Glowforge release

[Nigel P. Jones]

For those of you still interested in the Glowforge release timeline, it looks like they finally delivered a beta unit this week. During their pre-order campaign in September they said they were going to send these in December, so that makes this about four months late. Last I heard they are still claiming that they will deliver all ~10,000 pre-orders before the end of June. That seems very doubtful at this point.

[Bill George]

Beta meaning a unit to test. If they ship any at all this year my guess it will be for Christmas. Oh and they need to have 10,000 glass 40 watt CO2 tubes ready to go on the same time frame.

[chase standifer]

I follow the Glowforge forums pretty closely. They delivered the first beta units back in December, this is not the first one out there. They have a pretty strict NDA and have not published information about who received beta units.

[Nigel P. Jones]

They delivered the first beta units back in December, this is not the first one out there.

That's not what the CEO told a news outlet in February:

The original plan was to start shipping the “first units” in December.

Glowforge CEO Dan Shapiro confirmed with GeekWire on Thursday that those shipments have been delayed...

As far as the initial shipments scheduled for December that have yet to be delivered, Shapiro said “I wish we were further along with that.”

[chase standifer]

I will try to look back in the forums on there and find the info. But the first beta units were hand delivered to users in Seattle for easy monitoring and assistance by the developers. The pictures that came out yesterday is the first public beta where the user is authorized to discuss the machine.

[Matt McCoy]

I will try to look back in the forums on there and find the info. But the first beta units were hand delivered to users in Seattle for easy monitoring and assistance by the developers. The pictures that came out yesterday is the first public beta where the user is authorized to discuss the machine.

I didn't read all the posts, but it looks like a beta unit was dropped off for the day to an investor in Colorado.

http://community.glowforge.com/t/glo...-the-wild/1792

[Bert Kemp]

Shapiro warned that future delays are possible.While we’re on schedule for June, if something unexpected comes up and we have to decide between shipping a mediocre product and taking a delay, we’ll take the delay so we know
Unexpected seems to be the rule not the exception

[chase standifer]

I can't seem to find a comment I remember reading from Dan about how some local units had been hand delivered a couple of months ago. Seems like it may be been some speculation from another poster about how some users had "beta" show up under their avatar. Most likely it was my memory fulfilling my own confirmation bias. I'm still optimistic that orders will be shipped by June. I supported the project understanding the risk of both and extended timeline and possible failure to deliver. I was able to afford that risk, however I don't understand some of the people who talk about selling their cars to be able to pre-order or are already setting of businesses based off of this tool, poor life planning IMO.

[Jason Hilton]

I've been thinking about similar circumstances to the Glowforge in the product world and the best example I have come up with is Red Camera. Red published incredible claims about their Red One camera and the response had a similar dichotomy: People either were floored and believed they could deliver (and pre-ordered) or they were like most of the folks on this forum and aggressively shared their doubts and misgiving with reasons both real and invented. Red struggles to this day to hit their shipping goals (usually because they can't manufacture fast enough to meet demand), but their products are almost universally considered to be the best cameras available and shoot tens of thousands of projects every year (including a large percentage of the big blockbuster films I'm sure you've all seen). Red has other manufactures struggling to keep up with their innovations, even 10 years after their first camera was introduced. They have an active user and staff community that provides direct access to the people using their cameras, and they've been able to create features and functionality directly with participation from the community, often significantly improving their final product.

I compare Glowforge to Red because, thus far, they've followed much the same pattern. They're responsive to questions and feature requests, they're carefully beta testing their hardware AND software, and they've got a pre-order significantly higher than they'd anticipated. If they deliver the usability they've been showing in screenshots they'll be significantly farther along than other manufacturers in terms of ease of use and ease of onboarding. If they have a good roadmap of products they'll almost certainly move into larger, faster laser hardware in the future. The founder and the team have a good past track record of success in different businesses (just like the founder of Red, who made his fortune founding Oakley) and a passion for the new business they're in. Glowforge has a passionate and active community. And based on their openness and communication with their customer-base, and their commitment to quality over delivery dates (a key metric for product success) they've got a great chance of following Red's model to continuation and becoming a big player in the laser market.

Could they fail? Sure, but the odds are very much in their favor to succeed, and if they do, like Red did with cameras, they will shake up the market to the point where the current big players will be struggling to keep up.

[Gary Hair]

I've been thinking about similar circumstances to the Glowforge in the product world and the best example I have come up with is Red Camera. Red published incredible claims about their Red One camera and the response had a similar dichotomy: People either were floored and believed they could deliver (and pre-ordered) or they were like most of the folks on this forum and aggressively shared their doubts and misgiving with reasons both real and invented. Red struggles to this day to hit their shipping goals (usually because they can't manufacture fast enough to meet demand), but their products are almost universally considered to be the best cameras available and shoot tens of thousands of projects every year (including a large percentage of the big blockbuster films I'm sure you've all seen). Red has other manufactures struggling to keep up with their innovations, even 10 years after their first camera was introduced. They have an active user and staff community that provides direct access to the people using their cameras, and they've been able to create features and functionality directly with participation from the community, often significantly improving their final product.

I compare Glowforge to Red because, thus far, they've followed much the same pattern. They're responsive to questions and feature requests, they're carefully beta testing their hardware AND software, and they've got a pre-order significantly higher than they'd anticipated. If they deliver the usability they've been showing in screenshots they'll be significantly farther along than other manufacturers in terms of ease of use and ease of onboarding. If they have a good roadmap of products they'll almost certainly move into larger, faster laser hardware in the future. The founder and the team have a good past track record of success in different businesses (just like the founder of Red, who made his fortune founding Oakley) and a passion for the new business they're in. Glowforge has a passionate and active community. And based on their openness and communication with their customer-base, and their commitment to quality over delivery dates (a key metric for product success) they've got a great chance of following Red's model to continuation and becoming a big player in the laser market.

Could they fail? Sure, but the odds are very much in their favor to succeed, and if they do, like Red did with cameras, they will shake up the market to the point where the current big players will be struggling to keep up.

Seriously? You are going to compare a $77K (yes, that seventy seven thousand) camera that changed the high-end camera world by leaps and bounds, to a (probably) over-priced, (probably) over-hyped, consumer product that sells for less than $2K. Sorry, they are not even remotely analogous.

[Matt McCoy]

Seriously? You are going to compare a $77K (yes, that seventy seven thousand) camera that changed the high-end camera world by leaps and bounds, to a (probably) over-priced, (probably) over-hyped, consumer product that sells for less than $2K. Sorry, they are not even remotely analogous.

I don't see where Jason used price points in his comparison, Gary. He makes his case in the second paragraph.

[Art Mann]

For every company that is successful with a new product financed by crowd funding, there must be at least a hundred companies that fail. It is no use cherry picking one example company in an attempt to prove that Glowforge will be successful. After all, Red produced a product that nobody else had. Glowforge is just one out of dozens of companies that use Chinese components that make a cheap 2-D laser cutter/engraver. Calling their machine 3-D just makes them look either stupid or deceitful.

[Jason Hilton]

Seriously? You are going to compare a $77K (yes, that seventy seven thousand) camera that changed the high-end camera world by leaps and bounds, to a (probably) over-priced, (probably) over-hyped, consumer product that sells for less than $2K. Sorry, they are not even remotely analogous.

Yes, that's exactly what I did, and thank you for reinforcing my argument. Price point wasn't mentioned and isn't relevant. However, there is a pricing model comparison to be made. Having purchased a Red One for a company I worked for, the Red One price point was around 35k with accessories pre-ordered, and around 40-45k after release. The current range of Red cameras today run the gamut from a bare bones Raven (a new camera) being introduced at 5k to The Weapon range that can go upwards 120k fully kitted out. The comparison here isn't the prices themselves, but the pricing model: Namely that Red, like Glowforge, introduced their cameras at promotional pre-order pricing and increased the pricing after a specified time. Red continues to use this model to this day, most recently pricing their newest entry level Raven camera at an introductory price which is set to increase right after NAB 2016.

[Jason Hilton]

For every company that is successful with a new product financed by crowd funding, there must be at least a hundred companies that fail. It is no use cherry picking one example company in an attempt to prove that Glowforge will be successful. After all, Red produced a product that nobody else had. Glowforge is just one out of dozens of companies that use Chinese components that make a cheap 2-D laser cutter/engraver. Calling their machine 3-D just makes them look either stupid or deceitful.

I didn't cherry pick at all. Red happens to be a company and product I have experience with. Red accepted pre-orders before crowdfunding was a thing, and Glowforge accepted discounted pre-orders, they didn't crowd-fund. GF had capital investments before launch and took direct pre-orders. Legally speaking it's the same as pre-ordering an iPad. There are terms and they owe you a product. Crowd funding is a lot more fuzzy.

[Rich Harman]

I've been thinking about similar circumstances to the Glowforge in the product world and the best example I have come up with is Red Camera... but their products are almost universally considered to be the best cameras available

I think it's a thin comparison. The Glowforge laser is aimed at people that don't know anything about lasers, nothing about it is high end, except for the server side software - which is what sets it apart from other lasers. It is built cheaply, of cheap components. Glowforge is targeting people that don't even know that a laser can make 3D items, hence their ridiculous decision to call it a "3D laser printer". People will not universally be claiming that the Glowforge is the best laser available.

Red is not going to poison you or burn down your house. Marketing to people that know nothing about lasers, talking up how safe it is (like a DVD player), showing it used in a kitchen with no ducting what-so-ever etc., These are things that are very different than Red.