Investments, Production start, preoderings and a wish (2011-10-02)

More Pandora News:

The last post was only a few days ago, but I thought you'll be interested in the stuff that happened.

1. Investment capital

I can't stop to tell everyone how impressed I am about the power of the community!
About 70 community members are interested in investing so far.
38 reported back how much money they are planning to invest (some gave me a certain value).

The amount of money raised is simply astounding:

About 194.000 EUR are certain so far, whereas it sums up to 455.000 EUR including the amount of money from the users who are still thinking about it.

That's 100.000 EUR more than needed!

And 32 haven't even told me how much they are planning to invest...

The german-speaking investors have already received a preview copy of the contract.

It's currently being translated into english language. While my english is not too bad, it certainly is not good enough to translate a proper contract.

That's why a professional lawyer is doing this.

Monday is a holiday in Germany, however, I hope I'll get the contract within the next week.

I'm having a meeting with two interested big investors sometime next week - but as things are looking right now, I'm not sure I'll need them...

Well, can't hurt having more potential investors - though the one from the community will have a higher priority!


2. Tuesday: Next meeting with Global Components

As things are looking very well with the investment capital, it's time to go to Global Components and discuss the production plan.
This will happen on Tuesday.

As it looks like the investment capital shouldn't be an issue, I'll also order the bare PCBs on that day.

The bare PCBs have some one-time-costs for tooling, etc., but I can afford that myself.

20 bare PCBs for testing will be produced. That takes about 5 weeks, which means we're going to see the birth of the very first Pandoras in Germany in November.

And yes, we WILL see it, as I'll post a full HD video of the very first Pandora PCBs being populated in Germany.
You will actually be able to see the process of a Pandora being born!

If those boards work without any issues, it'll take another 4 - 5 weeks until all 1000 PCBs for the first batch are finished - well, and then it's time for the full production run.

During October, we'll need to do some more small payments (to buy the nubs, etc.), but some investors already mentioned they could send the money right away, so that would work out fine.
Most of the money won't be needed before November, so there's time to do sign the contracts and transfer the money.


3. Preorders!

The next round or preordering is just round the corner!
If you're interested in getting a Pandora (or another one, if you already have one): The preordering will start on Tuesday.
The final price of one Pandora will be about 370 EUR, though this time, there's no need to pay in advance.

We're requesting a small downpayment of 10 EUR in advance - but I guess that won't hurt anyone who is really interested in getting one.

If you want to support us, you are free to pay more than 10 EUR in advance. The downpayment will be completely deducted from the final price.

Anyone is welcome to spread the word about the Pandora to friends, family or on other websites. Let them know the preorder has started!
More details on Tuesday, of course.


4. Some wishes I have

Well, you might've seen some threads popping up here at the boards where people have problems getting replys and refunds from OpenPandora Ltd.

Seeing this makes me very sad - both for the customers as well as for Craig (who is the guy running OpenPandora Ltd.), as I can understand the customers but also know it's not Craigs' fault he doesn't have Pandoras to deliver.

It makes me even sadder to see that some are thinking about taking legal action (or have already done so - though I hope not!).

In my opinion, the Pandora is something that should evolve by working together - and that's what I'm also concentrating on in the future: Supporting OpenSource development to bring new OSes and Applications / Games to the Pandora.

If you followed my posts for the past few months, you probably know that our real issue is CircuitCo, the company that is supposed to produce the boards.

Once we realized it will probably take ages to get the remaining 1000 PCBs from them (if we ever get them), I immediately started to work on finding a proper company in Germany for the PCB production.

To minimze the running costs for OpenPandora Ltd., I started to take care of most of the repairs (LCD Cables, Nubs, etc.), even paying the shipping costs back. Not just for my customers, but also for Craigs'.

He also minimized costs by reducing personnel costs.
This lead to the issue, that eMails no have a huge backlog - but it helps to keep going until I've setup all the investments here.

The business plan I created includes taking care Craigs customers, not just mine.
It includes paying refunds as well as delivering units to the remaining customers.

That's mostly for two reasons:
1. No one who preordered is responsible for the issues we have with the board production, so everyone should get their ordered Pandora - or his/her money back.
2. It's also not Craigs fault, so I want to support him as well as good as possible.

The only thing right now that can really cause issues to OpenPandora Ltd. are too many refund requests before I've got everything set up.

I can fully understand anyone who is pissed off by the wait (heck, we are as well!), but if you want a refund and are not urgently in need of the money right away, I'd be more than happy if you could hold on a bit.

As mentioned above, the investment stuff is looking really good at the moment - and then, everything will be taken care of.

No one, neither Craig nor me are trying to rip anyone off. We're still trying to do our best, but it's not easy with CC not really sending out PCBs at all.

So please consider to hold on a bit longer. I'm not asking to forget about your money, just to give us the time to sort everything out.
I've been working 3 years for free on the whole thing. I'm pretty sure giving up and just filing insolvency would've been the easier thing sometimes - but I could never do that.
I believe in the idea of the Pandora - and I won't give in because some companies had been a bad choice for us. Issues are there to be solved, and that's what I'm currently doing!

Please think about that for a while. Thanks!

http://boards.openpandora.org/index....sh-2011-10-02/