Claudio: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Founders podcast. This is version one. I am your co-host and co-founder of Bullstrap Claudio.
Mason: And I Mason also co-founder and co-host of Bullstrap. Well, co-host of the podcast, co-Founder of Bullstrap.
Claudio: Yes. We've already had a little bit of a whisky it's starting to sink in and it's affected our cognitive abilities, which is perfect for a podcast.
Mason: I mean, I feel good; I feel excited. This is exciting. This is like Claudia said the first rendition of The Founders podcast. I think we see this being a podcast where Claudia and I can talk about men's lifestyle accessories, EDC, whiskey, beer, and anything else, I guess that really excites the two of us that we think you would want to know about.
Claudio: Any other type of alcohol that is relevant; vodka, wine... I'm into wines, beer, tequila, beer, tequila. Anything that really like gets us excited, like specifically alcohol.
Mason: Yeah, it's probably like an 80/20 split of like alcohol content to...
Claudio: Everything else. That is a joke. I feel like we've...
Mason: Really speaking of that; what are we drinking? I mean, I feel like that's a good segue.
Claudio: Yeah, you want to hit him with it?
Mason: Sure. We are drinking Willett Rye today. This is a small batch whiskey from Kentucky. Willett does everything on their home base if you would in Kentucky. It's a little strong, it's 110 proof, but really good, and yeah, glad to be drinking it.
Claudio: Yeah, cheers to you guys. We'll let you know how this tastes. I'm glad you got to experience that with us. Well, what is new with Bullstrap is the elite case. And I have to tell you, this is a product that we've actually been excited about for a while. There's so much about the elite case that is epic and is unlike anything. Literally, there's not another case on the market that is like the elite case. We have, in fact, I mean, maybe we can play some B roll over this of like your specific video that you did, where you were showing the materials that go into it. But, it's pretty basic. We have an aluminum outer rim. Right now we're just kind of wrapping our normal Bullstrap iPhone cases. And by normal, I don't mean normal. I mean, they're epic.
Mason: Still the most premium leather iPhone case you can buy right now.
Claudio: Yeah, exactly, second to the elite case; but that being said, you know, we have the aluminum outer rim, which is the same material that's used on your Apple, Mac book, pro. And on top of that, we have our same premium leather back. We have enhanced Mac save capabilities that's baked into the case. There's so much about it that is just epic.
Mason: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's it. I mean, it's like, it is so epic, we're so excited about it. If you don't know, yeah, we launched it on Kickstarter.
Claudio: I'm going to do a quick check for us right now.
Mason: Sure.
Claudio: Basically as things stand, we are 62% funded. I got to be honest. This feels a little bit... are we allowed to be honest on The Founders podcast?
Mason: I would think so.
Claudio: Yeah.
Mason: Maybe not. We can be deceptive if... just kidding.
Claudio: Oh man. No, full honesty time. This is not what we anticipated or expected out of our Kickstarter campaign with the elite iPhone case. Just totally real, right. I mean, I think we expected it to perform much better than this.
Mason: Yeah. I think we just miss judged the amount of... what we misjudged was the fact that the majority of people that would want to purchase the elite case already had the iPhone 12. Like if you have the 10 or the 11, though we think the elite case is perfect for your phone, partly because it adds MagSafe compatibility to a phone that doesn't have it side plug there. We just miscalculated how many people with older phones would want this case. And so, we had a lot of funding initially for the iPhone 12 cases, but then, the response for the 11 and tens was just not exactly what we expected.
Claudio: Yeah, I guess so. And it's probably a combination of factors that's not fully getting us there. I think, you know, our timeframe is a little bit long. And basically by the time that the campaign or people are getting this case in their hands, the iPhone 13 or whatever Apple launches will be, you know, months away, maybe. So combination of factors, we're not totally sure what it is, but it didn't perform.
Mason: It's not performing. We expected to be funded at this point and we're 62% of the way there. And so, we're still optimistic and we're still really excited about the elite case.
Claudio: We're still going to make it.
Mason: Yeah, we're still making the elite case. We might have to change kind of what that looks like post Kickstarter assuming we don't hit our goal.
Claudio: It doesn't change the fact that we love case and its super premium and it's unlike anything else that's ever existed; that is the bottom line with a case. Where we may have misjudged was the success of it going right to Kickstarter. And that being said, here's to Kickstarter.
Mason: Cheers.
Claudio: Cheers to Kickstarter. Okay, so that is Bullstraps, newest, greatest, and latest accessory. What other accessories that are...? That's the alcohol, we should leave that in. What other accessories are we carrying right now?
Mason: What other accessories? Yeah, this is just a segment where we...
Claudio: And by the way, that was meant to be an intentional segue.
Mason: Yes, that was an intentional segue.
Claudio: That I flubbed.
Mason: Butchered as they'd call it. But yeah, so this is just, what else are we carrying? What accessories that maybe aren't ours are we using? I guess I'll start.
Claudio: Go for it.
Mason: Right now knife wise, I'm carrying the Kaiser Feist, this is by Justin Lundquist. Awesome knife designer. In my other pocket, I have my car keys with two things that you can't see yet and an orbit key. Love the orbit key, super solid. And then, my wallet is actually a sample that I can't show as well. And then, I'm rocking the black iPhone case classic, no portfolio on the iPhone 12.
Claudio: Beautiful man.
Mason: Perfect. How about you?
Claudio: How about me? Going to bring this right into frame and just let you hear that. I'm going to do it again just for you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the Kershaw spline. And by the way, we actually are, for the most part carrying knives on us, like, this isn't just...
Mason: This is 24/7.
Claudio: Yeah, this isn't just like a random pocket knife. Although we will be doing pocket dumps with different accessories and different things that we're into just as part of this podcast. You know, the accessories is part of the vibe part of our lifestyle. And by the way, just a quick going back to things; we'll also be talking about all things Bullstrap, or at least enough about Bullstrap.
Mason: Sure, sure.
Claudio: And then, maybe even a little bit on like, Hey, what's going on with us personally, what's happening in our lives.
Mason: I get a little personal with you.
Claudio: A little bit.
Mason: Yeah.
Claudio: We just got a little personal about the elite case.
Mason: Yeah, that's true. It was a little personal.
Claudio: Oh man. Well anyway...
Mason: But we do carry knives every day. If you don't carry a knife, not necessarily as an as a defensive tool, but just as a tool; you should, you should carry a knife, especially if you're opening Amazon packages or, you know, I feel like I use a knife like 20 times a day.
Claudio: It's kind of crazy. You ended up like having it in, on your person and like in your pocket ends up being so much more useful than you would have thought otherwise. The amount of times that I think, "Oh man, let me just grab my knife" in a day; ends up happening somewhat frequently.
Mason: Yeah. If I leave my knife at home, I'm upset. Like I had noticed it; I use it all the time.
Claudio: Yeah, what else do I have in my pockets?
Mason: Oh yeah.
Claudio: Let's do some digging here. Ooh, something, I never leave the house without boom.
Mason: AirPods pros.
Claudio: AirPods
Mason: Of course, in our case, must.
Claudio: Got to be in our case, but yeah. I mean, AirPods are obviously staple. I would assume that they're stable for most of you guys. So, just putting that out there, our case. Last thing in the pocket is my Bullstrap wallet. I've been using this for awhile, just going to put that there, money clip wallet in the Tara color. It is aged beautifully and it only gets better. Only gets better.
Mason: Only gets better.
Claudio: That's our pocket dump, boom.
Mason: A lot of Bullstrap stuff as you'd expect, but yeah, heck yeah.
Claudio: Alright. Most Epic video of the week. What was the most Epic video that you saw?
Mason: The most Epic video that I saw this week was by Peter McKinnon. Amazing creator. Obviously, a lot of you probably know who he is, but he recreated Ford's Raptor
Commercial and it was sweet. It's definitely one that I recommend going and watching and the link will be in the description of this video. So go check that out. Super Epic. Peter McKinnon. He's the man.
Claudio: Yeah. You want to know the most Epic video I saw this week?
Mason: I do.
Claudio: Oatly's super bowl commercial.
Mason: Oatly's… I might've missed that one.
Claudio: I don't know.
Mason: Is it like oat milk? I got to be honest. I didn't, like I watched till halftime and then one, I thought the Buccaneers were going to win and then two, I kind of lost interest. I got, like football... I don't know. I'm going to get slack for that, but football's really my...
Claudio: Let me know in the comments.
Mason: Love watching it live.
Claudio: You guys are. Yeah, we're especially going to get slack for this. I didn't watch the game at all. I watched highlights, but I feel like that's what we do nowadays. We watch highlights and you know, I watch some commercials and that was it. But yeah, Oatly's commercial was either... it's kind of funny. It's like drawing a lot of attention. I only know because it's kind of in the news, like social media news. It's either the worst commercial ever made or the best commercial ever made is what people are calling it.
Mason: I can't believe I haven't seen it.
Claudio: It's like intentionally awful, which makes it awesome.
Mason: Okay. Huh?
Claudio: Or like just...
Mason: Yeah, I've gotta watch it.
Claudio: It's kind of funny.
Mason: Yeah, I missed it. Dang!
Claudio: If you haven't seen it, watch it... interestingly enough.
Mason: All right, that is pretty much going to do it for most of you, but not for all of you because the podcast does not end here if you are a BS society member. If you don't know what the BS society is... yeah, I was going to play it off. Yeah sure.
Claudio: Go for it.
Mason: I mean, I can. I'll rerun it.
Claudio: No, I was actually... that was part of the podcast.
Mason: Okay, cool. Well then I'll keep running it. So if you don't know what the BS society is, it's our men's subscription model. It's our subscription service membership.
It's hard to describe and we have to be vague with it. But long story short, every quarter you get shipped a box that looks just like this. And this is full of custom gear that we have made only for the BS society. This is actually the first box. This is shipping out this week. We're actually talking about it here in a second with the BS society members. So this is the first box, a box of gear, just like this, ships out once a quarter. You get 20% off all of our Bullstrap products. You get a lifetime warranty on our products. You get access to exclusive podcasts, which you will get to see here in a second if you're a member.
Claudio: You get to ask us questions.
Mason: You get to ask us questions.
Claudio: You get a hundred dollars gift card at the end of every single year. It's totally worth it. If you're not a part of the BS society, you're slacking.
Mason: You're slacking.
Claudio: Big time slacking.
Mason: So anyways, this podcast is about to end. If you're a BS society member, it will continue, and we will be giving you a behind the scenes look at what's in this box and everything else that we're doing here at Bullstrap. And so, if you want to be a member and you are not a member already; that link will be in the description. And with that being said, we will see you in two weeks, boom, episode one
