Kickstarter

Dear Backers,

Today we made the difficult decision to refund everyone’s POP pledge. You will see the refund come through on your credit card statement in the next few days. If you do not see the refund please contact us at help@popportablepower.com.

Here are some facts around our decision:

1. The reason we are doing the refund is that we are being contacted by numerous backers every week asking for refunds for different circumstances. At this point our delay has been long enough that we agree with these backers and therefore felt it was best to do a full refund.

2. We are still working on the product and hope to have something out by the end of summer, or early fall. We are still convinced that there is an unmet need for the POP product – in fact just this week my wife was asking what we can do about all of the cords on the table next to our couch. We strongly believe that there is a need for a retractable cord reel, multi-device charger.

3. We apologize for not sending out an update sooner. We have been working with Amazon in order to do this refund and while they have been extremely helpful, the process is not one that can be done overnight. Our aim was to issue these last month.

4. Amazon has decided to reimburse us for the credit card fees (approximately 3%, or $4,000). Kickstarter will not be refunding our fees (5%, or $7,000). We understand Kickstarter’s position on this, considering they opened up their platform to us and the refund was ultimately our decision. Regardless, we will be refunding everyone 100% of their pledge, meaning we will cover the Kickstarter fee.

While many of you are going to be disappointed by this message, we do believe this is the best course of action. We will still be working on the product, and once we have factory made prototypes that are MFI approved, we will send out an update and allow everyone who backed this Kickstarter campaign to buy the product at a steep discount.

If the credit/debit card you used to pay has since changed, been canceled, or is no longer active, you can sign in to your Amazon Payments account and they will provide detailed instructions on how to receive your refund.

If you have any questions/comments please feel free to contact me anytime.

Best,

Jamie

Email: J@popportablepower.com

Mobile: 917-412-4747

As you know on Thursday we sent you an update that because of Apple’s rules around Lightning we would be canceling POP. The story got A LOT of news and reactions, way more than we could have ever imagined. In fact it became such big news that 24 hours after we posted Apple changed their guidelines for Lightning.

It was an incredible turn of events for us. We never could have imagined that we would be able to change Apple’s rules.

Based on Apple's change we can make POP the way we had promised and the project is back on. We will not be processing refunds and are going full speed ahead to produce and deliver the product to you ASAP.

We hope to do another update in the next 7-10 days to give you a new estimated delivery date.  

Happy Holidays and thank you to everyone that has stood by us and helped us through this process. We are thrilled to finally be able to bring this great product to you. 

Jamie

PS. We have been receiving a lot of requests from new customers that want to buy POP which can be done at www.PopPortablePower.com.

To all of our loyal backers–

I’ll never forget the moment when our campaign passed the $50,000 goal and our dream of powering dying batteries became tangible. Our promise was simple: provide a portable charger that was capable of powering ALL of your devices including the anticipated iPhone 5, which at the time, had not been released.

When Apple officially announced the move to Lightning we determined the best course of action was to incorporate two Lightning chargers, and two 30-pins (along with the four micro-USB’s). After applying to Apple (which is now required for Lightning), we learned that they are no longer willing to approve a product that uses the Lightning charger alongside any other charger (including their own 30-pin – seriously). Just like that, POP could no longer fulfill its true promise.

As we struggled with Apple we realized that Kickstarter did not have a mechanism for refunding everyone their money. Since we are not willing to compromise and build a crappy product, refunding the money is the only acceptable thing to do.

This sparked the idea that crowdfunding of physical products needed a place that was built around the intricacies they present; so a few weeks ago we launched our own crowdfunding site, Christie Street. Built from the ground up around product, Christie Street is designed to handle needs that can arise from products – such as refunds – in order to prevent compromised products from being delivered.

In order to process refunds efficiently we are going to set you all up with Christie Street accounts, and there, you will be able to process your refund. Since payment processing has little to no room for error, we still have some final testing to do before we can send out the instructions, so the plan is set for mid-January. Conversely, had we manually sent out the refunds to all 1,000 backers the process would probably have gone even longer.

Providing full refunds means we will have to absorb a hit for both credit card (3%) and Kickstarter fees (5%) totaling over $11,000. Today we asked Kickstarter for the 5% fee they collected based on the circumstances, however regardless of their decision YOU WILL RECEIVE 100% OF YOUR MONEY BACK.

We don’t believe in selling a substandard, compromised product that only satisfies the needs of a few backers, as that was not our promise. So we can’t thank you enough for your incredible support and awesome feedback – we hope to collaborate again with you soon. If you have any issues please email j@edisonjunior.com or call my cell (917)412-4747.

All the best,
Jamie

P.S. If you know anyone at Apple please send them coal for their stockings, on behalf of us :)

First, to all of our backers – thank you for being so understanding with the delay caused by the new Apple Lightning adapters.  We have spoken to a lot of you over the last month or so and your positive comments and support has been appreciated.

Just some background for everyone's information...

As we have said previously, Apple has changed the process for using their new Lightning adapter and because of that we are not just able to assume that we can use it in the way we had intended with POP.  You need to be in a MFI (Made for iPhone) factory, which we are, and you need to have every product that uses Lightning approved by Apple.

We just got off the phone with the factory and while our project has not been approved yet, the factory has had a few other projects that are very similar to ours approved in the last few days.  That is great news as we now feel that we should hear back from Apple soon and that the news should be good.

In terms of how this delays us.  As soon as we hear back from Apple we will begin the manufacturing process for POP.  Sadly we can not start before as they may demand a slight change in the design which would be very costly if our tooling has to change.  So when we get the green light it should be no more then 2-3 months from start till delivery.

So based on that we are hoping to deliver in February/March.  We know this is after the deadline that we set and we apologize for the delay.  However, we felt that since we promised a product that would be Lightning compatible that was more important than rushing an inferior product to everyone.

Also we are still doing weekly updates on our blog at www.PopPortablePower.com

Thanks,

Jamie, John and the rest of the Edison Junior team