Wow, I hop off of a 6 hour plane ride and I see all this activity... Looks like there are two main topics to address today, apologies for any typos or grammatical errors, been awake for the last 36 hours on business.
First, let's tackle the whole "all glass vapor path" subject. Reece, you are absolutely right, the bowl is made of steel. Perhaps I've just been part of the vapor community for too long but to my understanding, I believed that most people felt that a stainless steel screen was pretty much required in order to hold the herb in place and that other vaporizers that advertise an all glass vapor path also had stainless steel screens.
The two that people brought up, the VapoCane and the Glass Vapor Genie all fall into this category, as does the LSV, Herbo, VHW, MW, etc etc. I'm not saying that makes me statements any more valid but then you could make the same blanket statement for any of the other glass based vapes too. The important thing to understand, as Max mentioned, is that while the other vapes have exposed heating elements (except for the VHW) that the air passes over, the Cloud is 100% glass encapsulated. If you want to split hairs, then I can always say the "vaporizer with the closest to an all glass vapor path"
This topic has already been discussed ad naseum in the previous pages of this thread and the great thing about America is, freedom of choice. If you don't agree with it, don't support it, it's that simple, no hard feelings.
Regarding our choice of going with a one year warranty, if anyone knows my history on fuckcombustion, they know that customer service is something important to me. If your unit does require repair after the one year mark, then we will have special pricing for replacements, you won't be paying anywhere close to the price for a new unit. Just to be proactive in answering questions, we have no idea what we would charge for replacements at this time, we're just concentrating on getting this unit production ready.
One thing to keep in mind about these companies that are offering lifetime warranties, is that I do feel that it is a bit of a bait and switch because if you look at the financial solvency of a lot of these companies, I'd be amazed if they are around in 10 years, much less 3. We'd be much more open to offering longer warranties if we had a simple product, basically a ceramic stick, a potentiometer, and some sort of housing. Our parts for the most part, are all custom made and while the manufacture has told us that they will stand the test of time, we have no real proof points other than to trust our manufacturing partner. I understand as a consumer why you would want a longer warranty but as vaporizers make a natural progression to something more complex with higher performance, there is a give and take that needs to occur.
As a young, start up organization, our #1 priority asides from producing the most mind blowing vaporizer out there is to be able to continue to keep the company running. Offering warranties of 3 years or more on a product that hasn't even been developed for more than a year from a risk perspective could be financially crippling. I am almost 100% certain that the amount of time and dollars that went into the R&D of this unit far exceeds what any other company has spent thus far by many multiples. Based on our burn rate and margins for our units, it just doesn't make fiscal sense for us to take a risk and extend the warranty when we've only been able to test this thing out for 6 months or so.
As much as I hate to say it, if you want something with a longer warranty then go ahead and buy another vape. You can wait another year, see how people's units are holding up and then decide to pull the trigger then. That is the best compromise I can think of as we will not be extending our warranty past one year until we have data that can support that. My day job as a business development consultant is to help scale companies to go from 10 people to 1000+ and a big part of that is managing risk.
Obviously we would like to offer the same type of warranties as our peers but given the amount of technology that went into the vapes of yesteryear versus what is inside the Cloud, it could be something that could potentially kill VapeXhale. Do I think the Cloud was built for the long haul? Of course, but like I said, we don't have enough data to support that it will last 3 years without a problem. Apple offers a one year warranty on their iPad and I think that our one year warranty on the Cloud is sufficient.
You guys are going to have to trust me on this one, if you saw our bill of materials and you understood how much we were actually making off of each unit, it's enough to almost make someone want to quit the project. Given the finite vaporizer market, I most certainly make more money doing my day job. As much as I love vaporizers, I'm not willing to risk the financial stability of my own family over a warranty issue and like I mentioned earlier, as much as it pains me to say it, if you're looking for a longer warranty then it would be better to buy another vape.
If we were to extend our warranty and do it the right way, then we would have to take another round of funding, further diluting my ownership in the company, and as I lose more and more power, VapeXhale will become more like your everyday manufacturing company that is strictly focused on the bottom line. The extra round of funding would provide the necessary cushion to deal with defects and returns but what would most likely happen is that VapeXhale will have a board of directors that are just concerned with profit/loss statements. Luckily, I make enough with my day job where I can keep contributing my own money into VapeXhale and still hold majority ownership so that I can make decisions from a vaporists' point of view and not from a business person's point of view.
Anyhow, I rambling a bit here but the net/net of this discussion is, while we will continue with our one year warranty, as long as I have control over VapeXhale, I will ensure that everyone is treated fairly. If you guys remembered the customer service I offered at Vriptech, expect nothing less with VapeXhale since this is my baby. I know the answer I gave is probably like diet soda, it quenched your thirst but probably still missing something. As Abe Lincoln once said, you can't please all the people all the time, but for anyone that knows me as a person, as a businessman, and as a vaporist, I don't half ass anything that I put my time into.