Ever run a business...I thought not, look, no manufacturing business in the world collects money from one product, and only spends that money on the production of that product, it simply doesn't work that way.
Now reduce the size of the company to one man's garage, and these factors are magnified 200x. Andy, like all small businesses, cannot just leave large sums of cash set aside for a product's development that may be 6, 12, or 24 months down the track, the money is needed to produce a product designed 6, 12, or 24 months in the past, in a cycle of current payments used for prior products.
Andy struck trouble when the dragon took so long, the pool of money ran out, it's that simple, and whilst it's possible Andy could have handled things better, no-one here is anything but supportive and patient with regards to the delivery of our dragon.
In short, pull your head in!
Do YOU or HAVE YOU ever run a business?? Just asking as assuming someone hasn't doesn't mean you are right. And before you assume I haven't, yes, I have.
Ok I'm going to throw my 2 cents in here as I am frustrated with this too.
I paid for my dragon, number 70, when the dragon was being molded. So casting production copies at that point is not a 6, 12, or 24 months down the road expense, that does tend to be an immediate expense. One that, at this point, is currently only limited by being able to pay for the castings. Which I do believe is the entire issue here. Being 70 that leaves 151 dragons paid for after mine which equals at 100 pounds a dragon 15,100 pounds in hand after the dragon was in the molding process. (Note I am not including anyone before me since I know a few paid in full years ago) At that point you know your estimates for master molds, masters, production molds and production copies and can budget accordingly. If the preorders were unpaid until the dragon could ship, I could completely understand the problem with finances and would be nothing but supportive. But, having already gotten payment in full from preorders there should have been more than enough to pay for the molds, etc. and production copies AND still be able to put the rest of the money back into other aspects of the business. Large businesses have the luxury of spending money that comes in immediately and drawing from elsewhere down the road. Most small businesses do not have either large or reliably steady income amounts and YES lots of small businesses actually take funds from things like preorder payments and put them towards those products only until the preorder commitment is done. Out of the 22,100 pounds total for the preorder and PREPAID dragons most small companies do indeed have funds that are put aside and not touched to insure they could produce the product.
I think the entire issue here can be broken down to a few easy points:
Dragons are
prepaid, reasonable expectations can be made that any company, especially very small businesses with tight budget, who takes prepayments puts aside money to ensure casting can take place.
22,100 pounds for all the dragons at least 15,100 pounds in dragon sales (according to the numbers Andy has listed) but only 4,975.00 in costs so far for molds and 19 dragons. If you take the number of dragons paid for
when it was in the molding/casting process only, that is still 10,125.00 pounds that was available to be immediately put aside for the casting of the rest. None apparently was, even with production immanent.
Statements of having made a large personal purchase, two loans, facebook/twitter mentions about not having paid electric bills for 2 years, house up for sale, buying a new addition line before prior commitments WITH such debt, the "use it or lose it thread" and stating that because you are broke you can't cast more dragons...this does not build trust that any company is going to be around long, let alone long enough to actually fulfill that many preorders (especially in the 6 months listed) with only 17 out the door on top of all that.
Am I confident I will see my dragon? Nope. Not based on everything said about finances. Do I think Andy will try? Yes, but that is a lot of debt to dig out from and still try to keep a business going, let alone fill that many prepaid and apparently prespent orders.
I can understand production problems that involve sick casters, waiting in the queue for your order to be cast, etc. That kind of waiting is not a problem to me. But waiting because of fiscal mismanagement during the casting process and wondering if he can dig out of the debt enough to cast prepaid items.. yeah to me that is very different. 17 dragons every two months (being generous enough in the estimate that enough money could be found to cast that many) that is over a year just to cast up dragons that people already paid for. Assuming money can be squeezed out. I can not imagine taking money for something and not putting aside to insure all those preorders could be out my door as fast as my caster could do them and I quality checked them. I would certainly not touch those funds for anything else business wise until I knew for sure the true costs of the dragons, because until they are done and delivered that money isn't really yours. Again, I would be plenty patient and supportive if this was true casting problems, but it's not.
This dragon looks like it would be a beauty in hand and I was sad to have to strongly recommend to several other dragon fans to stay away until the day it's actually in stock to avoid any chance of a New Wave type ride.
