Classic, non-upgraded preorders / Current status page?

[EvilDragon]

Well, I got about 350K EUR from investments.


The move and setup over to Germany did cost about 50K EUR.


I always try to keep 40K EUR in case something bad happens.


That leaves us with 260K EUR.


In the beginning, we had about 1200 preorders left.


Pandoras are being ordered in batches of 1000 (due to the MOQ of some parts).


One Pandora costs about 280 EUR to make, so 1000 units do cost 280K EUR.


That would be more money than we have and less units than we need just to fullfill the old preorders.


Also, we need money to start the production of the next 1000 units as well.


I always have to pay 60% upfront, the remaining amount when the units are being delivered.


As 1000 Pandoras cost 280K EUR, that would be 168K EUR I need to pay in advance.


So after the first 1000 Pandoras have been produced, I need to have at least 168K EUR on my account to start the next round.


As we need to order WHILE the first 1000 Pandoras are being sold and delivered, we even need a bit more money upfront, but let's forget about that for our simple calculation.


So, 260K left, 280K to be paid, 168K EUR needed for the next batch makes things easy:


These 1000 units need to make AT LEAST a profit of 188K EUR.


Sending them all to old preorders would make no profit - it woud mean: Game Over.


188K EUR with a current sales price of 370 EUR = 508 units that need to be sold.


The remaining ones can go to classic preorders.


In reality, it's about 350 units per 1000 that go to old customers. Because parts have a long leadtime, about 50 units out of 1000 are broken (normal failure rate), etc.


That's the reason we can't use the money to simply deliver to Pandoras to all old customers... we would out of money and that's it.

 

[Exophase]

I apologize for asking this but I feel others must be wondering and I'd may as well get it out there - where did the original money for those preorders go?

 

[sepp256]

I apologize for asking this but I feel others must be wondering and I'd may as well get it out there - where did the original money for those preorders go?

This question has been answered so many times... various things cost more than they were supposed to. The first nub company went out of business after being paid. And CC ruined something like 25% of the boards. Hence, the original pre-orders ended up costing per unit more than the original pre-order price.

 

[Exophase]

This question has been answered so many times... various things cost more than they were supposed to. The first nub company went out of business after being paid. And CC ruined something like 25% of the boards. Hence, the original pre-orders ended up costing per unit more than the original pre-order price.

"The original pre-orders ended up costing per unit more than the original pre-order price" doesn't answer my question at all. According to ED they don't have enough money to cover the cost of making these Pandoras. That'd mean that NONE of the original money was spent on the units themselves. We're talking about over $300,000. The $330 price should have been enough to make these originally under CC, for boards that actually worked. Did the 25% broken boards, nub issues, and LCD cable problems cost over $300,000?


There were various other sources of money along the way - like money the team put forward themselves and money from the $500 upgrades, and additional money from iCP sales and ED's shop. And at least some of the original $330 orders would have been canceled. So I was under the impression that they used this additional income to be able to send out and repair the original orders that they did, and were waiting on more income in order to finish the remaining 1000. I didn't realize that they spent preorder money from other units to make it happen. I mean, I thought they had money to provide refunds for each of these purchases (especially with the goading to refund). I'm sorry if this was supposed to be obvious but I think maybe it should be said clearly.


I also figured that those 25% broken boards for CC correlated to the as of yet undelivered units. Were those boards populated first? All of them or just some of them? Did CC charge for those boards?


And if they used the money for preorders of later units to pay for earlier units is it safe to say that they also used the TV-out cable money for this purpose?


Another thing I don't understand - if none of the original money for those preorders is remaining how can OPT afford to upgrade those orders for $170 or whatever the asking price is (much less than the 280 EUR for a complete Pandora)? Or is this no longer an option?

 

[drenyx]

ED, thank you again for your responses. I pretty much was able to assume it was something like your outline posted above. I am really not trying to be upset with the situation, I just get frustrated when things we are told don't make sense. I don't know who is (or was) responsible for updating the current status page. I understand you have other things going on with your business and life and I'm not trying to say you or whoever isn't working hard enough.


We just haven't heard when things are faster or slowed down or paused while the 1Ghz stuff gets rolling. I don't have a cached copy but it looked like the current status page showed 3900 units (from memory) 2 months ago and now we're at 4300 and it showed 150/week 2 months ago and it still shows 150/week. I think I just still get a bit excited when things start to move and then they slow down and we don't find out for a while that they slowed down.

 

[dmarschal]

Hope the best guys. I think it should also be mentioned that Craig has no written contract with CC. That means no thousand boards or money should be expected from them. Maybe he gets the sealed bags as a compensation.


Do the 600*3 units need to be sold by Craig or both Craig and ED? I would be worried if I knew Craig must to sell all those units.


I know it was mentioned that they do/can not keep track of sales/preordered units/cancellations/refunds and so. What if a tax auditor asks: What is this money on your account please? Where it came from? Why did you transfer xx amount to China or USA? Papers, contracts, bills please. Oh, and do it fast, please!


Again, hope the best!

 

[pmprog]

Another thing I don't understand - if none of the original money for those preorders is remaining how can OPT afford to upgrade those orders for $170 or whatever the asking price is (much less than the 280 EUR for a complete Pandora)? Or is this no longer an option?

It must be remaining, otherwise what is Craig offering refunds with?


Unless this is a situation where the different "shops" come in. Craig's holding the money for his old sales, whilst ED is producing the units, but doesn't have access to that capital? I have no idea if that's the case, but it's the only reason I could think that ED doesn't have that amount

 

[vcoleiro1]

I think it would be worth if all the remaining preorderers got an updated Ed queue number and a updated Craig queue number.


Each week you could then post a


Now serving number XXX of XXX in Ed's list


Now serving number XXX of XXX in Craig's list


** One consolidated Queue would be better


Basically it then gives people an understanding of how many are in the lists and where your at in relation to there queue number. I think thats all people are after.

 

[EvilDragon]

It as even more than 25%, I think it was about 1300 out of 4000 PCBs that CC killed.


I don't know the exact number as CC is not even able to tell me how many they got at their place which should be fixed...


And yes, not the bare boards are broken... CC actually populated them and the parts are lost and have been paid by us.


Parts are about 150 USD per board, so that's about 200K USD.


Then we had to pay twice for the nubs, as the first company filed for bankruptcy after we paid, that was another 30K.


Shipping costs for the returns of broken Pandoras (a lot of the last CC PCBs failed after 1-2 months) also takes a share of about 10K.


My shop just pays my own monthly expenses. Craig stopped selling things mid of 2010 as he wanted to work on Pandora fulltime (he didn't think both the nubs and CC would fail at this time...)


Monthly costs for wages and rent, etc. were about 8000 USD for him, the iCP didn't arrive until February 2011. so that was another 80K.


The failed LCD cables were another issue - we had to redo them from scratch with a new company... more money lost.


Well, the nub issue was resolved December 2010.


Money was still left back then (we covered a lot with our own savings).


If CC would've done a proper production from then on, thins would've been great.


Production would've been cheaper, the device still up-to-date, interest was a lot higher.


No premium Pandoras nor anything similar would've been needed... but thanks to CC, we were basically at the end of the road mid 2011.


Now production happens in Germany, where wages and expenses are much higher. The EUR is way worse than when we calculated everything in 2008... it was at 1,45 USD, when e bought parts here, it was 1,31 USD.


That's 0,14 USD, so buying parts for 200K USD cost 28K EUR more than before.


So the cost for a Pandora add up to 280 EUR per unit. The sales price when we started was about 200 EUR per unit, so besides the 300K loss, we even have to pay more than we got to produce each unit. Even the 330 USD unit (was about 270 EUR) cost less than we pay for production now.


So add all those up and know pretty fast where the money has gone... you could say CC screwed it up.


While other companies (nubs, etc.) also cost us some money, we were able to cover that.


But with CC screwing up, we lost a lot of money in parts AND we lost a whole year... and we could've sold A LOT of Pandoras in 2011, that's probably the biggest damage.


We probably would have the money already to fund the Pandora 2 development and production upfront.


Who knows, maybe we even would've released an A9 model in between.


I hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[EvilDragon]

I think it would be worth if all the remaining preorderers got an updated Ed queue number and a updated Craig queue number.


Each week you could then post a


Now serving number XXX of XXX in Ed's list


Now serving number XXX of XXX in Craig's list


** One consolidated Queue would be better


Basically it then gives people an understanding of how many are in the lists and where your at in relation to there queue number. I think thats all people are after.

I can only do this for my customers, I don't know Craigs numbers.


His order numbers also are not increasing numbers, they are random.


Additionally, I usually ship units to old customers in batches, this week I'll ship 20 units at once.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Ed, if you can do it for your customers, then I would suggest you do it to help ease the uncertainty amongst the pre-orders. I suspected it would be a different list for Craig, if he can do the same (based on order date or whatever) that would be good.


People need to know where you guys are at in respect to them getting there Pandora. Even if it costs you guys half a day to sort out a new queue number list(s) and post them out , it really needs to be done. I can't help but feel for all the pre-orders who have been complaining for all these years just wanting to know where you are at in relation to getting to there order.

 

[EvilDragon]

Another thing I don't understand - if none of the original money for those preorders is remaining how can OPT afford to upgrade those orders for $170 or whatever the asking price is (much less than the 280 EUR for a complete Pandora)? Or is this no longer an option?

It must be remaining, otherwise what is Craig offering refunds with?


Unless this is a situation where the different "shops" come in. Craig's holding the money for his old sales, whilst ED is producing the units, but doesn't have access to that capital? I have no idea if that's the case, but it's the only reason I could think that ED doesn't have that amount

I don't have access to an money Craig has, the shops are completely separated.


I took over the complete production, so my company bought off the remaining parts from Craigs company last year (about 100K EUR all together).


That's where he got money for the refunds.


So basically, I own all parts, etc. for those Pandoras and cover the costs for the production, but send him these unit for old customers basically for free (if I wouldn't have sent him units, I would've cleared my Preorders already and we would see a lot of angry customers from Craig here.)


He intends to buy more units from me with the 1GHz sales to speed things up and clear his queue faster though.

 

[elwing]

Another thing I don't understand - if none of the original money for those preorders is remaining how can OPT afford to upgrade those orders for $170 or whatever the asking price is (much less than the 280 EUR for a complete Pandora)? Or is this no longer an option?

It must be remaining, otherwise what is Craig offering refunds with?


Unless this is a situation where the different "shops" come in. Craig's holding the money for his old sales, whilst ED is producing the units, but doesn't have access to that capital? I have no idea if that's the case, but it's the only reason I could think that ED doesn't have that amount

I don't have access to an money Craig has, the shops are completely separated.


I took over the complete production, so my company bought off the remaining parts from Craigs company last year (about 100K EUR all together).


That's where he got money for the refunds.


So basically, I own all parts, etc. for those Pandoras and cover the costs for the production, but send him these unit for old customers basically for free (if I wouldn't have sent him units, I would've cleared my Preorders already and we would see a lot of angry customers from Craig here.)


He intends to buy more units from me with the 1GHz sales to speed things up and clear his queue faster though.

Hi, Ed, since you're the only one responding, could you try to find out what is happening to craig old preorder, cause there's still people from the 2 octobre that didn't received theirs... from our point of view it looks like he don't send any pandora to old preorder lately... also the difference between your preorder and craig's preorder is quite disturbing, why is his queue not clearing up at all?

 

[EvilDragon]

Ed, if you can do it for your customers, then I would suggest you do it to help ease the uncertainty amongst the pre-orders.

I just sent a current status mail to my customers two weeks ago, including these details.

Hi, Ed, since you're the only one responding, could you try to find out what is happening to craig old preorder, cause there's still people from the 2 octobre that didn't received theirs... from our point of view it looks like he don't send any pandora to old preorder lately... also the difference between your preorder and craig's preorder is quite disturbing, why is his queue not clearing up at all?

How should I do that? :/


Craig reads these boards as well, so he can answer these questions here.


He probably can't answer that question easily, as handling his queue must be A LOT more work than mine, as he had a lot more orders and doesn't have increasing order numbers...

 

[elwing]

He probably can't answer that question easily

I'm not really interested in my queue position, I'm just asking if he ships some old preorder at all. that is an easy enough question to respond. you seems to have cleared most of your old preorder while he seems to have a big part of his preorder still waiting...


and i'm just asking you cause he tends to bash people when they ask badquestion and to just ignore the good question...

 

[pmprog]

I took over the complete production, so my company bought off the remaining parts from Craigs company last year (about 100K EUR all together).

Out of curiosity, if you basically bought off all Craig's part of the business, why didn't you take all Craig's outstanding orders too? As you are now the sole control of Pandora supply, adding his queue to yours would have made a lot of sense as you effectively own everything Pandora related as far as I can tell.

 

[WorldTripping]

Craig reads these boards as well, so he can answer these questions here.

Craig may very well read these boards but lately he has been refusing to answer very direct questions about:


1) When will he receive more units from yourself.


2) Will any of these units be used to satisfy either 'classic' or 'upgraded' orders.


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/8993-when-will-you-recieve-the-next-shipment-from-ed/#entry162294


http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/9104-test-run-of-the-1ghz-pandoras-happens-today-2012-07-05/page__st__340#entry173465


I'm not even going to start digging around for all the other threads and posts that are variations on a theme.


Like elwing I feel that this is a straightforward pair of questions and should be pretty easy to answer.

 

[EvilDragon]

I took over the complete production, so my company bought off the remaining parts from Craigs company last year (about 100K EUR all together).

Out of curiosity, if you basically bought off all Craig's part of the business, why didn't you take all Craig's outstanding orders too? As you are now the sole control of Pandora supply, adding his queue to yours would have made a lot of sense as you effectively own everything Pandora related as far as I can tell.

Would you "buy" an unknow number of debts into your company?

Craig may very well read these boards but lately he has been refusing to answer very direct questions about:


1) When will he receive more units from yourself.

He doesn't know and I don't know.


Based on the current sales, I'd guess shortly before or after the GamesCom he'll get the next package.


Maybe he even buys some more upfront, but that's something I don't know.

 

[pmprog]

I took over the complete production, so my company bought off the remaining parts from Craigs company last year (about 100K EUR all together).

Out of curiosity, if you basically bought off all Craig's part of the business, why didn't you take all Craig's outstanding orders too? As you are now the sole control of Pandora supply, adding his queue to yours would have made a lot of sense as you effectively own everything Pandora related as far as I can tell.

Would you "buy" an unknow number of debts into your company?

Unless Craig has done a real poor job keeping track of orders, he should have been able to tell you how many were outstanding.


Also, if you're providing him Pandoras "basically for free", I don't see how you've negated the "debt", you just don't see it, but it still costs you

 

[WorldTripping]

Craig may very well read these boards but lately he has been refusing to answer very direct questions about:


1) When will he receive more units from yourself.

He doesn't know and I don't know.

Thank you ED !


That was all I need to know, so now I can go back to waiting (I'm not going to speak for other people).


I do have to wonder why Craig couldn't have said that weeks ago though, I guess I'll just put it down to his 'quirky' communication methods.