This is an update where we cannot agree on a neat, simple way to say what needs said. So, we will just post everything we know today.

Short version:

Due to some completely unexplainable incompetence by our China factory, we are stuck, and have to pause everything until we can arrange new money to move forward.

Longer version:

Both our factory and our new Hong Kong fulfillment center have basically been dark with communication for almost two weeks, during a period where we were told the two products would be completed, sent to the warehouse, and shipments begun to backers and preorders. It has only been over the past two days that we have had any information from them at all.

All we have known is that no shipping emails have gone to anybody, and, no emails or calls from us have been answered in this period. Our representative in Shenzhen was told on Monday that nobody was available to meet with him when he visited the factory office in person.

And yes, that is an infuriating, very frustrating part of this “run it from the US, and build it in China” model. If they don’t want to talk to us, it’s easy for them to avoid us — even turning away someone we physically send to their facility there.

What We Know

What we think we know is that the holes that were to be quickly re-drilled and “stretched” a bit on the HydraDock PC boards by a shop there had problems, with many boards damaged. How many? We still do not know. What sort of damage? We don’t know.

It seems that somebody at the factory realized this was going to be their fault. And, instead of just telling us immediately, they decided to rush an order of enough new boards to replace the damaged boards, and hold shipping until those new boards were done. And, it seems the new boards ordered were exactly the same as the ones needing the holes re-drilled. So, they sent those right back through the same re-drilling process at the same shop, which of course caused more damaged boards.

And… we only began to get emails telling us about this situation yesterday.

If we had a team assignment to dream up the stupidest, most ridiculous story to tell, we could never imagine this level of craziness. We cannot believe that a supplier with the reputation ours has could possibly make these sorts of errors over and over again. But, they have. And, we have to deal with it.

What We Are Facing

The factory has now told us that none of the existing boards can safely be used, due to the drilling damage, and the risk of hidden or delayed damage from delamination of the boards. They say we need to do a new production run of HydraDock boards, using the revised mechanical design that relocates the holes to match the enclosures that are already made. And, they say that since they tried to resolve the problem first at their cost, we must pay for this new production run of 4,000 PC boards! They say that they will give us a reduced price because of the situation. And that is where we are today.

So, we have a crazy demand from a factory in Shenzhen, China to pay them $52 each for circuit boards to replace boards that they damaged in an effort to correct a hole misalignment problem that they created by using the wrong CAD to build the last run of circuit boards.

We actually only need about 2,100 HydraDocks to fill all current rewards and preorders. The other 1,900 was to be forward inventory. So, assuming the factory will do a reduced order, we “only” need to find about $150,000 somewhere to make the required payment.

Anybody tracking this crazy situation over time knows we do not have that money. But, our core team is still committed to this project, believes in our obligations to backers and preorders, and still believes in the future of HydraDock as an important USB Type C brand. So, we’re going to try and solve this problem.

What We Can Do

We have been contacted a few times this past year by larger companies interested in buying HydraDock from us. We are reaching out today to see if any of those still have that interest. We are also reaching out to the Nashville funding community to see if we can make a deal there. We will pursue any ideas at all that pop up for pushing past this situation. Basically, we are scrambling to find a “white knight” to step in and get us past this problem.

Obviously, we have paused preorders until we know when/if we will be able to produce and ship HydraDocks.

There are over 900 Roadie pocket hubs due to people, most of them attached to rewards and preorders also including a HydraDock. At the moment we cannot see how we can do a Roadie production run and ship those separately, because of the costs involved and then still having to ship the HydraDocks at a later time.

If the HydraDock situation cannot be fixed soon, one possible step is to proceed with the Roadie production run and shipments — and look at shipping a Roadie in place of a HydraDock on rewards and preorders, if that is the only action available to us at the time. All production and shipping costs for the Roadie are already prepaid for a 2,000 unit production run. So, it would cost us less than $50,000 to increase this amount and replace all HydraDocks with Roadies and go that direction. — but ONLY if no other options are possible to get the actual HydraDock completed.

In other words, we are stuck at the moment. Frustrated. Angry. And stuck.

We have shut down preorders until we get this solved. We will post anything new about the situation here. And, we will be scrambling to do anything possible to move beyond this latest problem and get this project completed.

Our Situation

Finally, we want to share our feelings about this situation: We feel ashamed and embarrassed at how this has all happened. We have dragged over 2,000 people into some ongoing drama over what was supposed to be just a really cool little computer accessory — a year and a half ago! And while it’s been painful for us, at this stage it is a major frustration and ongoing annoyance to all of you out there. We know this.

Our Commitment

We’ll do everything we can to fix this. And, we will continue communicating through the process.

As always: Thank you for your support and hanging in there with us.

The KickShark Team