Corey | Founder |
11h ago
Discussion
Hi guys, I've recently checked my emails and see that a few people have been wondering what's been going on with the project. In December of 2019, we noticed that the number of refund request began to increase from pre-orders in China. We did not know why this was happening, but a couple months later it became obvious. In February, I was fundraising for the project in the Northeast when things began to take a turn for the worst. As a result, I made the decision to put the project on pause for a few weeks, to see what course it would take. All investor interest was put on ice as a result of the NYC lockdown and lockdown in Korea. I took leave from the company to work on a humanitarian project in New York that was focused on crafting a better response to COVID-19 in the future. I returned to the helm at LAFORGE on a non-paid basis about 2 weeks ago. Here's is where we go next: The only way to finish the project is to take on more investment , and we have renewed investor interest so I'm going to attempt to bring in that cash so we can resume at a faster rate. The two primary parts of development that need to be completed are software development and refining our mold making process. I originally was intending to un-pause the project in late July, but thanks to the resurgence of the virus, European travel-bans on Americans, and the need to fly to complete this project, I will be delaying the restart of the project by about 2 months. We have created a new way to make molds and need to test this process overseas at our development partners' factories. This is largely to confirm that they can standup to repeated use in high temperature environments. We are still honoring our refund policy, though we are not processing refunds until we officially reopen later in the year. Due to COVID-19, we are considering expanding the policy. This project is difficult, but we remain committed to it. For those who think executing on normal-looking AR glasses is easy, please consider that no company (not ODG, Intel, Google, or North) has been able to sustain a business producing these.
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