So, I’m very aware that most of you are frustrated with the lack of communication from ChefSteps. But when we delayed Joule in May to fix shortcomings with our product I wrote, “… we don’t want to predict a new date that is nothing more than an informed guess that turns out to be wrong.”
Hence, I am responsible for the decision to not share speculative information about the status of Joule with our customers.
As of this morning, our information is no longer speculative. Our first shipment has been tendered to FedEx in China and we expect to receive those units in the United States on Monday. Shipments will continue to leave China via FedEx six days per week.
Our team is in place and ready to process those Joules on Monday and return them to FedEx the same day for final delivery. Provided that FedEx doesn’t let us down, some of you will begin receiving Joule on Wednesday. Each customer will receive a delivery confirmation email that includes their FedEx tracking number on the day their unit ships.
While a non-trivial number of Joules will be delivered between Wednesday and Friday next week, this does mean that most of you will not receive Joule in September. To avoid speculation that it could be months before everyone gets their Joule, I will share that our forecast has us delivering all of the preordered Joules in October.
Finally, there have been a few interesting rumors that I’ve read over the last couple of days that I do want to address:
Q: Is ChefSteps being acquired?
A: No, ChefSteps is not being purchased by another company, and we remain financially stable and independent.
Q: Is ChefSteps going to pull the plug on Joule?
A: Investing in a highly-automated manufacturing process, with a complex just-in-time supply chain isn’t something you do if you’re not deeply committed to making a product successful. We’re committed to supporting Joule for the long haul.
Q: This is a new product, by an unproven company, will Joule be unreliable?
A: While it’s impossible to know the statistical reliability of Joule until thousands of them have been used for thousands of hours, our engineering, manufacturing, and quality assurance teams are very good at their jobs, and they’ve collected thousands of hours of test data. They’ve made choices to deeply invest in automated manufacturing and testing at every stage of manufacturing. All critical assembly steps have been robotized for repeatability, and every Joule undergoes automated testing at several points during the manufacturing process. We wouldn’t be shipping if we didn't believe Joule will be reliable.
UPDATE [9/26/16] FedEx let us down today, and our shipment was delayed at the sorting center in Japan because there was no space available on the outbound plane. This isn't altogether surprising to us; the bankruptcy of Hanjin has distorted global shipping capacity and forced a lot of companies to shift to air freight to get products to where they need to be. FedEx is forecasting our delivery occurring tomorrow.
