A further update on preorders (18th of November 2012)

[quartercast]

I thought Michael is a dragon?

 

[MaxNormal]

edit - Yes this was not a well considered post.

 

[Wally]

Max.. Any more of this and I'll slam a warning on your account.

 

[ferrule]

The problem is that he isn't. Ask him where the 800 units he promised me are.


He will no doubt tell you he has not been able to get enough sales to send me them.


Then ask him why he refuses and disrupts my attempts to help him get those sales.


My hands are tied. I cannot send you what Ed does not send me.


As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.

I assume the 70 units referred to is the 1Ghz test-run upgrade group? Didn't we give you the money to purchase those? Were you expecting to just sell 70 units off some credit that ED owed you and use our cash for something else?


Sorry man, you blew a lot of trust and credibility (with me at least) when you failed to deliver the 1Ghz Pandoras. It really stings that my attempt to help out (and get a better device) backfired so badly.


I'm sorry the last few years have been such a drain on you, CC really screwed this up, and that was completely out of your control. However the most recent chapter of this story hasn't been very sympathetic. That said, I do still believe you're looking for a way to make this work. I like the idea of the small inventor producing a great device against the odds.


Ian

 

[DisgruntleElf]

There is another solution Craig. Get a part time job. An additional income will allow you to pay off you debt to ED. You did say you were considering one if your KickStarter iCP2 failed.

 

[DAP]

There are too many cooks in this kitchen. I fear the stew will be ruined.

 

[Link]

Max.. Any more of this and I'll slam a warning on your account.

?


Why

 

[EvilDragon]

*sigh*


I wish I would not have to go through all that here in the public, but I guess I don't have much of a choice left if there are so many interesting facts here...

I cannot reply to you because Ed ignores my emails (or fobs me away with promises) and PMs on a regular basis, as has been doing so for months on end.

The only unanswered eMail from you I can find is from yesterday, asking about videos. Everything else has been answered (unless it was an eMail that didn't require an answer).


I don't have any PMs here on the boards and I have to admit I'm not often online on IRC these days, but last time I checked a few days ago, there was no new PM from you here either, so I'd wish to know where the heck you are trying to contact me.


I have tons of unanswered stuff from you though.

I will say simply that my attempts to save the Pandora have been ignored, sidelined and prevented for the last 6 months.

Please let me know what these attempts were.


I know about the website, which you made on your own (with Gadgetoids help) and all suggestions and changes I wanted did never happen.


I know you wanted to promote it with videos, and while I've been recording quite a lot of footage (besides the last videos I posted, I also recorded Android, C64, Amiga and Desktop stuff), but I also requested for help from you, as I am heavily out of time.


I never got any reply to my help request, I take it you didn't record anything yet?


Another attempt to save the Pandora was to sell the 1GHz unit earlier than planned for a higher price and make a lot of money with that.


This has happened - but it seems it didn't save much.


When you weren't unable to pay for the 1GHz units, there was an issue to be resolved:


I couldn't send you any more units without having the ones I sent to you paid for and without new units, you couldn't make profit to resolve that situation.


I offered you to dropship: You can sell units, pay the production costs to me and I will ship them. Each of that order would've paid you one 1GHz unit.


I never got a reply on that. It just never happened. I can only offer things, I cannot force you to.


I don't know of any other attempts you had to save the Pandora. In fact, if we just sticked to the plan without having that 1GHz desaster, I'm not sure there would be much that would've need to be saved.

Ed seems to be guided by other people, and those people are guiding him straight in to disaster in my opinion. He does not understand how to sell the Pandora. This month should have been wall to wall advertising and promotion, the new website should have been online, magazine articles, huge PR campaign like we did for the iCP2... but .... nothing. I've tried and tried to get involved in helping with that because if there is one thing I can do well it's sell pretty much anything.

Errrm... yeah. The one who promised me to work on promotion and sell the Pandora like hell is actually yourself.


I told you I've got the production running, so you can push the sales as good as you can.


My last suggestions on the website I sent months ago never happened.


The "Order now" still either stays directly on the website or redirects to my shop without noticing the customer where he actually buys it from.


And the included shop takes the sales to you, though I've never gotten an answer from you how you plan to even sell units if you can't pay for them and never replied to my dropship offer.


I actually was happy when you promised me three weeks ago you will try to make as much promotion as possible, because that's not my speciality and I really don't have much time right now.


I wanted to send a newsletter to everyone telling the Pandora is now available from stock and asking for donations, but didn't do it because you wanted to send that newsletter and raise sales.


To my knowledge, this never happened.


It's not the first promise you made to me which never happened.


While I was discussing with Link about becoming a Pandora distributor, you told me you had an exclusive deal with ThinkGeek and they will simply order a few hundreds at once.


My reply was, that nothing is yet fixed with Link, so just get me those few hundred orders from ThinkGeek, you can get a provision. I had the units on stock.


Nothing. Never. I asked a few times, but never got any reply to that anymore.


To be honest, what people are experiencing here on the boards is the same for me. Sadly.


Any questions or parts of questions you don't want to answer will simply be ignored.


I've got replies on eMails I've sent to you where you simply ignored some parts. Asking the same thing again didn't help.

Then today I hear he is trying to make his own new website, thus we can assume the one I spent considerable time, money and effort building is to be ignored too.

Ermm... well, in fact, when you started your website, I was working on one for a few months already, even asked people to upload videos and pictures to the community area there.


When you started yours, I scrapped the one I was working on, mentioned what I want to have changed on the one you did, and that never happened.


Now I contacted Gadgetoid last week to finally get that website up, as nothing has happened for the last few months on that one.


So yes, I wanted to keep your new website, but I want it to mention the older Pandora models as well, have a video section, a support section (to include the ticket system and the latest firmware) and link to shops on the order now page, no direct order on the website itself.

The problem is that he isn't. Ask him where the 800 units he promised me are.

I can happily answer this question, as could anyone who actually read the post about my plan from over a year ago.


Let's go back:


The plan was to produce 4000 more Pandoras and get enough money from those so that we can fulfill our preorders with that (800 from you, 500 from me).


Of course, as money is tight, there's no way to deliver all the outstanding preorders at once.


I was expecting roughly 300 refunds, mostly from your customers.


As mentioned before, I bought parts off you for 65000 EUR so you can pay refunds, so that equals about 230 units. So the 800 units went down to about 600.


Out of the first 1000 Pandoras, about 220 would go to old customers (this is in the business plan). So that would be 110 to you and 110 to me.


This happened, so you were down to about 460.


Out of the second 1000 Pandoras, about 290 would go to old customers. 145 to me and 145 to you. This didn't really happen, I'll explain why later. Though it basically happened, as you got 40 normal ones from those and those 70 1GHz that were planned to be paid for.


With that, you should've been down to about 300.


Out of the third 1000 Pandoras, 185 Pandoras would've gone to you. That would bring you down to less nearly 100.


And with the fourth 1000 Pandoras sold, you would've gotten your remaining units.


So, why didn't you get those 800 units? Because we're only half-way through so far! And you seem to ignore that money you got for the parts you needed for refunds. The plan was to use the parts you own and continue the production with that. Of course, if I have to buy the parts off you, the units you'll get will go lower.


Okay. Up to the first 1000 units, everything went as planned.


I was about to silently setup the 1GHz prototype run, so that we could continue with 1GHz units when the old SoCs were used up (this would've been the case after another 1000 units had been produced).


There wouldn't even have been a need to increase the price a lot - just switch to 1GHz after the first 2000 units and keep selling.


I had about 1200 units produced when Craig talked to me and told me I should just throw the old SoCs away (worth 15K EUR) and he wanted to announce and take preorders for the 1GHz units, for a higher price, to be able to speed up the queue.


I had a mixed feeling about this - as I never wanted to have another preorder queue again. Besides, sales were good at that time, so no real need to announce the 1Ghz units right away... but well, as Craig seemed to be so sure about selling them like hell, I agreed and let him do the newspost.


Well, sales heavily dropped with this announcement (totally understandable).


I had quite a lenghty discussion via eMail with Craig how to handle it.


Up until now, the profit of one sold Pandora was evenly split between the two of us and produced those units for the old preorderers we had (so basically, Craigs free units).


I asked him whether he wanted to keep it like that with the 1GHz units (it would've been a higher profit than with the normal units and sped up the classic preorder production) or whether he would like to buy the 1GHz units for production cost from me and sell them himself. As it would be production costs, it would mean: No more free units for those, he would have to finance the remaining ones with sales of the 1GHz ones.


He agreed. I made it clear one more time: He can get as many units as he wanted for production costs, would NOT get free units for those (as I will not make any profit on those to fund free units), and these units would have to be paid.


Well... the rest has been here in this thread already. I sent the first 70 1GHz Pandoras but never received the payment for the production costs... so I couldn't send any more units.


Still, I wanted to help and offered him stuff like the mentioned dropshipping to build up more money. Nothing. Can't do much here, sadly.


That's where your free units are.


You got them exactly to the plan, and if we would've continued with it, you would still get them.


Sales of the 1GHz units were good at the beginning but quickly dropped. I probably missed a lot of customers at the GamesCom, because they all liked the Pandora but a lot of them thought the price was way too hight.


I'd rather have sold twice the amount of units for half the price, to be honest... but now I need to calculate what can be done to fix this all up.


And even now I've made calculations (as mentioned in my last lenghty post) that include your customers as well.

He will no doubt tell you he has not been able to get enough sales to send me them.

Sure. That's an easily give fact.


I could also ask you why I only got 300 units from you instead of 800 which I should've gotten. I won't, as I know it was CCs fault.


But usually, I shouldn't have cared about.


I didn't actually have much to do with the Pandora, except for working on the OS with the devs and keeping the community here happy.


I was never involved in any decisions. I was given facts and had to live with it.


Heck, I told you upfront that I don't have any money and will only take preorders when the production is 100% approved and tested to be working fine.


Your answer was, that it is, and so I agreed... if I had known the REAL status back then, I wouldn't have taken preorders. I'm no risky guy, and I never was.


So yeah, basically I gave you the money for the units I should receive and I never got them all.


As a company, I should sue you for that. But as I know WHY that happened, I never did. Instead, I do everything to try to recover things, both for your and my customers.

Then ask him why he refuses and disrupts my attempts to help him get those sales.

Where are the promised massive huge press coverage you were speaking of?


This doesn't have anything to do with the homepage nor the videos.


Why didn't you even answer to my eMail when I asked for help on the videos because I knew I didn't have much time to do them?


Why did those last minor changes I requested for the homepage never happen? I promised I'd put it online right away after these happen, and that was months ago.

As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.

In fact, most of the 1GHz sales were upgrades from you. And they don't cover anything, they are production costs.

And if he has not been able to sell enough units... we're back asking why he does not seem to be


interested in my help.

And I wonder where you get that from. As stated above, I was HAPPY to get help with promotion.


Actually, I was counting on you that you will send out the newsletter, that you will generate massive press coverage and that you will promote it to sell as many as possible.


I didn't do ANYTHING in these regards as you wanted to do so and I was happy about that - because I'm really out of time.


Heck, I even asked at the boards for help.. in the public, as I had too little time to do everything myself.


And in worst case you could've even used those One-Video-Per-Day-Videos for promotion - as they covered most of the stuff the Pandora can do.


And videos for stuff that has improved (like Arcade emulation, PSX, GBA, etc.) are online for a while now, so you got the footage there.

The tragic thing is I know I could have sold hundreds of units this month...

Yes. You keep mentioning for about 7 months now how you can easily sell hundreds of units.


I just keep wondering why you never actually do that, because it would've helped A LOT.


Actually, right now I'm not sure whether I should be in rage or just sad.


I took over production, got everything running, offered as much help as I can, but I'm not getting anything back from you except for rants and accusations.


Well, I can tell one thing for sure: If you want to work on a Pandora 2, you are welcome to do so. But I won't be involved in that. I might do something on my own when I somehow managed to resolve the Pandora 1 mess, but I will not work anymore on any project together with you.


It's just way too chaotic and messy in my opinion.


I wish you luck with the iCP2.


But I also wish to give you one advice:


Don't try to blame everything on others and be thankful for every help you can get from anyone.


I know I probably also made mistakes (who doesn't), but I won't blame them on anyone else. I'm always trying to do my best, and that's what's important.


I'm open, honest, and never try to make false promises. Even if it's sometimes hard to admit that the idea you had was wrong - prople will appreciate and understand if you're honest here.


I'm thankful for everyone who has supported us on this long way so far, and I will be thankful for everyone who keeps supporting us.


I'll do my best to produce and deliver the remaining Pandoras. However, I am just a single person currently handling the production, most of the repairs, etc.


This is a fulltime job, and I unfortunately I don't have much time left for videos, promotion, etc.


So if you still want to support your customers - please start doing the major promotion you've been talking about for months.


Let me know which videos you urgently want for that and I'll provide them as soon as I can.


And my promise from back then still is valid: Finish the little changes I requested for the website and I'll put it online right away.


So long... I'm off for bed. I wanted to go to bed earlier today... but this post took hours.

 

[skeezix]

The problem is that he isn't. Ask him where the 800 units he promised me are.


As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for.

how large is your outstanding queue? Can you not send the queue details to ED? So far, people have been asking for _years_ for updates on how big this queue is.. but no answer


(Tread carefully here too .. it looks like you're ragging on ED, who has been pretty open and honest, whereas you have been very vague; ED is very obviously trying to help you out. what with spending _his revenues_ on making units for your customers.. and is also helping you organize the iCP2 entirely for free on his 'spare time'; you depend on him a lot, but don't pass a lot of thanks. You never have been good that way .. you never once said thanks to anyone whose helped you out over the many long years.)


"The problem is that he isn't. Ask him where the 800 units he promised me are."


--> is your queue 800 now? scan back to EDs long post a page or two earlier.. by all guesses, it shoudl be much less than 800 now.. it was 800 some time ago.


"As I've previously said, I've no idea what is going on anymore with Ed, but I find it hard to believe


he has not sold enough units in the last 3 months to cover those 70 he says I owe him money for." .. wow, I'm not even sure how to parse this One big problem is that he sent you a pile of units, and you didn't send him any money since it evaporated. I don't think he _can legally_ send you any more units (and I wouldn't) when he's already in the hole so much. How could he legally send you more units, when you've not paid for the last batch? Thats a sure way to get himself into jail. So.. I doubt he can send you anything.. but he can send to your queue, based on new sales, donations, upgrades, and so forth.


--> not that I am reliable, since I don't sleep at night


the "whole new website" .. I forget, didn't some folks mention a number of things missing so it couldn't be used yet? It had no German or something? I think you made a whoel site, but didnt' run it by ED to get his input on it, and it wasn't usable yet? Post it up somewhere in a /tmp/ url so we can see it


"certain people" .. you keep referring to these people; who are they? notaz I'm sure is top of your list


Root problem: you and ED need a war room chat on the phone, nail things down, and follow through; no letting 6mo go by with each of you thinking the other has buggered somethign up. We're allf riends here for Croms sake.. get on the horn and make it work ED is actively tryign to save the pandora situation, and is paying down your debts for you .. he's obviously not trying ot screw you here


edit: Someone make a list of all the people who will not work with Craig again .. its starting to be a long list

 

[quartercast]

Why don't you guys meet up in Rotterdam and have a cup of coffee and some hash cookies?

 

[darkborn]

Thank you very much ED. Hard, but brave and right thing to do.


You're 100% right. Thanks for sharing the facts, nothing to shame of.


Let's make Christmas sell, everything will be OK. Sleep now.

 

[Abanest]

Fuck me. The Craig chaos just gets deeper and deeper it seems. I am so glad to be out of his que and his bullshit - and so, so sorry for everyone else who's still trapped in that frustrating limbo. The ICP2 will be the last money this clown sees from me (I was thinking of even cancelling that, but I figure instead of waiting months for a refund I may as well wait those months and get the actual product in my hands).


Keep chipping away at clearing those pre-orders Ed. We all love you for your honesty and dedication to see this through.

 

[vcoleiro1]

For a long while now, the odd comment would pop up from either ED or Craig about communication they are having via email, breaking down. Guys you are both responsible for the Pandora now - Use the fricking phone and call each other. No more emails and getting cranky about no replies etc. You both have seperate companies but you are effectively business partners in the bigger picture of getting Pandoras out there. Lets get serious shall we?


My view on this 2 companies business from the start was that it doesn't make any sense - plain confusing.


ED & Craig - What is the possibility that ED could buy out Craig's Pandora Company ?. I know he really only has debts (pre-orders to fulfill), but to hand over all rights to the Pandora might be worth those debts(pre-orders). ie a no money exchanged deal might be worked out?


Can we please have 1 or 2 lists (Craigs and one for (if) any from ED) with the remaining pre-orders and there order/fulfillment number . This to be updated and posted weekly. This is needed so people can see where they are in the queue(s), how many are in the queue(s), and how fast the queue(s) are moving. Everyone who has an outstanding pre-order is owed this, no more BS about its to hard to work out - that's just ridiculous and just makes people more frustrated. Spend a few hours and create the damn list FFS.


Lastly, in terms of Sales, how about at least getting a listing on ebay. Surely this should have been the first thing you should have done. Lets do it , shall we?

 

[skeezix]

iCP2 != Pandora-uk .. separate companies of Craigs (still Craig, yes)


In this thread, a number of folks have confused this; he can't just funnel $$ from one into the other, so it is unreasonable for people to think he can take iCP2 to assist Pandora. (Doubly bad in fact .. not only is it illegal, it also potentially screws with the iCP2 people. No need to draw them into this madness -- iCP2 was trying to be better run, and who knows.. with adding LEDs and such, maybe costs are potentially higher or something, so they have to be careful, can't go risking the $$ until its all done. Maybe they'd even like to get some profit at the end if they can.. recall that Mike (Weston) and Craig haven't had any profit for years, I'm sure they could use a break!


Craig runs them both, but if you want to order an iCP2 or get a refund for one, the cash is separate to Pandora; buying an iCP2 doesn't fund Pandoras, and cancelling an iCP2 does not (likely) sit in limbo.


Craig should post his December update for iCP2 soon I imagine. But thats all for another thread.


jeff

 

[Link]

Why don't you guys meet up in Rotterdam and have a cup of coffee and some hash cookies?

+1

 

[Wally]

Why don't you guys meet up in Rotterdam and have a cup of coffee and some hash cookies?

+1

+1 (Except just ordinary cookies and vodka)

 

[John D.]

We're allf riends here for Croms sake..

Totally LOL'd at this. Props for the Conan reference. :lol:

 

[darkborn]

<snip>


Use the fricking phone and call each other.

Or Skype, G+ Hangouts, Oovoo, Viber ...

Everyone who has an outstanding pre-order is owed this, no more BS about its to hard to work out - that's just ridiculous and just makes people more frustrated. Spend a few hours and create the damn list FFS.

Second this. I'm waiting from March 2009: 3,5+ years now.

Lastly, in terms of Sales, how about at least getting a listing on ebay. Surely this should have been the first thing you should have done. Lets do it , shall we?

Agree 100%. And more:


How about 1+1 Special Christmas sale, with some bluetooth multiplayer games preinstalled? (Discount price, of course)

iCP2 != Pandora-uk .. separate companies of Craigs (still Craig, yes)


In this thread, a number of folks have confused this; he can't just funnel $$ from one into the other, so it is unreasonable for people to think he can take iCP2 to assist Pandora. (Doubly bad in fact .. not only is it illegal,


<snip>


buying an iCP2 doesn't fund Pandoras,

Not entirely true. "iCP2" can invest profit in other company, e.g. "Pandora-uk" (or lend some amount). But it has to be lege artis.

 

[kasp]

This thread is just sad. Craig you know you are the one with the most to lose on this and then you start slagging on the person who has been more than reasonable about everything and has been trying to pull your company out of the hole you made.


Considering you recently received 70 units WHICH YOU DID NOT PAY FOR, I just can't believe you would come out and say the things you did. ED has still offered to drop ship items for you at cost so you can make some money and you still make a post like that. :/


You really need to take a seat and cool off before making a post like that. It was completely unprofessional and the only purpose it served was turning the community against you.

 

[DAP]

These two talk to each other and come away with completely different ideas of what was said. A verbal agreement between them can not work. They need a written contract that they both agree to to move forward or this will only get worse.