Reminds me of Noria (later Kapsul), a somewhat early Kickstarter darling that promised to have revolutionized window air conditioners. Theirs would be quiet and light, and inexpensive ($250!), and would ship within a year, all they needed to do was raise $250,000!
They raised nearly $1.5MM, because as it turns out, people will throw money at a solution that sounds amazing, regardless of their understanding of manufacturing and physics. They finally started delivering some five years later, and what they delivered amounted to a repackaged traditional window air conditioning unit. Still noisy, still heavy, and the build quality wasn't great. Cf. https://www.phillymag.com/news/2021/06/23/kapsul-air-conditi...
Johnson Controls does $20-$30 billion in annual revenue. They've swallowed up all kinds of other HVAC companies over the decades. Turns out, there's not a whole lot of innovation to be had in the HVAC world, because of the limitations of physics.
Nest, on the other hand, did some wildly overdue disruption on the control side of things, doing a little bit of math on historic local data to help figure out how to cycle radiators more efficiently, but for the most part, the cost savings tended to be from Nest suggesting that it's silly to be running your AC at 68 degrees F on a 98 degree day.
I appreciate there's an attempt to be transparent at the cost here, but "shipping winter 2024 even though we don't have a physical prototype" for an HVAC system is as big a red flag as there is, to me.
I was reminded of Noria/Kapsul as well. I paid the $1 for the chance to opt in later, so I was still getting their apologetic emails to customers as of last year, six years after backing.
The last email (May 2022) said they had delivered to ~700 backers, and had "a long way to go."
I get where you're coming from. There's a lot of scope to this though, and not a lot of technical risk. I think in this case it makes sense to sell units, and also generate feedback about the product as early as possible. We're not selling fusion or self driving cars.
I think in this case it makes sense to sell units, and also generate feedback about the product as early as possible
So you're going to use end customers as your test base? That's pretty gutsy. Especially when they're shelling out $10K and ripping out their existing (and working) HVAC system to do this. Don't use the car analogy here, there's no backup if it doesn't work.
Unless you predict 100% flawless execution and satisfaction on that aspect, you're going to get screwed. Your customers, more so. A few fucked up installations, or performance below expectations, and it's over.
Definitely agree that a good customer experience is key here. We're not shipping half baked hardware to end customers. That's what engineering development (alpha build, design validation build, production validation build, home pilot) is for. After all that happens, then customers can an install (and one that's well designed and tested).
"We're not shipping half baked hardware to end customers. That's what engineering development (alpha build, design validation build, production validation build, home pilot) is for."
I can appreciate that. I am sure you will also agree a single part of a complex system can render it inoperable. When I consider the consequences, at 15° F (which is about the yearly low in my part of the US), of a failed part then I consider what that means to my wife and children and the value of the experimental but proven design becomes much less.
For their cheapest model, they want to sell it at $10k which includes profit, but they can't build a single working one before that? Several thousand to build a single functional prototype is a drop in the bucket comparatively. This instills absolutely zero confidence that they could build anything... because well they've apparently built nothing except a preorder website full of mockups.
"While we don't have any physical prototypes at the moment, we have the industrial design and also largely understand how this will be built."
No. You have to build it before you can sell it.