Update #14
Dec 18 2015
This is not the end
Dear backers, supporters and friends,
the end of our Kickstarter campaign has come.
We’ve done a lot of soul searching these past few days. We of course were disappointed that after so much blood, sweat and tears was put into our product, we would not be reaching our Kickstarter goal. We were, however, impressed and encouraged by the support we received from you publicly on Kickstarter, in private emails, Facebook posts and telephone calls. We are proud our campaign surpassed $100k, but we are also frustrated by its failure.
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy
As we look back on our campaign (mind you this was our first campaign), we now understand the mistakes we made. And truly understanding your mistakes is the first step to future success.
So we will draw from these mistakes and we will plan our re-launch.
We were not ready for Kickstarter.
This is clear: we were not ready. We made many mistakes, some of them we were able to solve on the fly during the campaign, others were activities and initiatives we should have been doing in advance of our campaign launch.
We approached our Kickstarter campaign as if it were an advertising campaign: it isn't. It is a community and we understand that now.
We were way too focused on aesthetics, while we should be focused more on explaining features, performances and usages. We should have explained in detail, every aspect of our technology and product. And showed in action for the entire Kickstarter community to see.
We were so excited by what we built, that we distracted ourselves from everything else. We believed Kickstarter would love the NX1 as much as we do, so we spent very little time preparing our campaign to go live. We spent very little time preparing our campaign; All the multimedia, copy, our website, everything was thrown together last minute as we were so focused on getting the product right.
We didn't do any prelaunch: not only were people not expecting the first ultra fast 3D printer, but we didn't get any feedback before going live - and we learned this was a big mistake, as most campaigns pull in 80% of their backing in the first week.
We thought that as this was a crowdfunding campaign, it should be obvious that some items like our UI were not ready yet, but we underestimated the importance of seeing the software.
We believed we were speaking to a predominantly consumer audience, but we now see that you, our customers are mostly professionals and prosumers.
We needed to share more information on the specifications and tolerances of our materials. But the most important thing is: WE DID NOT WORK CLOSELY ENOUGH WITH REAL USERS. You guys have been fundamental in opening our eyes to thousands of different aspects that will make the NX1 even better.
What we achieved
Not everything has been terrible
We created a new brand! And most 3D printer makers out there (that are quietly celebrating our campaign failure) are worried about what’s coming next from those Italian guys. Our digital channels (web, social, press) reached millions of people. We have been covered on leading news outlets including, Engadget, Digital and Techtimes. We are opening the era of 3D Fast Printing.
We promised to be the game changer and we are: every new 3D printer coming to market will have to face our aggressive price, impressive performance, and our better, smarter, more elegant product design. And prove to be able to print solid objects in fast mode.
Some top-tier brands reached out to us to explore partnerships or investments in Nexa3D! We are very proud about that! Especially for a little company from Rome.
We found many business partners that want to bring NX1 to almost every part of the world. This amazes us.
But the most important thing is we now have thousands of new friends! We are so excited by the great support we have gotten from you, our backers (that notwithstanding our mistakes and a few "unlucky" bends in the road) not only trusted in but even spent hours and hours in giving us suggestions and in promoting and supporting the community!
Unlucky
As we want to be transparent, we think that some of the "mistakes" were caused buy some unlucky and external events. But lucky or unlucky, something will always happen, so let us explain what we have learned also from this.
Perhaps some potential backers were not comfortable baking an Italian company running a Kickstarter campaign in Euros. Research we found indicates U.S. backers are normally around 50% of a typical campaign; in our case less than 20% of our backers were from the U.S.
Next time we will have more than one final prototype. Should some customs agent or clumsy person destroy our prototype, we won’t find ourselves halfway through a campaign trying to repair our only functional unit. At this we would like to thank the fine folks at DHL and Italian customs for holding our only NX1 prototype for more 10 days (the first critical 2 weeks of our Kickstarter campaign), and for extra measure roughing it up to the point of inoperability.
The Internet is free. This is its power, but also its limit: any idiot can pick up a keyboard and write whatever he or she wants. I don't want to go back on this point, but it is important to share that based on numbers, it is 100% clear the malicious patent rumor attack made on our Kickstarter campaign page, destroyed our campaign. Our traffic continued to grow, but patent troll hit our campaign, sales came to a dead stop. Backing a Kickstarter campaign is of faith and if I were a potential backer, seeing that troll’s comments, I would have had some doubts in investing in an NX1 as well. The fact that someone spread rumors that in the near future we could be facing patent litigation was a deathblow. So here’s to all you patent trolls out there, nice win.
We want to be clear that this is not the way we do business. This is not the way we live. And it should be not permitted to do that. We believe in fairness and respect.
Our particular Kickstarter patent troll never bothered to contact us, respond to our lawyer or do anything other than post on our campaign page and call reporters who covered our story. Interestingly though he or took the time to post plenty of messages from fake accounts. I hope that every one of you will consider what happened and if you ever hear about them, treat them the same way they treated us.
Our message to them is simple: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger!
Ok... never, ever launch a 3D printer Kickstarter campaign during Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas
Good lesson for the Italians guys.
What we will do next
We will go on! We will work hard to introduce the first ultra-fast printer on the market. We will work hard to introduce the first ultra-fast printer on the market. And continue to our mission to be the easiest, smartest, fastest, highest value and the most beautiful 3D printer on the market.
We will focus on our community: and yes the press, investors, and partners too, but you are our greatest asset. We will continue working with you, sharing updates, ideas and thoughts to make our amazing.
We will work on a new launch in early 2016. This time not in NYC, but in Rome! And you guys will be invited! We will welcome press, partners, distributors, and above all our first backers.
We will introduce a Pro version that will be even more accurate and with an even larger printing area. We will ask your help and support to design it together.
We will work on the resins and the software: these two were weak spots for us with our campaign and that will not happen again.
We will look to satisfy some orders in the meantime: we will open a preorder section on our website
http://www.nexa3d.com to take orders. Why? We really would like to ship some printers to users who want to be our first adopters and testers. We need your feedback to make the NX1 even better.
We will follow up in updating this campaign but please don't forget to register to our newsletter here. And if you visit Rome, don't forget to visit us!
It is with a sad heart that today we end this chapter and start a new one for the NX1. So from the bottom of our hearts, we thank every one of you (except that one idiot patent troll
).
This has been a fantastic adventure and it is just the beginning!
Let us close this update with a special #starwars quote! Checkout this short video with NX1 singing the Starwars Theme