I was lucky enough to meet the FocusV team today (I called it "focus five" in front of them
) who made good on their promise to swap out my base irl rather than having to warranty it.
After meeting them, I feel I can comfortably dismiss anyone saying they've had an "abysmal" experience with the company. Those people simply have no perspective on what it's like to try building a business from the ground up. It hasn't been a perfect rollout, but it's been pretty damn impressive what these 2 people have managed to accomplish basically by themselves so far.
Redesigning their site, rolling out the subscription service, getting the apps on the marketplaces, setting up the beta accounts to send out dry herb and repair kits, building their online marketplace for 3rd parties to sell accessories, handling literally hundreds of warranty claims and customer service inquiries, promoting to local shops, innovating new accessories - these are a handful of things FocusV has worked on just in the past few days, FROM THE ROAD, traveling with their gigantic family of dogs. All whilst overseeing the production, sales, marketing, distribution, etc. for the company at large. It's an INSANE workload for 2 people to shoulder, yet they manage to do a damn good job of it, all things considered. And they always seem to go above and beyond for anyone who feels they've had a poor experience - which 9 times out of 10 winds up being some entitled jerk who throws a hissy fit when things don't go exactly their way.
Anyway, I was super impressed with what a nice, humble, hard-working, and above all transparent couple they are. I know as a customer it's easy to have tunnel vision about your experience, and feel like you're personally being wronged somehow when things don't go smoothly - I am guilty of this myself. But meeting them today erased any doubts and made me a customer for life. I swapped my base, picked up my herb chamber and repair kit, shared some of my homemade rosin with Randall and another customer who stopped by, and even managed to score a couple nice freebies. I'll let you know how the ceramic cup works soon!