occurrence when trying to get new hardware to market. What puzzles him, though, is Hybra’s lack of engagement with its backers.
“If this technology does in fact exist, being open and present could salvage this while they iron out the kinks,” he says. “Updates posted to the Kickstarter campaign with news about the trials and tribulations could engage us and keep the support going.”
Thiel and I met in a conference room at TechTown last Friday so I could test the Sound Band myself and learn more about the company’s perspective on the beef with former supporters on Kickstarter.
The main delay in getting Sound Bands out to the people who pledged money on Kickstarter, according to Thiel, is that the audio transducers that worked fine during limited production runs turned out to be highly unstable during mass production. Like a lot of startups, Hybra also never anticipated that Kickstarter would react so enthusiastically to its product. Thiel thought they’d get a few hundred backers. When that number grew to almost 4,000, he admits, “it became more than we can manage.”
Thiel says that Hybra was working so hard to incorporate all of the worthy suggestions made by Kickstarter backers that it added to the delay. The company relocated from Traverse City to Warren, he says, to be closer to the engineering talent that it will take to finally get Sound Band to market.
“How much does it take to produce a Bluetooth-enabled headset with brand new technology?” Thiel says. “On average, it takes a 25-member staff and five million dollars to get it to production. We’re not a fly-by-night company. We’re one that’s spent millions to get this to market.”
Thiel is also clearly exasperated with what he perceives as endless, unwarranted bashing on Kickstarter. He says he’s reached out to some commenters privately, but his legal team has advised him not to address the most negative commenters. “We’ve spent over $1.5 million on this project, not including Kickstarter money,” Thiel says. “$540,000 [the approximate amount raised on Kickstarter] is really nothing. We only set up the Kickstarter to purchase components.”
It’s clear that Hybra is a legitimate company that makes the bulk of its money in other areas, such as LED lighting—Thiel says Hybra Energy is responsible for all of the LED lights on the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit to Canada. But it’s also clear that Hybra has played a part in the fight between the company and its Kickstarter backers. More than once during our conversation, Thiel characterized the disgruntled backers as a handful of guys living in their mothers’ basements with their cats. That sentiment sometimes comes across in the tone of Hybra’s Kickstarter comments.
“I have nothing to hide,” Thiel adds. “I handle things totally different from the previous staff members. I’ve spent four years of my life devoted to Sound Band. I’ve spent countless days away from my family working on this. My dream is to see this to fruition. At this point, I feel really sad. We put so much passion into this thing, and it’s been a daily bashing [on Kickstarter]. I think we’ve communicated better than most on Kickstarter, but it was never enough.”
Thiel says that, when launching the Kickstarter campaign, Hybra had not anticipated that the audio transducers would fail and lead to significant delays. It took calls to Taiwan, Europe, and China to figure out how Hybra might be able to modify the configuration so it would work. “It took 90 days just to identify the wiring issues,” he says.
Just last week, Hybra laid out a long-promised timeline on Kickstarter for finally getting Sound Band into the hands of backers. Though Thiel says it will take “a shitload more money,” the revised date of delivery is the first quarter of 2015. That date, though, hinges on a lot of unproven technology working the way Hybra hopes it will. The process will involve a lot of trial and error. “Even the manufacturers say they don’t know how this will work since it’s never been done before,” Thiel says.
Hybra recently hired a new vice president of engineering who is a high-level Bluetooth engineer, which should help the company move forward faster. (To shield him from harassment, Thiel declined to share his name.) Once the design of version five—the one meant for mass manufacturing—is solidified, Thiel says he’d like to build an assembly line to produce it in Detroit.
At the end of our conversation, Thiel got out version four of the Sound Band—the one that survived a limited production run but not mass manufacturing—and handed it over to me for a listen (see video below). I can confirm that it works even better than I expected. The sound quality is very impressive, and I sincerely believe that if this technology makes it to market, it will be a big success.
So, with that out of the way, I’d like to offer my take on both sides of the dispute.
Kickstarter/Facebook commenters: It’s tough to grasp how difficult it is to get hardware featuring never-seen-before technology to market, and how rarely deadlines are met. Hybra has made some communication missteps, but the company doesn’t seem to be operated by scam artists, and Joe Thiel is definitely passionate about the technology he’s spent so many years perfecting. I think it’s time to cut him a bit of slack.
As for Hybra Tech: Thiel seems to be a really smart guy brimming with innovative ideas. While the Internet definitely has its share of ne’er-do-wells, it would be a mistake to believe the majority of Hybra’s Kickstarter backers fall into that category. Hybra set delivery goals that were too aggressive, and then it got a bit defensive and vague when trying to explain why, instead of just plainly saying how difficult the task at hand was and is. It’s time to put the bitterness aside and focus on delivering the transformative technology that Thiel believes Sound Band to be. That will do more to quiet naysayers than anything else.
