Hello Backers!

I hope your year has been going well and I especially hope all of our friends on the east coasts of the United States and Canada are safe and dry today. Our thoughts are with you this week.

When I last checked in, it was November of 2011, Stylus Caps were finally shipping and a long, hard fought year of development was coming to a close. Although I have been a bit quiet from a communication standpoint, this year has been just as busy.

I am super excited to announce to you the release of an all-new Stylus Cap. This new design builds on everything we learned from the original. It's lighter, more responsive, and more sustainable.

Lighter.

Stylus Caps are now machined from aluminum, making them 76.2% lighter than the previous generation. That's right. 76.2%. They feel great in your hand and are so light, you'll practically forget they're in your pocket.

More Responsive.

We got a great response to Firm Tips. Now we have dialed in their design to respond even quicker to your screen. Best of all, they still maintain that firm feeling to help you take notes and sketch with more control. (Good news: the updated Firm Tips still work for your Kickstarter Stylus Caps)

More Sustainable.

A lot of work was put into using less materials, more recyclable materials, and more energy efficient processes. Of course, everything is still made within Western New York and assembled in Rochester to minimize fuel consumption.

Those are the big three changes but there are other great details I am sure you would be interested in:

- Stylus Caps now come in anodized silver and black. They look great next to Apple's new Silver/White and Slate/Black color schemes used on the iPhone 5 and iPad mini.

- The new More/Real logo (designed by Backer and friend, Chris Thomas of Hieronymus) is now laser engraved into the aluminum. The details are super fine. You can barely feel it when in use which keeps all of your focus on note-taking or sketching. Plus it looks awesome.

- A plastic capseal has been added to the inside of the Stylus Cap. It grips the Sharpie more securely and can cap any color Sharpie Fine Point, not just black.

- The new packaging is super cool (designed by yours truly) and uses less than half the paper and glue of the old version. The illustration on the insert card was done by Backer and friend Lisa Troutman of Drawn Well.

To focus on really nailing all of these details, we are releasing this new version just for Sharpie, which has been our most popular Stylus Cap. Other versions will be coming out in the future.

I am thrilled with the way these new Stylus Caps turned out. They are everything I loved about the originals, made better.

I'll never forget why I have the opportunity to work on a project I am passionate about. You took a chance on me and on Stylus Caps last year and went along on the journey. As that journey continues, I want to make sure you are a part of it. That's why I will be offering a special deal on the new Stylus Caps just for my Backers. I will be sending you an email shortly with a special promo code. It's a small way for me to thank you for your support.

You should check out all the details of the new Stylus Caps at More/Real's brand new website: more-real.com and follow us on Twitter @itsMOREREAL. Be sure to check out the More/Real blog where I talk about all sorts of design and Apple related things. A good place to start is the post, "My More/Real Year", which details what I have been working on and thinking about during 2012. You can also follow me directly on Twitter at @Afterschool.

One last thing. There are about 50 Backers who didn't received their Stylus Caps because they never filled out a survey. If you think this is you, just shoot me an email at: info@more-real.com and I will get you squared away a quickly as possible.

Thanks again everyone.

Talk to you soon,

Don

Hello everyone,

Here is a quick update on shipping status: We have shipped out all of the $125 Both Packs as well as most of the $70 Brass Packs and have begun to assemble the $55 Stainless Packs. Here is an updated shipping chart to see where your order stands.

Today we will be clearing out the assembly line (my parents' dining room table) for Thanksgiving dinner, but will be right back to the grind tomorrow morning getting your Stylus Caps out to you as fast as we can.

As far as an estimate for your order if it hasn't shipped yet: My goal is to have everything out the door by the end of next week. I am still waiting to receive some parts from the cap manufacturer, but for right now, that's my goal. We are going as fast as humanly possible with assembly, packing, and shipping. 

When I say "we" I mean myself, my superhero parents (who have not only been assembly line workers when they are not working at their real jobs, but also warehouse and shipping specialists), and anyone else I can rope into a few hours of help here and there. We all have a whole new appreciation for how time consuming product assembly can be.

That's all I have for now. I hope everyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving today has a safe and happy holiday!

Talk to you soon,

Don

ps. Since the holidays are approaching, I am getting a ton of outside of Kickstarter requests for ordering Stylus Caps for gifts. The minute we have all of the Kickstarter pre-orders out, I will be turning on the online store. If you want to be notified when that happens, sign up for the mailing list here or follow @itsMOREREAL on Twitter.

Hi Everyone,

Great news. Over the weekend we finally received the remaining parts necessary to start assembling pre-orders (the new Firm Tips and the Bic caps), so as of tomorrow morning  Stylus Caps are shipping once again!

We're still waiting on the rest of the Bic caps to come in (We received about 60 Bic caps out of 1000+ and half of the Firm Tips. The rest are scheduled to come in by the end of the week.) but we have enough on hand to start shipping what we can.

$290 Studio Packs are shipping first thing in the morning (both US and International) and the plan for now is to work our way back from there. Next up will be the $125 Backers, then $70, $55, remaining $25 Backers, remaining $20 Backers, and finally the replacement Firm tips.  We're going pack up and ship out the rest as quickly as we possibly can. I will update when each shipping group goes out. 

Talk to you soon,

Don

Hi everyone,

I have some great news to share with you.

We have developed a brand new tip for Stylus Caps. Before I tell you about the new tip, I want to recap what I learned from the old tips.

The first tips we released had a production issue that only became apparent when they were exposed to prolonged heat and humidity. Basically, sitting on a hot, metal mail truck at the end of August altered them from being slippery to grippy. The tips we tested and approved were not exposed to, nor tested for reaction to heat, so we didn't catch the flaw until after we shipped the first batch.

In spite of their grippyness, the tips were surprisingly well received. And by well received, I mean that only 40% of Backers hated them as opposed to 90% which is what I would expect from a product not performing as intended. Quite a few people liked them actually. It turned out that Backers who wanted to use Stylus Caps primarily for sketching were far more likely to appreciate the grip or "slowness" of the experience. These "Slow Tips" provide a texture and feel that is closer to using a real drawing tool, in this case an oil pastel, something that's lacking in touch screen styluses. This was a revelation.

Of course, not everyone wants a Slow Tip. Listening to Backers who didn't like these tips, it's obvious they needed to have less friction to make Stylus Caps usable for them. Asking a more specific question: "What kind of apps do you want to use with your Stylus Cap?" led to a real insight. The vast majority of Backers that wanted a less grippy tip, wanted to use to use their Stylus Cap for taking hand-written notes. The question to ask isn't, "How do you make the tip less grippy?" The right question to ask is, "How do you make a tip that's better for writing?" Just solving the grip issue is not enough.

Well, I am happy to report that I think we have developed a tip that not only greatly reduces the grip, but also works really well for hand-written notes. I'm calling them "Firm Tips".

FIRM TIPS

Why are they called Firm tips? Most styluses with rubber tips have a bouncy, squishy feel to them which makes it difficult to do precise things like taking hand-written notes.

Firm Tips eliminate a lot of that bounce, making Stylus Caps feel much more, uh… firm, and therefore feel more precise than the typical rubber stylus tip. A few friends and I have been testing Firm Tips over the past week and they have totally rekindled our love for taking notes on the iPad. Check out this sample page I wrote in my all-time favorite note-taking app, Penultimate:

Not only are Firm Tips better for note-taking, but they're also great for doing more detailed sketching work. Here is a portrait I did of my co-worker Rolf:

Besides feeling more precise, Firm Tips maintain all of the advantages of other rubber tips: they're durable enough to toss into a bag or a pocket without a case and yet soft enough to protect your screen from scratches. On top of this you have everything thats great about Stylus Caps: your pen is your stylus and the tips are replaceable.

I'm really happy with Firm Tips and I think that you'll like them too. 

Production on Firm Tips began this morning (10/10) and we should be ready to start shipping again as early as Tuesday 10/25. All Backers will be receiving both Firm Tips and Slow Tips with their pre-orders. If you have already received your Stylus Cap pre-order, I will start mailing out your new Firm tip soon after we start shipping again. Best of all, everyone will be getting the new Firm Tips for free. I will send out an update when the new shipments start going out.

Thanks again for your patience and allowing me to get this right. I'm looking forward to getting these into your hands very soon.

Talk to you soon,

Don

ps. Wondering if your Stylus Cap shipped in the first batch? Check out this handy chart.

Hi everyone,

I want to update you on three things:

- Shipping status of Stylus Caps

- An issue that we had with shipping and how we fixed it

- A brief overview of the tips

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHIPPING STATUS

The only orders that have been shipped are to US based Backers at the following levels:

- $20 Stainless Backers who pre-ordered Stylus Caps for Sharpie or Fineliner

- $25 Brass Backers who pre-ordered Stylus Caps for Fineliner

Here's a handy chart to know where your order stands.

Orders sent out were determined by what Stylus Cap metal bodies we had on hand. If we had it, we shipped it. We're still waiting for the Bic Stylus Caps to be finished, so none of the Packs (Stainless, Brass, Both, or Studio) have been sent out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE SHIPPING ISSUE - and - HOW WE FIXED IT

12 days ago, I started getting a few reports of Backers who had packages that arrived with their packages open and their Stylus Caps missing. After five or so Backers reported the same issue, I stopped all shipping to fix the problem.

The problem came down to the seals. They simply were not big enough to hold up to the heat and humidity of the last week of August. Sitting on a hot metal truck loosened the glue and with one good drop, the box could come open and the Stylus Cap would pop out. We obviously tested the package prior to shipping, but it was on a much smaller scale and the sealing issue did not occur.

Out of the 564 orders we sent out, 33 Backers had this packaging issue. That comes to 5.8%. The other 94.2% successfully received their Stylus Caps. For a first run product, using a first run fulfillment center (my parents dining room table), and a brand new box, this seems pretty good to me. Not ideal to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things acceptable as long as its fixable.

The fix is simple: Larger seals and more of them. The seals are now double the size (up from 0.75in to 1.5in) and we use two extra seals on the sides of the box. This dramatically increases the rigidity of the package. We sent 10 test packs out with the new seals to Backers who had missing Stylus Caps (including one to myself in Chicago so I could see it in action) and all 11 successfully received their packages with Stylus Caps. Backers that had the problem have been in direct contact with me and will be receiving new Stylus Caps at no charge. I feel that this issue has now been resolved.

If you have additional thoughts or pictures you want to send me regarding the packaging, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

At this point you may be wondering why I care so much about a box.

1) It uses less material than the typical shipping box.

Think about the brown shipping box that usually shows up at your door. That box usually has another box, the actual product's box, inside of that. This design eliminates the brown box by making the product's box shippable.

2) It uses less space than the typical shipping box. 

Imagine that same brown box and all the wasted space, or "air" that usually surrounds the inner box. Air matters when you look at fuel consumption. The more product you can get on a truck, the more efficiently you are using that truck, the less fuel you are wasting.

3) Its nicer than the typical shipping box.

At the end of the day, when someone receive their Stylus Cap, I want them to know that thought and care that went into their Stylus Cap went into every aspect around it. The box that it shipped in, the way that it was purchased, the customer service, the reduced use of fuel and materials, etc.

I think that this stuff matters and that people want it to matter. This is the level of care I want to put into everything that MORE/REAL does. It's worth it to me to work hard at getting it right, even if we don't completely get it right the first time. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to try and get it right.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE TIPS

I have been avidly reading the reports though Kickstarter, email, Tweets, as well as communicating directly with Backers who have received their Stylus Caps. The early reviews essentially boils down to this: either people are in love with their Stylus Caps or they think they are unusable due to the friction between the tips and the glass screen. The split is about 60% love / 40% unusable tips. There seems to be nowhere in between. 

I tested the tips fairly throughly prior to sending them out and felt pretty good about the overall quality, including the friction. After getting a few reports of Backers with friction issues, I tested a few tips from the production run and noticed that they were indeed a bit grippier than when I first received them. I have a few theories as to why this happened and have been working with a chemical engineer to make adjustments. But for now, there are a couple of interesting things I am learning out of this:

1) A good deal of people like these slightly grippy tips. If I had to relate the feel of using the current production tips to another drawing tool, it would be oil pastels. Oil pastels are sort of like an artist's crayon and they too have a slightly grippy feel when you use them. When you use oil pastels you generally draw at a slower, more deliberate pace.

I showed the tips to Marty Thaler a week ago. Marty is a professor at the IIT Institute of Design here in Chicago, former IDEO design lead, all around nice guy. We started talking about the act of drawing. One of the points that he brought up was that drawing makes you concentrate on what you are thinking about on and gives you time to reflect. Slowing that act down can improve the quality of drawing. The slightly grippy tips help with this. 

I think the larger insight, which is very exciting, is there is room for two types of tips: a "fast" tip and a "slow" tip. It's something I never would have thought of even a month ago, but I think is very exciting and will lead to more personalized solutions.

2) The idea of a Stylus Cap and the overall execution is still really well liked. In almost every case in which people tell me they don't like the friction of the tips, they quickly add "But I love everything else." The build quality of the cap, the engraving, the way it feels in your hand, but most importantly the idea of Stylus Caps themselves, are all really good things.

This is super encouraging to me. We're on the right track, there is just more work to be done.

So before we start shipping again, I would like to focus a little more time on the tips. There may be a chance to decrease the friction with the current parts I have on hand, or it might take a new design altogether. But before I make that call, I would like to hold out shipping any more orders on the off chance that something can indeed be done with the current tips. I'll update you when I have more to say about this.

If you have any questions in the meantime, I'm serious, don't hesitate to get in touch with me. I love talking with Backers and I try to respond as quickly as possible.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE BIG PICTURE

I will admit I was a bit bummed out the first day or so after some people started having problems. Since December, I've been throwing everything I have into to making Stylus Caps a reality. I put on average 12 hours into this every weekday and at least 4 hours every weekend day (and this is not my only job). I'm trying to prove that tech products can be developed not just in the US, but near my hometown. That thinking locally and using materials in a minimal way can have great sustainable benefits. That applying a designer's mind to every aspect of a production can lead to great stuff.

What snapped me out of it was getting back into the flow of what I think I do best: solving design problems, coming up with new plans, figuring stuff out. All these new ideas came to me about how to make Stylus Caps the best stylus I possibly can. There is no end point to this product or any product.

I'm not making any money on this project. I'm not selling it anywhere else (yet). I'm all in on getting it made for you. And hell, for me too. Wanting a Stylus Cap for myself is what started this whole thing.

Step back and realize how much has been accomplished. When I first came to you in mid-February, Stylus Caps were nothing more than some renderings, a couple of prototypes, and a plan of action in case the project took off. Here we are just 7 months later: factories are cranking out parts, boxes are printed, a few orders have been fulfilled. This is how products get off the ground. Its agonizing, unpredictable, timelines slip, you don't go to bed until 3am, and you lose sleep worrying if the spacing of the font on the engraving is wrong. But ultimately its one of the best experiences you can go through. I'm lucky I get to share it all with you.

Talk to you soon,

Don

ps. I thought you should see some of the stuff people have been doing with their Stylus Caps. So freakin' cool! Thanks for sharing your work.