“What Jim brought to the table is that he had the light bulb where he saw what this thing could be,” Draplin says. “Jim’s, like, reputable and stuff. People always say, well, you’re half of the thing—yeah, but I would have killed it because I might have gone to the next goofy little thing.”
Today, 20 years and more than 10 million sold notebooks later, what began as a casual side project with no real expectation has yielded a cult product that is in 2,000 stores worldwide, has a robust direct-to-consumer membership program, and, Coudal says, just came off its best year for sales and revenue. And 2025 is on pace, he adds, with hopes to surpass it.
How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook – Fast Company