Hey Buzz,
We did do a bit of a flip flop on the mouthpiece. Back when we were
talking with you our manufacturer had mistakenly quoted us the price
that was with made without food-grade silicon. Once we corrected that
mistake the price was much much higher, like 100 times higher. So we
started playing with the idea of charging for it instead of including
it. That way we would not have to add more to the cost of the
Grasshopper. I am not convinced everyone even wants one. Matt and myself
personally never even use it.
As you know the margins on the device are low, and our main goal is to bring a truly
great product to market at a reasonable price. We have already sold
lots of units at the low-price so there is no longer a chance to build
in the cost of the mouthpiece. It is either we pay for everyone to get
one or each person pays to get one.
We conducted a trial on the first few Holiday backers to see if people
were willing to pay an extra $5 for the mouthpiece and each of those
recipients were very happy to. We subsequently refunded them after the
trial.
That said we understand that we did state, in private emails and to you,
that it would be included. We will honer those words and ship every
indiegogo order and Pre-order with the mouthpiece for free. To help
offset the cost we will be listing it as an available accessory on the
website. If people are feeling generous they can purchase instead of
getting it for free.
Further by including the mouthpiece now we will be able to gauge its
usefulness to the community and decide whether it is worth including in
the future. For now it is included and if that changes we will make a
statement regarding it.
Best,
Trevor
