The Grasshopper Shipping Poll

[Bass Vaper]

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...

Another great point. I'm starting to believe that we think the same way simply because we both have guitars in our avatars...

I'd venture to say that 8 out of 10 people have never started their own business. I do appreciate the positive outlook folks are trying to keep, I am too, but I think we just have different levels of expectations as consumers.

For me, I received an email 7 months ago leading me to believe that I could order a product (that I thought to be in production already) and that it would ship within a couple months. That was 5 months after inquiring about how to order one. Today, still no product, multiple new shipping delays, and very vague (borderline pc bullshit) replies to legitimate inquiries.

It's fair for anyone to be upset. No way would anyone fully pay for a product in a retail store and be okay waiting this long for delivery. Especially if a couple months turned into almost 2 years. That's almost unfathomable.

Bad biz acumen, starting a business is hard, this is a revolutionary product, etc... are all super lame excuses in my opinion, true or not. But, if they came out and just said that, I bet there'd be a lot more acceptance from the crowd goers vs the approach they continue to take.

 

[hi_there]

Especially if a couple months turned into almost 2 years. That's almost unfathomable.

You seem to be mixing pre-orders and backers together. That is not really fair.

Pre-orders, if unhappy can ask for a refund at any time. Backers knew they were taking a risk at the time and might not even get a product out of it.

Personally, I agree either way that GHL has not been very straightforward in their communications.

 

[zymos]

True- I wouldn't have cut them nearly as much slack if I'd been anything other than a crowdsourcing funder.

 

[Bass Vaper]

You seem to be mixing pre-orders and backers together. That is not really fair.

Pre-orders, if unhappy can ask for a refund at any time. Backers knew they were taking a risk at the time and might not even get a product out of it.

Personally, I agree either way that GHL has not been very straightforward in their communications.

Fair enough. And I am not in any way trying to be unnecessarily unfair to them, I do wish them success.

In fairness I could say that my first inquiry to GHL was in July 2014 and paid my $300 in Feb.

Thanks for keeping me honest, amigo

 

[tr33sPlease]

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.

Where/how are you coming up with these numbers? Based on order numbers, there are less than 8k or so and probably less than that...they start at 12000 and the highest reported one is in the 19000 range.

 

[Likes2vape]

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.

I have successfully started 3 businesses sold 2 of them, still operate 1 of them and have failed at 3, one because of lack of start up funds. I understand start up costs can be underestimated and money can blown through, I have done it, but do not make unrealistic promises that there is no way you can keep which is what I feel GHL has done. It should be fairly obvious to the GHL team what their production output is cappable of at this point in time and it is not thousands a week as they said. Don't blow a bunch of smoke up our ass just be honest and forthcoming. That's all I ask. I do not think GHL has malicious intents but I also think they are not as forthcoming as they should/could of been. It does seem as if GHL is trying to step it up and be more honest with what is going on and I hope it continues.

I have faith that eventually GHL will get it operating smoothly and I do think they are not trying to rip any one off I just feel they could of been better prepared and honest with shipping dates/production times.

 

[pakalolo]

There is no need for anyone here to be belligerent. Challenging each other over details that no one has any knowledge of is purely argumentative and serves no real purpose except to upset each other. Speculation has always been rampant in this thread and some of you are taking it to extremes. Before you post, ask yourself if you really know anything about what you're about to say. If you're just guessing, maybe you shouldn't reply.

 

[Wolf46]

Interesting post from redditreddit:

Here is a response I got from Caroline after questioning (repeatedly) why orders were seemingly shipping out of order. I think the honest response was refreshing and should explain some earlier anomalies. I asked to share this information here, and here it is..

This may have been my fault. I am a new employee at Hopper Labs and was doing my first batch of address verification and I got a bit out of order. I was trying to ship based on what we had in stock not based on date of purchase. I apologize for the confusion. I have learned the appropriate way to ship is by purchase date. I would like to reassure you that you are not far from getting your address verification email. Again, I apologize for my mistake and appreciate your patience as I get through this learning curve.

Best, Caroline

 

[seaofgreens]

Where/how are you coming up with these numbers? Based on order numbers, there are less than 8k or so and probably less than that...they start at 12000 and the highest reported one is in the 19000 range.

I would like to be wrong, and I will just leave it at that.

 

[RelaxedNow]

On Reddit:
Here is a response I got from Caroline after questioning (repeatedly) why orders were seemingly shipping out of order. I think the honest response was refreshing and should explain some earlier anomalies. I asked to share this information here, and here it is..

This may have been my fault. I am a new employee at Hopper Labs and was doing my first batch of address verification and I got a bit out of order. I was trying to ship based on what we had in stock not based on date of purchase. I apologize for the confusion. I have learned the appropriate way to ship is by purchase date. I would like to reassure you that you are not far from getting your address verification email. Again, I apologize for my mistake and appreciate your patience as I get through this learning curve.

Best, Caroline

Again, copied from Reddit.
Surely this doesn't mean if they have a bunch of SS ones ready to go, but the next order on the list is a blue TI that's out of stock, they won't ship out the SS ones?

Of course, I have no actual knowledge of GHL's processes, but I'd bet they are assembling them based on the order date, and don't actually have a bunch of SS ready to go. This would make sense to me, based on the fact they have limited production capacity, and assuming they have the appropriate parts in stock.

 

[ragnorokk]

FIFO would totally make sense if they're making them to order, but I thought previous updates had indicated that they fulfill a quota of each type daily, regardless of what was ordered. That is what this update sounds like, so... Yeah. Guess they still have to catch defects in batches, so maybe that's the reasoning behind it?

 

[syrupy]

Interesting post from redditreddit:

Here is a response I got from Caroline after questioning (repeatedly) why orders were seemingly shipping out of order. I think the honest response was refreshing and should explain some earlier anomalies. I asked to share this information here, and here it is..

This may have been my fault. I am a new employee at Hopper Labs and was doing my first batch of address verification and I got a bit out of order. I was trying to ship based on what we had in stock not based on date of purchase. I apologize for the confusion. I have learned the appropriate way to ship is by purchase date. I would like to reassure you that you are not far from getting your address verification email. Again, I apologize for my mistake and appreciate your patience as I get through this learning curve.

Best, Caroline

She's got a great attitude. Still I feel like she's taking it a little hard for the team? My memory says they've been shipping out of order for a bit longer than she's been employed there? But the important part is she's not pushing responsibility off, which I suppose is the job of the front line CS person. I'd call her a good hire.

More importantly, I'm getting highly nervous about the prospect of not having a grasshopper while waiting in line camping out for the new Star Wars movie. May the Vapor be with GHL, and with you all.

 

[CarolKing]

Regarding Caroline: She sounds like an honest person that made an honest mistake. It shows integrity and she wants to make things right for the company whether or not it was her fault or not. Hopefully with employees like that and a quality product the company can go far. Always wishing the company the best. We want the vaporizer to be successful.

EDIT
Yes beta testing will be going on for quite a while. It's that way with any new vaporizer new to the market. Maybe GH did their own beta testing? We never were given that info. It's FC's turn to do the beta testing now. Our members will put this unit through the paces.

 

[Averyminya]

November 29th? I'm November 23rd '13 had July moved to September shipping estimate... Standard SS. Hi thread

 

[WoodyWeedPecker]

It's that way with any new vaporizer new to the market. Maybe GH did their own beta testing? We never were given that info.

I emailed them about the auto-shut off feature, I wanted it to be more sensitive or with a longer delay (since it can be done at no cost for them). In the reply by Trevor testing was mentioned:

In our testing the majority of people interested in a slow session did not want to draw on the device for longer than 20 seconds, and actually preferred to have breaks between shorter draws.

 

[zymos]

That could mean the majority of two people, for all we know...

 

[peaceonearth]

Hi thread

Welcome to the rabbit hole!

 

[fft]

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.

^^^ This ^^^

As a IGG backer, I backed with the assumption that these guys were inexperienced yet talented youngsters who decided to forgo a typical engineering career path to instead start their own business and build a cutting edge vaporizer. That was and still is an idea that I can get behind, so I backed them knowing that (as with many crowdsourced projects) the final product might never see the light of day. And that I was essentially funding their business education. Predictably, these guys "didn't know what they didn't know" and have hit a lot of bumps along the way, which has been part of their educational experience.

@Ratchett is right when he says $300k is not a lot. Well over half of that (if not all) is going to parts and direct production costs. They had to pick up and move from NC to CO and have probably not taken salaries for 2 years, which is probably why one of the three guys had to leave. I suspect they have blown through much more than $300k so far and are funding the business through the working capital on pre-orders.

What's trickier to defend is the way they've communicated. Basically they have to maintain enough confidence to keep pre-orders coming in to fund their direct expenses until they are shipping at full production rates. The alternative is to run out of money and shut the whole thing down. Its a tough spot to be in. Its easy for us to play customer and say they should just give us the unvarnished truth and honestly convey uncertainty by saying "we don't know". Its also easy to say that if we were in their shoes that we'd do something different. On the other hand, I want to see these guys succeed and I want to eventually have a GH, so I understand why they have done what they've done. (That said, Matt Most should never be allowed to write an update again).

Two takeaways:

1) Against the odds, by most indications we've seen the GH is (going to be) a groundbreaking vape. Yes there are production snags (which is why a lifetime warranty makes sense for early backers), but little by little things are getting worked out and everyone really seems to like this thing. Its really amazing when you think about it that these 2-3 guys are going to succeed in creating a product that beats what their better established/funded competition can do. Even after 2 years of delays no competitor has copied their design and made something better. That should speak to how hard this is.

2) If you have a low tolerance for risk on the GH (or in general), now is still not the time to order. In 6+ months hopefully, they will have issued sorted out and production will be ramped up and they'll be shipping these things to retailers where it will be easy to pick up a hopper without wait. That's not where we are now. For those who put in a pre-order thinking they would already have their hopper in hand and are upset about it, you probably pulled the trigger too early. The information was available in 2 years of the original GH threads for pre-order people to see the risks and forsee the potential uncertainty and delays. Enough said...others I am sure will have a different view. But I think its important to make a distinction between "what the world should be like" and "how the world really is"... IMO knowing this difference leads to better decisions and less stress.

 

[zymos]

I think preorderers have been jerked around worse than backers. As backers, we knew, or should have, that all kinds of shit could come up.
People that backed relatively recently were given shipping estimates that made them think they'd be receiving theirs in a month or two, then pushed back.

 

[Mr. Me2]

I think preorderers have been jerked around worse than backers. As backers, we knew, or should have, that all kinds of shit could come up.
People that backed relatively recently were given shipping estimates that made them think they'd be receiving theirs in a month or two, then pushed back.

That may be true, except for FCers. There is plenty of history in the various gh threads. I'm a preorder, and although I was hopeful for a shorter waiting time I can't say I'm surprised the delivery dates have been pushed back.

I continue to throw ghl shade for the delays and the perceived communication issues. I still believe they made the statements to date in good faith and maybe with a little too much optimism. Personally, I'd rather have the delays with early resolution of production issues than flooding the market and getting killed with warranty issues.

I've been following other threads here which I think relate to the gh. It seems that MiVape has similar delays to market, and greater production issues than the gh. Communication seems better because FCers seem ok with the problems. And Crafty/Mighty continue to have production issues and warranty claims galore after x months in the market. But it's the rare post when someone is sorry they bought one (I love mine). FF is another example of a Vape with production issues...

I'll just finish for now repeating that I'm a gh believer. And I don't even have mine yet!

 

[shadymilkman]

Perhaps, but with the knowledge of the IGG backers having not received their units, I doubt pre-orderers were under any illusion about getting theirs before them. The variable dates is a nuisance.. but sometimes we have to roll with it. If most EBirds can wait (years).. who am I to complain?

 

[zymos]

Sure, it's good to be informed and do your research.
But I can't accept the idea that when company says something will ship in a month, the buyer is supposed to realize that that is BS and it could be 2,3 months or longer...

 

[Mr. Me2]

Sure, it's good to be informed and do your research.
But I can't accept the idea that when company says something will ship in a month, the buyer is supposed to realize that that is BS and it could be 2,3 months or longer...

I get that. I think I'd feel differently if the gh was already to market rather than a crowdfunded startup. Let's see if I feel the same way when I learn what my next estimated shipping date is. They said that they don't plan to just bump by one month. Sounds like their next goal is to provide more realistic shipping estimates. As a later preorder, I'd still like to see mine in the fall, rather than the winter.

 

[°k]

The good news probably were that they replaced it straight away without going through the whole ship us your unit first we'll look at it and then we'll replace it or we'll fix it and send it back.

Edit: meh, mixed up threads...

 

[zymos]

I'm just trying to look at it from the point of view of someone who just happens upon their site or just hears about this vape called the Grasshopper.

Are any potential delays and other iffyness going to be obvious to them?