Happy February! The office is abuzz these days with activity. New faces are appearing nearly each week as we fill out the team. The Customer Success crew is cranking nonstop to keep everyone printing happily. The software folks are heads-down developing some of the most-requested new features, like Autosave, while working hard on functionality that’s been a long time in coming, like Pro Passthrough and open-sourcing our firmware. Meanwhile, the hardware team has been pushing forward on the Air Filter, logistics and operations have been pouring energy into international shipping and keeping our supply chain robust, and the manufacturing team is staying one crisis ahead of the assembly line, working around all manner of challenges to keep the machines rolling off the line and into customers’ hands. There’s a lot going on - I’ll crank through some of the details.
Domestic Delivery
Most domestic units have been shipped already, and we’ll be able to finish the rest soon. I can’t tell you how happy we are to be this far, even though we still have a long ways (half of the globe, actually) to go. We’re also gearing up for our air filter build and about to start shipping international (more on international below).
If you’re one of those who hasn’t received theirs yet, we are working very hard to fix that. We lost some days in December (the flu took out 25% of our assembly technicians at one point, coupled with a spike in UPS accidents) and now we’re catching up. As you probably know, if you haven’t been asked for your shipping address yet, we’ve provided a personalized shipping forecast, updated every week with the latest information. If you don’t have your Glowforge yet, you can see your updated forecast there at any time.
International Delivery
We’ve been working for years to bring you the International Basic and International Pro units you ordered. The last six months in particular has been nonstop international consultants, lawyers, and compliance experts. As a result, we’re proud to be able to produce units that are approved for export to a huge variety of countries.
To meet all requirements, the International Basic and Pro units are separate products from the currently-shipping domestic units. Production of these international units has begun, and we’ll be ramping production over the forthcoming weeks as we begin international deliveries. Not all countries are cleared for delivery; your shipping forecast is based both on your country (and their regulatory compliance requirements) and on your order date. We’ll continue to update those as we learn new information.
One small addition: we’ve added a solution for the most commonly used international cables to our international shipments! That means most customers will be able to use their Glowforge straight out of the box. I don’t have a list of what’s in the box handy, but will post shortly when they’re available.
Pro Shields Shipping
We love the Pro Shields because they let you use the faster print speeds of the Pro in a manner that’s safe around kids and the general public. We first announced the Pro Shields in June, and new Pro units have started shipping with them pre-installed. Now, we’ve started shipping Pro Shields to Pro owners whose units were delivered before they were available, so everyone can make use of them. If you don’t receive yours within 8 weeks (the last day of April), please let us know.
CES
Like much of the technology world, we kicked off 2018 in Las Vegas - rain storm, power outages, and all - at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). We were there for meetings with partners and suppliers that can help us grow Glowforge for years to come.
Since delivery is our highest priority, we brought a skeleton crew - half the folks we usually bring to a Maker Faire. As a result, we had some of the longest lines of the show as people waited to run prints. And those lines caught the attention of some press - USA Today, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, 3DPrint.com, and Geekwire all wrote about us!
What’s Next
A friend finally talked me into joining the world of Instagram, which turns out has more to it than goofy filters. What got me hooked is that it’s the most incredible way to see how people have been using their Glowforge. In fact, I’ve been absolutely flabbergasted by the realtime stream of laser amazingness that’s been crossing my phone tagged with glowforge.
Want to see for yourself? Check it out:
Scroll down just a smidge to where it says “Most Recent” and you can pluginto firehose of realtime laser incredibleness. I look at every single one, and I know lots of other folks at Glowforge do to. To see why, check this out - this is three consecutive prints posted over the course of a single hour today.
Of course, the only thing better than admiring this is contributing to it - if you’re on Instagram, tag your projects with glowforge to share them with everyone.
We have the best customers.
Thanks as always - comments, discussion, and conversation can be found here.