The Grasshopper Shipping Poll

Krazzykid said:

Dude it is like that for everyone, read the update again.

"This means that anyone with an open order can add items at the discounted rate by contacting us"

Chill.

Even existing pre-orders have the new price listed. You can only get the old price by already having an order(that is still open) and contacting them.

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Hmmmn, I have an open pre-order account and was thinking of adding another hopper and didn't see any update that had been email to me. So I logged onto my account and saw that I didn't have "monthly updates" selected......which I corrected.

If anyone got an email with this info (if there was one besides the FC post) then please PM me if you might be OK with forwarding any email detailing this offer. I am wondering if there is a time limit included or if you could add one at the discounted prices anytime before your shipping date?

zymos said:

Being that no one outside of the company has the slightest clue how many preorders they've taken, the only predictions that are at all reasonable would be for backers, because we know how many were funded.

I guess if someone knew they were one of the first preorders, they could assume ship date= best guess of all backers shipped + a little.

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Well, while what you say is true, if you think about it for a second: Why would GHL be gearing up to produce 1k/week, if there was just a few thousand extra pre-orders after many months of constant sales? Hell they WANTED THOUSANDS/week made from their earlier updates. A company gearing up to be able to produce even 1k units/week is obviously also anticipating maintaining this volume of sales well into the future, even past when/if they are caught up and you can just simply purchase a unit. That being said, I don't find it far fetched at all to think that there are over 20k+ pre-orders at this point. And then when you do the math, you realize that yep, it isn't likely coming till february or march when you are 18k units down.

seaofgreens said:

Well, while what you say is true, if you think about it for a second: Why would GHL be gearing up to produce 1k/week, if there was just a few thousand extra pre-orders after many months of constant sales? Hell they WANTED THOUSANDS/week made from their earlier updates. A company gearing up to be able to produce even 1k units/week is obviously also anticipating maintaining this volume of sales well into the future, even past when/if they are caught up and you can just simply purchase a unit. That being said, I don't find it far fetched at all to think that there are over 20k+ pre-orders at this point. And then when you do the math, you realize that yep, it isn't likely coming till february or march when you are 18k units down.

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Based on this tinyurl.com/oqsqy7y there are less than 5000 pre-orders.

zymos said:

I question whether economic theory plays much or any of a part in all of this.
Good explanation though...

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Best post yet.

If the first reported one went out in June, and they've said they've produced 450 to date (3 months), that's pretty easy math to do, 150 going out per month (with about 10% shitting the bed).

I swear, I'm not a pessimist.

DECEMBER date to receive your GH? I was hoping to buy one for myself for Christmas. This has gotten to the point where I might just lose interest. I hope everyone enjoys their GH and the company gets their act together.

I may move my interest elsewhere. So if I order one in November I would probably receive it in the spring.

With all the difficulty I don't want to order one in Aug. because problems still could pop up then I would get all mad like everybody else. I want to order one and wait to receive it a just a week later. I don't want to order and let the company use my money for 6 months. I just don't think it's right. Plenty of very trusting folks out there, I hope the company appreciates that. You guys saved the company some very expensive interest rates and loans they would have had to get if it wasn't for some pretty great people out there.

Everything like all the equipment and workers should have already been on board when all the parts were ready. They had everybody's money to work with, maybe poor management and inexperience? Sorry to rain on everybody's parade. They are not ready for prime time.

The company just needs to be truthful with the customers, backers and with the orders waiting to be fulfilled. It's the right thing to do. It seems like everybody is getting the run around. I needed to vent.
Can you imagine how I would act if I had a GH ordered and I was waiting for it to arrive?

There's still a chance hl can be vindicated here; they would need to actually ramp up production as promised to fulfill all orders, and then somehow get them into shops before the holiday shopping season. But this all depends on them having a seamless experience setting up all of this manufacturing stuff, dog help 'em.

vapen00b said:

If you can wait for it for some months, it's maybe worth a thought. Pre-order today, receive it in December..best case what we know by now...
Sorry, can't answer your specific questions. But if you don't wanna wait it's kinda obsolete.

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I just looked on the site and you're right. But why? Haha how did this happen?

QualityVapes said:

Wait, I thought the grasshopper is available now? It isn't available until December??

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You have a lot of catching up to do...

YaFreekin Right said:

Based on this tinyurl.com/oqsqy7y there are less than 5000 pre-orders.

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Link is dead, what's it supposed to show?

zymos said:

Link is dead, what's it supposed to show?

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The address tinyurl.com/oqsqy7y only works if you copy/paste it into your browser.

You need the full URL for it to be a clickable link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OSa2ZBH7yoigMyNivYfpmHDeoxUzOOY4Wu_GGlO3HnI/edit#gid=0

CarolKing said:

DECEMBER date to receive your GH? I was hoping to buy one for myself for Christmas. This has gotten to the point where I might just lose interest. I hope everyone enjoys their GH and the company gets their act together.

I may move my interest elsewhere. So if I order one in November I would probably receive it in the spring.

With all the difficulty I don't want to order one in Aug. because problems still could pop up then I would get all mad like everybody else. I want to order one and wait to receive it a just a week later. I don't want to order and let the company use my money for 6 months. I just don't think it's right. Plenty of very trusting folks out there, I hope the company appreciates that. You guys saved the company some very expensive interest rates and loans they would have had to get if it wasn't for some pretty great people out there.

Everything like all the equipment and workers should have already been on board when all the parts were ready. They had everybody's money to work with, maybe poor management and inexperience? Sorry to rain on everybody's parade. They are not ready for prime time.

The company just needs to be truthful with the customers, backers and with the orders waiting to be fulfilled. It's the right thing to do. It seems like everybody is getting the run around. I needed to vent.
Can you imagine how I would act if I had a GH ordered and I was waiting for it to arrive?

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Your last two paragraphs, belie your casual interest in this product. Expecting a startup to have it's machining in place for a product and assembly that had yet to fully manifest itself in reality is disingenuous. Expecting them to also have all the money they need to get off the ground as if by some miracle they showed up with a fully formed company and product, when they started here in FC then moving to IGG to ask for seed money is demeaning not just to HL but to the community as a whole. Please feel free to explain your business plan on how you would overcome these mutually exclusive hurdles, to merely 'retain' your valuable interest aka window shopping. Also to proclaim them as dishonest is malicious. Do not ascribe malice, when chances are they've been naive.. With no skin in the game it's easy to cast stones.

"Not I" said the cat, "not I" said the dog.

shadymilkman said:

Your last two paragraphs, belie your casual interest in this product. Expecting a startup to have it's machining in place for a product and assembly that had yet to fully manifest itself in reality is disingenuous. Expecting them to also have all the money they need to get off the ground as if by some miracle they showed up with a fully formed company and product, when they started here in FC then moving to IGG to ask for seed money is demeaning not just to HL but to the community as a whole. Please feel free to explain your business plan on how you would overcome these mutually exclusive hurdles, to merely 'retain' your valuable interest aka window shopping. Also to proclaim them as dishonest is malicious. Do not ascribe malice, when chances are they've been naive.. With no skin in the game it's easy to cast stones.

"Not I" said the cat, "not I" said the dog.

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GHL may not be dishonest but they are certainly misleading and disingenuous. If I was running GHL and had over $320,000 in backer start up money, damn straight I would of already had machines and employees in place, and this doesn't include pre-order money! For a company to say that they are going to be producing 1000s a week and not even have any employees or machines capable of it is an out right lie! While the GH may be the shit, GHL is full of shit!

Likes2vape said:

GHL may not be dishonest but they are certainly misleading and disingenuous. If I was running GHL and had over $320,000 in backer start up money, damn straight I would of already had machines and employees in place, and this doesn't include pre-order money! For a company to say that they are going to be producing 1000s a week and not even have any employees or machines capable of it is an out right lie! While the GH may be the shit, GHL is full of shit!

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How many businesses have you started? It's easy to look back and say coulda, shoulda, woulda. But how many times have you done it?

Starting a business is expensive, outsourcing the manufacturing of some hardware is tedious and time consuming. Assembly is easy on a small scale, but it's hard to identify every bottleneck before you start mass production.

It's been mentioned time and time again - good engineers are bad business man, and good businessman are terrible engineers.

Every business makes mistakes, GHL is no different than any other small business I've encountered. Most small business owners are hardworking people doing what they can to make a living, they don't have unlimited resources to hire additional staff (employees don't just cost the salary you pay them - there's a lot of paperwork and shit you have to do in HR to hire employees). $300,000 may sound like a lot, but it's easy to blow through that in one afternoon when starting your business. I personally do not believe there was any malicious intent in over-promising the deadline - from the small business owner's standpoint - they're ready to go and start selling tomorrow. It's not always easy to anticipate what's going to slow down product development lifecycle.

I genuinely think these guys grossly underestimated the issues involved in outsourcing the manufacturing of critical components. Having worked with several manufacturers myself, I can't begin to list the number of times I've been given the cold shoulder because I wasn't looking to spend $100,000+ on a bulk order - multiple emails are often required to even get the sales reps to respond to your questions.

peaceonearth said:

The address tinyurl.com/oqsqy7y only works if you copy/paste it into your browser.

You need the full URL for it to be a clickable link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OSa2ZBH7yoigMyNivYfpmHDeoxUzOOY4Wu_GGlO3HnI/edit#gid=0

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Thanks for correcting the link.

A handful of self reported preorders isn't much of a data point.....

snamuh said:

Can you get a photo of the blue ti?

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@snamuh unfortunately i have given the unit away already -- sorry!

shadymilkman said:

Your last two paragraphs, belie your casual interest in this product. Expecting a startup to have it's machining in place for a product and assembly that had yet to fully manifest itself in reality is disingenuous. Expecting them to also have all the money they need to get off the ground as if by some miracle they showed up with a fully formed company and product, when they started here in FC then moving to IGG to ask for seed money is demeaning not just to HL but to the community as a whole. Please feel free to explain your business plan on how you would overcome these mutually exclusive hurdles, to merely 'retain' your valuable interest aka window shopping. Also to proclaim them as dishonest is malicious. Do not ascribe malice, when chances are they've been naive.. With no skin in the game it's easy to cast stones.

"Not I" said the cat, "not I" said the dog.

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I expect for the company to be truthful. All these dates that the product would be available then nothing happens. I'm wishing them the best but leveling with folks is way to build trust. I'm not sure if that's been done.

I don't need to explain my business plan, that's up to GH to explain theirs.

I don't want any skin in the game at this point. I need to know this is a quality product before I spend my hard earned money.

Wishing you the best.

Youre not sure that 'leveling with folks' has been done, to what extent? The last two updates are exactly what youre asking for yet somehow neglect to mention that this is a stark change to their previous updates. Either your ignoring these changes, or are unaware.. whichever it is, makes your post negligent. Further your using 'truthful' incorrectly here to denigrate HL. Youve leapt to a conclusion based on your lack of information as most of the issues that have come out of this exercise have been addressed, explained, or both. Having faith in your manufacturers, that they will deliver orders on time with no defects and passing that expectation on to the consumer is not a lack of truthfulness, its not intentional deceit. Its purely naivete.. which is a reflection of the fact that its a startup with kids who had/have very little exposure to real world constraints dealing with manufacturing.

If you dont need to explain your business plan, maybe you could clear up the mutually exclusive conditions you expect a tiny company to overcome. Help us understand the parameters, you know from scratch of designing, engineering, prototyping, testing, redesigning, assembling, field testing, tooling, and shipping.. that would have you shipping before taking preorders, and hiring staff based on an unknown capacity fulfillment/management.

These dudes raised a 1/3 of a million bucks for a product with an estimated ship date 2 months after financing ended. It's now been a year and a half later, and they STILL don't have the necessary production equipment.
They've made many statements that at least skirted the definition of dishonesty= "we're on track to make 1000 a week", followed by "we are only making a few a week, but that's on purpose so we can catch defects". Or "We've hired people" followed by "we are going to hire people"

Would anyone really say that their business plan actually included only shipping a fifth of the backers units by nearly two years after the campaign ended? It's not up to any of us to make excuses for them- THEY are the ones who thought they were capable of doing all this.
Not sure if "starting a company is hard" is a valid reason for disregarding people's concerns and frustration...

shadymilkman said:

Youre not sure that 'leveling with folks' has been done, to what extent? The last two updates are exactly what youre asking for yet somehow neglect to mention that this is a stark change to their previous updates. Either your ignoring these changes, or are unaware.. whichever it is, makes your post negligent. Further your using 'truthful' incorrectly here to denigrate HL. Youve leapt to a conclusion based on your lack of information as most of the issues that have come out of this exercise have been addressed, explained, or both. Having faith in your manufacturers, that they will deliver orders on time with no defects and passing that expectation on to the consumer is not a lack of truthfulness, its not intentional deceit. Its purely naivete.. which is a reflection of the fact that its a startup with kids who had/have very little exposure to real world constraints dealing with manufacturing.

If you dont need to explain your business plan, maybe you could clear up the mutually exclusive conditions you expect a tiny company to overcome. Help us understand the parameters, you know from scratch of designing, engineering, prototyping, testing, redesigning, assembling, field testing, tooling, and shipping.. that would have you shipping before taking preorders, and hiring staff based on an unknown capacity fulfillment/management.

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Why are you being so defensive? What kind of horse do you have in the race? Are you affiliated with the GH company? Sorry that you are upset. It seems like the last 2 posts are becoming more truthful. It's about time, their feet are to the fire at this point I would imagine.

FYI: just received and replied to the Address confirmation of my Nov. 15, 2013 regular backer order for the following:

The invoice shows that order as Processed and the Estimated ship date is still August; I have another order made last June for 2 extra batteries which still shows as In progress and has a September ESD.

@zymos

It was a IGG campaign, consider it successful because some have gotten their product.. in some cases that doesnt happen ever. We just happen to be on the inside of a development cycle and its clear that some do not understand how their toys get manufactured. What is the disconnect here for tooling? How can i develop tools and machines to help with assembly when (from our perspective) they hadnt finalized the assembly process to begin with? How do you do that, with a product that doesnt exist? Also a bit of reading and it seems like they hired the CS agent, and then went on to grab some more people to help with the actual assembly of the units, who have to be trained and their batches shipped and QC'd in the field apparently.. This still isnt dishonest, we need to be able to discern statements accordingly.

(re: 1000's per week) If you want to hang your hat on that statement about them not being truthful, fine. But anyone with a bit of critical analysis was fully aware that that was blindingly optimistic on all accounts.

@CarolKing

I dont believe that im being defensive, I am merely pointing out how asinine your position is. So instead of answering the question I posed to you, youd rather insinuate that I have an affiliation in order to discredit challenging your perspective. I dont, and still want to know effectively how you would do it?

As I always say, I will hold HL to the standard they have set for themselves when it comes to the GH, but I am more flexible because of the GH of their lack of business acumen. They needed an Eric Schmidt..

We’re still expecting to begin shipping in Late September. Thanks for checking in, and we’ll be back with another update on September 1st.

The Grasshopper Team

Above is the last sentence of the Aug. 2014 update.

I think they could have been a lot more transparent all the way through this process.

I think that's great that folks are getting their units. We should be able to get some great discussions geared toward the vaporizer itself instead of idle conversation. Let the beta testing begin here on FC.

Edit
I've been reading through the other GH thread. Some very good reviews with those with working units. Just not enough conversation yet.

Theres a thread for that.

CarolKing said:

Let the beta testing begin here on FC.

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I hope we're past that.