I wasn’t available at 7pm EST on a Friday for the Q&A back in December. @dan said he would answer questions for those who were unable to attend. The following are a few questions I have.
#1. Can we get a credible probability, as of today (and every month until your self-imposed deadline), for keeping the proposed December 2016 timeline for delivery?
Getting a trajectory of the machine delivery is much more useful to your crowdfunders than “Everything is good…until it’s not at the last minute”. You expect your customers to be patient and compassionate when you blow through multiple deadlines and extend them not by single months but half years. It would go a long way if you’d help manage the timelines and expectations of your first customers a little better than in the past. Business is about equal relationships. Your communication efforts thus do not make the grade for the professional pedigree you project.
#2. Can we reliably expect a reasonably brief but transparent monthly update on the status of the project?
#2a. Can we get more clear numbers of machines you are delivering in your updates?
The clarity of progress would go a long way to reducing the damage your communication/delays have caused.
#3. Very disappointed to see you decided it was necessary to materially change the specs of the machine you’re making for us without consulting the people who are buying it. I’m speaking here about the bed depth reduction from 12" to 11.5" more than a year after the pre-order campaign closed. Is it possible via software to cut/engrave a 12x12" part slower but without rotating it 180deg or is this a mechanical issue at this point?
12 inches is a baseline for a lot of designs. The reduction is a major loss to the usability of the machine I thought I was pre-ordering. Oops, I meant crowdfunding
**Speaking of crowdfunding, the presentation of Glowforge has always been “crowdfunding”. It would be nice if the post-campaign communication could reflect that a bit more (regular, reasonable intervals with tangible and clear data). **
You guys have the capacity for greatness. You’ve seemingly done it in the prototypes. I’ve seen the machines in person and they are nothing short of remarkable. Keep it up, just sprinkle some of that special sauce in these under-addressed areas as well
Thanks and looking forward to using the machine!
(edit: these questions are for @dan (and @bailey and @Rita) only. Please keep the thread clean until they have had an opportunity to address my questions.)
You probably don’t want to hear from non-staff but @dan has said that he will bring us news when he has news and that reporting shipping numbers gives the competition too much insight into the inner workings of the GlowForge team. We are all anxiously waiting patience will pay off!! In the mean time there’s been some pretty spectacular stuff made by @takitus, @karaelena, and @marmak3261 I’d look around!
Agreed. And if you don’t have time or patience to dig through every post you can always click Dan’s name and track down his individual responses to these questions when they’ve been asked
In answer to #2 - had an update in December, January and one being worked now for posting. Never as much info as you feel is warranted, but a whole heck of a lot more info than before December.
Nobody wants to see a repeat of that. But I don’t know how I (we) could really be assured. Except for knowing that shipments are actually happening. Here we are in February, where shipping is supposed to be in the hundreds per month, with thousands just 2 months from now.
Have there been any production units shipped? If not, what do you hope to glean from shipping any more pre-production units that you don’t know today? Where’s the software? Keep hearing how 3D engrave’s still not functioning I think. Is the software what’s holding up production? If so, why? I mean, that’s all on the back-end. So why not get units into people’s hands now while work on the software continues?
Eh… Makes me sad to start thinking about this. I’d love answers to these and other related questions, but I’ve come to expect less. Which works out in Glowforge’s favor since the bar’s so low for information, it’s easy to make me happy!
Nothing wrong in someone making their first post. Participation should be encouraged.
Looking at activity levels it appears @worldburger has read a couple of thousand articles so potentially across much of latest information.
I can understand the desire for more information given the historic dearth followed by dramatic delays. I am sure there are many others thinking the same…
Thanks for jumping in, @worldburger. I’m sorry I don’t have the answer that I think you’re hoping for - 1, 2a, and 3 are “no”. Regarding 2, it’s coming soon.
although other comments later seem to assume a lack of reading of the forum…