Schedule update (December '16)

[scottmillersb]

@rpegg

It’s too much to ask only because you are not hearing the answers that have been given. You seem to want only the answers that satisfy you.

If I am missing something in the 600ish posts, please let me know. Every question I have is listed in the top of both threads and I will gladly update it or admit my error if something was answered. But lets be clear, I am looking for Facts and Details, not platitudes. No more PR spin, no more softball pitches so @dan can tell us how amazing Glowforge will be, if they can ship it at some point.

Is it really too much to ask how he plans to improve communication with the audience?
What is he going to change, add, etc to make sure they don’t miss their next shipping deadline?

[jbv]

several people mentioned the email went to spam folders. I don’t know if that is the case for you or not. Did you get a confirmation email when you ordered? if so, I would think all is good.
if not, you should probably write a note to support@glowforge.com

[rpegg]

I’m guessing you want a look at the detailed project timeline, a thorough explanation of the techncal details as to what went wrong and the status of each unit assembly. You want information as to production line throughput, certification tests, reliability data, etc. You want the CEO to resign, You want a shakeup and reallocation of people. Now I’m going to say this as politely as I can. You are not going to get it.

[scottmillersb]

@dan_berry

It’s to safeguard against future liabilities through innocuous admission of facts. It’s why press releases are not only written by PR departments, but carefully reviewed by lawyers before publishing.

As someone who has 20 employees and did 12 years of marketing and PR. I can tell you that you are incredibly wrong. Dan in the stream today highlighted a specific instance where he couldn’t talk about a specific part of Glowforge until the copyright had been completed. That’s perfectly understandable. But telling people they can’t have an update because everyone’s too busy or the camera was lost or its in the basement, maybe next week… Thats nothing but a poor excuse.

Keep in mind that Glowforge Inc. is not a publicly traded company so they have no issues with the SEC

[dan_berry]

@scottmillersb

I am looking for Facts and Details, not platitudes.

Seeking to elevate yourself as the primary resource of solving all ills smacks to me of Messiah complex (which is not a clinical term nor diagnosable disorder, however, the symptoms of the disorder closely resemble those found in individuals suffering from grandiose delusions or delusions of grandeur.)

[dan_berry]

@scottmillersb

As someone who has 20 employees and did 12 years of marketing and PR. I can tell you that you are incredibly wrong.

I have 50 employees and 25 years in government and private business experience. I can tell you that you’re incredibly wrong, too.

It doesn’t matter if it’s publicly traded. Liability law does not discriminate.

[scottmillersb]

@rpegg

'm guessing you want a look at the detailed project timeline, a thorough explanation of the techncal details as to what went wrong and the status of each unit assembly. You want information as to production line throughput, certification tests, reliability data, etc. You want the CEO to resign, You want a shakeup and reallocation of people. Now I’m going to say this as politely as I can. You are not going to get it.

Not at all @rpegg here is an example of what would be reasonable.

Identify area’s of the project that have bottlenecked the project.

Example: We are having issues with our web portal development timeline and have contracted with and industry expert to advise us. I will update you on the status of this in X weeks as I get more information. We have X problem with Y part of the project staying on time and will be hiring X people to increase our resources. I will update you in Z weeks with more details.

I think you are the first person who has said anything about @Dan resigning. But there have been calls from myself and others for accountability. @dan has said he didn’t do this right, now he needs to say how he will do it right in the future.

If the communication had been solid, zero people would have been shocked today, because their expectations would have been managed.

[erin]

@info3

Was there any mention that it was (maybe still is?) just a concept like you say?

The terms and conditions have always stated that it is not ready for delivery and delivery times are estimates and may be severely delayed, and that it was subject to change due to manufacturing. Which ag the time told me it was a prototype that hadn’t begun manufacturing.

But I doubt most people read the terms and conditions when they agreed to them. Glowforges is written pretty clearly, but its still not really an easy read.

[scottmillersb]

@dan_berry

I have 50 employees and 25 years in government and private business experience. I can tell you that you’re incredibly wrong, too.

It doesn’t matter if it’s publicly traded. Liability law does not discriminate.

I am not a lawyer, not sure if you are one either. But my understanding of liability law requires loss or damages. With 100% refunds there is no loss, except potentially for international purchasers.

[scottmillersb]

@dan_berry

Seeking to elevate yourself as the primary resource of solving all ills smacks to me of… [link to wikipedia for “messiah complex” mental illness.]

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?

[Jules]

@scottmillersb

We would like Facts and Plans.

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.

[dan_berry]

@scottmillersb

I think you are the first person who has said anything about @Dan resigning. But there have been calls from myself and others for accountability. @dan has said he didn’t do this right, now he needs to say how he will do it right in the future.

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.

[dlaituri]

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.

[pomwah]

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…

https://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y

[rpegg]

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.

[ryanspradlin]

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.

[scottmillersb]

@dan_berry

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.

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.

@dan

Scott, I hear your requests. If we decide to make changes based on them, I will let everyone know.

[Jules]

@scottmillersb

As a group of concerned customers it’s up to @dan to calm the fears or accept that people are going to leave.

He has accepted this.

[scottmillersb]

@rpegg

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.

You are right, it has gotten off topic and circular. Just waiting for @dan at this point unless someone has a specific question.

[rpegg]

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.