Batch 1 Arrived!
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 01:40:42 PM
Hey Kickstarters! I'm thrilled to announce that the first batch of timers arrived and they look great!
As they were in transit, I was literally refreshing my screen every hour to check the tracking 🙂
And once they did arrive, I was filled with a mix of excitement and anxiety. I was really happy to open up the first one and see how nice it turned out... and then relieved once I had tested them all with zero issues.
That means that the rest of the assembly and production can proceed without delay.
This is a huge milestone in the project. While I won't relax until they're all delivered, I'm pleased to take just a moment to celebrate!
As a reminder, this batch takes us through backer #50. Once I know how many folks the next batch will cover I'll send a survey out to those folks as the timers near completion.
Overall, there are about 925 more timers ready to assemble. I'm aiming to have those completed in December. Meanwhile, production on both the plastics and electronics for the rest of them will ramp up in parallel.
We're going by backer number, which exactly matches the order in which folks backed the project- regardless of tier or country.
As always, I'll continue to keep you posted on the progress.
Thanks for your support to get us this far!
Dave Z
Designer/Founder
Focus Timer & SlimFold
Logo, assembly, and surveys to backers 1-50
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 11:24:34 AM
Hi Kickstarters!
We're putting the finishing touches on the first batch of timers- literally! The factory has been applying the logos to them. More on that in a sec, but first let's cover some logistical items...
Surveys
As you'll recall from the last update, we're making things in batches and the first shipment of about 50 timers will be going out to the very first backers. Things will go just by backer numbers so there's no disadvantage for international backers or those who backed for multiples.
What's my backer number?
If you received an email from me recently, I added your backer number directly in there with a fancy mail merge kind of thing. So you can take a look at that. Or you can also find it on Kickstarter by logging in and going to your list of backed projects.
Production
Now we've got the first 1000 sets of electronics assembled AND the first 1000 sets of plastics produced. The logo turned out to be slightly tricker than we thought but after tweaking the application approach and dialing in the color, it looks pretty sweet!
Check out this post for more info on the logo, and some musings on product logos in general...
The next step is that 50 of those timers will be assembled, boxed into their custom packaging, and shipped to my studio. We'll inspect them and then ship those first 50 out to backers. Meanwhile, the balance will continue on with assembly once we give the green light.
I'm really excited to be approaching this milestone! But I'm also aware that the only milestone that really matters is when all of them are shipped out. So I'll be continuing to push forward to make that happen as fast as we can.
Thanks for your support!
Dave Z
Designer/Founder
Focus Timer & SlimFold
PS- I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, and a friend of the timer project, John Kestner.
He’s a thought leader in the IoT space, MIT Media Lab alum, and Kickstarter veteran... and he provided some key advising in the early stages of Focus Timer.
His latest project is Pickup- a device that easily quantifies invisible environmental information. It can be used for science experiments or to monitor air quality, sound, gardens, etc.
I’m a backer and I hope you’ll consider checking it out as well.
Transparency, Surveys, Shipping Process & More!
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Sep 29, 2023 at 02:22:55 PM
Hi Kickstarters!
First of all, I want to thank you all for being so amazingly supportive and understanding about taking the extra time to refine the opacity of the timer.
As you could probably tell, I actually thought it was going to be an unpopular decision.
It felt selfish of me to make the product I wanted and force everyone to wait. I was honestly shocked that the overwhelming message from backers was that you wanted the same thing- for me to make a product I was really happy with.
It's Kickstarter at its best. I don't take your support for granted, but I do understand how special it is to have it.
And this last push really paid off! I've been working closely with the factory to refine the opacity and we managed to get it to achieve the "magic" balance of light transmission to create the ring effect. It wasn't easy, but we got there by taking a systematic approach.
Check out this in-depth post to learn how we dialed it in...
I signed off on the plastics sample we're in production! I can’t wait to get these in your hands- so let’s dive in about how that’s going to happen...
Buckle up because we're going deep!
TL;DR
- We're making them
- Then we'll ship them
- You will get a survey shortly before yours is ready
- If you don't get a survey, it's probably not your turn yet
Surveys
From your side the process may seem simple- fill out the survey, receive the product. And it would be way easier for me if all of the timers were made already and I could send them all at once. Or even have the factory send them straight to you.
But we’re making things in batches (more on that later) and shipping them all to my studio so we can do final inspections.
Therefore, I’ll also be sending surveys out in batches as well to try and make sure and get the most accurate addresses from you.
I'll be using BackerKit for that process, which many of you are familiar with. For those who aren't, it's basically a website made to manage Kickstarter surveys and it makes things a lot easier to work with on my end.
Production Process
The rest of the production process mostly consists of production of the electronics, production of the plastics, and assembly.
Approximately 1,000 electronics have already been produced and the enclosures will be made in the coming weeks.
There is a bit of a break in there for the "Golden Week" holiday. But once they're done, 50 will be assembled, air shipped, and inspected.
Once approved, the balance will be assembled and we'll green-light production of the rest of the electronics and plastics.
Those will probably also be delivered incrementally as they're completed.
That's the overall process and if things go smoothly, there may be opportunities to speed things up. Likewise, if we spot something that needs fixing, we'll need to address it.
Shipping Plan
You backers are a diverse group of folks! You represent 58 countries!
Each country has its own unique quirks and it can be a bit more involved to ship to them.
Luckily, we've done 5 previous Kickstarters and ship wallets all over the world from my studio each day. So we'll work through it.
On my end, the easiest thing to do would be to just ship the domestic single orders first, but that's not really fair to folks who jumped in early at a higher tier, or to international folks. So I'm going to do the best I can to go solely by backer number.
I'll communicate what backer number we're up to and I'll show you how to get yours... I may have a fancy way of emailing your backer number to you as well.
Or to keep things simple, just fill out the survey when you get it... and if it hasn't come yet, that means we haven't gotten to your batch yet.
By working together in this way, everyone will be able to get their timers as they're ready, regardless of where you are or which tier you're in.
Add-ons
During the campaign, I said that you'd be able to add additional timers. This makes a lot of sense too so we can consolidate the shipping. The drawback is that any add-ons ordered theoretically take away a timer from someone who backed later.
But looking more closely at how the batches will work, it shouldn't affect the actual timing of deliveries by much.
So I think it's best to still provide everyone with the opportunity to add more timers to their order at a discount. Final price is TBD but I most likely won't add any extra shipping at least on domestic orders.
Conclusion
Ok- exciting stuff! Getting close to showtime!
I anticipate sending out the very first surveys in mid-late October and you'll have at least 7 days to finalize it. But keep in mind that's only for approximately the first 50 timers.
I'll do a follow-up update when that survey goes out. And I'll provide approximate backer numbers to cross-reference (and show you how to check yours).
I know I've covered a lot here so feel free to hit reply with any questions you may have.
Thanks again for participating in this endeavor!
Dave Z
Designer/Founder
Focus Timer & SlimFold
PS- Some of you asked whether "transparency" in my last update was meant to be a pun. And it was, but I didn't want to make light of there being a delay, or over-do it by saying "full transparency" or something like that ;)
Production Update: Transparency
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 02:01:45 PM
Hi Kickstarters,
As you'll recall from the last update, the electronics passed functional testing and the first batches moved into production. As of now, 900 sets of electronics are complete and ready for assembly.
The challenge I'm facing is getting the amount of translucency just right for the plastics, and it's proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. See, for the timer to do its "magic", it needs to look opaque from the outside, yet allow light to pass through from the inside. It may sound impossible but there's actually a pretty wide range of transparency for which it works well.
I sent my 3D printed sample to the factory for them to match its translucency and had them produce two test shots with different formulations for me to choose between.
When the samples came back, there was a huge range in the opacity though... with one being almost opaque and the other being too transparent. While the fairly opaque one did work, and looks quite good, I knew it would look and work better if we made it a bit more translucent.
So I asked the factory to make three more samples, with increasing levels of translucency... aiming towards my original sample. That was the set of samples I recently mentioned I was waiting for. And I had high confidence that it would just be a matter of picking the best one.
Well, they arrived this week and, while one of them was a bit more translucent, the other two were almost the same as the previous sample. The most translucent one is an improvement and I know time is of the essence, so I've been trying to decide whether to ship this version or not.
There have been thousands of decisions leading up to this point and this one has been the most agonizing so far. See, I've got a sample on my desk that works well and looks good. Most of you would be happy with it. And I feel pressure to do everything I can to ship things as soon as possible.
In that sense, I've got an obligation to you backers move forward with production. But I've seen versions where the opacity is better and it really does make it nicer. So even though you wouldn't really know what you're missing if I shipped this version, I really think doing another iteration will be worth the wait.
I know what you're wondering- how long will that wait be? Overall, we already lost about 2 weeks with this latest additional round of samples (that didn't result in the progress I had hoped for) and it'll be about another 2-3 weeks 'till we have another batch to review.
Assuming we move forward with one of those, we'll be looking at October/Nov for the first shipments, then continuing batches through November and December.
I want to thank you all for your patience and support throughout this process so far. And if you're not feeling very patient, that's understandable as well. I'm doing my best to balance my obligation to deliver the product as quickly as I can, yet have it be the best embodiment of the concept as I can create.
Dave Z
Designer/Founder
Focus Timer & SlimFold
Production Update: Functional Test Passed!
over 2 years ago
– Sun, Jul 16, 2023 at 08:45:47 PM
Hi Kickstarters!
I have some really exciting news- the latest round of samples passed QA! This clears the way for all elements of the product to move into mass production!
I've been hoping for this news for quite awhile. It was an unexpected hurdle that cropped up right in the final stages of pre-production... and we couldn't be sure whether the fixes we implemented would address the issue without doing another sample production run. But it worked!
The rest of the journey is by no means simple, but with this issue behind us, the remaining parts of the process are much more straightforward. I still want to produce things in small batches at first though. If anything, this experience has reinforced how important it is to follow the process step by step and ramp things up as we go.
With this in mind, as best I can forecast, the first deliveries will begin in September for early backers and continue through November as production quantities increase. If it's at all possible to speed things up I certainly will and, as always, I'll keep you posted along the way.
Housekeeping
As a reminder, the surveys have not yet been sent. I'll be sending them out when your unit is close to shipping. This is so we'll have the most up-to-date information for you.
I'm really happy we were able to resolve the issue and regain our forward momentum!
Dave Z
Designer/Founder
Focus Timer & SlimFold
