Schedule update (December '16)

It’s statements like this that worry me, because this doesn’t seem well thought through. The eye is not a pressure vessel, so if any noticeable amount of the liquid inside it vaporizes you’re going to have a really horrible situation. The safety rules and recommendations were developed for a reason.

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That is not a correct statement. CO2 lasers run at 10.6um (10600nm). The absorption coefficient for water is ~10 3 cm-1 at that frequency. It is much better than at the visible spectrum, that is true. But that does not mean it can’t penetrate water. The correct statement should be it can’t penetrate water well. In fact, the penetration amount will be approximately 10um. Its not very much, but I can’t imagine the water layer around the eye is very thick either.

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I’m so sorry you didn’t get the email! Please check your spam filter for email from danshapiro@glowforge.com and add that address, as well as support@glowforge.com, to your contacts list. That way, you’ll know when you get your Glowforge!

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That is true, as we’ve chosen more expensive suppliers and processes (e.g. quick turn boards & air shipping) to improve quality and increase speeds - but we still are profitable on our sales, even the early basics.

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@scottmillersb, I hear and understand your opinion and requests. I believe I’ve read all of your posts (and in fact, just about every post in the forum right now - I have just 500 or so left to go). I believe you’re waiting to hear that I’m going to do some or all of the things you are requesting, or that I’m going to refuse to do them.

I’m not going to make any decisions right now. I’m going to continue to talk to my team, listen to you, our customers, think about how we can improve, and decide what, if anything, we’re going to change. Changes in the way we communicate, if any, will probably not be heralded with announcements - I’d rather just do it than commit to something and create frustration if I fall short.

Please email support, we’ll fix that pronto! Ditto for you, @jules!

I’m sorry to hear that. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I loved your post. I’m sorry I’m making you do this the hard way!

I’m so sorry, I don’t understand - what made you angry and frustrated? That was posted to the community around the same time it was sent with pre-release units.

The definitive answer to that is the manual. When the Basic manual gets cleaned up, we’ll post it. The Pro manual is still being worked over by the Friendly Neighborhood Lawyer.

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I won’t be canceling my order at this time. For me this was just an impulse buy, and at the time I put my money down I had plenty of disposable income. That’s not entirely true any more, but the money I have tied up in this wouldn’t really change my life if I had it to spend now. So long as WIC pays for most of the milk, cheese, and veggies my four kids consume, I’m in this for the ride. This and the LQMT stock I bought a few years ago.

This does leave a bad taste in my mouth for any other crowdfunding or pre-order devices. Now, when I see that the cool new life-changing product is just a slick prototype, I just close the tab on my browser and go back to looking at pictures of kittens and whatever my friends had for lunch.

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My feeling is that many that are upset with the level of communication, would find out the reason that the so called cheerleaders are upbeat is because there is an absolute wealth of information about the product progress in the forum. Get more involved, ask your questions, inspire us with your projects and plans, get inspired, etc. Many of us would love to try to point you to the answers you seek, when that is possible. We have all wrestled with aspects of the same concerns you have expressed. Trust me, we all feel your pain with any delay.

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A Co2 laser doesn’t penetrate far into the materials it cuts because they absorb it at the surface. The surface then vaporises almost instantly, the vapour is removed by the air assist and the new surface gets exposed. So even though the laser light can’t penetrate the material it can cut it as deep as it remains sufficiently focused.

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so its basically a first come first serve, if people cancel (leave the line) you get yours sooner, right?

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@dan

For those of you coming late to the party Dan and I are talking about this thread where he details the status of the current Glowforge Pre Release units and what they can and can’t do. The thread can be found here: Information on pre-release units

The reason why I was frustrated and angry is I didn’t see it until last night, I don’t think a single person referenced the information in any of the 3 threads with over 800 posts in total. It wasn’t sent to the community as an update (that I received) and didn’t show up in my forum recap e-mail (or I missed it there too). You have read my posts, think of how different the discussion would have been this information had been there had been as a starting point, common ground if you will. It has 80% of what I was asking for when I wanted more transparency. See my response to @Rpegg for examples of what I hoped transparency would look like.

That is what has me so frustrated and angry. You are hands down the most interactive and community focused CEO ever seen. It’s one of the reasons I used to have so much trust in you and your team. But over time its become apparent that while you answer a lot of posts, to be blunt, for as much as you respond, you fail to communicate well. I really wish I knew the reasoning, the real reasoning why you are unwilling to be more transparent. Everyone who is reasonable will understand why you can’t talk about a new feature while dealing with the legal issues. When that happens you Macgyver a solution. Can’t show the printer head, that’s fine edit the video to only show the object being created. Don’t have time to create the content, hire someone to help you create content, updates and manage the expectations of the community. Have a setback on the (insert component or feature), tell the customers, give us your plan to address it and UPDATE US on the status. Be a leader, build trust and people will follow you.

Your openness built a huge amount of trust, when you pushed the date last time you said there was only .1% cancelations. Consider why that was, you had a huge amount of trust built up because of your accessibility, you had a $22 million stamp of approval from your investors, early adopters been trained to expect delays and you leaned on the borrowed credibility of Tested and other sites. People were unhappy, there was a call for greater transparency and you started doing more regular updates.

Now you don’t have much, if any trust and credibility left. You the old tricks of selling the dream aren’t working and it’s very apparent that your method of quick one line answers to deflect serious issues, the constant use of the refund as a crutch when things get tough, the confirmation of adding something to the “list” to consider it and your other ways of managing the community, just won’t cut it going forward. Glowforge has a lot of detractors right now, even Tested has said in their comments that the delay was “Concerning” and you’re paying Adam Savage as a consultant, so I would expect you would have some level of favored nation status with Tested.

You have a huge number of people on the fence right now with their order, not just me. Take a second to imagine what how long a thread would be if I curated every request for transparency from the last 4 days. It would be pages upon pages of your customers, in some cases outright begging you to step up and be a leader and tell them how you are going to move forward and fix your communication and transparency problems. If making this decision takes more than a hour meeting to come up with a basic action plan, you are flat out doing it wrong. To borrow from my journalism professor from so long ago. Be Clear, Concise, Consistent and Coherent.

Here is an easy way you start addressing a lot of concerns. Take your list from the pre-production units. Update it and tell us you are going to update it again in a week. That is Clear, Concise and Coherent and has the added benefit of being simple. If you update in a week, then it’s Consistent.

That is a start and it will show me and hopefully others that it’s not business as usual. This or something like it will start to rebuild my trust in you. It will also show me that you aren’t continuing to lie to and deceive your customers who invested $45 million dollars of trust in you. Also a word to the wise, if you don’t build trust and something major happens again you should find a metaphorically deep hole and hide because the customer backlash is going to be awe inspiring.

As we get to the conclusion of this post, you can see why my professor told me I need to work on “concise” :slight_smile:

What’s the TLDR?
At the end of the day, you are the Chief Executive Officer @Dan. You should do what you is right for the company, your customers and your team.

You implied other night that only actions will regain my trust. It’s been 3 days and it’s time for action.


P.S. On the topic of communication, I mentioned this on Friday and Saturday. It would be nice if you updated the website’s FAQ, it still has incorrect shipping date and warranty information. I am sure the people currently making their decision to buy their Glowforge would appreciate accurate information.

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It’s not about losing money. I never meant to imply that. The point was that they now have a VC who’s investment they are responsible for protecting. So, there is a level of profit that needs to be maintained. Like I said before, I wouldn’t blame them. I’m absolutely certain they wouldn’t be the first crowd funded product to have this problem. It was just an idea about why a company would delay when it seems as if they have functional units that have been produced for some time now. I’d honestly like to know exactly what issues a are delaying production. Maybe they’ve discussed that already and I missed it. I’m not really angry either way. I knew what I was getting into by buying something off kickstarter.

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Burn it all downnnnnnn

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I’m not sure if I’ve now missed your point about this as well. And I’m not looking for a debate here. But the message you reference here is in the Announcements section. I’m not sure how much more of an announcement you could have been looking for. I’m also not sure what you mean by “3 threads.” There are an uncountable number of threads on this site. I’m thinking you might want to confirm your notification settings by going to the root of the Announcement section, clicking the dropdown to the right of “+ New Topic,” then select “Watching.” That way you’ll get notifications from the Announcements category when new topics like “Information on pre-release units” come out.

Again, just trying to help you out here. If I’ve misunderstood please clarify and I’ll try to help further.

  • Tom
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Come on, dude. What you’re angry about is that you didnt read the information. Not that Dan or anyone else didn’t send it to you. You were told about the forum in 2015. It’s not like it was hidden from you. And, as Dan stated in the announcement, it was the letter they were sending to pre-release recipients. As you are not a pre-release recipient, you did not receive an email. He shared that information in the announcements section in order to better communicate with those who asked for it. If you want better communication, fix your forum settings or visit more.

And as to why no one pointed it out to you, you may want to consider the scope of the conversation you were having at the time and how you asked. I read the prerelease announcement and I read your posts, along with loads of other people, and never made the connection that information about pre-release models was what you wanted to know about.

In my mind what you were asking for

Isn’t 80% satisfied by the announcement.

But now that you are 80% satisfied, that’s great! Dan exceeded your expectation by giving you what you wanted before you even asked.

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Please do not look into laser with remaining eye.

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It took me about five minutes to decide to keep my Pro order. Delays? Meh. Bitching and complaining will not change a thing. However, patience will pay off… bigly . :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks bdm,

Yeah, I get involved in startups frequently and Glowforge is remarkably forthcoming as these things go. This very much a ‘spend your money, takes your chances’ kind of thing. I suspect it will come out alright. He has a lot of VC money backing him and those guys do not like to lose. If it was truly going sideways they would likely step in and replace Dan. That’s what me and my guys would do. I guess we’ll see.

David

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Day 3 and still no email (confirmation) or refund… but then again, im sure there is some sort of T&A that says "your refund my be delayed without any reason given bla bla bla"which I haven’t read yet…