TOPIC: Adaptive Saber Parts Kickstarter Campaign

Execute66 wrote:
Who cares? I do. Not about what random internet trolls think of me or even SF. But when they raise valid questions that make a lot of us nervous...their comments make sense.

Thinking out aloud here. It is at all conceivable or even plausible that there's a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement in place? Even with the selected few (privileged with receipt of advanced placement) that may be in possession of one. Purposely held back to coincide with a major announcement or release, publicly and promotionally strategized delivery?

jbeem wrote:
Exactly. This is what seems weird. If the ASP orders are going out...where are the people posting pics after receiving them? Again, I'm not insulting anyone...just wondering why we haven't seen them.

I appreciate the pic of the factory, but that is from BEFORE we were told that OSHA problems needed to be fixed. The official comment in January was "They are currently running (with the exception of the NEW machine shop - we are still relying on the older and smaller shop until OSHA etc is all done, in which case this shop will be moved over as well, and production will see another jump when we add more people to their team as well. " So a new shop even over and above that huge one that was in the December pic? That's kind of weird, but ok.

The other official comment was "100 sabers take 3 weeks to prep and build. We were ready to do 100. Suddenly we have 12,000 sabers to ship instead." So let's do the math. 12,000 / 100 = 120. So that's 120 batches, each taking 3 weeks. That's 360 weeks. Yikes! Yes, it's possible to do this a different way to make more at a time, but again...can you see where we might like a little more information?

Another official comment was "Barring any further delays, kickstarter orders should be in good shape to begin shipping in mid february. " And we have, in fact, been told that they have started shipping. How many are going out per day or per week? How many many orders have you sent out since you started shipping?

It's been a month since I asked any questions here. I don't think I'm being a pest or naggy. Just thought we'd be seeing people getting ASP sabers and posting selfies.

Give it some more time guys let's look at this logically from a math stand point. If they started shipping in mid February like they said lets say the 15th and it takes on average up to 2 weeks to ship like from their etsy page, then people might not recieve their sabers until the 29th or March 1st at the earliest. If we haven't heard anything or seen pics by then okay sure then itd time to get all worried and antsy in your pantsy

ANorris wrote:
It may appear to make sense to you. But I have probably purchased more sabers from SF than you have, and so instead of reading comments from random people who appear to make sense (actually it screams impatience to me), why don't you take heart from those who have actually bought multiple sabers and posted pictures and even youtube videos, here at SaberforgeForum? Vast majority of ASP customers are probably not even here or care to post pictures at sites that you are aware of, to meet your "expectation".

Not one saber that I bought from SF have been a let down by way of the product's quality itself nor the customer service. Lead times are estimates, not legal contractual delivery times.

Lets rein it in just a little folks. This is starting to boarder on a disagreement, and nobody wants to see that happen. Keep being nice, and everything is cool.

Let's look at this from a logical perspective. If sabeforge started sending out orders this week the middle of the month February 15th and it can take up to 2 weeks to recieve your order like if you had bought one from the etsy store then the first orders shipped might not arrive until the end of February (29th) or even March 1st. Give it some time and if by March we still have not heard or seen anything then start worrying

Absolutely. There's no reason why we can't talk about this in a calm, reasonable manner.

My math above still holds. Using K's own numbers ( "100 sabers take 3 weeks to prep and build. We were ready to do 100. Suddenly we have 12,000 sabers to ship instead.), barring a new method, 12,000 orders divided by 100 that can be done in 3 weeks, that's 120 x 3 weeks. That's 360 weeks. And this was stated when they already had 40 people. Adding 40 people (assuming economy of scale doesn't decrease output) would still mean 180 weeks.

No new pictures of the work done to fix the OSHA problems or the new facility. Although we get to hear about a new saber dojo? I'm not complaining about a profit, but it would have been nice to know what the price of my saber was financing. And what exactly were those OSHA violations? My ex-wife is an architect who deals with OSHA and ADA code all the time, so get as technical as you want.

The whole "we have better things to do than take pictures like make sabers and answer customer service" just doesn't hold water. All three are separate but equal parts of a well-run business. I someone is saying "oh just wait until they get their sabers. It'll all be ok." No. You will have done irreparable damage to your community relations. And without that, your sales will suck. Oh sure. Demand is high enough that you'll still keep going. And making money. But not nearly as much.

I'm going to wait another two weeks. By then I would expect a bunch of people would be getting their sabers. The first 100 orders for a 3 week period would have gone out...and you can't tell me that ONE of those people won't post on the Facebook pages. Really? Is that even in dispute? Hell, you can even lie to me. Ship an ASP saber to an employee and have them pretend to be a customer getting their ASP saber.

I waited a month or more to come back and ask for more proof that I haven't lost my money. I want y'all to succeed. I know it's hard for everyone to step outside their own comfort zone to see someone else's perspective, but look at it from our point of view. Thanks.

There were no OSHA violations. OSHA had to inspect, and sign off on a new facility before it could be used. That is a pretty common practice, and if there were infractions found, they had a chance to fix them before occupying it. I believe that is all in the past, as the new shop has been in operation for at least a month now.

There were pictures of some ASP sabers posted on the SaberForge Facebook page. Three or 4 of them if memory serves. I cannot begin to address why we have not seen more pictures of sabers received by Kickstarter participants. However, if you have specific suspicions, or concerns you can always contact them via their Kickstarter site to ask those specific questions. That is the most direct way of discussing your concerns.

This is almost my mindset regarding the new axe type blades I posted about a few weeks ago. I have zero proof when they were conceptualized or manufactured or where the funds for them came from. It's just hard to think that they weren't in some part funded using ASP money. The same goes for the training academy.

I definitely understand using funds to grow the business but at the same time if the money could've been used to put products in customers hands sooner than shouldn't it have been used for that?

As far as OSHA goes I know zero about what that entails. As far as the numbers go they had less than 2700 KS backers and about half that for IGG. Even with pledges that gave multiple sabers I don't think they could've gone over 5-6000 sabers, maybe 7000. Still big but not 12k.

All this aside, I've only been waiting since late December which is nothing compared to the KS backers so I've got quite a while before my patience runs out.