► It's like a thing that we've learned useful just generally in business is this like soft launch,

00:49:52 ◼   ► which I just never would have thought about before.

00:49:54 ◼   ► Because of course, like I come from the YouTube world where it's like, guess what?

00:49:57 ◼   ► Everything happens on the one critical day, right?

00:50:00 ◼   ► Like there's no soft launch here.

00:50:02 ◼   ► But with this product in particular, the role that was, what was the order?

00:50:05 ◼   ► It was first on Instagram, then on Moretex.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Is that the way we did it?

00:50:09 ◼   ► We never spoke about it on Moretex.

00:50:11 ◼   ► We were going to, but we didn't even do that yet.

00:50:14 ◼   ► It wasn't ready to put on sale.

00:50:16 ◼   ► So we didn't do it.

00:50:16 ◼   ► It wasn't ready to put on sale.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:18 ◼   ► So it was, it was just on like the Instagram soft launch and it's, it's

00:50:23 ◼   ► just a great case of seeing some quirks in both like how we're messaging a thing.

00:50:30 ◼   ► Because like on any project that you work on for a long period of time, you, you get

00:50:36 ◼   ► into your head little assumptions that you then forget to explain when it comes

00:50:41 ◼   ► around to actually promoting the thing or talking about the thing.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Yeah, this is called like the curse of knowledge, right?

00:50:48 ◼   ► Like you want to explain a topic and then you learn about the topic, but then.

00:50:51 ◼   ► Once you like understand it well enough, you've forgotten what the

00:50:55 ◼   ► problem was in the first place.

00:50:57 ◼   ► And so you become bad at explaining it.

00:50:59 ◼   ► And so like, I think this happened a little bit with us where it's like,

00:51:02 ◼   ► "Oh, we've been thinking about how this is used."

00:51:05 ◼   ► That by putting it out on Instagram, we were able to see,

00:51:09 ◼   ► "Oh, here's where a little bit of messaging has gone wrong."

00:51:12 ◼   ► And in particular, the thing that was very interesting

00:51:14 ◼   ► was like, "You need to show it next to a computer?"

00:51:17 ◼   ► - Yes. - And it was so funny.

00:51:19 ◼   ► - People couldn't understand it.

00:51:21 ◼   ► There's no criticism on anyone,

00:51:22 ◼   ► but just the product photos,

00:51:24 ◼   ► people couldn't understand, where does it go?

00:51:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, this was totally on us, right?

00:51:29 ◼   ► This is not on anybody else,

00:51:31 ◼   ► But I think this is almost a comical example of how you can forget the most

00:51:35 ◼   ► critical thing about what you're doing.

00:51:37 ◼   ► The whole pitch of the product is it goes between you and your computer on your desk.

00:51:43 ◼   ► It sits right in front of your keyboard.

00:51:45 ◼   ► We did not show it in front of somebody's keyboard in any of the product photos.

00:51:50 ◼   ► And if you don't know that, that it's like, how big is this thing?

00:51:54 ◼   ► Like you have absolutely no frame of reference for the scale.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And I just thought that was like a great example of, oh, Before we actually try to

00:52:04 ◼   ► promote this very heavily anywhere, we got to make sure that the product photos show

00:52:09 ◼   ► a computer and the notebook in front of them, because otherwise we'll lose a bunch

00:52:15 ◼   ► of sales because people just don't understand what the thing is or it'll just,

00:52:19 ◼   ► it was almost even worse than that.

00:52:21 ◼   ► Like the copy references it as being in front of the computer, but it's like,

00:52:24 ◼   ► where exactly, because.

00:52:27 ◼   ► Even in this conversation, I kind of think like people who haven't used something

00:52:31 ◼   ► like this before might not be thinking there's like space between the keyboard

00:52:36 ◼   ► and them, but there really is like, you have space for exactly this sized product

00:52:41 ◼   ► that's right there and it just helps to have some product photos to show like,

00:52:45 ◼   ► this is where it goes.

00:52:46 ◼   ► So I just kind of love that.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And I, and I also thought like, boy, is, is that a lesson that there always

00:52:53 ◼   ► needs to be some kind of soft launch.

00:52:56 ◼   ► And also I'll just say this has for me completely proved the utility of

00:53:01 ◼   ► Instagram, which I think I was quite publicly doubtful about on the podcast

00:53:05 ◼   ► ages ago, where I'm like, Myke, I don't think this Instagram is going to be

00:53:08 ◼   ► useful to us at all.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And I think it's just a distraction.

00:53:10 ◼   ► And it's like, man, just through this soft launch, like Instagram has

00:53:14 ◼   ► totally earned its weight with me.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Like, no, no, this is actually a useful tool.

00:53:18 ◼   ► And I was completely wrong and underestimated the utility.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Also this product especially lends itself to product photography.

00:53:26 ◼   ► You can just do lots of interesting things.

00:53:28 ◼   ► It's like a nice product to take photos of

00:53:31 ◼   ► because you can just put it on lots of desks and stuff like that.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Like I've been experimenting a little bit with Instagram ads,

00:53:38 ◼   ► like just like boosting some posts and stuff.

00:53:40 ◼   ► And I've been doing this for, I don't know,

00:53:43 ◼   ► maybe a couple of years at this point, just on and off.

00:53:45 ◼   ► But maybe in the last year I've been doing it a little bit more.

00:53:48 ◼   ► And just like, you know, if a post is doing pretty well

00:53:50 ◼   ► "Oh, we've got some nice imagery.

00:53:52 ◼   ► "I will just put a budget on it

00:53:54 ◼   ► "and here's five pounds a day or whatever

00:53:56 ◼   ► "and just see what kind of response it gets."

00:53:59 ◼   ► Psychic notepad has destroyed any journal marketing

00:54:03 ◼   ► that we've done.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Just the images of it on the desk.

00:54:06 ◼   ► I think it's 'cause it is just pleasant to look at.

00:54:09 ◼   ► You can shoot it in different ways

00:54:10 ◼   ► and it also is easier to.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Maybe if I tried doing that with the journal,

00:54:14 ◼   ► that would do really well,

00:54:15 ◼   ► but it never struck my mind to show it in use

00:54:19 ◼   ► rather than just like show me what the page looks like.

00:54:22 ◼   ► - No, but it's a harder thing to do

00:54:24 ◼   ► because I've traveled with my theme system journal

00:54:28 ◼   ► and there's a number of times that I have tried

00:54:30 ◼   ► to photograph it or do a little video of it in use

00:54:34 ◼   ► and it is more difficult to show

00:54:36 ◼   ► and that's partly because it doesn't lay flat.

00:54:40 ◼   ► It's also just the practicality of what you're writing in it

00:54:43 ◼   ► is going to be more personal

00:54:44 ◼   ► and so if you're thinking about trying to photograph

00:54:46 ◼   ► something or show it in use,

00:54:49 ◼   ► There's always that little hesitation of like,

00:54:50 ◼   ► well, do I have a good example page to show?

00:54:55 ◼   ► Or like, do I wanna like mock up a page?

00:54:57 ◼   ► Like, I don't really wanna mock up a page

00:54:58 ◼   ► 'cause I'm actually just using this thing.

00:55:00 ◼   ► I've taken it to many places where I thought like,

00:55:02 ◼   ► oh, I'm gonna photograph or I'm gonna take a little video

00:55:05 ◼   ► of this beautiful journal in beautiful Hawaii.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And it's like, I don't though,

00:55:09 ◼   ► because Hawaii is made of beaches.

00:55:12 ◼   ► And so where am I like putting,

00:55:13 ◼   ► am I putting this journal in the sand to video it?

00:55:16 ◼   ► Like, it just, I don't know.

00:55:17 ◼   ► - Just dig, see that, that to me,

00:55:20 ◼   ► see you've missed a trick,

00:55:21 ◼   ► that's like pure Instagram bait.

00:55:23 ◼   ► Dig it and like put it in the sand,

00:55:25 ◼   ► put some sand on the pages, you know,

00:55:26 ◼   ► like you're a vacation.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Next time you go, you gotta take those.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - Right, well.

00:55:32 ◼   ► - Can we close the shipping bracket?

00:55:33 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, close the shipping bracket.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - So I mentioned it being the worst time of the year,

00:55:37 ◼   ► so it kind of arrived around the end of November,

00:55:40 ◼   ► but we couldn't put a new product up for sale

00:55:43 ◼   ► at the journal selling time,

00:55:44 ◼   ► because we had one focus in December and January.

00:55:48 ◼   ► It's like, sell journals.

00:55:50 ◼   ► That's what the business currently completely is.

00:55:52 ◼   ► Anything watering down that messaging,

00:55:56 ◼   ► I think would have been overall bad for a Cortex brand.

00:55:58 ◼   ► So we've now, they've been ready since November.

00:56:02 ◼   ► We're telling you about it in February.

00:56:04 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:56:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think that was the right decision.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Because this again comes into a,

00:56:10 ◼   ► what is your business?

00:56:11 ◼   ► What do you want it to be?

00:56:13 ◼   ► It's like we want Cortex brand to have a bunch of products, but in November it is a business

00:56:21 ◼   ► that depends entirely on one product.

00:56:24 ◼   ► And so it's like, Oh, could we message that we have this additional product at the same

00:56:29 ◼   ► time that we're talking about the theme system journal?

00:56:32 ◼   ► Sure.

00:56:34 ◼   ► But why risk muddying the waters when like everything depends on the theme system journal?

00:56:41 ◼   ► to like, we'll just wait, we'll wait until after this

00:56:44 ◼   ► like particular season has passed,

00:56:46 ◼   ► and then at the start of a new one,

00:56:47 ◼   ► like now we can mention it,

00:56:48 ◼   ► and it's like a clearer messaging.

00:56:50 ◼   ► - It's like if we had some kind of accessory or companion

00:56:53 ◼   ► to the journal, it's like yeah,

00:56:54 ◼   ► I'll see you all this time, right?

00:56:56 ◼   ► But this is like another,

00:56:58 ◼   ► it's like these are completely different products,

00:56:59 ◼   ► they're just made by the same company.

00:57:01 ◼   ► They're like for completely different uses,

00:57:03 ◼   ► they don't share a story, they share elements,

00:57:07 ◼   ► but the journal is like no, you keep it with you

00:57:09 ◼   ► in your bag, on your desk, whatever,

00:57:10 ◼   ► like a butt on your bedside,

00:57:12 ◼   ► and whenever is right for you at a certain time of the day,

00:57:14 ◼   ► you'll write in the journal.

00:57:15 ◼   ► But this is like, no, just keep it on your desk, right?

00:57:19 ◼   ► It doesn't, they don't even,

00:57:21 ◼   ► they don't share that kind of idea.

00:57:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a more like work-focused product, I think,

00:57:26 ◼   ► than the journal is.

00:57:27 ◼   ► So it would have just been unnecessarily risky, but yes.

00:57:30 ◼   ► I do feel like that was the final cherry on the top

00:57:33 ◼   ► of like this long development time.

00:57:35 ◼   ► It's like, oh, it's taken absolutely forever,

00:57:38 ◼   ► And it's all arrived at the one time of year that it doesn't make any sense for us to talk about it.

00:57:45 ◼   ► So like, okay, I guess we're going to wait.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Before we talk about the kind of like marketing and what I'm referencing as getting serious.

00:57:53 ◼   ► There's one thing on the manufacturing we've not touched on, which is the coffee cups.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I love this.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Yeah, this, I love this.

00:58:00 ◼   ► So in working with JF Smith, we're now working with like an incredibly knowledgeable company who are

00:58:08 ◼   ► experts in paper. So we have these two companies. G.F. Smith provides the paper, F.E. Berman

00:58:13 ◼   ► provides the manufacturing. So these are these two British companies. We have made in Britain

00:58:18 ◼   ► certification which was really hard to get. It's like the specific stamp and it's in the

00:58:23 ◼   ► back of each Sidekick notepad to certify this product was made in Britain. We're working

00:58:28 ◼   ► with these two British companies and there are experts in their field and we're able

00:58:32 ◼   ► to have these kinds of conversations and my friend Matt from G.F. Smith said, "We have

00:58:37 ◼   ► this paper and it's called extract and it could be interesting as the cover for

00:58:43 ◼   ► you so extract is a paper that is made from recycled coffee cups now coffee

00:58:52 ◼   ► cups that you get from you know your every single coffee shop that you go to

00:58:56 ◼   ► ever they are by traditional processes an unrecyclable product because they

00:59:02 ◼   ► have plastic lining inside for insulation of water and heat. So you may think, "Oh,

00:59:09 ◼   ► this is paper or card. I'll put it in the paper or card recycling." Unrecyclable.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Unless somewhere is specifically saying, "Put coffee cups here," that may as well just

00:59:23 ◼   ► go in the trash because it cannot be recycled.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Yes, there are many things that people put in the recycling bin that should really just

00:59:30 ◼   ► go in the trash because they can't be used.

00:59:32 ◼   ► And traditionally coffee cups have been

00:59:34 ◼   ► one of those kinds of things.

00:59:36 ◼   ► It feels like cardboard,

00:59:38 ◼   ► and so you feel like you can feel better

00:59:41 ◼   ► by putting it in the recycling bin,

00:59:42 ◼   ► but like really nothing's happening.

00:59:45 ◼   ► - So, G.S. Smith has worked with a company

00:59:47 ◼   ► to create this product from this very specialized process

00:59:51 ◼   ► where using these incredibly expensive machines,

00:59:55 ◼   ► they can take coffee cups and turn them into paper.

01:00:00 ◼   ► And it is, as far as I know, one of the only thing you can take these coffee cups and recycle them into

01:00:07 ◼   ► other than just more coffee cups or whatever. It is like an actual process, it is a product that can be made

01:00:13 ◼   ► from what otherwise would be waste. So the paper is called "Extract" and it was initially going to be used on the cover.

01:00:21 ◼   ► So like just the cover and it was proposed that we would use a gray backing board. That backing board

01:00:27 ◼   ► that you've seen on so many notebooks. I kind of like gray with speckles in it,

01:00:30 ◼   ► looks recycled, and they made me a version I was like "ah I don't like it"

01:00:35 ◼   ► it didn't feel premium enough to me and so we worked with GS Smith to get a

01:00:43 ◼   ► thickness of this paper made that they do not make. So again it was like they

01:00:49 ◼   ► gave me it in their thickest paper weight right so the thickness and I

01:00:53 ◼   ► picked it up and the sidekick notepad like flopped and fell on itself in a way

01:00:57 ◼   ► and you know it just didn't feel right and it wasn't fitting of what I wanted

01:01:00 ◼   ► if like you can just pick it up with one hand off the desk right and it's just

01:01:05 ◼   ► fine it's sturdy it's structurally sound so we ended up taking their thickest

01:01:10 ◼   ► weights and laminating them together you kind of like stick them together and you

01:01:14 ◼   ► create a new paperweight the cool thing about extract is in they say every sheet

01:01:19 ◼   ► of extract in 380 gsm that's like the paperweight contains at least five up cycle coffee cups

01:01:25 ◼   ► per sheet so for this first print run over 3 000 coffee cups have been recycled to put

01:01:33 ◼   ► into psychic notepad i just there's two things i love here one this again is like mike hurley

01:01:39 ◼   ► product designer he does amazing work like like the genuinely like getting this like

01:01:45 ◼   ► a custom paper thickness made,

01:01:48 ◼   ► like going to all the work to have this done,

01:01:51 ◼   ► to get what is a really fantastic cover

01:01:54 ◼   ► for the Sidekick is just, it's so good.

01:01:57 ◼   ► And like I said before, this is, to me,

01:01:59 ◼   ► is more of like a work-focused product.

01:02:02 ◼   ► So there's something just really charming

01:02:04 ◼   ► about the fact that it is made out of coffee cups.

01:02:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - Like I just,

01:02:08 ◼   ► I just love that as a kind of tie-in.

01:02:11 ◼   ► - You know, I hadn't put those two things together,

01:02:13 ◼   ► but like they work really nicely together, right?

01:02:15 ◼   ► Like everyone's in the meeting with their coffee cups.

01:02:18 ◼   ► - And it's like this notepad comes from those coffee cups.

01:02:21 ◼   ► And I hadn't seen this number before,

01:02:23 ◼   ► but that's absolutely shocking to me

01:02:25 ◼   ► that our first run is going to be recycling

01:02:28 ◼   ► 3000 coffee cups.

01:02:29 ◼   ► I had no idea it was that many.

01:02:30 ◼   ► It's a little detail about this product

01:02:33 ◼   ► that I just really like.

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01:04:46 ◼   ► Earlier you were talking about the idea of imagery, right, being helpful for the product.

01:04:51 ◼   ► I thought as well we should make a video to show people how they can use it. So I have

01:04:57 ◼   ► been working on a video. When this episode posts, the video will be available on the

01:05:01 ◼   ► Cortex YouTube channel. I'm saying that is the case.

01:05:05 ◼   ► I was like, "Myke, Myke."

01:05:07 ◼   ► No, it will be done, alright? I spent too much time on this, it will be done.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Listen, Myke has been working on this quite hard and a lot. I'm also quite tickled because

01:05:18 ◼   ► I feel like we're in reverse situations here. Myke is working on a video and it's

01:05:23 ◼   ► taking him longer than he thought it was going to take and it's turned out to be much harder

01:05:27 ◼   ► than he thought it was going to be.

01:05:29 ◼   ► And now we're recording an episode of Cortex

01:05:32 ◼   ► where he swears the video will be out

01:05:35 ◼   ► before the Cortex episode goes out.

01:05:37 ◼   ► And I have my doubts and it just feels like,

01:05:40 ◼   ► oh, look at us, we're in upsy tipsy turvy world,

01:05:43 ◼   ► like everything's reversed.

01:05:44 ◼   ► So yes, no, Myke, that video of yours

01:05:47 ◼   ► will definitely be out before the Cortex episode goes up.

01:05:50 ◼   ► There's no chance that it's gonna take longer

01:05:53 ◼   ► than you expect. - No chance.

01:05:53 ◼   ► No chance at all.

01:05:56 ◼   ► I've put like 30 hours of work into it so far.

01:05:59 ◼   ► - I believe that, yeah.

01:06:02 ◼   ► - I'm currently at the stage where I hate it.

01:06:05 ◼   ► I hate, you obviously understand

01:06:08 ◼   ► what I'm talking about here, right?

01:06:10 ◼   ► - Everyone goes through this, yep.

01:06:11 ◼   ► - I'm at the point in the production process

01:06:13 ◼   ► where I have like two things left and they're tricky,

01:06:17 ◼   ► and so I hate the project.

01:06:20 ◼   ► But what I will say is up until like three days ago,

01:06:23 ◼   ► I've loved doing this.

01:06:25 ◼   ► This is such an interesting, weird thing for me,

01:06:29 ◼   ► where I feel like I'm able to like flex creative muscles

01:06:33 ◼   ► that are not normal for me.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Like I've never made anything like this.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I'm not talking to you and showing you this product.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I'm not showing you this product

01:06:42 ◼   ► the way that I would show you a keyboard on a live stream.

01:06:45 ◼   ► What I am trying to do is set up a bunch of scenarios

01:06:50 ◼   ► where you can see the product in use,

01:06:52 ◼   ► like how it's written on, where it sits,

01:06:55 ◼   ► and here's some closeups and someone's putting it in their bag and taking it to

01:06:58 ◼   ► a meeting and here's a meeting environment.

01:07:00 ◼   ► So like it shows you the story of how the product can be used.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Cause I just, again, it was like, as I was,

01:07:06 ◼   ► as we were doing going through the soft launch, I was like,

01:07:08 ◼   ► I think this would be valuable if there was a video that just showed it in

01:07:13 ◼   ► use. And so to do this,

01:07:15 ◼   ► like I started and I couldn't get anything to look right.

01:07:19 ◼   ► And so it has been a case of now bought a bunch of lights,

01:07:24 ◼   ► I bought tripods, camera sliders,

01:07:26 ◼   ► and I'm building now a set of equipment in my studio

01:07:31 ◼   ► which I can use to continue this project.

01:07:35 ◼   ► And it feels like a very high pressure task

01:07:39 ◼   ► because I don't know what I'm doing.

01:07:43 ◼   ► I have these ideas.

01:07:44 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, it would be cool if I could make

01:07:48 ◼   ► a little shot that looked like this.

01:07:50 ◼   ► And about 95% of the time,

01:07:52 ◼   ► I don't know how to do it in con, right?

01:07:54 ◼   ► So I end up with something different,

01:07:56 ◼   ► but it wasn't what I was imagining.

01:07:58 ◼   ► My skill levels can only take me so far in this,

01:08:02 ◼   ► which is not very far at all.

01:08:04 ◼   ► But I have this other part of it of like,

01:08:08 ◼   ► I'm gonna put it on our YouTube channel.

01:08:11 ◼   ► So lots of people are gonna see it,

01:08:13 ◼   ► and that's really daunting as well, right?

01:08:14 ◼   ► So it's like, this is a very weird process,

01:08:18 ◼   ► which is why I am putting way more work

01:08:21 ◼   ► into this than I expected.

01:08:22 ◼   ► Like when I first imagined this video,

01:08:24 ◼   ► I was like, I'll just do it on my streaming desk.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like I've got a top-down camera,

01:08:29 ◼   ► I can talk to my other camera

01:08:31 ◼   ► and I can just show you what it looks like.

01:08:33 ◼   ► And then I was like, well, but what if I want,

01:08:36 ◼   ► what if I get some like nice shots that show like the clear,

01:08:41 ◼   ► it's called a foil, but like the clear foil inlay

01:08:43 ◼   ► on the debossing so it kind of shines.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Oh, that would look good if I could do that.

01:08:47 ◼   ► Oh, but to do that, I need to be able to use this lens

01:08:50 ◼   ► that I have and I need some,

01:08:52 ◼   ► and then it just spiraled from there

01:08:55 ◼   ► to the point where I'm trying to make a product video,

01:09:00 ◼   ► which is really hard.

01:09:01 ◼   ► And you want it to kind of,

01:09:05 ◼   ► it's gotta feel decent quality,

01:09:08 ◼   ► and that is very hard to do.

01:09:11 ◼   ► There are people who do this for a living, right?

01:09:13 ◼   ► I wanna do it myself because of everything.

01:09:15 ◼   ► I wanna try it myself at least once,

01:09:17 ◼   ► and then I hope in the future

01:09:19 ◼   ► we will work with more professionals on this kind of stuff.

01:09:22 ◼   ► But I wanna give it a go because I also want to

01:09:25 ◼   ► make video and photo marketing a bigger component

01:09:28 ◼   ► over how we show all of our products,

01:09:31 ◼   ► especially Sidekick Notepad.

01:09:33 ◼   ► I think it will be an important part for its life cycle.

01:09:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I knew you were working on this,

01:09:38 ◼   ► but I didn't really know what to expect

01:09:40 ◼   ► when you sent me the video.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And while, yeah, it is not as good

01:09:44 ◼   ► as what you would expect a professional

01:09:47 ◼   ► product video to look like.

01:09:49 ◼   ► I was incredibly impressed by how well you did

01:09:52 ◼   ► in Mega Studio.

01:09:53 ◼   ► It was also Mega Studio really paying off

01:09:56 ◼   ► with all of the keyboards and the different desk location.

01:09:59 ◼   ► You made Mega Studio look like 30 people's homes.

01:10:02 ◼   ► It's like incredibly good.

01:10:05 ◼   ► It's interesting for me to see because again,

01:10:08 ◼   ► thinking about what do we want Cortex brand to be,

01:10:11 ◼   ► it was a real moment of, oh my God,

01:10:14 ◼   ► this is a product video.

01:10:15 ◼   ► We've never made one of these before.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Like, when I made a video promoting the journal,

01:10:19 ◼   ► it was very much like, "Hey, I made a thing.

01:10:22 ◼   ► "Here's how I use it.

01:10:23 ◼   ► "You might find it useful as well."

01:10:24 ◼   ► Like, that's sort of the pitch.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - It's kind of like a vlog.

01:10:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's way more on the vlog end of the spectrum.

01:10:30 ◼   ► It's the thing that, like, what makes it a product video

01:10:32 ◼   ► is like, could you imagine this just on a website

01:10:36 ◼   ► for the product, you click it,

01:10:37 ◼   ► and it shows you how to use it?

01:10:38 ◼   ► Whereas my video, like, that doesn't work at all,

01:10:40 ◼   ► because people would be like, "Who's this person?

01:10:42 ◼   ► "Why should I listen to his advice?"

01:10:44 ◼   ► Like it doesn't make any sense as like the stuff that I've done to use in that way.

01:10:47 ◼   ► So I actually feel like your video is a big step in the direction of

01:10:52 ◼   ► the professionalism of the brand.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Like, no, no, it's a product video.

01:10:56 ◼   ► Here's how to use it.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Here's, here's the kinds of things that you would expect to see.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Look at it in all of these different environments.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Look at how nicely it's filmed so you can actually see stuff.

01:11:06 ◼   ► And I really do want to give you credit for the filming quality because it's

01:11:09 ◼   ► Like, so people take photos and you think, oh, I see product photos and they're better

01:11:16 ◼   ► than the photos that I take.

01:11:18 ◼   ► If you ever try to take a nice photo of a thing, you can very quickly realize like,

01:11:22 ◼   ► oh, I can't get it to look like beautiful product photos do and I can't quite figure

01:11:26 ◼   ► out why.

01:11:27 ◼   ► But if you play around ultimately, like it's the lighting a little bit like you can get

01:11:31 ◼   ► there.

01:11:32 ◼   ► But product videography is like 10 steps up in difficulty from doing good product photos.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Like you can do good product photos, but good product videography is just so much harder to get looking right.

01:11:48 ◼   ► And so that's why I was like, I cannot believe how good of a job Myke did by just like getting some sliders and a few cameras and setting some stuff up in Mega Studio.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Like what you're attempting to achieve is really hard and you did a fantastic job with it.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:12:04 ◼   ► But I'm also not the least bit surprised that you're in that moment of like,

01:12:08 ◼   ► "I'm frustrated with this video, like it's not at all what I imagined it would be."

01:12:12 ◼   ► Because you can easily imagine a beautiful video shot of a product,

01:12:18 ◼   ► but actually getting that is very difficult to do.

01:12:21 ◼   ► So the last part that I need, the last shot that I need, the one that's left,

01:12:25 ◼   ► is like trying to show it in a meeting environment, and I really don't know how to do that yet.

01:12:32 ◼   ► So like this is what I'm going to be spending some time on over the next few days.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And then I think I'm basically done.

01:12:38 ◼   ► Like, do you have a suit?

01:12:40 ◼   ► Can you dress up in like a little suit?

01:12:41 ◼   ► Well, but the problem is it needs to consciously be me on my own.

01:12:44 ◼   ► So like, I'm probably going to rope people in.

01:12:47 ◼   ► It's most likely going to be my wife.

01:12:49 ◼   ► It's like, can you just sit here and pretend you're talking to me for like 20

01:12:52 ◼   ► seconds?

01:12:53 ◼   ► Like this is probably where we're going to end up going with that one.

01:12:56 ◼   ► But like, yeah, that makes sense.

01:12:57 ◼   ► This has been like the last part that I need.

01:13:01 ◼   ► And it's, but it's also like the part that I've struggled with, like the most to produce.

01:13:05 ◼   ► Really, this is, it was a blessing.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Like I showed you a card and shown you any of it.

01:13:10 ◼   ► And I was like, all right, I need to show him something at some point, because if you don't like it, or like, if you're like, no, you need to change these seven things.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Cause this is unwatchable.

01:13:18 ◼   ► Like I need to know this now.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Uh, you were, you were very kind like you're being now.

01:13:23 ◼   ► And that really helped me.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Like it's, it's helped me a lot to get this final part done.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Let me just cut you off there, Myke.

01:13:30 ◼   ► It's not kindness when it's good.

01:13:32 ◼   ► You have only being kind if it's not good.

01:13:35 ◼   ► And if it was not good, I would not be kind.

01:13:38 ◼   ► - And this is why you were the person

01:13:39 ◼   ► I needed to show it to.

01:13:40 ◼   ► 'Cause I could show it to different people,

01:13:41 ◼   ► I could show it to my wife,

01:13:42 ◼   ► and she, you know,

01:13:42 ◼   ► Adina provides good constructive feedback,

01:13:45 ◼   ► but is also trying to make sure that I'm happy.

01:13:49 ◼   ► Where like, I'm not,

01:13:50 ◼   ► one, I say, I know you will be honest with me,

01:13:52 ◼   ► like 100%, 'cause you are,

01:13:55 ◼   ► because you know, I know you know the value in it,

01:13:57 ◼   ► plus this specific thing technically comes from both of us,

01:14:02 ◼   ► even if it's just me that's doing it.

01:14:05 ◼   ► It's like similarly, when you made your journal video,

01:14:09 ◼   ► you shared the script with me,

01:14:10 ◼   ► you shared the video with me,

01:14:12 ◼   ► which is like, you would never do that on a YouTube video,

01:14:15 ◼   ► and then you're just like, what do you think of this?

01:14:16 ◼   ► But no, it was like, read this, make sure it's good,

01:14:21 ◼   ► 'cause even though it's on your channel--

01:14:23 ◼   ► - It still represents us.

01:14:25 ◼   ► It's like my video talking about how I did it, but it represents us

01:14:29 ◼   ► and the product that we've made.

01:14:30 ◼   ► So like, yeah, it's, it's, it totally, it totally makes sense.

01:14:33 ◼   ► And yeah, I also like with many creative projects, you know, you show things to

01:14:37 ◼   ► people and people do want to be nice.

01:14:42 ◼   ► And so if a thing is bad, they'll often kind of couch their criticism in other ways.

01:14:47 ◼   ► But my feeling on that is always like, you're not doing anyone any favors

01:14:51 ◼   ► because you know where this is going.

01:14:52 ◼   ► It's going to go on the internet and the internet will let you know if it sucks.

01:14:55 ◼   ► real fast. So like, you're not sav- all you're doing if you don't give someone accurate

01:15:01 ◼   ► criticism for a thing that is going up on the internet is you're just delaying a much

01:15:07 ◼   ► greater pain that will come later. Like if- if anyone- if someone shows you something

01:15:12 ◼   ► and they're like "what do you think of this?" and they're going to put it up on the internet,

01:15:15 ◼   ► like, you have to tell them if it's bad. You just do.

01:15:19 ◼   ► - But there's this weird feeling that I have of,

01:15:23 ◼   ► I know you know this, right?

01:15:27 ◼   ► Like just about anything that I'll ever show you.

01:15:29 ◼   ► So I always can take criticism from you

01:15:33 ◼   ► easier than I can take it from other people.

01:15:35 ◼   ► I can't explain that completely,

01:15:36 ◼   ► but I just know that you are coming at this

01:15:40 ◼   ► from this very specific way,

01:15:42 ◼   ► whereas I know how he thinks when it comes to this stuff.

01:15:45 ◼   ► So just an interesting thing.

01:15:47 ◼   ► but luckily you reacted to it in a way that I was not expecting at all.

01:15:52 ◼   ► So that was good.

01:15:53 ◼   ► That felt very good.

01:15:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:54 ◼   ► But that, but that's why like, Oh, I could be very positive about this video.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Cause I was, I was genuinely super impressed.

01:15:59 ◼   ► I mean, just as a slight anecdote, like I, my wife, as I've mentioned before, was

01:16:06 ◼   ► formerly a professional wedding photographer and she also transitioned

01:16:09 ◼   ► into doing baby photo shoots.

01:16:10 ◼   ► And doing like a baby photo shoot is basically doing like a product shot.

01:16:14 ◼   ► The baby is the product.

01:16:16 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:16:19 ◼   ► But it is. It's like it's totally the same.

01:16:21 ◼   ► - I know what you're saying. Yeah, it's funny.

01:16:23 ◼   ► - You need the same equipment.

01:16:25 ◼   ► You need the same kind of things.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Like you just need a bit more

01:16:28 ◼   ► 'cause like you need to keep the baby calm

01:16:29 ◼   ► and you need to keep the baby's attention on you.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Like my wife could take a photo of a baby

01:16:33 ◼   ► that would make like even the like the stone coldest

01:16:36 ◼   ► of people's hearts melt.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Like she was fantastic at it.

01:16:39 ◼   ► But I happened to need, while I was away,

01:16:42 ◼   ► I needed my wife to basically do a video product shot

01:16:45 ◼   ► of something that I was working on.

01:16:47 ◼   ► It's like, Hey, I need you just to get me a couple of like

01:16:51 ◼   ► nice shots of this thing.

01:16:52 ◼   ► And my wife, former professional photographer, completely failed

01:16:59 ◼   ► in this task and I let her know.

01:17:01 ◼   ► And I was like, these are all unusable.

01:17:03 ◼   ► I can't do anything with anything that you've done for me.

01:17:06 ◼   ► And it's like, that's, that's why, like, I was doubly

01:17:09 ◼   ► impressed with what you've done.

01:17:10 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, this is good.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Like, this is hard even for like former professionals in this

01:17:15 ◼   ► area to do so yeah. And like I said, it's an unexpected transition into the more business-like,

01:17:24 ◼   ► more serious future direction of Cortex brand. Cortex brand shouldn't be like the casual CGP

01:17:34 ◼   ► Grey vlog video about like, "Hey, look at this product." Like it should have these more serious

01:17:41 ◼   ► kind of straightforward, just explanatory promo videos.

01:17:46 ◼   ► They don't reference me or you at all.

01:17:49 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:17:50 ◼   ► Doesn't reference the podcast at all.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Yeah, that's always been the idea, is like, this should be a thing that should exist separately

01:17:55 ◼   ► from us.

01:17:56 ◼   ► Yep.

01:17:57 ◼   ► And like, that is not a thing that we have achieved, but this really felt to me like,

01:18:02 ◼   ► oh, this is a real first step in this direction.

01:18:06 ◼   ► There's no concept of the podcast or of us in this promo video.

01:18:12 ◼   ► So that actually lends itself quite nicely into the year of getting serious, which is

01:18:16 ◼   ► how I'm thinking about this now.

01:18:19 ◼   ► So that's the phrase.

01:18:21 ◼   ► We hadn't decided on a phrase, but we decided on this approach together, but I'm thinking

01:18:26 ◼   ► of it as the year of getting serious.

01:18:28 ◼   ► It's the theme for our business.

01:18:29 ◼   ► It's the theme for our business.

01:18:31 ◼   ► So we were talking about this recently on one of our calls.

01:18:35 ◼   ► we have monthly call, we go over cortex brand stuff.

01:18:38 ◼   ► And we kinda just decided that, all right,

01:18:42 ◼   ► we need to focus our company

01:18:46 ◼   ► as if the podcast doesn't exist, points.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Because typical direct-to-consumer brands,

01:18:54 ◼   ► DTC companies as they're known,

01:18:56 ◼   ► you will hear these companies advertise on this show

01:18:59 ◼   ► and you will see them all over Instagram, right?

01:19:01 ◼   ► It is a company that's selling you a product directly.

01:19:05 ◼   ► That's what it means.

01:19:06 ◼   ► It's like they're not going through a supermarket

01:19:08 ◼   ► or whatever.

01:19:09 ◼   ► This is one of the newer things that has been created

01:19:11 ◼   ► by the internet and internet advertising.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Typical direct to consumer companies

01:19:18 ◼   ► do not have an inbuilt large audience

01:19:20 ◼   ► that they can sell their product to.

01:19:21 ◼   ► They just have to scrap it out,

01:19:24 ◼   ► make products that look good and photograph well

01:19:27 ◼   ► and you put some advertising behind them,

01:19:30 ◼   ► you try and build a brand around it

01:19:31 ◼   ► and you just scratch and claw away and you get there.

01:19:35 ◼   ► We have so far been primarily relying on the idea

01:19:40 ◼   ► that we have products and we will tell you,

01:19:42 ◼   ► the cortexes about them,

01:19:43 ◼   ► and then we can tell you the stories like we have today.

01:19:46 ◼   ► And then you might understand it a little bit more

01:19:48 ◼   ► and you may want to buy the product.

01:19:50 ◼   ► And that's great.

01:19:51 ◼   ► But the whole time we've been talking about

01:19:53 ◼   ► since the very beginning of Cortex brand,

01:19:56 ◼   ► we want to make products that people

01:19:58 ◼   ► that don't know who we are, would be interested in.

01:20:02 ◼   ► But up until this point,

01:20:03 ◼   ► we've not really done anything for that.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Like we have focused them very much on,

01:20:09 ◼   ► hey, you listen to Cortex, right?

01:20:11 ◼   ► And the theme system journal is a tricky product

01:20:15 ◼   ► to just get into because to buy the product,

01:20:18 ◼   ► you've already have got to have decided

01:20:21 ◼   ► you wanna live your life a certain way.

01:20:23 ◼   ► And it has been a very successful product for us.

01:20:25 ◼   ► We're very happy with it.

01:20:26 ◼   ► it continues to grow and that is in part because of the now body of work that we have here

01:20:33 ◼   ► and the videos that you've done and it continues to grow and at this point I think we're in

01:20:38 ◼   ► a word of mouth kind of situation with the theme system journal that especially around

01:20:43 ◼   ► certain times of the year people say hey I do a theme and then it kind of like perpetuates

01:20:47 ◼   ► itself from there but the product is trickier for someone who's completely cold on this

01:20:56 ◼   ► to sell to them.

01:20:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, the way I think about this is preamble.

01:20:59 ◼   ► It's actually something I think a lot about

01:21:01 ◼   ► when I'm doing video topics as well,

01:21:04 ◼   ► is like sometimes there's an idea that you want to convey,

01:21:07 ◼   ► but the idea requires a lot of preamble.

01:21:10 ◼   ► And that's the theme system journal has that.

01:21:14 ◼   ► Having an inbuilt audience through the podcast

01:21:20 ◼   ► gives us a big advantage in starting out this company.

01:21:24 ◼   ► - And we are very grateful.

01:21:25 ◼   ► And we're very grateful for it.

01:21:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Like, but that's because everyone here has the preamble in their head already.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And it's something that like, I think I didn't like fully understand until

01:21:39 ◼   ► we started to think about other stuff.

01:21:41 ◼   ► It's like, oh yeah, if someone wants to buy the journal, there was already an

01:21:47 ◼   ► inbuilt assumption that they've heard you and me talk a bunch, possibly for very

01:21:53 ◼   ► many hours and the journal can follow on as something like, "Oh yeah, I would like,

01:21:58 ◼   ► I've heard these guys talk about this.

01:21:59 ◼   ► Sounds like it's worked for them.

01:22:00 ◼   ► I would like to give it a try."

01:22:02 ◼   ► And this product, like the Sidekick Notepad, has much less preamble for

01:22:10 ◼   ► what is this as a product by a lot.

01:22:13 ◼   ► And I just, I think that's like an interesting distinction that I didn't

01:22:17 ◼   ► fully understand for quite a while of like, "Oh, that's something to keep in

01:22:22 ◼   ► mind for product design, how much of a preamble does this thing need?

01:22:27 ◼   ► That is exactly it. And I think this was something that I landed on earlier in the process.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Oh yeah, for sure. I didn't get this for a while.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Because I kept telling you, and I'm going to say it now, this is the best thing we've

01:22:39 ◼   ► made. And you kept saying to me, I'm not sure man. Like, you're like really better than

01:22:43 ◼   ► the journal? Yes, this is better than the journal. And this is like a broader scope

01:22:48 ◼   ► of what I'm talking about here. Like you compare the two products, you'll have a favorite.

01:22:52 ◼   ► For our business, long term,

01:22:56 ◼   ► I think this is a better model of a product

01:22:59 ◼   ► because this is the kind of product

01:23:01 ◼   ► that we are able to sell to someone based on a photo.

01:23:06 ◼   ► It's all you need.

01:23:07 ◼   ► 'Cause you'll see it in use

01:23:08 ◼   ► and you'll understand it completely.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Or as much as you need to make the purchase decision.

01:23:13 ◼   ► - I mean, as long as we photograph it

01:23:15 ◼   ► in front of an actual keyboard.

01:23:16 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:23:17 ◼   ► - Yes, if you just take a top-down photo,

01:23:18 ◼   ► it doesn't make any freaking sense.

01:23:19 ◼   ► - It doesn't make any sense at all.

01:23:20 ◼   ► - You put it in front of a keyboard

01:23:21 ◼   ► and now we're off to the races.

01:23:23 ◼   ► But like that is, and what I say is like not purposefully,

01:23:28 ◼   ► but one of the reasons that we're looking at this

01:23:30 ◼   ► is like, all right, this is about getting serious now,

01:23:33 ◼   ► is the next two products, the next two major products

01:23:36 ◼   ► that we are likely to make are more in this vein.

01:23:38 ◼   ► Of like, they will be way easier to understand

01:23:43 ◼   ► based on what they're called or how they're described

01:23:45 ◼   ► or how they're photographed.

01:23:46 ◼   ► 'Cause they're just, they are, one of them's not simple,

01:23:50 ◼   ► but it is way easier to get than the journal.

01:23:53 ◼   ► - And one of our products I think of

01:23:55 ◼   ► as a zero preamble product.

01:23:57 ◼   ► - 100%.

01:23:58 ◼   ► - There is, like Sidekick has like a tiny bit

01:24:02 ◼   ► or like, ooh, what's that for or whatever.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Depending on the order that things come out,

01:24:06 ◼   ► but like one of them is a like,

01:24:08 ◼   ► no, there's no question at all about what this is.

01:24:10 ◼   ► Like, yeah, you get it immediately.

01:24:12 ◼   ► It's a zero preamble product.

01:24:13 ◼   ► - If I'm willing to bet the farm on this, right,

01:24:16 ◼   ► why do we call it Sidekick Notepad?

01:24:18 ◼   ► was because I want there to be other things like this.

01:24:21 ◼   ► If this does well, because I've already had people ask,

01:24:24 ◼   ► "Would you do this, would you do this?"

01:24:26 ◼   ► I want to make different formats of this product,

01:24:29 ◼   ► but it's got to do well enough that this makes sense.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Maybe like an entire to-do version, smaller product,

01:24:34 ◼   ► and it's just to-dos.

01:24:35 ◼   ► - The way I think about it is, if this works,

01:24:38 ◼   ► this is like the founding member

01:24:40 ◼   ► of a little family of products.

01:24:42 ◼   ► That's the way that this could be.

01:24:44 ◼   ► And this all lines into the existing audience is fantastic.

01:24:49 ◼   ► It's a nice advantage, but it can also be a kind of crutch of like expecting

01:24:54 ◼   ► that everybody who buys your product is like familiar with you, even if you don't

01:24:57 ◼   ► really realize that that's what you're doing and it's like, ah, but this is

01:25:01 ◼   ► different, like this has the possibility of just like people can see it, understand

01:25:05 ◼   ► it much more quickly and much more easily.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Don't know anything about us and just go, oh, that's an obviously

01:25:11 ◼   ► useful tool for my work life.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Like, yes, I would like to have this very nice notepad

01:25:17 ◼   ► to have in front of my computer and to take into meetings

01:25:21 ◼   ► and like tear off the sheets when I'm done with the day.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Great, like it's a very understandable,

01:25:25 ◼   ► we don't need the whole like,

01:25:26 ◼   ► let me explain to you what a theme is

01:25:28 ◼   ► and why it's better than a New Year's resolution.

01:25:30 ◼   ► - Hey, you know New Year's resolutions, they suck, right?

01:25:32 ◼   ► It's like, you don't need to do any of that.

01:25:33 ◼   ► It's like, so you gotta have a yearly theme.

01:25:35 ◼   ► What's a yearly theme?

01:25:36 ◼   ► What's this?

01:25:36 ◼   ► When in a, and it's three sections to the journal, right?

01:25:38 ◼   ► It's like, it is a great product for what it does,

01:25:41 ◼   ► but it takes time to explain.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And it also makes me feel a little bit like I'm wearing one of those like cult style t-shirts every time I'm mixed with this.

01:25:49 ◼   ► Oh, but we're all in on the cult of the fame, man. We're all in on it.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it, but it is a little bit like, I need to explain to you a philosophy, right?

01:25:59 ◼   ► And then this product makes sense.

01:26:01 ◼   ► It's a lifestyle product as well as it is anything else.

01:26:05 ◼   ► And so like, so this is the area that we are now considering, right?

01:26:09 ◼   ► So this year is now about getting serious

01:26:13 ◼   ► for the next multiple years going forward.

01:26:16 ◼   ► And we're actually kind of borrowing

01:26:19 ◼   ► from your theme last year, where you decided,

01:26:22 ◼   ► I'm a YouTuber, I'm gonna do YouTuber things.

01:26:25 ◼   ► We're deciding we're a direct-to-consumer business.

01:26:28 ◼   ► We're gonna start to do more

01:26:30 ◼   ► direct-to-consumer business things.

01:26:32 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:26:33 ◼   ► - So this is about now more photos, more videos,

01:26:37 ◼   ► trying more advertising, and--

01:26:39 ◼   ► - More Instagrams.

01:26:40 ◼   ► - More Instagrams, @cortexbrand on Instagram,

01:26:44 ◼   ► and trying to understand more the story of our brand

01:26:49 ◼   ► to people that do not know who we are

01:26:53 ◼   ► is like a very important part

01:26:57 ◼   ► that I'm now starting this journey on.

01:26:59 ◼   ► So I'm working with a few people

01:27:02 ◼   ► in different marketing fields,

01:27:03 ◼   ► and we're like, we're trying to work this out now

01:27:06 ◼   ► of how do we talk about the products that we make

01:27:10 ◼   ► to people that don't know us,

01:27:11 ◼   ► why would they care about them?

01:27:13 ◼   ► What is it?

01:27:14 ◼   ► And so this is the stuff,

01:27:16 ◼   ► we're kind of looking at it as pillars as well,

01:27:19 ◼   ► that's what I'm being told,

01:27:20 ◼   ► content pillars is the thing I keep getting told about.

01:27:23 ◼   ► But this is what learning for what you were just talking

01:27:25 ◼   ► about, we have these two different products

01:27:27 ◼   ► at different pillars.

01:27:28 ◼   ► One is just like, Sidekick Notepad is a very simple thing

01:27:31 ◼   ► in that like, hey, it's a notepad,

01:27:32 ◼   ► it sits on your desk between you and your keyboard.

01:27:34 ◼   ► You can take your notes on it through the day,

01:27:36 ◼   ► take it to your meetings. Then we have this other product which is, "Hey, let us

01:27:39 ◼   ► help improve your life." And so like it's two different types of content and we're

01:27:44 ◼   ► gonna start making both of it and leaning into it more. Like similarly, like we have

01:27:51 ◼   ► 138 episodes of a show that lasts about two hours so there's all this content in

01:27:58 ◼   ► there too. So there's things that we've said, things we've spoken about. Can we

01:28:01 ◼   ► pour those out? Make it more part of what the overall brand is and this is now an

01:28:05 ◼   ► and like an exploratory process that we're beginning

01:28:09 ◼   ► to try and understand what is this over the next few years.

01:28:12 ◼   ► So this is the year of getting serious at Cortex Brand,

01:28:17 ◼   ► which means you will now hear us say,

01:28:22 ◼   ► if you wanna get a psychic notepad, go to cortexbrand.com.

01:28:26 ◼   ► We're not merch anymore.

01:28:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:28:32 ◼   ► It's just a URL change, but it's representative of this

01:28:37 ◼   ► getting serious about what we're trying to do.

01:28:40 ◼   ► And merch has a connection to something else.

01:28:45 ◼   ► And so yes, the Sidekick Notepad, it is fantastic.

01:28:50 ◼   ► Myke has poured his heart into many details.

01:28:57 ◼   ► It's been hand assembled in London

01:29:00 ◼   ► through machinery specifically purchased to make it.

01:29:03 ◼   ► It is a fantastic product.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Go check it out at cortexbrand.com.

01:29:09 ◼   ► - Almost makes me emotional.

01:29:12 ◼   ► Hearing you sum it up like that.

01:29:14 ◼   ► - Hey man, you have genuinely put a lot into this.

01:29:20 ◼   ► You really have.

01:29:21 ◼   ► And this is a weird episode, but especially for you,

01:29:26 ◼   ► It's the release of so much work and really making it public.

01:29:32 ◼   ► Uh, so yeah, you have every right to feel a bit emotional at the end of this process.

01:29:38 ◼   ► Like it's real, it's out there.

01:29:40 ◼   ► People can buy it, people can use it and we're going to see how it does.

01:29:44 ◼   ► I would just like to say before we move on, I just want to thank Cortex

01:29:48 ◼   ► listeners for listening to this discussion that we've had.

01:29:50 ◼   ► I know it's obviously like, I've tried my best and we've tried our best here too.

01:29:55 ◼   ► We did a little, "Please go buy it" at the top

01:29:57 ◼   ► and a "Please go buy it" at the end of this discussion.

01:30:00 ◼   ► The middle really was supposed to be like opening up

01:30:03 ◼   ► and letting you know what it was like

01:30:04 ◼   ► for us to make this thing.

01:30:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:30:06 ◼   ► - I know the whole thing is basically one huge ad

01:30:10 ◼   ► for our product.

01:30:11 ◼   ► And so I really hope that this has been interesting to you.

01:30:15 ◼   ► And I just want you to know it means a lot

01:30:17 ◼   ► that you've listened to this.

01:30:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:30:20 ◼   ► - Because this has been an absolutely dominant thing

01:30:24 ◼   ► in my life.

01:30:25 ◼   ► working life for nearly two years just making this. Like, it has drained so much of my energy

01:30:35 ◼   ► this year to producing this thing. And it's been so weird to have this thing that has

01:30:40 ◼   ► been so important to me work-wise, and I've not really been able to talk about it. And

01:30:46 ◼   ► so this is 18 months worth of stories in one episode.

01:30:52 ◼   ► And I also think it's just us talking about how you really are the lead product designer

01:31:02 ◼   ► at Cortex brand.

01:31:04 ◼   ► Like this is a thing that you do now.

01:31:07 ◼   ► And like what does that mean?

01:31:10 ◼   ► That means spending just a ton of time on a product and making it nice and making it

01:31:18 ◼   ► the best version of the thing that it can be and making something that people will enjoy using.

01:31:23 ◼   ► So yeah, you are now the product designer of Cortex brand in a real way. Like the first time

01:31:30 ◼   ► we did the journal, everything was very slapdash. It was a bit like, "We don't know what we're doing."

01:31:36 ◼   ► But in the second time around, it's just different. And you made this thing from the total

01:31:43 ◼   ► ground up. So yeah, you should feel great about that.

01:31:46 ◼   ► - I do, thank you.

01:31:48 ◼   ► - Cortexbrand.com.

01:31:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:31:52 ◼   ► - We can still say it slowly, you know?

01:31:54 ◼   ► - We can still say it, yeah.

01:31:55 ◼   ► - We can still say it, cortexbrand.com.

01:31:58 ◼   ► So you can still do it, it's still the same, you know?

01:32:00 ◼   ► - Please, if you're still listening, go check it out.

01:32:03 ◼   ► It's a great product, give it a try.

01:32:05 ◼   ► Let us know what you think about it.

01:32:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:32:07 ◼   ► - Cortexbrand.com.

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01:34:31 ◼   ► So every year I've done this for a number of years now,

01:34:35 ◼   ► where I take my time area reports and look at them year over year and see kind of how my year has changed.

01:34:42 ◼   ► It's like state of the mic.

01:34:44 ◼   ► State of the mic, yeah.

01:34:46 ◼   ► It's kind of like for me now has become like a little bit of a tradition in also thinking about how I applied.

01:34:52 ◼   ► It's like for me it's my last part of how I applied my theme, right?

01:34:55 ◼   ► It's like this, because I can look at this and see like, oh how did I do in certain areas or whatever.

01:35:01 ◼   ► So I have an image for you. This also will be in the show notes. It shows on the left 2021,

01:35:08 ◼   ► and on the right 2022. I have a bunch of like little observations on this, but I'm always

01:35:13 ◼   ► intrigued to find out if anything's jumping out to you. So I can open this up now? You can check out

01:35:19 ◼   ► the state of the mic. Let's see how this how this was going. Oh, it's your image is slightly

01:35:24 ◼   ► misaligned it's breaking my brain hold on

01:35:28 ◼   ► hold on i will fix this i will fix this for the published version don't worry

01:35:35 ◼   ► it will be i was like oh my god i can't i can't look at this i'm literally i'm

01:35:39 ◼   ► gonna open it up and pixel made it right now

01:35:42 ◼   ► i made it with shortcuts i should have just fixed oh is that how you made this

01:35:48 ◼   ► okay i was i was two screenshots and i have a

01:35:50 ◼   ► shortcut that just takes two images and we'll put them side by side

01:35:54 ◼   ► Okay, oh, Pixelmator Pro is letting me know they have a bunch of AI in it. Great, yes,

01:35:57 ◼   ► I just open up, everything's got AI in it, I know. Okay, select, copy paste a new layer,

01:36:04 ◼   ► and drag it. Why aren't you letting me track this? Oh my god, it won't let me do this.

01:36:10 ◼   ► That's infuriating. Why am I an idiot? This is the- obviously you're having the same issues

01:36:15 ◼   ► I had. This is an impossible thing to align. It cannot be done. It cannot be done. Okay,

01:36:19 ◼   ► Alright, well, I'll do my best. Oh God, my brain is really breaking.

01:36:23 ◼   ► Okay, well, the number one thing I like to see is we've got admin down, right, for Cortex Brands.

01:36:33 ◼   ► I like that. I like the less admin work, more actual, like, product works. Yeah?

01:36:39 ◼   ► - So that's because everything related to Cortex Brands went into Cortex Brands admin.

01:36:43 ◼   ► - Oh, okay. - So things got split apart,

01:36:48 ◼   ► And so there was less admin, but then we added in Cortex brand product design into that.

01:36:56 ◼   ► So that's like a new area, like 31 hours into product design, and then 75 hours in admin.

01:37:03 ◼   ► Which is like one of those things I read, I was like, "That doesn't seem right."

01:37:05 ◼   ► I feel like that should have been way higher, but I can't argue with the numbers.

01:37:09 ◼   ► No, no, it's not possible to argue with the numbers. Well, I mean, actually it totally is.