@dan A couple of questions - probably answered already, but here goes!
If the power supply was the limiting factor (LIMFAC in military jargon) and an apparent suitable replacement now in place and being field tested - does this really necessitate the 6 month slip in delivery of units? I understand the need to get enough experience with the new PS to ensure reliability - can you tell us how you are progressing on this?
How much of the aforementioned slip is attributed to “building in the USA” - was the shift in production to the US in the works already?
When you ramp up production - what do you anticipate your build and ship (daily) number to be. To build and deliver the 10,000 odd units (+ or -) from the crowd funding period … divided by roughly 40 work days in Nov and Dec would mean a throughput of 250 units per day … so, when do you really anticipate having the ‘finished’ product ready for production? Had you met the end of June date as anticipated, I imagine you would have been in full-scale production now.
Seems that you must have known weeks ago that a delivery date ‘slip’ would be necessary. Please get those Power Supply problems solved, put a bow on the packaging, and get this amazing product into our hands EARLY.
While in hindsight that is crystal clear, the hope against hope that somehow the necessity would/could be mitigated would make you play that card last.
You would do everything humanly possible to prevent having to humble yourself to 10,000 customers and have their hopes dashed along with yours.
Following that, the damage control measures had to be discussed, formalized and approved by the venture capitalists.
All I am sure of is in comparison, my problems don’t even rank.
No apologies for the well mannered rant, best that you experience those emotions and be done with them! We all understand.
Actually, I have kind of a niggling sensation. It is easy to blame @dan for everything, but he is just the CEO/Head of the company. Doesn’t he have to answer to the “real” backers of the company or something like that? by “real” I mean the source of the original 9 mil? So even if Dan has the strong sense that he has to push a deadline back, doesn’t the corporate jargon kind of require that he run concerns by, say, twenty other people and then present why he thinks that giving us 2 million dollars worth of “free” stuff is a good investment? Disclaimer: I am not a business person, and I have never owned a big company, but something tells me that it is a little more complicated than “It’s this person’s fault for knowing about A and not doing Z”. something tells me there could be a whole alphabet of reasons for doing or not doing what others say need be done…
Exactly. I wouldnt be surprised if they had some weight in the decisions that have been made up to this point. Investors will want ROI and market precedence. Those two go hand in hand. Theyre probably more prone to calculated risks than playing it safe.
I would speculate that they had reserved a production window at an overseas plant, and that as they approached the commital date for that facility, the quantities of power supplies needed to weren’t available. If they lost their production slot, they may have needed to locate another production facility, or go with an alternate factory, and then build in enough slush time for all of the parts to be available.
They would need to have the majority of the parts ready for production to begin, running out of a single part could halt production for the entire line. I doubt a production line like this would be getting parts Just-In-Time.
Speculation on my part, it’s what I’ve been using to cope with the news.
Thanks I don’t know a lot, it’s just a hunch. Has always seemed like Dan’s hands are tied in much the same way (albeit to a much lesser extent) than @jkopel’s are at the moment with what information he can share.
There’s undoubtedly many people involved behind the scenes that contributed to the delay, but it’s Dan who is falling on his sword with the public. After he ran the compensation by the investors, of course. Talk about a case of people shooting the messenger.
I will try to answer some of these from things I’ve read in the forums and from some answers from the Q&A. Any answer I have is completely my own opinion/interpretation of the information.
The 6 month slip was do to them completely redoing the schedule. The new schedule has additional slack built in for risk mitigation, so the schedule can slip to the left instead of to the right.
What that means to people who aren’t familiar with Microsoft Project (or other project management software), a slip right means you are missing a deadline and it is taking longer. A slip to the left means you are ahead of schedule.
So, they are hoping to get it delivered ahead of time, they just aren’t promising it in case there are other issues that pop up.
2&3) I don’t know.
I believe they stated that they had a drop dead date of a week or so prior to the delay announcement. When they hit that date, they had to decide on a new course of action and run it by their investors. So, up until that point, they had enough time to do testing and deliver, barring any other issues arising. It seems like they took the direction of delaying a lot up front and (potentially) delivering early instead of (potentially) having a lot of small incremental delays.
I think the proper answer for 3) is that the delay is approximately three months from the anticipated schedule, since they had hoped to have beta units in beta-tester hands around end of December, and that’s only come into place in recent weeks.
Dan has said that when they re-evaluated the timeline, they estimated citing a “very comfortable” six-month delay as part of the new timeline, and further added that if they hit the mark sooner then they will have it out sooner. So to those expecting “June 2016”, it’s now “December 2016” with a strong indicator that it will be sooner. But not sooner than June.
@takitus and @dhanvinddvs Yes, In my history I have worked for some real jerks but from the sense of humor and the patience of Job(e) I would like to work for him.
Spoiled by 30 years of self employment, I don’t say that lightly.
@mad_macs, I think you nailed it. Plans may not be, but production slots are chisled in stone.
Just bothers me that Dan had to get beatup for doing the right thing. The option would be to ship a hobbled or unreliable product - which would have crushed the company image. He really had no choice.
Glowforge Gang - thanks for boosting my optimism with your responses to my post #589. I’ll forgo the cancellation and replacing the wait for my Glowforge with a Carvey or other such device that I can get within weeks. I think that with my limited skill set, the Glowforge far exceeds the learning curve of other devices. I do wish we could get our hands on the software interface As Soon As Possible (obviously lacking the ‘Print’ button) to practice our newly acquired skills.
I’m sure they have their reasons as to why not perhaps related to competition, but it would also add work to enable a “Glowforge-less demo mode” just to let people play around. Personally, I’d rather they spent the time on completing their software development targets.
They are sharing some screenshots throughout the forum, however.
My impression is the interface is pretty simple. Dan likened it to a print preview we have all seen.
Pinch to scale, drag image around, manual settings when necessary, ability to designate vector or raster.
I suspect we will be authorities on it in short order. It’s the power/speed/focus for different materials/operations that I anticipate being a trial and error education. (meant for@bmcgrain)
Glad you reconsidered, for the same reason you jumped in here in the first place.
iphone of lasers!!
I don’t know a lot, it’s just a hunch. Has always seemed like Dan’s hands are tied in much the same way (albeit to a much lesser extent) than 
I don’t know.
