

WakeMate Photo Op - clewiston
http://blog.wakemate.com/2010/05/19/photo-op/

======
cullenking
I am still excited to receive my WakeMate, but why did they not send me this
update via email? Why was this in a blog post and not sent to the email I used
to pre-order?

Furthermore, what is the point of saying "still a long way to go" - I am
literally almost 6 months past the date I was told I'd receive it. Did
WakeMate not have any software or hardware done at all when they posted the
pre-order?

~~~
zaatar
They probably didn't email it because people would then complain of spam. The
industry standard is to grab an email address to make only a one-time
notification.

All this is irrelevant anyway; Wakemate will get crap no matter if they remain
silent, or write blog posts, or send email, or update twitter as long as a
physical product is not out in the wild.

I'm actually in support of the Wakemates on this one; I wouldn't have sent out
an email either.

~~~
cullenking
I don't envy their position by any means, and I only hope them the best.
However, there is nothing wrong with regularly updating the people that are
making it possible to start your business. Due to a limited budget ($30k or so
from YC?), the pre-order was necessary to get hardware ordered and shipped to
the first customers; in essence it is an interest free loan to kickstart their
business. As a result, I want to know when my loan is going to be 'repaid',
hardly a standard situation.

------
zackham
Call my cynical but my impression of this is that when I pre-ordered they must
have literally had _nothing_ done. I understanding some of the tricks you
might pull to perform customer validation but their approach seems
unambiguously disingenuous in hindsight...

~~~
toisanji
correct,they had nothing at pre-order time. Minimal Viable Product for
hardware.

~~~
rosser
_Minimal Viable Product for hardware_ == "concept"?

~~~
jacquesm
Minimal viable product for hardware = 'working prototype'.

------
ErrantX
You know, I'm sure the Wakemate product is going to be stellar and really
useful.

I can't help thinking they've made a mistake in their approach though -
everything I have seen from them has promised more, even this which has actual
"stuff" on show promises bigger and better.

They should have:

a) waited till they had the physical product reasonably ready for distribution
before announcing. All the hype from the intial launch is lost now. And if
they hit unseen snags there should have been open and running updates so
people stayed with them.

b) the web stuff and the phone apps are great and useful - but that's stuff
you can develop and iterate over time. What you need to do with a physical
product (and I have bitter experience here!) is get the damned thing out the
door and into the hands of your users. So long as they realise the web/app is
a work in progress all will be fine.

~~~
icey
You're totally right - they're doing the exact opposite of "underpromise and
overdeliver".

------
andrewljohnson
If I were a Wakemate pre-order, I wouldn't be happy to see three mobile apps
before anyone shipped me my device.

The Wakemate team seems dedicated and smart, but as an outside observer
watching the it all unfold, their communications skills are sorely lacking.
Hopefully a great product will overcome in the end.

edit: On second thought, they have got to be just crazy. How is it possibly
the right idea to have three unfinished mobile apps than one that works?

~~~
jey
The time consuming part is probably getting the HW manufactured. Why not code
up the software for multiple platforms while waiting on that? I think covering
both iPhone and Android is a pretty good move.

~~~
cullenking
I am not a hardware guy, but the few pieces of hardware I've seen ordered took
a week to get a run of 100 test units, they spent two weeks working some bugs
out, then put in an order of 1000 which came a week after placing the order.

This was done out of a shop in the US, not sure what it is like doing
production runs overseas, but I can't imagine it's much slower.

This of course ignores the time spent designing/redesigning units, however,
ordering batches of something from a manufacturer doesn't take long.

~~~
ujeezy
I saw an FCC stamp – getting FCC approval would have taken at least a month.
And I have no idea whether something like this would require FDA approval, but
I'm sure they had to at least research that.

~~~
joe_bleau
Sure looks like a pre-approved BT module to me, such as the ones SparkFun
sells
([http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_i...](http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8497)).
Buy it and solder it down: done.

------
someone_here
Maybe they're sleeping _too_ soundly.

------
nanexcool
I followed tlrobinson's advice and bought Sleep Cycle for the iPhone. It's
0.99 and works well. Still, I'm optimistic about WakeMate, especially the
analytics.

~~~
aditya
Just bought it thanks to both of you!

------
gfodor
This company is a good reminder to folks that "minimally" is only one of the
words in the now-sacrosanct "minimally viable product." You still need the
other two, or else you will surely piss people off.

A demo, a YouTube video, or a web form hooked up to Paypal is not a MVP. At
least, not in my book.

Edit: Too harsh? Maybe, but knowing people who ordered this thing and are
annoyed that it still hasn't shipped tells me there's a lesson to be learned
here.

------
kilian
It's good they're updating, I'd like to think my HN post helped with that. Now
as other suggested, if they keep us all in the loop with (bi)weekly updates,
then they're golden. Let's hope they do.

Edit: Just got an email from them stating they are planning on weekly updates.
Awesome guys, keep it up! :)

------
ricardo
The biggest issue with this whole WakeMate fiasco was the original ship date
announced. Given all of the recent communication and delays, it is clear that
the original January ship date was a fantasy from the start. If they had pre-
announced their product but gave a more realistic ship date, they wouldn't be
dealing with all of the negative press they are now. While figuring out how to
ship hardware is very difficult for a company doing this for the first time,
it appears they were nowhere near a shippable product when they set their
original release date.

------
grep
I'm still waiting for my unit... Not very happy tho.

------
jacquesm
Great to see a sign of life from wakemate, now let's hope stay awake and keep
updating, say a small progress report once every two weeks or so.

At that level the time invested is manageable and you keep your customers in
the loop.

~~~
zaatar
Amazing! It's funny how if Wakemate hadn't screwed up, the world wouldn't be
justified in demanding periodic updates! I mean, do you really ask Posterous
to give you bi-weekly updates? I just hope the Wakemates realize that (a) the
bar is significantly higher because they're YC-backed (b) every day they spend
not putting the product in a customer's hands, they're setting themselves up
for more work (such as sending bi-weekly status updates) which may not even be
common under normal circumstances, or risk pissing off more [potential]
customers.

I really hope someone does a detailed post-mortem analysis on the Wakemates
(AndrewWarner?); there's a _ton_ of stuff to learn about how _not_ to do
PR/marketing in here for the rest of us to learn & implement. :)

~~~
jacquesm
If they had delivered when they first promised there would be no issue at all.
But once you go across your self-imposed deadline you have to make sure that
those that pre-ordered are kept in the loop on the hows-and-whys.

It's like BP estimating the outflow from that leak way too low. If their
estimate had been 'on target' or 'high' there would have been no problem, by
estimating too low they've set themselves up for all kinds of trouble.

The interesting thing is that I don't see any perceived cost in
overestimating, but a significant cost to underestimating.

------
samstokes
My main takeaway is that when their website used to say "compatible with all
phones", that was as much a piece of speculative fiction as was the ship date.

I hope the Wakemate can be used without a phone...

------
timf
Is that a bug? The Eris in the middle is showing 8:10-:8:30am as the answer to
waking up by 2:39pm?

------
frederickcook
Any plans for an API?

------
rradu
Long overdue

------
zackattack
i'm confused why people are so mad. doesn't the pre-order only cost $1?

~~~
BRadmin
It was $5 - but it's not about the money.

It's about a company promising something and not following through. Top that
off with a big helping of poor communication, and you start to get an idea of
why some people are frustrated.

