For those of you coming late to the party Dan and I are talking about this thread where he details the status of the current Glowforge Pre Release units and what they can and can’t do. The thread can be found here: Information on pre-release units
The reason why I was frustrated and angry is I didn’t see it until last night, I don’t think a single person referenced the information in any of the 3 threads with over 800 posts in total. It wasn’t sent to the community as an update (that I received) and didn’t show up in my forum recap e-mail (or I missed it there too). You have read my posts, think of how different the discussion would have been this information had been there had been as a starting point, common ground if you will. It has 80% of what I was asking for when I wanted more transparency. See my response to @Rpegg for examples of what I hoped transparency would look like.
That is what has me so frustrated and angry. You are hands down the most interactive and community focused CEO ever seen. It’s one of the reasons I used to have so much trust in you and your team. But over time its become apparent that while you answer a lot of posts, to be blunt, for as much as you respond, you fail to communicate well. I really wish I knew the reasoning, the real reasoning why you are unwilling to be more transparent. Everyone who is reasonable will understand why you can’t talk about a new feature while dealing with the legal issues. When that happens you Macgyver a solution. Can’t show the printer head, that’s fine edit the video to only show the object being created. Don’t have time to create the content, hire someone to help you create content, updates and manage the expectations of the community. Have a setback on the (insert component or feature), tell the customers, give us your plan to address it and UPDATE US on the status. Be a leader, build trust and people will follow you.
Your openness built a huge amount of trust, when you pushed the date last time you said there was only .1% cancelations. Consider why that was, you had a huge amount of trust built up because of your accessibility, you had a $22 million stamp of approval from your investors, early adopters been trained to expect delays and you leaned on the borrowed credibility of Tested and other sites. People were unhappy, there was a call for greater transparency and you started doing more regular updates.
Now you don’t have much, if any trust and credibility left. You the old tricks of selling the dream aren’t working and it’s very apparent that your method of quick one line answers to deflect serious issues, the constant use of the refund as a crutch when things get tough, the confirmation of adding something to the “list” to consider it and your other ways of managing the community, just won’t cut it going forward. Glowforge has a lot of detractors right now, even Tested has said in their comments that the delay was “Concerning” and you’re paying Adam Savage as a consultant, so I would expect you would have some level of favored nation status with Tested.
You have a huge number of people on the fence right now with their order, not just me. Take a second to imagine what how long a thread would be if I curated every request for transparency from the last 4 days. It would be pages upon pages of your customers, in some cases outright begging you to step up and be a leader and tell them how you are going to move forward and fix your communication and transparency problems. If making this decision takes more than a hour meeting to come up with a basic action plan, you are flat out doing it wrong. To borrow from my journalism professor from so long ago. Be Clear, Concise, Consistent and Coherent.
Here is an easy way you start addressing a lot of concerns. Take your list from the pre-production units. Update it and tell us you are going to update it again in a week. That is Clear, Concise and Coherent and has the added benefit of being simple. If you update in a week, then it’s Consistent.
That is a start and it will show me and hopefully others that it’s not business as usual. This or something like it will start to rebuild my trust in you. It will also show me that you aren’t continuing to lie to and deceive your customers who invested $45 million dollars of trust in you. Also a word to the wise, if you don’t build trust and something major happens again you should find a metaphorically deep hole and hide because the customer backlash is going to be awe inspiring.
As we get to the conclusion of this post, you can see why my professor told me I need to work on “concise” 
What’s the TLDR?
At the end of the day, you are the Chief Executive Officer @Dan. You should do what you is right for the company, your customers and your team.
You implied other night that only actions will regain my trust. It’s been 3 days and it’s time for action.
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P.S. On the topic of communication, I mentioned this on Friday and Saturday. It would be nice if you updated the website’s FAQ, it still has incorrect shipping date and warranty information. I am sure the people currently making their decision to buy their Glowforge would appreciate accurate information.