Every startup pinball company (with exception of Deeproot) is undercapitalized. The problem here is that even if they take the orders, even if they get deposits, it still doesn’t solve the capital shortfall. Gonna go to a bank with orders in hand ? Good luck, they only fund companies with 3 years of profitable books and only to the amount justified by the recorded profit. You get squeezed. All these orders, not enough capital to employ the people to make them or buy the parts. And so you fail. I am not saying Hagis will or will not fail here, I just understand their predicament quite well. Pre orders solve many problems for a young company but cause many others. And the lesson is no matter when you think you can deliver multiply it by 3-5X because you haven’t even begun to imagine the manufacturing challenges you face. I wish them good luck. And I don’t know why when we see these dilemmas arise time and again we act surprised. This is basic startup company 101, no matter the people, the industry, the product. It is in fact almost better to have no demand for your product initially so you can scale resources over time and achieve fixed capital expenses to lower marginal costs. Spooky did it right, but they also got a bit lucky in timing, people, demand, etc.

I think this is the challenge of all startups that build something, not just pinball. It is exceedingly difficult early on to get scale and timing right, especially in bootstrap mode with no margin for error.

I don't think they have any responsibility to feed the pinside horde, but hopefully they are at least keeping good contact with those that have paid in full without machines yet in hand.

One does wonder what his true breakeven point would have to be on current volume of orders. I suspect your $16K is not far off, and if so the thing was kinda doomed from the beginning unfortunately.

I’m surprised he can’t resort back to building 1 at a time in a garage somewhere like Celts. Yeah output is like 50 a year in that model, but at least it’s something. That would cut down labor costs dramatically and any inventory is a sunk cost at this point. One really only needs to recapitalize if a) he signed an unbreakable lease b) all his inventory is on credit c) he can’t even afford to pay himself as the only employee at the current build versus sales cost.