Glowforge updates: the road to production

Excellent response @dan…that tells it in a nutshell…I like your thinking on bringing the best product possible to us…can’t wait to get mine and get to it!

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I have had the experience to be on the other side of Dan’s decision. I bought a product where the company pushed the product out the door to meet their delivery promise, but the product wasn’t ready to go out. The company is now on the edge of total failure because of the costs of repairing all the problems that were present in the first run of machines. They were unable to produce the product in the time allotted, but they elected to go with the “Good enough” approach and the product was not. For this reason, I will always support a company that delays the product, within reason, to produce a product that will do what I ask and will allow the company to continue in business so that I can have support for the product later.
As consumers supporting a not yet developed product, we have to be aware that unforeseen challenges will arise and we have to be patient for a resolution of those challenges.

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As an Engineer that had to deal with marketing driving schedules, then product failures, warranty & management always blamed on the suppliers & working with the suppliers to improve quality, more often than not the cause was as Ben1 has said–pushing product out the door before it is ready. The most recent company I worked at excelled that way & didn’t seem to care about sustaining customers, but only “new market opportunity”, and ignored the engineer’s recommendations to delay but pushed schedule to launch on a date marketing pulled out of their nether regions to begin with.

So though it is extremely frustrating to wait, it is less frustrating than having a device that doesn’t work as promised and losing time/money on trying to get fixed or returned (and lost materials)…

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I love this! ROFL! :smile:
(Exactly what happens.)

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Well yes of course they should not push out a non-working product. The problem is it was advertised as a finished product nearly two years ago and still is. I doubt the software will be complete in two years time.

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No, it was advertised with an unrealistic timeline.

Never will be “finished”. That’s the beauty of cloud-based control software that a lot of folks are not getting. Seemless updates.

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Check the tense used in all the advertising material and Dan’s early videos.

I would much rather have complete software that does what was advertised to do from the start rather than a machine the behaves differently every time I turn it on.

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I’d like to have a unicorn that farted rainbows.

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I think I just want a cup of coffee. Time to go get one. :sunglasses:

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Sounds good to me too

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Are you going to make it yourself? :wink:

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Well, I really wanted a taco that craps ice cream but Jules’ idea about coffee sounds good too so I think I gotta make a latte’ now.

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I have a coffee machine at work that does all the hard work. Now I need it to cool down for me to inject it into my bloodstream.

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Seriously? You guys are going to make it? 7-11 has shown drone delivery of stuff. Why aren’t they delivering your coffee? What’s wrong with them? Can’t they get their act in gear? Are they going to make you wait years? Heck, you could get it from Starbucks or Dunkin for cheaper and faster and it’d likely be better too.

Oh, I guess you could make it yourself :wink:

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I’ve been debating picking up a cold brew container/maker for the fridge at the office. This time of year I love cold brew.

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I’ve got sixteen different kinds of coffee here that I’m currently working my way through…I’d better use it. Chuckle! (Currently testing the Ilia…lovely and smooth.)

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You need to cold brew that directly into an IV bag. Hahahaa!!.

No 7-11’s or Dunkin within hundreds of miles of here. Got a Starbucks a mile away but once I ride my bike down there in 100+ degree heat I wont feel like drinking it. LOL. Plus, I don’t like Starbucks. Hahaha. We do have some local coffee places that are awesome, and we used to even have a coffee truck that would bring it to you, they folded though.

Plus, my latte’ just kills them all. :slight_smile:

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OK, sorry for stepping up on the soap box again. But here goes:

I would think that everyone still in this group realizes what they’ve signed up for. Dan has given everyone ample opportunity to bail with his refund policy. We’ve all stayed because we decided we could afford to leave our money where it is, and the benefits of receiving the product (albeit MUCH later than originally promised/expected) outweigh the costs.

Dan is not building a simple widget. This invention has a multitude of moving parts (figuratively speaking), and thus points of failure, any one of which means product failure (laser, control board, control software, cloud-based components, power supply, motion control, …). I’ve been involved in product testing - if you have a hundred parts each with 1% failure rate, your failure rate on the entire component approaches 74%! So he needs to build in incredible tolerances across the board to make sure this product continues to work flawlessly in the field.

To those who thought they were buying an already fully working product - wake up. The only proven product is one that’s already on the market - and even those can have catastrophic failures (Takata is an example). This has always been a crowd-funding/VC company. I saw/read the exact same marketing materials everyone else did. At no time was I led to believe I was buying a product that was already in manufacturing - I was ALWAYS aware that this was a new product to market, and would likely experience delays in the transition from functional prototype to end user component (though not the magnitude of delays we’ve seen, admittedly). But we are finally getting close to the finish line. It’s been painful to let that money sit there waiting for the finished product, but if it was money I needed to keep my business afloat, I would never have made that initial investment, because that would have been foolish on my part.

I believe Dan has done what every good Creator should do - take advantage of delays to enhance/improve the delivered product, both in terms of functionality and reliability. And I think he truly has been focused on the decisions that will make this a viable product in the long term, rather than a flash in the pan that would make him a lot of money as he pocketed his cash and exited stage left.

If any of those who are complaining about Dan’s inability to predict the future (e.g. provide delivery date guarantees) have actually successfully delivered a product to market with this level of innovation, complexity, and functionality on time, on budget, then please, provide us the background links and info, because I’ll invest in your company in a heart beat.

… Stepping down off my soap box.

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Nicely said. Very nicely said.

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It’s worth the wait folks. That’s all I’m going to say. :wink:

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