Insert [Our] Ad Here

We have a new Jam Kat commercial/video that will be distributed with Guitar World Magazine's NAMM issue next month, and it is being featured on various magazine websites. Thanks to John, Kevin and Pat for working so hard on this. As always, thanks to Jeff for rocking out with our Jam Kat in the video.

Adventures on Facebook

Just a quick heads-up to all of you on the ever-reaching Facebook network that we now have a Pick-Smith, Inc. group that we'll also be updating regularly with videos, pictures and events. This way you can not only check our website and our blog, but you can have Jam Kat updates show up on your news feed as well :)

Facebook has surpassed MySpace in not only active members but legitimate network and advertising capabilities. It is a media hothouse for sharing, and though it does have its creepy 'stalker' attributes, we could think of no better way to reach the world. It has been an idea from the beginning to advertise and promote the Jam Kat here.

We invite you and anyone you'd like to invite to join our Pick-Smith family. Thanks to Al for setting the group up. If you have problems finding us on FB, please let myself or Pat know. We're up to 50 members, let's keep it growing! Thanks and have a rocking day!

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

Booth #1537

Hey y'all, just a quick update to let you know how excited we are because we got our NAMM certificate in the mail today and our booth # for the summer show! What a trip, let me say, to have all this coming together. We're putting together our NAMM team and finalizing all the details to get Pick-Smith rocking out in Nashville this July. I can't even describe how excited I was today when I found our booth on the interactive floor plan. Surreal.

Tim at Poremba Productions is still working hard on our booth display, make sure to check out the fly-by video below to experience our booth in it's thirty seconds of glory.

If you'd like more information about our appearance at the summer show, feel free to e-mail us anytime. We're banking on Jeff Poremba, the same fine lad who did our tutorial videos/face of Pick-Smith, to give a few demonstrations at the show. Displaying the awesome functionality of the Jam Kat and his mad guitar skills.

Thanks for everyone's help/support/love in this venture. We have big dreams and you're helping to make them happen!

Peace out for now ;)

Santana at the Hard Rock

Whew!

No, we were not able to meet with don Carlos; however, I did talk to Ron the sound guy, exchange messages w/ Skip the tour manager (busy guy) and deliver the new FLiP! for Santana. The show was phenomenal, and will run for two years. It is THE show in Vegas right now, and overall it was worth the drive home after the concert to get a little further in the door (thanks Janelle!). An interesting dynamic is that don Carlos is using the Vegas platform as a way to reach the widest audience possible- delivering fabulous music as well as a powerful spiritual message. Lisa and I are both students of an obscure text that he quoted, as well as the Toltec tradition. If we can talk with don Carlos I am certain we will connect...

Lisa was able to enlist the help of West Word Vision to help with our Tuesday ad deadline for Guitar World, which is attached herein (thanks Lisa and Paula Schaper, WWV!) Pick-Smith intends to use WWV for all it's campaign needs once we are in the black.

The team is working hard to prepare for our NAMM debut, and the only real issue that we have is the additional cost of funding the advertising campaign and the NAMM show prior to production revenue. Greg Ray and Al Fischer have volunteered to generate an investor specific video and presentation to that end. In Greg's words, "it's time to pony up". Raising capital is not my strength, and I appreciate their enthusiasm and support tremendously (thanks boys!).

Gotta run, more to follow. Pura Vida!

Memorial Day Weekend at KJD

Greetings from the Pick-Smith helm!
There are several developments that bear mentioning, as well as a resulting tack in way of launch strategy.
I was in Tucson last weekend for a new build and ad copy intensive with Lisa and John Krikawa. The latest FLiP! design features torsion springs in the ring instead of leaf springs, and we are thrilled with the improved functionality and ease of assembly. Lisa added six black diamonds for kicks. The picture does not do it justice! The FLiP! 'development' is complete. Woot woot!
In our spare time Lisa worked on the ad copy proof, John worked on a 'true' Jam Kat model/rendering and I worked on a tooling modification (I'll return to that). Lisa has since led our campaign, contacting and contracting the prominent magazines and insuring our placement for the NAMM issues. Concurrent with our 1/2 page ads, Guitar World and Music Trade will include a full media product launch program including product spotlights, reviews, etc. Guitar World alone reaches one million guitarists per month, more than all other mags combined, and they guarantee that Pick-Smith and Jam Kat will be household names in the industry by Labor Day (thank you Lisa and John, muah!).
Back at the ranch, we are sitting on first-run quantities of package inserts, Jam Kat stickers and custom picks; unfortunately, we discovered a flaw in the original harness tool design that set us back several weeks (thanks to Robin Blench of R-5 for his unwavering perseverance and fabulous attitude in the face of such a challenging project!).
Furthermore, our distribution guru Douglas Mason has infiltrated the retail/distributor dynamic in our industry and discovered that we are facing a catch-22 scenario... the independent resellers rely on the payment programs offered by the distributors, and the distributors only carry items that are in demand. Similarly, Guitar Center responds to public demand (thanks Doug!).
To that end, our strategy of product placement and short-sales to fund ad copy and the NAMM show requires re-tooling as well. Our tooling delays and marketing head-ways coincide conspicuously with the upcoming NAMM show (Nashville, July 17-19) and the pending launch of our e-commerce website (thanks Tasja, you rock!). We have an 800 number (1-888-4 Jam Kat) and all indicators point to Pick-Smith hitting the music industry like a meteor strike. Brilliant? Yeah, well...
Another HUGE development is in the ongoing effort to land prominent endorsements. Our 'inside networker' Janelle Curry has developed a working relationship with Carlos Santana's tour manager Skip. Perhaps you saw Carlos holding his pick between his first and second fingers while he played finger-style on American Idol? No word as yet, but Carlos is playing in Las Vegas and has both a metal FLiP! and production packaged Jam Kat to ponder.
Furthermore, Skip is of the opinion that we should be getting our product in the hands of the guitar techs of the most prominent and influential guitarists in the world. He happens to know some of them, including Edge of U2 and John Mayer. Yup, John Mayer (thanks Janelle!). We also have a separate thread to Jeff Beck. If you've seen Jeff play, you know he is a perfect candidate for our product...
So much for brevity. I really need to write shorter blogs more often.
As far as finances, thanks to everyone!!! We've come a long way in a short time, at a fraction of the cost of typical start-ups, funded by the Hearth Program and enthusiastic, talented team-members. We are now in a leveraged position to aquire alternative funding to cover the marketing and NAMM programs we planned on bankrolling with revenue. It is what it is, all good, yadayada... The big picture looks brighter than ever, and we will look back fondly on this time- the vitality, the enthusiasm, the team soul, and the balls it took to pull this off.
Pura Vida!

We Be Nammin'

Congratulations to us as we are now officially members of NAMM! They're slogan is 'believe in music' and we are definitely believers here at Pick-Smith, Inc. We are also excited to announce our attendance at the Summer Namm Show in Nashville, TN this July. It's a wonderful networking and promotion opportunity for us, especially as we begin production of the Jam Kat.

We are lucky to have known Tim at Poremba Productions for a long time, and he's been working on the layout/graphics of our 6'x8' booth for the summer show. Doesn't sound like much space? Well we're going to be packing a lot of 'awesome' in there, don't you worry.

If you're going to be attending the show as well, look for something along the lines of this in the Guitar Accessories section and make sure to stop by and say hello. We promise we don't scratch.

Also along the marketing front Lisa has also been working hard on AD copy for Guitar World, Guitar Player and Bass Player magazines. We'd like to roll those out as soon as possible and who knows maybe we'll even get a product launch feature. You never know what the universe will throw at you.

More posts soon to come with updates about the tooling, the FLiP! and some exciting endorsement possibilities. Stay tuned :)

Update 4-20-09, Tucson road-trip

I drove to Tucson last Thursday to help build the latest FLiP! iteration at Krikawa Jewelry Design (KJD). Thanks to John and Lisa for everything- too much to convey here. Very fruitful trip on several fronts...

We've been dinking with the leaf spring design that closes the ring around the finger, and we haven't been satisfied with both the amount of bench- work it takes to put it together and the marginal range of effectiveness. Overall, the efficacy of the design has not been good enough for release.

This build was far easier, the result is the best FLiP! ever, and it is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous; however, we are going to see if we can bury torsion springs in the 'ears' and get away from leaf springs all together. We recently found a new spring vendor (Ron at Spring Works Utah) and he has been incredibly helpful; moreover, he has been educating me in the subleties of spring physics and what can/can't be built- as well as the costs involved. With his help I hope to put the ring joint issue to bed and give Krikawa the green light. The next build is scheduled for May 8th.

With FLiP! in hand and samples of the packaged black Jam Kat rp's we felt confident that we could represent the products with integrity. The story about how Lisa and I ended up in a meeting with the guitar accessories manager at Guitar Center of Tucson is yet another bizarre and beautiful witness to Pick-Smith's destiny- overkill for me, but you can ask me about it if you enjoy such...

We talked to Brannon Mamula for an hour or so. Here are the highlights and lowlights:

• Everything at every Guitar Center comes from their Distribution Center (DC) and there is one buyer for guitar accessories. We are in the process of getting hooked up with this person.
• They have a program and budget for new products which includes add copy in their magazine and sales tests at select locations. If it goes well, they stock all 300 stores and the online sales of Guitar Center, Musicians Friend and Music 123.
• Guitar Center and it's affiliates maintain a 38% market share of musical instruments and accessories. OMG.
• Guitar accessories do not have the dealer restrictions as do other musical products- for example they carry All-Parts products even though they sell on-line and at every guitar retailer. We like this.
• Brannon loves the Jam Kat and wants one. The only time he took it off was to show it to his employees, and they love it too- especially the acoustic player. He also likes girls, and it was WAY smart to have Lisa with me.
• He likes the packaging; however, he suggested we incorporate disposable pop-up containers to hold 6-12 units and showed us examples. The adhesive hook we have is fine for slat-wall display.
• There were no lowlights!
  

There are some questions we are frequently asked: 1) Have you talked to Guitar Center? 2) Have you sold any yet? 3) Do you have any other products?

1. It feels great to have opened the dialog box with Guitar Center. So you know, my good buddy Douglas Mason, a distribution mentor (and shareholder), has generously offered to assist with Guitar Center contract negotiations; furthermore, he is locating distributors for our industry and I sent him a packaged sample today to break the ice with them. (thanks Doug!)
   
2. We are a couple weeks from having parts, and are gearing up to run 2500 parts and get in the black. We have our seller's permit. Tasja is working on our E-commerce web-site. (thanks Tasja!) The tooling is almost complete, sans polishing and set-up. (thanks Robin Blench of R-5 for his perseverance in a very challenging tool assembly!) Al Fischer is locating a vendor to best accomplish our print and die-cut needs for the packaging insert. (thanks Al!) We've ordered 3000 custom picks and received a Summer NAMM invite (if we don't have our own booth, which we will) from Pick-World, and should have them by May 4th. (thanks again Tasja!) The picks have the longest lead time. I have a spreadsheet (available, just ask) that shows the costs involved in our first run, many one-time costs, and we do need capital to pull this off. Our Hearth program has raised less than 1/3 of the initial $100K limit; however, we are only $20-30 K short (depending on ad-copy saturation) of being self-reliant and shutting the share offering down. Now is the time!
3. On the drive back from Tucson I gleaned a very clever design for a guitar-strap mounted JamKat or FLiP! holder that also has a clear polycarbonate cover; moreover, it doubles as a hard case which can be tossed into a guitar case or the back of a Pinto without damaging anything except the Pinto. Currently we include a velvet drawstring pouch within the package insert for storage. I will have a product design and tooling design ready for Robin by the time he finishes the current tooling project. (he said with conviction) The 'strap rack' is mentioned in the business plan but I had not begun the design work. Also, my hockey bud and shareholder Greg Ray (who has had significant interest and constructive input, thanks Greg!) noted that the Jam Kat has an aggressive attack angle. He has not been the first to notice this, including myself. The balance between thumb ease in retrieval, tooling limitations re the hinge, and optimal pick placement netted us the current version. We will begin working on our own custom pick set which will include offset, twisted, and varied length plectrum. Seeing dollar signs? Yeah, the Jam Kat was designed to take standard picks, but...

Jeez, this is longer than I intended. Sorry about that. I'd like to apologize for not starting a blog sooner. Teary thanks to Tasja for setting this up and 900 other things. So you know, without Tasja and Lisa we would not be poised for launch and I would be very grumpy.

pura vida!
Pat Swartz
president