I am not a psychologist and I am not sure if you are one either… But this feels like a personal attack to me. Because you disagree with my position I now have a mental illness?
And that you will not get. It’s not up to us to run his company. We don’t actually have a say in it, although he is better than any other CEO that I know (and yes, I know several) at listening to our concerns.
He actually does pop into the forum most nights, comments on threads where we have been posting our work and giving input to the betas. We have gotten into rather lengthy back and forth discussions over things like how to handle vector treatments and kerf and a host of issues that have to deal with actually building these things and making them work the way we want them to. That has been going on for this entire year.
But unless you are active on the forums, you would not know that. It’s not an accusation, not everyone has the time to do it, but it does happen.
This announcement came as a shock to those who don’t hang around on the forum. He gets that and so do the people who do hang around on the forum. But ask yourself if you wouldn’t have had the exact same reaction if he had made the announcement last month? No one likes bad news, whenever it is received.
We all thought we were getting this thing this month too. And it does stink to have to wait again. But i can’t fault someone doing his best.
Again, for every person…it has to come down to the personal choice of what is right for that individual. Dan is not going to try to convince us to stay with the machine and believe that they will be able to eventually deliver it. That is something that we each have to decide for ourselves.
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Again, you make reasonable suggestions… but you make unreasonable appeals in terms of your place to make them. You are not on the board of investors, however, you continue to present yourself as if you are. I’m certain that Dan will be asked many such things, eventually. But it’s not your place NOR your purview to receive the answers to it.
Edit: And no, my statement of “Messiah Complex” is not a personal attack. It’s a statement of attempting to elevate yourself beyond your reasonable expectations.
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Dispensing with the emotional impact this has had an all, there’s a need to dig deeper into what’s causing all of this in your organization and plan.
As a former CEO and product developer – as well as one who has had to answer to both investors and Kickstarter bakers, I’ve learned if you focus on only the symptoms, they will probably keep happening. As a CEO, it’s relatively easy to take the bullets, so much harder to fix the system:
Glowforge pre-sale was 6 – 9 months too early
Asking for pre-purchase dollars should only happen AFTER all of the problems have been sufficiently addressed …and just BEFORE you need to ramp up production. Nearly every high-profile failure on Kickstarter can be attributed to a poorly timed launch, where the big engineering and issues show up after funding. The first Pebble Watch project comes to mind.
You were marketing heavy/engineering light early on
The engaging presentation on your site reasonably implied that you were further along then you really were, simply 30 days of pre-purchasing away from production launch. You’re now in an over promise/under deliver dilemma that no one wants. It’s not clear where you are now, but it appears you are paying dearly for the misalignment
Reoccurring 11th hour problems indicate underlying problems
Do you have the right people with the right experience with the right plan? 2 late-project train wrecks like this would suggest no, and give cause to a larger concern about what problems will occur next. If nothing changes to address this foundational stuff, history says there is a high likelihood that they will.
It’s troubling to see so much customer good will here be drawn down repeatedly, in big traunches, before it’s been truly earned through a delivered product. It’s going to take extremely earnest and very TRANSPARENT effort on your part – more transparency then you have been willing to demonstrate until now - to preserve what’s left.
I’m concerned that if you don’t address the underlying issues, there will be more 11th hour disappointments in coming months. No one wants that… you’ll have a mutiny if they do.
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I can’t help but get the feeling that some people are here just for the argument …
The following is, of course, completely off topic but if everyone takes a break for a couple of minutes and enjoys a little polite British humour we can all start in again feeling just a little less heavyhearted.
Enjoy…
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Again, I’m trying to be supportive because I too believe that these communication problems were self inflicted through untimely status updates and minimal transparency. I kind of feel like we are playing a “whose is bigger” game here. As someone who had 370 mostly engineers that reported to him, a billion dollar complex, and several technical projects that dwarfed by several times the entire Glowforge effort, I will still tell you that level of detail is for large scale investors or critical design reviews and not individual customers. Of course we all want more and I think it’s wise for them to provide additional timely info. Dan said he will be talking with his folks and decide what is appropriate. You just don’t like that answer.
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Here’s a thought… Perhaps after much research and development it has been discovered that these units are more expensive to produce than originally planned for. So, as a result, they are now delaying permanently until enough of the early adopters cancel in order to make the original discount price financially palatable. It would be the only real way to solve having sold millions of discounted units after not having a plan for it. In reality, every unit they sold after they met their crowdfunding goal was effectively a loss in profit. So, at this point each cancelation might actually represent a positive net gain. This is just something that crossed my mind since I find it somewhat hard to believe that you’ve run these units extensively in beta and at makefairs for a year and are still this far away from production. Either way, I don’t blame you. It’s hard to forecast crowdfunding. I’m hanging tight until July I guess, and I’ll be interested to see how many units actually ship in the first wave.
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It is in my purview to vote with my wallet as with anyone else here. I am trying to find out the information that is important to me. Other’s seem to care about that information as well. As a group of concerned customers it’s up to @dan to calm the fears or accept that people are going to leave.
I think its more than fair that we should get updates with reasonable fact and substance that shows us that @glowforge is being responsible with development and the more than $45 Million we have entrusted them with.
But you and I aren’t going to get anywhere continuing this part of the thread. I am going to wait till @dan responds to things. If I can’t wait any longer then I know what to do.
He has accepted this.
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You are right, it has gotten off topic and circular. Just waiting for @dan at this point unless someone has a specific question.
Truce. I’m guessing even if they change the communication approach that we won’t know anything for a couple weeks. Think I heard Dan is pretty booked next week out of the office.
This sounds a little conspiracy theory to me.
I mean, I have no doubt they’ve run into unexpected costs, such is the nature of hardware. But they have all the cash they need and then some to see it through.
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With all of the back and forth many of us have had today, that one actually made me snicker a little. No disrespect.
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Yes. Full stop. That’s it. You’ve not hired Dan, you’ve pre-paid for a product.
And that’s important to Dan. And he’s made both group-wide and personal comments to calm those fears. Don’t like what you’ve been told? Vote with your wallet.
Now you’ve crossed into micro-management territory. You either want the product, or you don’t. If you don’t like the way Dan runs his business, then go to the other company making Glowforges. The investors (those who actually own the business - and keep in mind that Dan is also one of them) seem to be reasonably satisfied with his work. Also, not sure where you’re getting your $45M from… you might want to check out Crunchbase. In either case, your money hasn’t actually been touched. You’re not on the investors list.
I went humm for a sec… then laughed. While he is correct that they would make more money off a full sale, it assumes that there will be a full sale for a cancellation.
His comments have lacked any substance, if you feel I am wrong point me to specific details. I like details! But lacking that, lets stop going back and forth ok? It’s not productive when neither of us have answers.
Let me google that for you… https://glowforge.com/45-million-lasers-later-glowforge-discounts-disappear
Sir yes sir! But please do let me know if you are a Lawyer or a Psychologist. I am interested in seeing if that is your above responses are your professional opinion 
I’m not saying they need the money. I’m saying that cancellations actually improve their overall profit margin.
Yeah. 45 million (qty) lasers. Not 45 million DOLLARS of lasers, which is quite a difference.
But thanks for ‘Googling that for me’, and having your ‘facts’ correct.
Edit: And yes, I’m being sarcastic at this point.
My professional experience is that you’re wasting everyone’s time.
I know reading is hard, but this is in the first paragraph…
Customers have continued to place pre-orders, and Glowforge has just announced $45 million in total sales. This is only ten months after Glowforge had the biggest 30-day crowdfunding campaign in history – a record it still holds. The company also announced that September will be the last month customers can pre-order a Glowforge at the steeply discounted price of $2,395.
There already is a full sale waiting behind a discount sale. I would guess at this point, they are having problems keeping people who might be interested because of the long wait for potential new sales.