Comments on: The First Two

By: poslathian

poslathian — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:18:17 +0000

This is right on the mark. I really couldnt have enumerated the issues surrounding preordering any better. We have just the amount of capital where its not clear whether or not we can get away without doing pre-orders. But we are SO pleased to have shipped finally, albeit with some stressful hours running up to dropping boxes in the mail. We’ll regroup after the winter holiday and announce plans for the second Maple run, Maple native, and Oak.

By: ewertz

ewertz — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:56:06 +0000

There might be something to be learned from the experiences around the Bus Pirate. Ian’s done his third pre-order and has probably gotten a few thousand Bus Pirates into the hands of pirate-wannabees this year.

If you’ve got the capital buffer to not do pre-orders I can see how that might be preferable. But unless you’re sure you have a pretty good handle on how much genuine interest you have, pre-orders have a lot of merit. The one downside that I’ve seen (with the Bus Pirate) is that you have inventory (that is, lack of inventory) exposure if by the time that the pre-order closes you can’t get key parts.

After your first pre-order closes you have the option of making extras depending on the uptake rate, or even starting another pre-order immediately.

I guess it all comes down to the stress of sitting on others’ money and not delivering, versus being delayed with your own money sunk. Clearly that’s a choice you have to make and be comfortable with. Not that doing business is always about maximizing your comfort level…

Congrats on the first clear-cut.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:34:11 +0000

Any update on shipping the pre-orders?

By: signal7

signal7 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:34:09 +0000

I’ve been waiting to order one of these since they were first announced. I really wish I could pre-order so that I don’t have to remember to come back in a month to see if you have hardware available. I would rather spend the money now and not sweat waiting a month or two (or risking that something else will distract me between now and then, leading me to forget about it entirely).

With so many potential sensors, projects, and programming ideas, it’s a little like having ADD…

By: ghostandthemachine

ghostandthemachine — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:13:12 +0000

yeah i agree for the most part. I have started a couple hardware companies and the delays are the nature of the beast. Especially since Leaf Labs seems beta in general, you probably couldn’t have gotten a better read on the demand with out testing out pre orders.

jon

By: Larry Pfeffer

Larry Pfeffer — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:20:32 +0000

Okie, Andrew (and the rest of LeafLabs team),

Of course, whether/not to do other pre-orders is up to you.
However I’d still accept the potential delays from pre-orders — even if delivery takes considerably longer than planned — if doing so helps make cool products available reasonably soon.

From reading your blog, it’s clear that you were sweating the delays, and I appreciate that. So don’t be too quick to paint yourself into a corner on this. Seed capital has to come from somewhere, and man/woman does not live by ramen alone — or at least not healthily/long-term.

By the way, I think the Maple/Native differences in capability seem so minor (mostly wiring, no?); whereas the OAK == FPGA+CPU product would give more (and substantially different) capabilities. A Maple native would be nice, but OAK sounds like it could be a game changer — and would differentiate you from the other “port Arduino to a 32-bit CPU” teams out there.

My $0.02

– Larry Pfeffer
ursine @t gm4il d0t c0m

PS Have you looked into having Olimex do your boards/assembly?