After some convincing, I finally got my wife to agree that we should order the Glowforge (although, judging by the time she has spent on pinterest looking up ideas, I don’t think I’m going to have much time on it). I believe that when I ordered, you were just under $5M. My rough guess is that we are somewhere between order number 1500-2000.
So, my question is, are you going to be letting people know what order number/place in line they are? I’m not sure how easy it will be to get this information, but I would imagine that others would be interested as well.
I am interested too, but much less of a big deal for me I mush be somewhere near 50-70th. I have no idea how big the first batch(es) will be or if we will be penalized if we are international and get our shipped at a later stage.
This is something i believe GF should pay a decent amount of attention to.
I was part of the Oculus Rift backing and they were initially very chaotic with their ordering and delivery structure. It led to significant bad-feeling (and thus complaints on the forums and in social media) as certain countries were accused of being ‘privileged’ etc.
Initially the problem was resolved by an external tracker which gave a decent indication of where you were in the line. Eventually OR realised they needed more communication with backers and it was mostly resolved form that point
Let me try to give you as much information as I can given where we are right now, 11 days in…
Shipping order will depend in part on your model, because the factory is at going to decide on the production order. We’re going to tell them to manufacture in the way that lets them finish fastest. We’ll tell you what they decide as soon as we know.
Air filters may not arrive on the same day as your Glowforge. We’ll ship everything as soon as it’s ready. It’s both cheaper that way (shipping both in the same box would cost more) and, if the Glowforge arrives first (most likely), it gives you the option of hanging a hose out your window if you want to get started.
Delivery may well depend on your country, if e.g. we have to do something unusual for some countries, or our logistics includes delays.
We will put some shipments (notably local locations with high usage) at the very front of the line as guinea pigs to see if we’re hitting our quality metrics.
Once all that is true, then we will ship based on dates.
So in summary: all things being equal, earlier pledge dates ship first. But lots of stuff winds up not being equal, and our priorities are quality first, overall schedule second, and place in line third.
If that doesn’t line up with your expectations, then I truly apologize for steering you wrong. I’m happy to get a refund processed for you ASAP; just shoot us an email at support@glowforge.com.
@dan Thanks for the info! That is mostly what I expected and I absolutely agree with your priorities!
I’m happy to hear you won’t be waiting on the air filters before you ship.
That being said, if you need any guinea pigs in the Boston area, I’ll gladly volunteer.
I live close enough that I could pick up a unit at your office in the afternoon (when they are ready of course!). I am also a human factors engineering (UI/UX, safety, etc…) grad student, and would love the opportunity to give constructive feedback on the Glowforge. I should be somewhere in the first 200 orders.
In all seriousness though, quality is king, that is how you build a brand.
I would like to see able to see what order number I am, maybe even what order number of a basic model. I know that doesn’t reflect where I am in line due to your first units going to maker spaces and local users. But it’s still something I would like to see.
