PSA: Elephant cleaning up wait list

[guido]

Sorry if this is redundant but...

Elephant sent out word that they are cleaning up the wait list. If you are on the list and wish to remain on it on should sent John an email
johnspeare@gmail.com

From the email:
...
Waitlist purge

Our waitlist is about 100 deep. There are some zombies on there and there are a number of people (I’m pretty sure) who have bought different bikes or are no longer interested in NFE. So here’s the purge plan:

If you want to stay on the waitlist (your spot will be preserved!): you must MUST send me an email and tell me so. Respond to this email and let me know. That’s it. Even if we just exchange email yesterday. Please do this asap.

If you want off the waitlist: do nothing. In two weeks, I’ll remove all the people who did not respond.

After those folks are removed, I’ll compress the list in its current order.

List is always here and up to date: http://tinyurl.com/p8mjxvw

Thanks for reading. And thanks for your patience,

John & Glen

[AngryScientist]

yea, if you want the waitlist to be a real thing, i think you need to hold people's deposit money to be on it. even with the best intentions, with no $$ commitment to be on a list, too many people will hop on, which could be a massive waste of time to sort out for a small operation.

if i were them, i would be asking for a small but meaningful deposit to remain on the list to find out who's serious.

[ergott]

if i were them, i would be asking for a small but meaningful deposit to remain on the list to find out who's serious.

Makes sense to me. $200 to clean up the queue.

[ColonelJLloyd]

yea, if you want the waitlist to be a real thing, i think you need to hold people's deposit money to be on it. even with the best intentions, with no $$ commitment to be on a list, too many people will hop on, which could be a massive waste of time to sort out for a small operation.

if i were them, i would be asking for a small but meaningful deposit to remain on the list to find out who's serious.

Fair point, but I'll bet how they've done it is working best for them. Rawland took deposits for the Ravn then made changes to the design and, of course, ETA. This pissed people the eff off and many demanded refunds of the deposit.

Elephant has just changed the fork on the NFE to a degree I'm certain would have caused a lot of people to ask for a refund of their deposit had they paid one. In this case not taking a deposit has saved Elephant some administrative and accounting hassle. They're making as many frames as fast as they can and selling them all immediately so I would argue they do not need the administrative hassle of herding cats (or bike nerds). At this point they're just in for the short amount of time of adding and subtracting some names from time to time from a spreadsheet.

[sparky33]

Elephant has just changed the fork on the NFE to a degree I'm certain would have caused a lot of people to ask for a refund of their deposit had they paid one. In this case not taking a deposit has saved Elephant some administrative and accounting hassle. They're making as many frames as fast as they can and selling them all immediately so I would argue they do not need the administrative hassle of herding cats (or bike nerds).

I wonder if Glen is looking forward to building a different bike someday. In any case, if they wanted to run things differently then they probably would. So it goes.

fwiw I like the new unicrown fork better. It is clean and functional. The not cracking part is nice too.

Also, with that kind of queue they deserve to charge more. Costs increase and there is value in having refined&fixed things...that bike for <$1400 is charitable pricing.