@eric1 I know they said they weren’t going to share all information, but it doesn’t hurt to ask where we’re at and if it’s still on target.
@tem I agree with @jrnelson delays are important… I just want to know about them. And asking Dan a question certainly isn’t going to disrupt any progress… he’s on here all the time anyway.
Ok, I do have to say I seriously did laugh out loud at the mention of instant gratification…on something we ordered 2 years ago…sorry lost all composure there for a minute.
“instant gratification” let me tell you 2 years after the product was funded and several delays its not, instant gratification. I have been fighting with my future wife to not cancel the order for the last 6 months. I had applied several times to be beta tester hoping and praying to be chosen. Us getting the GF was not only for side income but also to help with the wedding. It is much cheaper to DYI your wedding favors and decorations. Time is running out for the use case of using this for the wedding, so my ground to stand on when fighting is slipping away. We can not wait to find out there is a delay or that we get the GF past AUG. She argues it is money that is tied up, money that can be put towards buying a home. We have been all patient, so if someone asks for info I agree with them. I would also like to know how much longer I have before I get my own GF. I have plans and projects and wedding stuff pending on this. Just feel so disheartened right now and depressed. When email GF team its the same generic reply. It leaves me wondering am I 399,999 of 400,000? I lose sleep over this at times. Maybe she is right and I am wasting time? Just Frustrated. I do not envy those who get theirs. I am happy they do get them because I know I’d be happy if I got mine.
I have a different perspective.
This never was a purchase.
It always was an investment.
My assumption when I pledged nearly 2 years ago was that I was taking a significant risk to enable a really cool and previously unheard of project to happen. This was probably the most ambitious crowd sourced manufacturing project in history. Based on crowd sourced Kickstarter manufacturing campaigns I have assumed that the timing was always optimistic by at least a factor of two or more likely three. My only concerns were that they would either not ship the product ever, which could have happened, or that they would rush out a poor quality beta unit. Instead, I am going to get a fabulous unit, much higher quality than I anticipated, with tons of free stuff due to the delays, at a major discount price, before Christmas, ahead of my anticipated internal schedule.
It’s called an investment. I wish I had more like it with this kind of ROI.
No issue if you view it that way, but I do take umbrage with calling it crowd funded, which it simply isn’t. It was a pre-order. They at the very front made the case they had venture backing and stated clearly they didn’t need the money in order to be able to make the product to calm any fears of burning through the money and not being able to give returns.
The only indication you can get is to put your order date in this spreadsheet and see where you are relative to people who are receiving their orders. Post your Glowforge Order/"Glowforge Is Ready" email dates here
If you mean this August then I would count it out unless you ordered a basic in the US in the first few days of the 30 day campaign. They are still only about half way through day 1, so unless there is a huge increase in shipments per day they wont have got past the first few days orders this month.
I would suggest that it’s likely you’re not getting it in August. With the delay between getting the email, then following that with the shipping it’s not practical to believe it’s coming this month if you haven’t already gotten the first email. If you weren’t early morning Day 2 at the latest, it doesn’t look good for getting it soon.
On the other hand, there’s a whole community of folks here with their GFs (or PRUs) that would probably be glad to help you with your wedding favors & decorations. They’ve got lasers and are looking for things to do. You could help them 
Toss out a request - you’ll get a jump on the wedding stuff and if yours does come then you’re ahead of the game but if it doesn’t you’ll still have your wedding taken care of. Bet there are more than a few of us who would be happy to give a hand (from my perspective, I’d just want to be able to keep one of whatever I made for you so I can use it as a sample of what the laser can do for my classes and MakerFaire exhibits).
Exactly. I bought mine hoping to help my side business become more of my full time business. Just knowing when I’ll get mine would help my be able to plan and set things in motion for when I do receive it.
@jamesdhatch where is the satisfaction in asking others to help when you should have your own machine by now? What makes the others so special that they got a beta/pre-release and we didn’t?
Since the need in question was for the poster’s wedding, the satisfaction might be that they got their wedding stuff done vs not. Of course that might not be something they care about but it seemed like it was a pretty critical thing in terms of their decision making on stay or go.
As to your second question, GF could tell us why they picked people for beta/pre-release but they haven’t. Nor does it make sense for them beyond the “they all applied to the beta program and we picked them based on our [GF] need for input and their ability to provide it”. Maybe they needed an anal-retentive multi-disciplined machinist type to ferret out specific issues with the hardware or software so they picked @jkopel to beta. Probably lots of others like that in the forum and customer base but they picked him (might also have helped that he was pretty local to GF HQ in case/when bad things happened). Same for all the PRUs - @henryhbk has an extensive maker history and extremely active practice as part of his job in making things; @Jules is all over the 3D printing world, @marmak3261 is a minister and a newbie - maybe that combination of frank honesty and total newness to lasers was something they felt would insure they got really good feedback against their target market objectives.
Were/are there others in the customer base with similar profiles? Probably. So would it help to tell everyone why those were picked so all the others who think they met the profile or would have been “better” picks because they knew what GF should have been looking for instead of perhaps what they were looking for at points in time?
I think they did a good job with the beta & pre-release programs. Late in getting them off the ground but once in flight I expect they learned a boatload they wouldn’t have otherwise and they have said that’s changed things from the way they package to the way the software works.
Two-outa-three but I forgive you. 
I am going to guess you were actually thinking about @karaelena 
You’re not a machinist? 
I’m dying of curiosity too, to know which two. 
Bonus points for all three “to” words in a sentence.
How about precision oriented, omnivorous polymath?
So question for you guys and ladies. So I have looked at the shipping spreadsheet that someone has created and i am sure this has been talked about. But… how is it that some people if they entered in their information correctly and order after the pre-order date… how is it that they already have a glowforge?
A couple of explanations for you. In the initial buzz I think a lot of people went in and gave information to the spreadsheet and some people put other peoples information in. I think many people haven’t gone back to update even after moving to the next step in shipping.
and second I’d reference @dan’s post below
That way lies madness. 
I personally don’t put any faith in a crowd sourced spreadsheet.
It does carry a rather high potential for error.