Philosophy: new rod development

0:00This is Daniel Galhardo and you're listening to the Tenkara Cast, a podcast about the simple Japanese method of fly-fishing, Tenkara. In the Tenkara Cast we'll be sharing information on techniques, history, philosophy, and Tenkara stories from anglers all over the world. This podcast is brought to you by Tenkara USA, introducing Tenkara outside of Japan since 2009. It's only possible we create content such as this podcast and videos because of your support. So we thank you so very much for purchasing Tenkara USA rods, lines, and flies. I hope you enjoy learning more about the simple method of fly fishing. Happy New Year everyone. I hope you're all off to a terrific start to your 2016 and that the new year I had comes with a lot of great fishing, a lot of good time outside, enjoying nature. My apologies, I took a little bit longer to get back into recording this podcast than I expected.

1:02I wanted to do one last week but was unable to, just doing a little traveling at the end of the year. But here I am, back at the studio and recording a new episode of the Tenkara Cast. Before I get into the topic of today, I want to give a shout out to my friend Tim Gasparak. he and I you know like we're talking yesterday and I had the idea for a topic that I wanted to cover and he's also the one that I was talking to when you know we were talking about waiting safety and I had the episode a few weeks ago about safely waiting and what to do and that kind of thing and it seems like a lot of you enjoyed that episode but yeah so thanks Tim for the conversations and inspiration to get new content out there and things that, yeah, I should probably be discussing as well. Today's episode is going to be somewhat short. It's just something that has been in my mind for quite some time, actually, but especially in more recent times.

2:08And that's my philosophy of product development, you know, so that's something a little bit more business related this time than, you know, fishing tips and that kind of thing. But it is something that I think is important. It kind of speaks to our philosophy as a whole, you know, as a company, it speaks to my personal philosophies. But it's also something that kind of sometimes it bothers me a little bit because, you know, it just feels like I'm going against the current and having to fight the way things are usually done. But, you know, I was having a good chat with Tim yesterday and Tim and his girlfriend Barb and just talking about you know how I approach my development of rods and the fact that I actually don't really release new rods all the time I'm not you know chasing the product cycle and that stems from my philosophy but as well as I think my own personal philosophy which is really grounded on the philosophy behind Tenkara, that of simplicity.

3:16For some time I have said that, you know, like Tenkara, you say I don't really want to be chasing the product cycle like a lot of companies do in fly fishing where every year there has to be a new rod model even if it's not much better than previous models just because it kind of keeps the name in front of consumers and you know all that kind of stuff and you know it's just something that it's a little hard for me to to swallow um you know and i'm just kind of i guess venting a little bit of my own frustration and also really kind of brainstorming as i speak here about um the direction that i want to take with tenkara USA in terms of new product development it's um it's really easy, I think, to come up with a new product, you know, at the, once a year, you know, there's a kind of a calendar that the fly fishing industry seems to follow to release new products. And that gives us buzz, you know, it's, if we release a new rod, we kind of get some coverage, gets people talking, and that kind of thing.

4:26And a lot of us are interested in gear, you know, like most of our customers, I shouldn't say most, but a lot of our customers have multiple rods that we have released. And they want to see what's next and they want to see what else we come up with. You know, and that's just kind of a, it's something that I kind of spoken in the past. There is this kind of push for complexity. You know, there's like this push for kind of developing and releasing new products all the time. but I kind of feel this really strong pull of simplicity trying to pull things back and trying to pull things back to what we really need you know in order to keep things simple in order to not just add a bunch of stuff you know to into our lives and that kind of push and pull creates a little bit of a conflict in my opinion where yes you know like we want to release we want to release new rods. We want to tinker with them. We want to kind of create new concepts.

5:30But hey, we already have five different rod models right now. You know, like what else do we do that allows us to stay within the kind of philosophy and tradition of simplicity without kind of pushing a lot of product out there? So it's just something that I've kind of been thinking a lot about because, you know, we've been doing this for six and a half years. It's going to be seven years in April. Actually, it's more than six and a half years now. Seven years, and we've had rods come and go already. We've released about, probably about 10, a little over 10 rods. I should have counted it before. But almost every time that we release a new rod, I try to cut back on the options that we have. And the only times that I've released new tenkara rods in the market have been times when I felt there was a strong need and a strong purpose for a particular rod. For example, the last rods that we released into the market were the roto and the sato. There was a need that I saw for the adjustable rods. It was a concept that I wanted to work more on and I worked on for a few years and developed these rods that were going to allow people to fish at different lengths and the reason I thought there was a real reason for being for those rods or a real justification to release those is that essentially with one rod you could have three different lengths covered so for example for the sato 10 feet 8 11 feet 10 12 feet 9 inches that covers the main lengths of tenkara rods as a whole now we can do all of these three different lengths with one rod. I thought that was a very important reason for the rod to exist. Along with that, we released the Rhodo, which is shorter. It was the shortest rod we've ever released, just under nine feet at the shortest length to 10 and a half feet. And the reason I wanted to release that rod is because, you know, for the most part, I think the Tenkara rod should be longer like about 10 and a half feet is a very good length for a short rod however we have this kind of push from the market to release very very short rod a lot of people are asking for something under nine feet and I thought that the roto had a real justification for being because it would allow people to have the very short rod when they really wanted it but as a whole you'll be a longer rod for when they realized that that was going to be a good length for where they were fishing.

8:11And in both of those rods, we also kind of had this feature that we had developed to keep the plug so people would stop losing the plug on the 10-cata rods. So that's kind of the last rods that we developed, and that's been almost two years or a little over two years now. And, you know, there was a real reason for being. There's a few concepts. I'm constantly working on new rods there's a lot of prototypes that have come through my hands in the last few years there's something that i think i might be getting close to releasing because i'm feeling like it's different enough from what's out there the quality is superb and it feels a niche that no other rod does at the moment but i'm not chasing a product cycle you know it's this holiday season i think some of our you know stores or dealers might have been a little disappointed that we didn't have a new rod model although for the most part or most of our dealers have told us you know directly that they appreciate us not releasing a new rod every season because they don't have to be constantly kind of switching over and having old inventory kind of sitting on their hands so it's kind of a two-way street you know there's a there's some pros and cons i think to the idea of not releasing new rods all the time.

9:34So that kind of goes back to, I think, the conflict that I feel personally when it comes to running a company, developing and releasing new rods, as well as my personal philosophy. My philosophy, I believe strongly that we should develop something that's really good that's going to be very useful in a lot of different conditions but that's going to really kind of do something and it doesn't have to be replaced all the time and it and it should be really good and and it should fill a lot of different niches it should be multi-use for example such as the multiple length rods but personally like I every time I go fishing I carry one rod. I'm not a huge gear junkie. You know, I'm not there like just carrying a bunch of rods and playing a bunch with them. Personally, I think the idea of keeping it simple is really important for me because when I go fishing, I like the idea of not second guessing what rod I'm choosing to take with me and that kind of thing. And I really kind of walk the talk, you know, I really kind of keep things very simple and I try to carry that through, you know, everything that I do in a lot of ways. Just not having a new rod out there just for sake of getting some attention, for example. So, you know, but I don't know if that's the wrong, if that's the right way or the wrong way to do it. And I'm, I think, I guess I'm talking about this and I think I'm kind of opening myself up because I don't know the answer and I'm a little bit, trying to figure this out you know what is the right approach here do we just kind of chase the product cycle and release novelty items that might feel a little bit of a niche but are not substantially different from other rods or do we kind of keep with you know keeping the lineup simple release a rod one really it really has a reason for being in focus on what we've been doing which is creating content, video instruction, turning more people on to Tenkara and that kind of thing. I don't know. So that's just something I've been thinking a lot about. I thought I would use this podcast as a vehicle for having a conversation with you guys that are listeners about what it is that you're looking for. Do you think this approach is sustainable? I'm kind of starting to think that it's not sustainable i'm kind of starting to think that i should be releasing a new rod every year or maybe even multiple rods a year um you know as long as of course the quality and the reason for them to exist is still there um it's not too exciting to me to be honest uh to just kind of release new rods all the time um i do like playing with prototypes once in a while But I just feel like the rods that we have, they fish so well that I'm not too anxious to put new rods out in the market just for publicity's sake.

12:50In any case, that's my venting for today. It's not something that most of you need to think about when you go fishing, per se. But as the year starts, you know, as 2016 starts and gets upon us and we start seeing, you know, like more and more companies kind of getting into the space of Tenkara. It's just something that I've been thinking a lot about. And I really appreciate you listening. If you have any comments you want to share with us on our podcast page, just visit tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast. and I'd love to have a comment from you on this episode's page. And let me know what you think. You know, I'm still, I like to think that Tenkara USA is really kind of a, it's kind of an experiment in business where we can try different things. And I've never thought I had all the answers and I certainly don't feel like I have the answer in terms of new product development right now.

13:55So let me know what you think, if you have any insights, strategies, any comments and i hope that uh or the rods that we offer will continue providing enjoyment for years to come to all of you and especially for 2016 with a year filled with good fishing for all of you all right until next time on the Tenkara Cast i will try to release the next episode within two weeks and i'll try to be better about that uh quick announcement we have the fly fishing show coming up this weekend in denver uh if you're anywhere nearby uh come up come out and check us out at the denver show you can go to flyfishingshow.com to look at the schedule we will be at the show in somerset new jersey at the end of the month and there's some cool stuff happening in those shows we'll have some fly time we'll have some really cool stuff and we'll have our humble lineup of five different rod models that we have released over the years available for you to check out if you haven't had a chance to play with them yet hopefully i'll see some of you at one of the shows this season and until next time with the tenkara cast Thank you.