Great response
Good luck to you
When and where ?
Saw the video
I am currently working in The Bay Area and live in Emeryville. Saw your launch from Treasure Island. Have lots of experience with portable boats and can give you a fair review if you let me try it.
Sorry, that’s not correct
Stiffness of the boat has everything to do with the material and how the materials are applied to the design of the boat. I don’t know if the Orukayak is a good boat or not. However, a skin on frame kayak is completely different than a stiffened panel monocoque. In the skin boat, the lashed together frame takes both compression and tension loads with the skin adding to the strength, although it is only able to take tensile loads (the skin reduces the flexing that the frame alone would experience in use). A panel construction is different. The panels take both tension and compression without a supporting internal frame. Monocoque construction can be made very light, strong and stiff, but it is a high-tech solution compared to a skin boat, that can be made out of drift wood and animal skins. Everything has it’s place.
Odd? No demo days scheduled?
– Last Updated: Mar-31-13 2:42 PM EST –
Give it a rest.
Do you have a personal beef with this operation?
Start hassling Apple for being late launching their products.
Your whining here is getting old.
load distribution
Calling a flexible, stap-and-buckle construction a “monocoque” is a bit steep. Take a milk carton and try to make it “fail” by pushing ends up and towards the center. Hard, ain’t it? Now take another carton, cut the line on the top panel all the way to the sides and try flexing carton again. Line separates and carton fold “just like that”. Only the boat is NOT a carton, its length to width ration is higher, which makes things even worse.
So in fact i take what I said back, the load-bearing skin construction in this case IS a monocoque - with a fatal structural flaw - one that that usually makes monocoques fail - the seam is in fact a “crack” in the monocoque that takes the stiffness out if it.
I was not comparing Orukayak to skin-on-frame, I was merely pointing out that as far as structural integrity is concerned the stress transmitted though the load-beating skin will cause seam deformation and potential leakage. The monocoque argument is very fitting here in fact to highlight the limitation of the design.
maybe
Maybe he does the same thing on Apple forums under the nick of “Melanogaster” 
Besides, it is a factual statement - no demo days are scheduled and what better publicity would there be than to make 3-5 boats and invite a bunch of people to test them? Would pretty much either definitively float them or sink them.
Question might be expressed in a tad annoying manner, but it serves to highlight public concerns.
It’s not just a late launch
It’s prepaying for a product that isn’t available for demo anywhere (yet). A completely new product of new design, too–UNLIKE Apple’s devices which have a long track record.
Another interesting one
I didn’t even know these things had ever been marketed, but they do precede my entry into paddling:
http://www.paddling.net/message/showThread.html?fid=chat&tid=1605849
innovation vs. real word supply
Glad to see some responses from the designer/producer. But I’ll be waiting to see what happens.
To wit: I was manager and purchasing agent for an independent wilderness sports shop for several years back in the late 1970’s. We had a number of folks bring us really impressive and uniquely designed products, like one couple who had an entire line of frame, day, summit, shoulder and fanny packs made from all natural products like hemp and linen canvas, laminated wood and leather. We loved them and placed a large order, even persuaded them to give us several samples to put on display with their photo catalog. This was in early summer and we had tremendous response from customers to the packs, collecting a whole file card box of pre-orders for them. By Fall the makers were only able to send us about a dozen daypacks and shoulder bags. A few items trickled in until late November, at which point we finally tracked them down by phone (they had stopped returning calls around September) and they admitted they were having trouble getting quantities of the materials and labor they needed to fulfill their orders and had decided it was “too much hassle”. The frame pack “sample” we had bought for display was so popular we had to do a drawing to see which of the pre-order customers got it. The dozens of other customers we had to disappoint were very unhappy.
This happened more than once, which was discouraging since we tried to support small craftspeople and offer unusual and innovative items in the store. I have also seen it happen in the construction business, with new products heavily marketed to designers and engineers before the inventors can actually produce them, leaving contractors with specified design items they can’t procure. The term “unobtainium” becomes more than a joke. It’s great to have a brilliant design, but being able to produce it to meet market demand is a whole other game.
My advice to the Orukayak makers would be to get as many of the best prototype you have NOW out to the first line of buyers as Beta testers, with an express liability proviso and a promise to exchange them if they have problems or you do a major engineering change as the production ramps up. There could be no better field testing for useful feedback and it would greatly improve your marketing position. Just having ten or 12 in the water around the country would allay people’s skepticsm.
If you wait until you are “sure” the design is “perfect” you may lose all your momentum.
New product introductions
– Last Updated: Apr-01-13 2:42 PM EST –
I was in the rapid prototyping business at one time and saw many cases where the product was "marketed" well in advance of production to get a solid handle on demand before making significant risky investment in tooling, materials, packaging, etc. So, as not to skew the results, the responders to the "dry offer" were not notified of the conditional circumstances until after the order was received and were provided with the option of canceling. In the case of Oru, they are being very open and candid about the offer being pre-production and when delivery can be expected.
It is also not unusual for companies to offer pre-production deals to accelerate the recovery of their up-front investment (example: the many pre-publication book sales on Amazon, which are also an indicator for first printing quantities). If anything, I think Oru has been exemplary in their disclosure.
Full Disclosure ???
Have you watched their youtube videos?
Have you read the write up in tech magazines?
Bay Area is home of Vaporware …
Yes
– Last Updated: Apr-01-13 3:46 PM EST –
I've seen this Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH7m20x_Mjk) and it's plainly stated in it that, with the help of pre-orders, they'll be able to go into future production. I haven't seen any articles, but having published magazines and newspapers, know that the content of editorial material is determined by editorial staff, not the subject.
I haven't seen, nor have I expected to see, a Youtube or magazine article for any kayak that takes the order and discloses all the terms. I'd go to their website for that and, in the case of Oru, they clearly divulge that it's pre-production and state the terms (http://www.orukayak.com/pages/preorder).
Yes, but…
…I still say you Oru folk need to keep more current updates on the website. It would only take a few minutes a week to post a short blog report on the progress of production. I mean you made time to respond to my question on here, didn’t you?
And upload some additional and more current videos – I counted at least 3 prototypes in your videos. Get those folks that own them on the water, even on the road! Having only two 5 month old quickies on YouTube and no updates on the site since January bespeaks a “dead in the water” start-up to most people. Again, don’t lose your momentum.
Having worked most of my life in consumer specialty sales and project management and delivery, if there is one thing I’ve learned it is that a persistent stream of communication is the best operational protocol. Even if you feel you have no new (or good) news for your current or prospective clients, keeping them aware that you are working on things on a weekly or even daily basis inspires confidence and customer satisfaction and minimizes problems and frustration.
Sterling
I think Sterling is dong a good job of feeding a steady stream of updates, videos and pics as they rebuild and reload from their fire. Nice model for oru to follow.
Gotta love all the so called experts…
on this thread who have all the answers for how a start up company should do things. I just wish they would give the names of their successful company and what innovative product they’ve created and marketed?
suppose
you drive and are seeing that another guy’s wheel is about to come off - you won’t tell him cause ur not a mechanic?
Nothing wrong with people expressing their opinion about something, expert or layman it be. Stupidity lies in not giving an ignorant opinion (we all prone to that) - it is listening to one and taking it for a gospel.
The difference
People can discern between what is intended as constructive and what is acrimonious.