Will you do a staggered rollout? A run of each batch based on the timeline of when we preordered.
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thx - that’s the perfect emoji - I originally meant it just for Dan who must be having a terrible day, but I extend the Glowforge Group Hug to all of us. I keep thinking of the “Year Without a Santa Claus” xmas special… but we know he’s still out there with wonderful toys in the bag. He’s just going to arrive later than we hoped.
Nice one! How has your experience been with that? I’ve heard everything from just fine to horror stories. Have you become a cutting master?
@choughton makes an excellent point! Referral bonuses brought additional funds in to GF, but we haven’t received those referral bonuses yet. At this point, @dan has made considerably more on those referrals than the $100 we were supposed to get back when the GF shipped.
If we received our referral bonuses NOW, I think that would solve some of this issue. Even if they were afraid of cancellations on paid referrals before, now they won’t be a loss given how long GF has held the cash.
We’ve gone through three major delay announcements, and each time received nothing except promises for the future. Even the gift cards in the announcement are for future delivery. Why not send them now? That is what is making this feel wrong. Changes in promises should come with something tangible at that time, not more promises.
You have some good questions here.
I suggest that the final question, regarding cancellations, is internal information and, no matter how much we may want to know out of sheer curiosity, is, frankly, none of our business.
Heres a few threads that should give you an idea:
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@stilts: wrote: “can you give me a number on how many Glowforge’s that are on order that have NOT been canceled?”
@DAN: wrote " 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?
This response to Stilts question is deeply troubling. As the CEO I would highly expect that you are fully aware that many of your customers still wants the product but is afraid that a “run” of canceling orders will leave a significant portion of us at a loss. So if the refunds exceed your current liquid cash flow then that typically leads to bankrupt company. Thus leaving all your loyal remaining consumers left out. Many of your customers are getting more concerned, and are afraid that the people with the cash will skip the country.
we are all afraid and you are not helping the situation by asking “why you’d like to know?”.
I understand “That’s not a number we planned to share, but I can look into it when things settle down” but the “May I ask why you’d like to know?” is dishonest and in my interpretation of the response is patronizing.
What if anything can you provide to us to ensure you are not looking at bankruptcy in the immediate future?
What if anything can you provide to us to ensure you are not looking at bankruptcy in the immediate future? The last time I asked this question after the first delay, you quickly responded that less than .1 percent has canceled.
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Question wrt “the hopper”:
The GF team is getting lots of enhancement requests that are getting thrown into “the hopper.” I’m sure the team has regular meetings to discuss and prioritize this wish-list. From a customer stand-point, it would be great to see that Hopper prioritized list somewhere, so we’d know which features really are planned and in approx order of priority. I work in a development environment too, so I know that this can be a problematic thing to do, so I’d expect there to be major caveats wrt “this is what we are planning, but we don’t guarantee that it will be done.”
thx again to the whole GF team for your hard work
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They set aside all of the money that the crowdfunders invested to return to them if needed. They are using venture capital to fund the development of the machines.
They’re okay on funding.
(And there have been several articles about it on the forum…I’m sorry, i just don’t have time to look them up for you right now.) 
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Thank you @Jules for your response, and I truly do appreciate it. But as I understand your profile you are not a employee or legal enity of Glowforge. It would be better to have that statement repeated again by Dan or a legal entity of Glowforge. More so, it should be expanded to include that the latest delay will also not dip into the reserved capital.
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True enough! 
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To be the Devil’s advocate, but do you really have any actual proof of that beyond them saying they do? And if its it true per Dan’s comment they are burning through a million a month right now, and just delayed them yet another 6-7 months, “ok” may be relative term.
I to am rather dissapointed. Fortunately, the money I put down for my glowforge isn’t something that I need. I can afford to wait. I’m excited by the features. I really enjoyed the video I saw on tested.com yesterday and made me even more excited about getting my glowforge in december. Especially when norman did a couple star wars ornaments. Then I was super disappointed this morning. I agree with many people. I feel like I have been lied to. You said in your email you knew in early November there wasn’t anyway you were going to get these out in time. I think you waited to tell us so you could get all of the “cool” features and extras lined up and layed out, but I firmly feel that was a mistake of you not to tell us sooner. You made us all feel like we would still get our glowforge in December by repeatedly saying you would update shipping statuses by Friday. It felt like a bait and switch. 1.5 years is a very long time to go without recompense
This leads to my questions:
Will you listen to your backers?
Will you give us more concrete answers from here on out?
Will you update us on a regular (read weekly) basis? This could include a pinned area under the announcements section on the community. However, I feel monthly reports via email from here on out must happen.
Ultimately, what are your plans to improve your communication from being vague and untimely to specific and timely?
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Jules was quoting Dan, with a bit of using that magnifying glass at the top of the page you can find the statement.
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@dan thanks for the update. I have to say that in general Glowforge has been a model for other startups on how to handle the pre-order community and you’ve certainly made an amazing effort to compensate backers for the delays.
That being said, this feels really late to make an announcement that could delay shipment for up to 7months!
I hope that moving forward we (backers) can expect more transparency in the process, we’re going to need it to maintain confidence in the organization. Given the delay I would also like you to consider reducing the upgrade pricing back to pre-order levels for backers (at least for 1-3mo). I understand raising it, but the clock just rolled back.
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Apologies for not quoting properly - but dan said this in The schedule update thread and I am having trouble ‘replying’ to that.
@dan: “It took longer for me to realize this than it should have, because I was singlemindedly focused on December for so long. That is on me, and I apologize.”
I appreciate that, and it seems one common tone here throughout the forum is that ‘everything seemed fine’ for quite some time. Then all of a sudden a 6 - 7 MONTH delay. Is there an intent on your side to b being a little more forthcoming about this sort of delay in the future?
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Pro Upgrade
The Glowforge Pro model has advanced cooling, optics, upgraded laser tube, & a passthrough slot.
To do: Not released yet. If a Pro user is in line for a pre-release unit, we will offer them a Basic pre-release unit and upgrade them later.
That’s quote from the letter. It sounds as if the Pro version is not ready for testing on several fronts.
Here’s a couple questions, some of which may already have been mentioned.
- Can you confirm that no pre-order money has been spent thus far and commit to notifying us publicly in the Announcement section should that money need to spent prior to full production starting?
- What regulatory approvals do you need to receive before you can ship production units and does that differ for US and foreign shipments?
- Have NRTL or other regulatory listings been obtained yet? If not, have they been applied for yet? If not, when do you expect to apply for them and how long do you expect the approval process to take?
- How many beta units are being tested right now?
- How many pre-production units do you expect to ship during December 2016?
- Has a Pro prototype been built and tested? What aspects of that design still need to be cast in stone - just SW or is any hardware involved?
- Has a filter prototype been built and tested yet? What sorts of development or testing need to be done before that can be released to manufacturing?
- How flammable is the plastic in the Glowforge, especially the case?
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I don’t disagree, but with the exception of software accounting for the passthrough, any meaningful materials delta between basic and pro should be pretty small.