Hi everyone,
I wanted to share with you all an update from Chris regarding what's currently happening at HQ, improvements to the upcoming Lite's from user feedback and our plans for extending production in the upcoming weeks.
Regarding the Brass Maze Cores, we've received requests for individual Lite's to be exchanged from aluminium to Brass. If you're interested in having an upgrade option available for individual Lite's to be Brass instead of aluminium, please give a "thumbs up" to show your interest.
For the 4 Set (Limited Edition) Orders we are going to suggest offering Brass or aluminium Maze Cores directly during October.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
“TIME”!
Dear All
It is “TIME” to discuss the current position and what is happening next. Overall, I have been humbled by the enthusiasm of our puzzles, but also recognize the frustration you have all been having with me.
“TIME” has never been my friend and is the main reason why, I have feelings of total despair when things go wrong. The main cause of this is my continuing firefighting and lack of communication, which I know is not helping the brand. Other than Rachel, my staff choices have cost me much more than I thought, both financially and emotionally.
Driven by the impact the puzzles have on our customer base, my overwhelming desire to build bigger and better has “TIME” clearly attacking the progress as I exceed the limits of capacity making simple deliverable estimates completely out of reality.
What we are making, and the amount of technology used to achieve the precision requires so much “TIME” to get right, “TIME” I do not have enough of.
The disconnect between Rachel being at the Unit and myself working here, plus the financial cost of running a facility we only use to assemble and ship the puzzles has made the decision not to renew our lease. The pressure over the last 3 months was to find someone to take over and that has now happened. We leave the unit next Monday.
To have Rachel here, I have had to provide her with a dedicated office that also serves as a studio for our live broadcasts. The aim of this is to have better direct communications with our dedicated fans. This is now complete, and Rachel is now here.
In addition to working from Revo HQ, we have a storage facility to hold some of our office furniture as well as the packaging and boxes. We have 24/7 access and free up space here.
The weak link in the operation is that we have only one machine. Granted, this machine can make all our parts, but each part needs to be scheduled one after the other. So, since Joshua (our engineer) left, I have reviewed all programs and tooling to make the best use of a single tool setup. Now we have a better understanding of how to plan the parts, but this showed the lack of “TIME” needed to get both VAULTMAZE and the REVOMAZE Lite projects.
The answer was to buy “TIME” by engaging our engineers to make some of our components again. That means we can machine concurrently reducing the delivery date. This was the same for the VAULTMAZE Pilot.
To be clear, I can make everything and complete everything, given enough “TIME”. You may say you have had enough “TIME”, and to some extent agree with you, but the reality on the ground is always problem-solving to find the best outcome and this does take up “TIME”.
So, that is the current situation. Next comes the future situation..
Our solely dedicated company is getting its financial resources to pay our way from the investment our customers are making to the pre-orders. This is our only source of income and having the unit and staff only put pressure on this as these were not cost-effective.
We have the VAULTMAZE Pilot project that is part complete, and we have all the financial resources until the full project is delivered. The project plan is in place, we just need “TIME” to complete and understand and appreciate people who will not pay any further until it is complete.
The REVOMAZE Lite project expanded into 19 puzzles – of which the Black Pilot has been shipped. These were grouped into different sets and allowed individual and the combination of sets to be purchased. The feedback has been good on the Black Pilot, but improvements were needed for the rest.
The main issue brought to our attention was the forcing of the pin that allowed the wear of some walls to enable getting to parts by unofficial routes. This was found to be the pin length that did not reach the bottom of the traps (2mm depth). The actual depth was found to be 1.8mm leaving just 0.3mm between the intermediate level and with force, some have managed to push the pin up. This was unforeseen and has now been corrected in all puzzles.
Some feedback also questioned if Brass Maze Cores could be used. The simple answer is yes, so we made these for the Inter Set SE (Teal, Gunmetal, and Copper). Brass is much more expensive than aluminium and weighs a lot more, but we felt that it would be beneficial. Customers then questioned about making all the mazes Brass as an option, so we have put forward them as the Ultimate Set containing all 14 puzzles that were not Limited Editions (Black, Turquoise, Lime, Yellow and Orange).
We wanted the Ultimate Set to be aimed at our Collecting Customers, but as they have already invested in other sets, we wanted to allow them to upgrade, which we discussed and found a solution by adding upgrade scenarios allowing them to do that.
We have read your comments this morning and felt the reasons behind our decisions were not fully understood. Some of you have very good reasons for not going for it, and we sincerely understand and appreciate your position, but we are trying to give people a choice and we want you to know the investments each of you is making are helping keep our company alive. As explained, this is our only source of income so by reducing our overheads we are trying to lower the dependency on pre-orders.
Next week, we are entering our massive machining period as we will have moved out this weekend to our lockup. Rachel is planning to be much more open as to where we are by answering directly to people’s questions directly, giving live updates on YouTube and allowing direct answers.
The important part of Discord and communicating with our customers is to stop misinformation and provide better “TIME” lines for shipments. While I am machining and assembling, Rachel is the person at the coalface dealing with everyone and keeping an eye on what people are saying.
This will improve, and having the two projects too complete will require that “TIME” I am so short of, but Rachel and I will keep going until we succeed.
I hope this will help understand our position but if you have questions, please contact Rachel or myself with your concerns.
Kindest regards
Chris
