cixelsyd said:
The OP team did get the money from prepaying people (i recon they needed a lone from the bank this customers lone is sneaky).
That people pay for the materials needed and that all the development was don is just a plain lie.
Most surprising to me is that it is not a down-payment of about 50% but he full whooping 100%.
Yeah, sure. We have millions of USD lying around from the preorderers on our account.
How could the project have worked out with just 50% of the money when even with the full 100% we are way beyond a break-even?
We did pay way more than just a few dollars from our own accounts. We're happy to regain our loss with the second batch.
Well i am happy i am a sceptic i never put my money in.
Thank god not all from the community were like you.
If they were, the whole project would've never been started. If we wouldn't have gotten enough interest and preorders back then, we wouldn't have continued the whole project.
I can fully understand why people would NOT take the risk to pay us in advance for the device. But the funny thing is that most of those only tell us we did do bad and make it sound like it is the most easy thing to take on such a project without having millions of USD handy.
I distrusted it when the so called bank fiasco happened.
For me it was prove to be a scam ore just a sign that these people did not have a sound business plan.
Well we know now it was the second.
Oh, I see. You're a business plan expert and would've done all what we did here way better?
Cool. Why didn't you offer your services back then instead of telling us we did do bad?
According to the business plan:
We did have a plan, and that did work out well. It just took way longer than we planned, because of a lot of things happened we didn't see coming (often also due to not having big knowledge about such big projects).
Our plan was to produce an OpenSource handheld with participation of the community.
People were (and are) helping us for free to fullfill this plan. We never were experts in what we were doing and we never claimed we are.
Yes, there were too many delays which should't have happened. There were a lot of things we could've done better. But you know what? It's easy to tell afterwards.
If you have no idea how long such a development takes, it's hard to estimate something. Even with asking the companies that produce that stuff: They usually tell you it won't take long and then another month is over.
If we ever produce a second handheld, it would be way easier since we now A LOT more about case moulding, designing, etc. and can surely plan everything out way better.
There is one interesting thing though:
Because we're just a bunch of amateurs behind such a huge project, with is being funded by a community and no bank or investor, we stirred up a lot of interest.
The next issue of the Handelsblatt in Germany (the biggest financial magazine in Germany out there, read by all the managers from big companies) will have an article about the Pandora - as this is the first time they've seen such a big project with that interesting funding and idea behind it.
It's unusual in our business world today that people will preorder and wait for so long. That no investors or banks are involved. That a bunch of people creates such a device without having much knowledge about it except for knowing they will try to solve every problem on their way there is. That the community can actually TALK to the developers behind it, follow every step.
If it was just a normal device made with the help of Investors, that magazine wouldn't have cared about.
They do because it happened the way it did.
Let me tell you once more:
I'm not happy with all those delays (nobody is). It did cost me more money than I expected (I have to pay about 500 EUR each month to get everything running, so each month without delivery is a 500 EUR loss for me).
Yes, we could've made a lot of things better if we would've had more experience.
Yes, I can understand why a lot of people would not preorder and wait for the device. They might really need the money and couldn't possibly risk to help out with such a risky project.
However, I CANNOT understand why people try to tell us we shouldn't have taken the preorder money or only part of it, etc.
If we wouldn't have done it this way, the Pandora would never exist.
If you are unhappy with the project, don't give us your money and that's it. If you believe in the project and want to support us, pay us so we can produce that thing and follow what is happening.
It's as easy as that.
