That’s not a number we planned to share, but I can look into it when things settle down. May I ask why you’d like to know?
Thank you for taking the time to care about this, the time to think through this, and the time to share your recommendations. I don’t fault you for being mad and I think your anger is justified.
My priority is delivering above all else. It makes it all the harder for failing at that. Perhaps I should reallocate resources as you suggest, and I should be spending more time and resources every day on this, for example sharing our daily or weekly triumphs and disappointments as many Kickstarter campaigns do. If that’s true, and I’m making the wrong decision, than both I and our company will be punished by you, our customers, for my mistake.
But regardless, I understand that some people who want us to conduct our business differently will decide that monthly updates aren’t for them and will take their funds elsewhere. We’ll make that as painless as possible, because we’ve already caused you enough grief and disappointment by letting you down.
Please let us know if that’s the path you’d like to take, and we’ll issue your refund right away. If not, then I accept your criticism, and will continue to work to bring your Glowforge to you as quickly - and as well - as I possibly can.
The flaw in your logic is that with $36 Million and an extra year past its initial promised date. They shouldn’t be a small shop if they needed to be a big shop to deliver on promises. Missing deadlines by 18 months is a management failure to provide the proper resources, planning and execution.
I could understand if they didn’t raise big checks before and after as they would need to be very careful with the pre-order money so they had enough to pay for the units. But that isn’t the case in this situation as they had $10M before the campaign and another $22M after.
There is a principal called Brook’s Law, however. Avoiding it becomes a balancing act.
It takes some time for the people added to a project to become productive. Brooks calls this the “ramp up” time. Software projects are complex engineering endeavors, and new workers on the project must first become educated about the work that has preceded them; this education requires diverting resources already working on the project, temporarily diminishing their productivity while the new workers are not yet contributing meaningfully. Each new worker also needs to integrate with a team composed of several engineers who must educate the new worker in their area of expertise in the code base, day by day. In addition to reducing the contribution of experienced workers (because of the need to train), new workers may even make negative contributions, for example, if they introduce bugs that move the project further from completion.
So you have taken responsibility. I commend you for that.
@dan When does accountability kick in and what does that look like?
So business as usual with no changes in communication, quality / quantity of updates, and details. Is everything going to be OK up to the day before we get a 4th? 5th? (I can’t remember if this is the 4th or 5th delay message) message that conveys your regrets, teases some new feature, borrows credibility from a 3rd party who exposes small flaws but gives a hopeful stamp of approval and you give another small ultimately inconsequential gift to the community?
You have failed for 18 months with business as usual. To use a well worn cliche “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
So @dan, to borrow a phrase… Is that your final answer?
I could not agree more on scottmillersb thoughts. The communication is just terrible. Everything is fine, no need for updates, and then boom another huge delay.
And please don’t tell me that you don’t have any resources for that because everybody is working night and day to deliver asap. We are talking about minutes per day or maybe half an hour per week. This will not cause the next 6 month delay. I am absolutely not interested in any secret sauce. Just be open and honest. Sometimes a photo and a tweet will do.
And please stop telling over and over again that we can cancel our order. I think everybody who reads this forum understand this by now. And this is quite natural. I mean we ordered, we payed and the delivery gets delayed again and again. Of course I can cancel my order, but please understand, that for some (maybe most) of us, this is not an option because we want or need the glowforge.
@dan_berry I am well familiar with this, but typical ramp up on a well managed project for a programmer is 2 weeks for initial code and full productivity in a month.
If you are referring to my suggestion on hiring someone in less than a week for community, the ramp up time there can be measured in days if done properly.
By the time we actually get this machine, I could have invested my money in other avenues and possible be in a better place now financially. A lot can happen in 12 months let alone a year and a half and we are here left twiddling our thumbs!
I just don’t get why the delay notices are so last minute - both times. I am also disappointed that some of the specs really sold the machine to me and made me make a hard financial decision, are either not ready yet - like features 3 and 8 and the filter for the pro(?) - or are not as they are described in the feature list (feature 8).
We’ll have to continue to use outside services until we get the GF - it’s not the end of the world. And because I apparently live at the end of the world, we need to get a machine that - at least hardware wise - works, especially when paying $1700 for shipping. So we’ll wait.
For what it’s worth though, I have faith in GF as a company. Not because of how they handle the PR (or some of the apparently simple questions for that matter), but because it seems as thought they seem to eat, sleep and breathe GF and are committed to get a great product out there. I respect that a lot.
So my criticism does not mean you don’t have my support - you have it.
I really like this… @dan, what about a UV printer specifically? That would be awesome because everything else is in place for that function. And because that industry is also ripe for ‘desktop-status’ and maker accessibility.
Nope, it wasn’t in reference to that. This is what caught my eye:
While Dan has obviously stepped forward to accept it falls on him, sometimes trying to find the right person with the proper skillset is a challenge and can hinder the progress you’re suggesting. That’s all I wanted to highlight.
Fair enough, I know how hard it is to hire and keep good people, especially in a town where you have companies with hiring budgets that make Glowforge look like a lemonade stand. That being said at some point you have to say there just isn’t an excuse.
Crunchbase says @dan and the Glowforge company was founded in 2014 and raise a seed round in Feb 2015, which means that the company is close to or exceeding 3 years of operations and 2 years with significant funding. It’s hard for me to believe that they couldn’t have grown as needed during that time.
No, not really. If you had kept your money and bought a GF today you would have to pay the increased price. You wouldn’t have got that much in interest if you’d left it in a bank, had you invested it you take the risk of loss, partial or full, I’d say you’re still ahead of the game, delays notwithstanding.
