Wow, this was fun to wake up to!
Jur, really appreciate your continued input - balanced and informative as ever.
The design is special and I do believe the designer is doing all he can to make it happen.
I'm on the pre-order list and need to decide on committing the deposit in 20th or not.
Risk of delay aside, the question is how big a risk is there that the company will fail with orders (KS and pre-order) unfulfilled and investment/deposits lost.
Discounting the scam scenario, I guess the two key risk drivers are an insurmountable cashflow crisis or a design flaw in the product design or manufacturing process which results in the manufactured product ultimately being non-viable either from a quality standpoint or in terms of profitability at a marketable price point.
As has been observed in earlier posts, capital may have been eroded by delays and changes in manufacturing approach, in particular the unexpected need to invest up front in dedicated production tooling and capability. This could lead to cashflow issues.
Where he's got to and assuming a sound business case and proof of market interest e.g. a healthy pre-order book and the KS interest, would be significant positives if he needed to secure further investment. The track record of delay would of course count against.
On the sound business case front, inherent profitability is perhaps another question given the assertions by some that "you can't do a Ti folder at that price". Previous posts have highlighted the arguments against this concern: bulk pricing, Ti tubing not that expensive, relatively low spec components, the price hasn't been hiked for pre-order etc.
The second risk is the less graspable risk for me. The product design has been iterated numerous times and there seem to have been small numbers of prototypes. The design is pretty innovative and the current configuration of the organisation sounds light on actual manufacturing experience outside of equipment vendor support.
I'd appreciate people's thoughts on this and any further insight from backer comms.
I guess in the end, it's all a lot of speculation and comes down to how passionate you are about having the product ( pre-ordering may be a factor in keeping Helix alive) and how much you can afford to tank the deposit (I wonder if my credit card purchase protections would cover the deposit in the event of non-delivery?).