Burch
K4QXX
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Posted 4 years ago
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KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
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Again.. you are thinking Fortune 500 when you say "you need to go to resources that you can depend on to get the money you need to develop that product " for the rest of the commercial world those sources of finance just do not exist...
Hence the success of things like Kickstarter.. where customers put up 100% of the money up front to finance development...
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Steve K9ZW, Elmer
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A consumer can enter into whatever arrangements they want to, including funding projects.
It is common across many industries to accept pre-orders, and not always just for early adopters but for all buyers.
Respectfully YMMV as doing pre-orders and pre-payments for soon to be released products is not everyone's cup of tea.
It is unfortunate that the PayPal centered issue of PayPal being unable to process a deposit and later process a product delivery has upset folk, but this is much more an issue with their third-party payer's rules - with PayPal's rules - than to do with FRS.
FRS has other payment options that reduced the upfront payment to earnest money rather than payment in full.
Not using those methods and specifically using PayPal is a consumer's choice that comes part and parcel with accepting the PayPal rules with their quirks and foibles. Understanding PayPal's business model we need to remember we are only the consumer side revenue source for them with the vendor being hit up for another set of expensive fees, and PayPal stacks the rules in their financial & risk holding favor.
All this said, looking at a production Maestro at Hamcation two weekends back, even my XYL left the Maestro demonstration impressed & excited for what the unit does, and our wait will someday be just a memory we can talk about on the air.
73
Steve K9ZW
KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
- 3790 Posts
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But not having that "Vision" but having had that real world experience, invariably the funds you need to start those companies or build those project usually comes from customer deposits.. not from some mysterious magical sources of funds that only Fortune 500 companies have access to....
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I followed the link to see what the process was to PRE-ORDER a cellphone from SAMSUNG through BEST BUY.
This is where it took me.
No information whatsoever of when the device will be delivered and paying the whole thing upfront.
This is Samsung and Best Buy, by no means small shops.
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Guess how much I have to pay if I want to check it out of the cart....
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And about not knowing it was pre-order.... come on seriously? You joined the community on July 14, 2014. How can you say that you didn't know the Maestro was Pre-Order??
Giving your propensity to misrepresent information to your advantage (proved by your misrepresentation of what other companies do with pre-orders) I "cry foul" in not knowing it was a pre-order.
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Perhaps it's time FRS considers closing this conversation.
And yes, I realize I don't have a squeaky clean record on this either. Consider though, if even I say enough, it's probably come off the rails already. Just saying.
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I don't mind waiting.
P.S. I did get a chance to play with the Maestro while at the Yuma Hamfest and all I can say is it is a work of art. Its quite solid, beautifully designed, controls operate smoothly, and actually surpassed my expectations. It took all I had to keep from drooling all over the display table......
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If you feel your financing Flex products, why don't you just wait until the product your interested in is actually shipping before you order it. That should take care of the problem for you. I'm just guessing, but you might be able to cancel your order and then wait until next month or so and then re-order once they are shipping them?
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I typically don't get newsletters and when I do it's very infrequent and when I do I don't really have a whole Lotta time to read them. That may be my fault for not reading the newsletter is however that doesn't negate the fact that the website at the time in January gave me the impression otherwise. I typically don't get newsletters very infrequent and when I do I don't really have a whole Lotta time to read them. That may be my fault for not reading the newsletters however that doesn't negate the fact that the website at the time in January gave me the impression otherwise
KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
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Your responses are too funny..
Pretty obvious you do not come from the small business world. Likely you have also never founded a company or tried to get a project off the ground with limited resources....
But i hate to break it to you but most large business start off very small and get customer deposits first before they even start to make things... I can think of a few that started that way.. Apple. HP. Dell.....
My close friend Bill VE3GXR recounts the story when Steve Jobs was first demoing the original Apple at a Hamfest.-- it did not work... so they had to borrow a soldering iron and some chips from Bill (who was a vendor at the show) to fix it....Apple did not have the cash to pay for the chips until they got customer deposits at the show and only had that one almost working prototype...
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KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
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Not the rarefied air of the Fortune 500!
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You're a consumer, and this is a free market. Want to make a change? Vote with your wallet. This is no different that people ranting on Facebook about how corrupt the political system is, but failing to show up in November to, ya know, actually have your say.
Also, please don't say that you don't have time to read the Flex newsletters when you have the time to reply to every comment in this thread within 10 minutes of them being posted. It just sounds silly.
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Then the thread completely devolved. Name calling, and now-pointless arguing about something that OP has absolutely no control over. Telling one of the most respected Elmers in the thread that he lives in a gerbil bubble? Calling people "dense customers" because they don't agree wit him? Yeah, I'd classify this entire 2nd page as pretty much ridiculous.
I'd prefer to not unsubscribe from threads which I anticipate receiving value out of because the content goes off on a bender for no good reason.
I guess it's time for me to spin the Flex Community VFO dial...
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Silly logic. Don't like what Flex has to say about estimated shipping dates? Too bad. Don't like that others disagree with your point of view? Too bad. See where I'm going here?
I'm not supporting a company blindly. IMHO, Howard makes valid points about how preordering can help a company raise capital and gauge interest in a future endeavor. I also value his opinion because of his experience in bizdev, software dev, and company management - which to me brings more value and understanding to the table than "THEY SAID IT WOULD SHIP AND IT DIDN'T YET I'M ANGRY, FRS IS A BAD COMPANY WITH BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE."
I ordered a Pixel loop from DXengineering. They purchased the brand from InLogis, and they're in a transition period. I ordered a month ago, when it indicated that it would ship in early February. Well, it's late February, and it hasn't shipped yet. Is it because DXengineering is a bad company? Is it because they make false promises? Is it because they're actively looking to piss off their customers? No, it's because it's not ready yet, there was some unforeseen delays, and it will ship when it's ready. If I was as outraged as you are, I'd simply cancel my order, and not utilize their services again. But I'm not upset. I'm not posting how bad they are on eHam. They have provided open and honest communication with me about the status of the order, and provided me with a little information as to why there is a delay. Pretty much just like Flex has done with the Maestro. For me, that's good customer service, understandable, and a non issue if I have to wait a little longer.
The Maestro will ship when it's ready. Flex has been very open about this, almost to a fault. I get the impression that if they shipped it early, knowing that there were SW/HW issues, you guys would be complaining about that instead.
Just typed this whole thing up, and now just realized that you're using two separate accounts to make postings?
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Can not deliver, and can not deliver based upon previous estimations are not the same thing, especially with small businesses. Go take a look at estimated delivery times for an SPE amplifier.
You plopped down money, which BTW they absolutely said using PayPal would charge the full amount and not just deposit amount, when Flex engineers were molding prototype plastic cases in their home ovens. Yet, you seem outraged and shocked that this small business will be a few months late in delivering. No one put a gun to your head to use PayPal and pay the full amount.
KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
- 3790 Posts
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Since you paid via PayPal and PayPal makes Flex take 100% of the money and you are unhappy with the delay... just call Flex.. ask for a refund.. of the 100% deposit then do a 10% deposit via CC like most people did and you will be back in the queue
Flex is trying to get the product right so most users will be happy with it when it ships
Ultimately its a software product.. so making it perfect is not an option.. but getting it close enough that most people will be happy with it when it finally ships just takes a bit longer.. why because the Alpha Testers (me included) have made a number of operating suggestions to make the product even more user friendly...as with anything that has never been done before these take time to code and test but seem well worth doing......
There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel.. but like all software projects the tunnel keeps on getting a bit longer than Flex first guessed it would be..
BTW.. this conversation seems to bring back old memories of when Flex used to publish a Software Roadmap and missed one of the last release dates..
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KY6LA - Howard, Elmer
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My Eldest Son, who was president of a company i founded, fired me in 2012 and then promptly sold the company to a Fortune 500... after 50+ years of working....
It was definitely rough to not have an office to go to every day.... or worse for me the access to labs, servers, staff and resources that i had been used to....
Fortunately I owned a lot of the stock which was sold or I would have been dealing with unemployment benefits....probably could have applied for unemployment but it felt like taking a double dip at the trough..when others needed it more.....
Bottom Line: I expect that you will be very pleased with Maestro when Flex finishes all the software and you will find that it is even better than you expected it to be because they took the time and put in the effort to get it right...
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and move on. I feel no good will come of any bickering, so please
let's just drop the thread. We all want our Maestro and Flex wants
to get them to us.
73, Jim N9VC
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https://flexradio.3dcartstores.com/myaccount.asp
You can also check Paypal. Stating the obvious, these days one has to watch all accounts like a hawk!
I sent FRS a final payment check last week, so the financial part is taken care of.
k3Tim
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Just saying :)
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