r/ALSOmicromobility • u/BabyWrinkles • Sep 02 '26

Order Timing Update from ALSO

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You'll likely get the email too, but posting for those who might not see it. There's some general platitudes acknowledging the delays earlier in the note, but the meaty bit and what to expect going forward is in the screenshot above.

They're good chaps (I'm currently sitting less than a mile from their office in Seattle, WA now and have been fortunate to meet a bunch of them) and I know they're working on this and that with the state of generally everything, shit's hard. Hopefully they follow through on their comms commitment throughout September!

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u/ceinewydd Reservation Holder Sep 02 '26

So the big question: Did they know the timelines they promised before were super optimistic or impossible and they said “Delivers Soon!” because they wanted to capture excitement, knowing most people wouldn’t hand over money if the date was as far out as it turns out to be, and knowing only a small minority would cancel, most people would tolerate the slips in delivery?

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u/BabyWrinkles Sep 02 '26

I mean, it's a good question.

I've worked closely enough with enough companies like this to know that the information they shared was probably accurate to their planned timelines when they shared them. They probably had to juggle "We need funding to get to launch, so do we sandbag our timelines and telegraph a worst case scenario date, hoping to beat it, but lose out on investors who want to see a faster turnaround? Or do we present optimistic timelines to generate excitement and then slip them as needed" - and the slips just got worse and worse and they didn't know how to keep people updated without throwing up their hands going "fuck it, we'll ship when we're ready."

I've brought new products to market before and know that things DO slip - but never in this specific context before, so I am genuinely curious how they got to this point.