iCP2: They're throwing in the towel.

[andmaz777]

May as well have a go at an ICP2 type device - if anyone or group of people can give me any amount of money but ideally I would like £200k plus (yes pounds not dollars) then I promise to try and make it happen.


I promise to give this a good go and only pay myself a small living salary out of the funds (£5k pm should be enough as I am not greedy). Any remaining funds will go to me pension fund.


Give me a month or so but this may drag on a year or 5 and as I will be very busy giving this a go there will be little time for any meaningful communication.


This could happen and all I need is the money and hopefully will be ready for mass production quickly especially if I bung someone in England £20k.

 

[ramboky]

Not once did I say anyone should be 'less serious' about it, so keep the words out of my mouth. The "serious face" remark wasn't to make fun of the person.

That's disingenuous at best. You posted here for the sole purpose of mocking me. I didn't take any offence, I was just curious why you felt the need to. 

If I was actively seeking out to make someone either a point of attack, you'd know it; any attack I do on someone is straightforward. I like to skip the BS and I tend to coat things in spice, not sugar.

Oh dear. Beware the bulldog!

You know what? I'm just gonna opt out of any further discussion of this dude. This Craig shit's petty.

You were never involved in the discussion. All you graced us with is one smart arse comment. You got called on it and now you're packing a sad, taking your ball and going home. If anything is petty, it's you.

 

[ekianjo]

That's disingenuous at best. You posted here for the sole purpose of mocking me. I didn't take any offence, I was just curious why you felt the need to. 

Maybe this is Craig in disguise ?  

 

[Jumpman]

New KS Update As Of May 16, 2014:

"Hello Backers,

My apologies for the lack of an update in April.  I just heard from Craig last week, he is sending me iControlPad 1 units that are left over from his shop.  I can send these out to backers who pledged for an ICP1 & ICP2 Unit, these folks will have priority on them.  For whatever is left, for anyone who will take an ICP1 as a substitute for the ICP2 reward, we can do that too.  I'm not sure how many are coming, nor am I sure when they will arrive.  If there are any units left that nobody here wants, they will be sold via Ithic's webshop and proceeds go towards refunds here. 

Below is a breakdown on where the funds went.  

Kickstarter Deposit:  $188190

November 2012

$7500 to MJW Designs

$35000 to ICP Ltd.

$62500 to OpenPandora GmbH for BoM

$15000 to ICP2/Craig

December 2012

$7500 to MJW Designs

$19925 Roving Networks BT Chips

$14000 Ithic Account Shipping US/Canada Orders

$2500 Consultation Mark Linkhorst

March 2013

$14000 to ICP Ltd. for development case/out of shipping funds (UK/EU/World) to be reimbursed on presales of extra ICP2 units produced in order.

Since June 2012

$5200 Administrative Ithic

Remaining funds have been used for tax liabilities for 2012/2013, accountant fees, shipping supplies, shipping equipment, wire transfer/bank fees, and other expenses. 

Refund Information:

icp2refund@gmail.com

For the email address above, please contact it only if you desire a refund, and get us an update on your mailing address or PayPal email address in which we can refund you.  If you have already requested a refund via the email address above, there is no need to make another request.  Just mentioning this again for anyone who missed the March 2014 Update. 

Beyond funds coming in from ICP1 units possibly or reduced refunds desired monetarily there is no word on parts that have been sold, as soon as we have more information from what was sold or can be sold, we'll start the refund process once that money is back on the account.  Please bare with us during this process.  Your patience and understanding is appreciated."

 

[WizardStan]

Most recent update is promising. A very nice funds breakdown:

Kickstarter Deposit: $188190

November 2012

$7500 to MJW Designs

$35000 to ICP Ltd.

$62500 to OpenPandora GmbH for BoM

$15000 to ICP2/Craig

December 2012

$7500 to MJW Designs

$19925 Roving Networks BT Chips

$14000 Ithic Account Shipping US/Canada Orders

$2500 Consultation Mark Linkhorst

March 2013

$14000 to ICP Ltd. for development case/out of shipping funds (UK/EU/World) to be reimbursed on presales of extra ICP2 units produced in order.

Since June 2012

$5200 Administrative Ithic

So 15000 went to MWeston for his part in designing the board. He's been paid even if the design isn't used, that money has been rightly spent and anyone trying to get it back is an asshole.

62500+19925=82425 for parts that were never used. Presumably this is currently what ED is trying to sell off.

2500+5200 to Ithic/Link, a meager amount to keep the store running. There is some argument to be made that Link should be responsible for this amount but I'm not going to go there.

35000+15000+14000=64000 went to Craig, who knows what happened beyond that. As the founder, Craig should definitely be responsible for this entire amount: either demonstrating that it was legitimately spent (like MWeston was paid) or as cash.

And of course 14000 for Ithic for shipping. I'm guessing that Link still has this.

Assuming ED can get 75% on resale of the parts, that's about 60000, plus the 14000 for shipping meaning there is definitely 74000 for refunds, or 40%.

If Craig can produce that additional 64000 the refund becomes almost 70%.

I'd still take a partially working prototype instead of a refund though.

 

[Pistol]

Finally, some figures. Thanks for providing that, Link.

Now for the inevitable dissection and infighting over what ought to be recoverable (probably not much).

 

[Exophase]

And of course 14000 for Ithic for shipping. I'm guessing that Link still has this.

I don't think so, that's the $14000 given to Craig in March 2013 (note how it says that it came out of the shipping funds, and it's no coincidence that it's the same value).

Thank you Link for the updates, this is certainly more enlightening. Now we have a much better idea of how much Craig burned through. It wasn't exactly the $100k speculated but it was still a ton of money, and he needs to answer for it. I think about $7000 (5000 EUR) was spent on Craig's Pandora customers and something like $2000 on that 3D printer, a not insignificant portion of the total. Who knows how much Craig spent on other non-iCP2 related expenses.

There's a couple things I'm wondering, that ED may be able to clarify instead:

1) Was the $62500 ever really in possession of OpenPandora GmbH and not Global Components? If not I think this should be clarified, the last thing we need is people going after ED (again..) because they think he received the $62500 or even think he still has some of it.

2) Does the $62500 include PCB manufacturing costs? Were GC overseeing this somehow? And if so, has all of this money actually been spent, given that only some PCBs have been manufactured?

I'm actually surprised to see margins were this tight, given that the remaining money had to be used to manufacture the cases. We know Craig spent something like $7000 (5000 EUR) on Pandoras and $2000 on the 3D printer, money he would have been lucky to consider profit had everything actually gone right. The way the money was given to him piecemeal, I wonder if there was any kind of explanation attached at the time. Like "hey, I need another $15000 now because I need to pay X for Y." Link might know, I guess?

But at least getting $64000 back from a sold house - possibly even one with a mortgage on it - is realistic. So who knows, maybe that money really will show up one day. I mean, I doubt it, but it's possible!

As for the $5200 in administrative fees for Link, a lot of that could have been used in starting the LLC, which isn't really that cheap.

 

[WizardStan]

I don't think so, that's the $14000 given to Craig in March 2013 (note how it says that it came out of the shipping funds, and it's no coincidence that it's the same value).

Oooooh, now I get it. Yeah, it's with Craig now. So it looks like all that exists that can be used for refunds is the 82425 from parts to be sold (or possibly not spent on parts in the first place, hopefully).Craig only got a third of the money, $64000 completely unaccounted for. That's a lot, to be sure, but it's nice to know that he didn't control the majority.

 

[Morn]

Oooooh, now I get it. Yeah, it's with Craig now.

That was my first thought, but on a second reading... First 14k is labelled as US/Canada shipping, th second that went to Craig is UK/EU/World. I think Link initially kept all shipping money to transfer it to UK only whene the product is ready for shipping.

 

[cuetzpalin]

It's great to know Link handled most of the funds.

 

[Exophase]

That was my first thought, but on a second reading... First 14k is labelled as US/Canada shipping, th second that went to Craig is UK/EU/World. I think Link initially kept all shipping money to transfer it to UK only whene the product is ready for shipping.

Yeah, I think I was wrong about this too.. $14k isn't enough to account for $12 for US/Europe shipping (and $20 for the rest of the world, but that was probably not for a large percentage of orders). $28k on the other hand more or less fits. Did Link collect the non-US shipping money in the first place? It's strange that the two amounts would end up being exactly the same. Could someone indicate whether or not the shipping costs are part of the pledges and hence the $209k collected, or if they're additional?

I think getting 75% of the parts could be hard. Especially considering that as much as 6.8% of the parts are unsellable due to having been populated on boards. And you're not going to get $7 for those $9 BT chips if competitors have since displaced them with $5 parts. No idea how many of the parts this sort of thing would apply to.

 

[Fzero]

So, if people from UK reply to that recent email with confirmation of their address, where's their refund going to come from?

Is Craig selling all the parts and it will come from that?

Too many figures there for my brain to figure out what's going on

 

[FaeMinx]

To opt for icp1, or wait for partial refund.... hmmm....

=~. O =

 

[G189]

I'd be happy to take an ICP1 (I pledged for one of these alongside an ICP2). I'll keep my fingers crossed someone will get in touch with me....

 

[Mr_Loon]

Many thanks Link for an informative & transparent update.

So 15000 went to MWeston for his part in designing the board. He's been paid even if the design isn't used, that money has been rightly spent and anyone trying to get it back is an asshole.

15K for the work done by MWeston sounds entirely reasonable to me, but being a bit of an asshole I'd like to add that this money surely also covered developing the firmware, it would be good to hear from MWeston how much firmware development was done, despite repeated requests from me and others, the functionality / closeness to completion of the firmware was never revealed. From everything I understand about MWeston he is an entirely righteous dude who probably received a lot less for his work than what it was worth, but in situations like this transparency and honesty are the best way forward.

The margins do look incredibly slender to me, and make the decision to add the LED backlighting utterly mind boggling IMHO. 

When looking at the figures it's worth noting that according to kickstarter the total raised (including postage fees) was $209,100.

One thing I don't like is the idea that to get a refund you have to send an email, people should surely just be refunded based on their financial input, unless of course they opt for an iCP1.

 

[Exophase]

$15k is a petty sum for the electrical development alone. You would not be able to find a company willing to do the board development for you for so little. So I think even if he did zero work on the firmware he was still under-compensated.

MWeston did talk about the state of the software a few times, and it sounded like the only thing that wasn't working properly was reading the nubs.

I think we can conclude from this that in the best case scenario Craig is exceptionally bad at budgeting project money. Both making the decision to add backlighting and blowing at least $9k on non-iCP2 expenses very soon after funding was monumentally stupid (as opposed to blowing the money much later after funding which is more likely just unethical)

It also goes to show how just one person failing to perform his duty in a KS can ruin the whole thing and leave most of the money unrecoverable, even if that person didn't control a majority of the money. And this could ruin the most well prepared KS, if any one of the many people involved stiffs you in a task. Even if they weren't already paid the costs of finding another person can still be unmanageable. Companies normally take on this risk and others by having contingency funds. KS projects can only do this with massive margins, which would make the projects too unattractive to succeed. The system as it is now is really poorly suited for hardware manufacturing.

When looking at the figures it's worth noting that according to kickstarter the total raised (including postage fees) was $209,100.

Do however bear in mind that $10,455 would have been taken by Kickstarter, and payment processing fees by Amazon or other parties are "roughly 3-5%", so an additional $6,273 to $10,455. Or as much as $20,910 off the top. This is assuming that both quantities are taken as a percentage of the original value, which is probably the case, although if one (probably the KS one) is applied secondarily it doesn't make a huge difference. Link probably knows how much they got originally.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, since Link has been open with that, I think I can give a few more details from here as well.

First, some replies

There's a couple things I'm wondering, that ED may be able to clarify instead:

1) Was the $62500 ever really in possession of OpenPandora GmbH and not Global Components? If not I think this should be clarified, the last thing we need is people going after ED (again..) because they think he received the $62500 or even think he still has some of it.

Both, in a way.

The money went onto my account, but it was not "my" money, but I was a trustee for the money.

I didn't own it, I was not allowed to use it, it didn't have to be taxed and even if my company went bust, that money could not've been touched.

Some remaining money is still left on my account and will be transferred to Link as soon as he tells me to do so (he's probably waiting for the parts to be sold).

2) Does the $62500 include PCB manufacturing costs? Were GC overseeing this somehow? And if so, has all of this money actually been spent, given that only some PCBs have been manufactured?

It included parts, tools, production and testing for GC.

More details on that later.

I'm actually surprised to see margins were this tight, given that the remaining money had to be used to manufacture the cases.

Exactly my thoughts. Especially as he got more than he originally planned to..

Okay, here's what happened with the money Link sent to me:

The money I received was 48,927.17 EUR.


iCP1 production (for the backer): 2,491.00 €
iCP2 prototype run (incl. tooling, etc.): 5,655.00 €
Parts for the iCP2: 31,412.87 €

Total money left: 16,884.30 €
Those 16,000 EUR are still on my account, so these are 100% safe!
The iCP2 parts have been partly used, as we produced 100 prototypes.

So 1256.52 EUR have been used for them.

However, there are parts you can't sell, e.g. the 2400 remaining PCBs (which is 2,145.36 €).

So basically, the value of the parts that can still be sold is something about 28,000 EUR.

You're really lucky if you can sell them for half the price... I guess something about 20 - 30% of the original value might be possible, which adds up to about 6,000 EUR.

So all in all, there's maybe about 20,000 EUR of the 48,000 EUR that can still be recovered for refunds that was planned for hardware production.

BTW, regarding other parts that Link mentioned above:

You probably can't sell the BT modules, as they got a special firmware, and I doubt it's possible to sell the batteries as well, as they've been lying around for a while.

 

[Esn]

Hm. Is there some sort of deadline for when I have to send info on my refund intentions? (whether to opt for a refund or an iCP1 instead)

I don't feel like I can make that decision until I get a better idea of how much money will actually be in the refund (a ballpark estimate, at least).

 

[vcoleiro1]

Since it's been over 6 months with selling the parts, and I know ED has asked in the past whether the price should be dropped on them to sell them.  I've got to ask, what is the plan to sell the rest, because it seems nothing is happening, has Link got back to you ED on dropping the price?

Also, I may have missed it, but how much money has been raised from part sales to date?

On a different note, its good to see Link still has $14,000 on his account that was meant for US shipping. 

 

[WizardStan]

I will also take parts that can't be sold in lieu of refund. I don't even care what they are anymore, just give me something!