What the Sam Hill is Kool Aid? And while we’re at it, Who the heck is Sam Hill?
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Koolaid is a beverage powder sold in the US (and probably Canada). It comes in little paper sachets, and there are probably like 10 different flavors. You add an ungodly amount of sugar, the kool aid mix (food coloring and artificial flavoring), and then a bunch of water. Its not as popular as it used to be, I don’t think, but it’s sort of an iconic kids drink and has been around forever (1920s or 30s, I think).
What people are talking about though, “drinking the koolaid” is a reference to a mass suicide by a cult in the… 60s, I think? Hundreds of people committed suicide by drinking flavor aid (knock off koolaid) poisoned with cyanide. Not everyone “drank the koolaid” willingly.
Now people use the term to mean someone who is loyal to the end, even if it’s doomed. Usually also used for a person who is super-committed and gung-ho, but perhaps a little naive, delusional, or overly optimistic or enthusiastic.
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I prefer an Arnold Palmer. 
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Ahh, thanks Erin.
Sounds awful.
I’ll just stick to my apple juice I think.
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Can anybody point to a page on the wayback machine that actually says the December shipping was for beta units and production was starting Q2? People accuse me of not doing due diligence but I ordered on 27th of September and I can’t find any page with that information from then. It was only after ordering that I was invited to this forum that I found out.
I did read a lot of the website before ordering. There is this quote from the FAQ when will my Glowforge ship: “We’ll ship the first units in December 2015 and roll out the rest of the units over the next few quarters as production ramps up”.
Since I ordered very close to launch mine should be one of the “first units”. No mention of beta testing. It just reads a slow ramp up of production starting December and continuing over the next few quarters, so that includes Q1. It was never going to happen then so it must have been a deliberate deception to get orders.
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Yeah I like his wine.
I watched every single video I could find which at the time was not many, but those included the promotional videos of an already apparently “functional” machine, the machine lent to Tested for their review ( I’ll never trust them again ), and other promotional material. I did believe by the language in the advertising and announcements that at the very LEAST beta testers would receive their GF’s by the end of December 2015 and that early adopters would begin to receive theirs soon there after. Had I ever read or viewed any material ( other than this forum that I would be sitting around until early 2017 hoping that production of this machine is successful, I would have never even considered ordering. I personally don’t want to own a machine full of glitches, I don’t want to be a part of an early release that ends up being a shaky V.1 of anything, and I would have never really understood that most of the wonderful technological marvels were simply a few concepts on a wish list unless I had begun to actively read the forums here after the first initial change in timeline. And as I wrote this I went back into my emails, and viola…what would you know…This email was received 11/23/15 titled “Latest update on shipping”.
One month ago today, you helped us make history. Glowforge became the biggest 30-day crowdfunding campaign in history. We always knew what we were building was a big idea, but we had no idea that you, and so many people like you, would see the potential so quickly. It’s been an inspiration and a motivation. Every day we come to work we think about the teachers, the parents, the artists, the architects. The backers who sold cars, took out loans, and spent their savings. The people who are counting on us to deliver something amazing.
In just a few days, I’m going to send an email about our first shipments - our first beta units, coming out in December - and how you can volunteer to get one. Before we start shipping units, though, we want to be sure that everyone involved knows what’s ahead. We’ve been sharing information through the FAQ, update emails, and most of all through daily posts on the forum at http://community.glowforge.com. But we’ve had a few emails from people who are concerned. They missed some of the details. For example, some thought we were shipping everything in December, or didn’t realize that you had to have internet access to use a Glowforge. That makes us feel terrible, because it means we didn’t communicate as well or as clearly as we should have. So we pulled together this email with all of the most important information about your order, and a few of the misconceptions we’ve heard along the way.
For most of you, nothing here will be a surprise. But we want to make sure Glowforge is right for you, so please read through all the details here. Should you decide that you’re you’re going to do without your Glowforge, you can reach us at support@glowforge.com. We’ll cancel your order, reverse the payment, and give your place in line to someone else.
But we hope you don’t want that.
With no further ado, then:
Most backers will get their machines in the first half of 2016.
When we launched, we said “First units shipping December 2015”, and then went on to say that units purchased before October 23 would ship in the first half of 2016. Now the first shipments are about to happen! (Stay tuned for an email in a few days on how you can apply to get one of the first few beta units). However, we’ve heard from a few people who thought that all the shipments would happen in December. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. To make sure your final Glowforge is as good as it can possibly be, we’re going to start by shipping a small number of beta units starting in two weeks. We’ll build the next set of units on a small test line over the course of the month. Then, the majority of units will roll out in the first half of next year. The date that we ramp up our production and start shipping thousands of units will depend on your feedback and our quality testing, but we’re on schedule to have all units that were purchased before Oct 23 shipped in the first half of 2016. Units ordered after Oct 23 will ship in the summer of 2016.
We’re on time, but delays are still possible.
Every day when I come into work I think about the Glowforge backers who are betting on us. Everyone at the company knows you’re counting on us, and that weighs on us and inspires us every day in equal measure. We will spare no effort to deliver every Glowforge on time. There is one thing we won’t do, though, and that’s compromise on the quality of what we’re building.
Our team has many years of experience shipping hardware, so we know how to minimize risk and stay on schedule. We’re buying parts months before they’re needed, flying around the world to inspect component manufacturers and ensure that they have the supplies and quality that we need, and sparing no efforts to accelerate production. (Do you know how much it costs to air freight a 10 ton injection mold? I do now!)
We are right on schedule, and have built buffers and redundancy into our plan. But even with all our efforts, we could experience delays. What we aren’t going to do is ship our production units until they are awesome.
Highlighted in bold lettering is “We are right on schedule”, as well as the entire paragraph letting you know that “shipments are about to happen”. So when I read these forums and see so many people argue that all of the info was right there, not exactly. If you have to dig for actual information, click here, register there, read comments and search for any of @dan’s replies…then NO the info was not easily accessible.
And although I agree with you that the delay sucks, that being told that “we’re almost there!” counts for absolutely nothing to me, and that the delays and continued pre release pricing has pretty much ruined any advantage in my opinion to being an early adopter…Seeing some of the work that others have done with lasers, seeing @jkopel’s work with his beta machine, and understanding that I really seriously don’t have a care in the world to deal with a chinese laser at this time is what keeps me here.
But as stated, I personally feel that you are correct palmercr, but what can you really do about it…its a crowdfunded campaign and no matter if the entire thing was snake oil, its the inherent risk of trying to be on the bleeding edge. I’m confident we’ll eventually receive something and definitely happy we’ll be receiving whatever it is we get in 2017 than what we would have received back in 2015…but it doesn’t take the feeling away of having been suckered in. It’s not exactly a $500 purchase I can shrug off.
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I was actually relieved when the June delay was announced as it meant I didn’t have to choose between getting my Glowforge into parts production mode and 3 months of summer at the lake. It was the prospect that while “still on track. . . doesn’t mean we might not be delayed again” that gave me more than just a mild sigh.
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Gave me another excuse to upgrade. “But honey, the basic was last year’s Christmas present!”
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So for those keeping track, 2 delays.
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My wife won’t buy into that. . . I went with the Pro unit out of the gate. 
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Oh I’m under heavy observation now for sure.
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I agree what is done is done. What matters is have you learned from your past failings and are not repeating the same mistakes?
I find it interesting you find it annoying, but only when someone is presenting an argument that you disagree with. I don’t see this indignation when the cheery argument is made.
Rehashing your point of view over and over could also be considered annoying. , so regardless of whether you agree with it or not, just drop it ? (to paraphrase you).
There is no explicit mention of 2015 being betas. There are mentions of phase shipments as production ramps up, per the posts above. See rest of this thread for continuing discussions on this topic. As @chadmart1076 pointed out, it makes little difference now other than to know that you were not mistaken in your understanding.
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If I remained pessimistic I would have cancelled my order. I am still very optimistic, and eagerly awaiting my GF to play with.
I think the difference is blind optimism vs a more measured approach looking at the past performance.
Love the graphic by the way!
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Here’s the difference. People who are… if not content, then at least accepting of the situation are spending time talking about the various features of the GF and talking about ideas for projects once they get the GF. They are asking questions about whether the GF will do this or that at launch, and making lists of features that they would most like to see at launch in terms of the machine itself, the library, the proofgrade materials, etc… All of these things are constructive. They help the GF team by letting them know what the users are most anticipating, and maybe if an item is in “the hopper” but lower on the list, but it is being talked about a lot, then it can be moved up. And it helps me (and other users) by giving us things to think about, things that we hadn’t considered from a design, materials, heck even a placement of the GF in my house perspective that maybe I hadn’t thought of before.
Reminding someone of their mistakes is not constructive. In fact it can be quite destructive.
My aversion to this comes from 12 years of near-abusive treatment by my old boss who liked nothing better than to point out every single mistake that I made in my entire time there… over and over again. For example, at one point 10 years into my career I make a simple mistake on a design. A mistake, not a conscious choice. I am treated to a 1000 word email lecture about how to properly design an inductive loop traffic detector. After that, I am reminded of this mistake several times, each time that I submit a new loop design. Every time I point out that it was a simple mistake, not a design choice, but it doesn’t matter In my ex-boss’s mind, mistakes were simply not a thing. No matter the situation, if part of a design was wrong, it was a conscious decision to design it that way, and therefore my understanding of the design for that particular item was flawed. But more than that, he felt that Apparently I was incapable of learning from my mistakes, and therefore had to be constantly reminded of them.
Another example. I got to the point where I was pretty good at identifying conduit sizes in the field by sight. One project I mis-judged the sizes and we had a change-order in construction because of it. After that I couldn’t go to the field without my boss not just stating “don’t forget to measure the conduit sizes” but “don’t forget to measure the conduit sizes because you didn’t do it that one time, and it cost a lot of money.”
Being told that you were wrong, when you’ve already been told you were wrong once, twice, seventeen times is not constructive. It is destructive behavior that whether it is intended or not, breaks someone down. It ensures that they have a low opinion of themselves. In the end they believe that nothing that they do is correct… but more than that, they believe that they are incapable of doing anything correctly. I labored under that kind of oppression for nearly 12 years. I felt like I was incapable of being correct for 12 years. Could I have quit? Sure, but for the first seven years or so I didn’t know what was happening. I just thought that I was a crappy engineer. It got to the point where I was literally startled when the phone would ring, and if the caller ID listed my boss, I would legitimately be terrified to answer it.
I have since moved, and in doing so got a new job. In just 7 months at my new job where I am trusted by my bosses, where I am not reminded of every single mistake, I have thrived and surpassed my ability and have grown many times over in my self-worth to the point where I actually believe in my abilities as an engineer, but more importantly I believe in myself. My first email to a client at the new job… I get a reply from my boss within five minutes of sending. This is another trigger from my old job, as I would get these replies from the boss telling me every little mistake that I made in my email. That old fear is there. Is my new boss the same way? I open the email. It has one word. “Nice”. Sigh of relief. Things have changed.
So yeah… I have a more than slight aversion to the constant reminder of mistakes. Once again, we know it. The GF team knows it, and constantly berating us with it serves zero constructive purpose.
Further, @dan and the GF team are not your employees. They don’t answer to you. Yes, they want to make sure that every customer of theirs is happy, but it isn’t possible to make 100% of your customers happy. In the end the most leverage that you hold over them is a single Glowforge.
I think this article by another successful crowd-funding entrepreneur is very useful. I urge Dan and the GF team to read it.
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I had a much more rant-y post written up, but suffice to say that anyone who ordered after the first day complaining about the December '15 shipping goal doesn’t have a leg to stand on. You should have known that you were in the “ships in Q2” camp. How you could have possibly looked at a crowdfunding campaign website that was asking for $100,000 but had already raised millions of dollars and came to the conclusion that you were slated to receive one of the “first” units is beyond comprehension.
“Gee, I know I’m at least 2000th in line but I bet I will get one of the ‘first’ shipments.”
It seems that at least 250 units were sold in the first 12 hours. Those people had two delays, the rest of us have had one delay (so far).
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Just curiosity…what day did the Crowdfunding actually start?
I got tipped to it by another 3D printer, so it had been in the works for a while.
(And I fought the impulse to buy for a time - glad I lost now. If nothing else comes of it, this has been a stone-cold blast, and I’m getting to learn parametric design.)
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I think the first day was September 24th.
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Bought mine on the 26th, and remember thinking I was day 2 or 3, so I think that’s correct (including TZ differences).
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