Hey Slidenjoy backers,

Such an amazing trip for us. We have so many things to share with you, that it's a huge deal to explain all of them in a single update, but we're pretty sure we can do it, so let's go for a bunch of news ! 

We hope this message will find you, and will reply to all your questions.
We apologize in advance for the long update, but we wanted to let you know about all our efforts and get you as much detail as we have before you ask another question already replied.

All we ask you is to read entirely the update, because every single point mentioned here has its importance :)

Charlee, Thomas & Laurent.

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The trip in Asia

Our 17 days-trip in Asia, has been a real success, and brought us to think we are really on the right path, on many fields. We mainly went to China, Taiwan & Hong-Kong, for the following points : 

• Going further in the production (see below);
• Taking part in the China Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen;
• Promoting the Belgian innovation with our minister and a delegation of top-belgian companies in IT/electronic fields, after having been selected from the pool of top applicants;
• Meeting accelerators such as HAX (sub-branch of THE ONE located in San Fransisco) and sharing with other Kickstarter founders on risks, how to avoid them... (we had the chance to meet CHIP founder btw) ;)
• Meeting distributors for the Asian market;
• ...
  

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Production

If we had to analyse our tasks, on a time consumption base, production would definitely take the first place, with an occupation of at least 70% of our schedule. Since we started working on Slidenjoy, it has always been a huge deal to meet every single comma, point, or expectation, but we have frankly and proudly managed to do so, in the short timeframe we gave us between the campaign, and the expected delivery timeframe. 

Since a few weeks now, and also because of the risks highlighted by the other Kickstarter founders met during our trip in Asia, also by sourcers and partners in Asia, we have been advised to change our suppliers, and select new ones who have already made their proofs, avoiding so any risk for your future use of Slidenjoy, and the sustainability of our brand/company. Regarding screens, we have decided to work with a sub branch of FOXCONN, providing us screens such as the ones you already have in most of your branded laptops, on which you're currently reading this welcomed update. 

We’ve spent hours and hours with all our suppliers here and abroad during the last weeks - and now that we have committed timelines with our manufacturing partners, we have a better picture of what’s possible at this volume and quality, as long as many points have already changed since the campaign (see below), always as a continuous improvement initiative.

Electronic chipsets

It is now time for us to proudly announce we have made the final choice of working, for the chipsets, with Displaylink, the world's leader in this field. We want the perfect product, and since that, we found a great interest in working with them, avoiding so, any technical risk that could have been met if we had chosen another way.

Buying their components, isn't by the way, that simple. They're usually establishing partnerships with companies, before delivering the chips, which is great for us, as long as they showed a huge interest in our product. The interview we had with their manager for EU area was a total success, and we are now dealing with them on that perspective, which definitely won't be a problem at all. We just opted for stability and professionalism rather than any other possibility.

You probably already know they are working on an adaptation of their soft, to give Unix users the ability to use their chips too, which is actually a great thing for us and for the future of Slidenjoy :-) 

Prototype

Our engineers have accomplished a great job on their side too. As mentioned previously during the last update, they are really on a such way, that we are 110% satisfied. There are several things that have changed since the first prototype showed in the first video, let's get back to it the next paragraph ;-)

Since the end of the campaign, and the latest selection of suppliers, especially a few weeks even before going to Asia, many things have been studied and adapted to select the best components, the best movements, and give you the best user experience you've never had.

Please understand upgrading all these things makes our first bench of production more expensive than expected, but you won’t be charged an extra Euro for a better result. We, all of us, decided to offer you a "second version", rather than a "alpha" one, for the same price.

We also want you to understand doing all these adaptations is going to change our supplying chain and shipping timelines. It just takes time to have the best results, so all we can do is ask for your patience, and we greatly thank you already, we are doing the best for you, our backers.

Upgraded features

We have upgrades functionalities, features and improved the use of the Slidenjoy — at no additional cost to you — that will absolutely make it a better product.
Please note that functionalities such as the touchable screens, retina versions, ... would take more time and of course would be too risky at that time of the company, to be incorporated in the current version of Slidenjoy, but the ones described here below are mainly based on the usability of the accessory, and has then become a must for your experience.

- Incorporated kickstand - You showed a strong apprehension about the removable magnetic kickstand so we worked on it, and designed a brand new tool, much lighter, much thinner, much easier. You will now have 3 positions to perfectly adapt the inclination degree of the accessory, depending on the way you use it.

- Easiness of the grab - Some of you asked several questions regarding the easiness of use, how you can start sliding the additional screens from initial position. Our engineers have added strings inside hinges, to simplify the opening and closing manipulations, so getting the screens out and putting them back in will be even easier than before.

- Level and square - Our latest battery of tests showed us a small imperfection when the Slidenjoy was used in triangle mode. Now, all alignments are perfectly level and square.

- Upgraded Materials - We decided to upgrade some of the materials on the Slidenjoy to be even better for you, from upgraded front caches, stronger and much motre hinges, a new magnetic bottle cap catcher, and more.

- Upgraded triangle mode - We decided to upgrade the stability of both additional screens when used in triangle mode. We magnetized both screens tranches so they automatically stick one to each other once they are turned to 60 degrees.

New website

A new website is on the way now. The current version is still far from being 100% done, but we invite you to keep an eye on it too ;-)

Delegating tasks, especially when they are strongly linked to your initial background is never easy to do. As you probably know, Thomas and I are initially web dev, but we have to admit we didn't have the time anymore to work on it, and that our web designers and developers have made an awesome work. 

www.slidenjoy.com

Slidenjoy in stores

As long as we decided to go wide, and develop the brand all over the world, we strongly focused our job during the campaign, which brought us to get in touch by more than 280 distributors, from all continents without even sending them any e-mail.

A brand, worthy of the name needs a huge set of distribution channels, well established, and selected with many criteria. When launching a product, you only have one single chance to make it sounds good, and become popular very quickly.

Online communication is one thing, offline distribution is another completely different one, so we are also starting to work on our distribution and marketing plan.

During the last few days we met, without the need to mention its name, one of the biggest distributors in the world, which showed a huge interest in your favorite triple screen accessory, and made us a very interesting offer to ensure the delivery of Slidenjoy in tens of thousands stores in most of countries. 

Of course, the delivery of Slidenjoy in all these stores will take place later, after your delivery. But we are so proud to know you are the people who trusted us and worked with us, coupled to the fact you'll definitely be the ones who will have the chance to enjoy their Slidenjoy before anyone else ! We can't find words for that. 

Delivery timeline

Since we’ve chosen to upgrade your Slidenjoy as described above, again with no additional cost to you, it will change our original delivery estimations. Any way you see it, producing so many Slidenjoy at this level of upgrade and quality takes time. Especially because all of our suppliers, partners, manufacturers, ... were chosen not simply on cost, but on their proven capability of making quality products at high volume, due to our tens of meetings in Asia, and all the risks that need to be eliminated from our timeframe and our whole production process.

We had originally expected, based on a truly established production timeline, a first delivery in December, which could have been done, for the initial amazing goal of 300,000€ (we ended up around 600,000€). Of course, that date was before we decided to adapt, and add all these new free upgrades for you.

Since the beginning, and as like as in any other business, we had two possibilities for our backers, our community, you (and of course our other pre-orderers) which were : 

1/ Delivering an "alpha" version of the product, in December;
2/ Going further in the development of our accessory, and elaborating deeper and deeper every single point that might have been a problem during the next months of the delivery, taking of course more time; 

As long as you all know how we work and our ambition to thank you for the amazing support during our campaign, and after, we decided to choose the option 2. 
We keep yelling we're not only producing a 1626 one-shot product, but really building a strong brand.

We’ve run thousands of slide/rotation movements optimizing the slide/hinges combination so it will work for a loooooong time. There isn’t a single component of Slidenjoy that hasn’t been fully analyzed and improved for practicability, and this is still not entirely finished, as long as many components have changed.

A few last adaptations are required from now, to entirely finish the engineering process of the new materials and components :

• Analysis of new services : 1 week;
• Creative Research : 2 weeks;
• Design Adaptation : 2 weeks;
• Cad Engineering : 3 weeks;

We now believe we will start shipping Slidenjoys in early Spring 2016, probably April. There is still a possibility of truncating this timeframe, and we may be able to ship some before this, but we clearly wanted to give you our best estimation of timeframe, from now.

These deadlines will of course be respected easily as long as they initially were with the very first prototype. This is just the same process, with a second version of Slidenjoy.

Meeting you more personally

2016 is a synonym of added value and international evolution of the brand for us. But it's also synonym of getting closer and closer with our community, you. We will still be very busy for the next few weeks/months, but as long as we are 3 co-founders, and are not working all on the same tasks, we are already planning to organize many conferences all over the world, show the very last prototypes, meet and exchange with you, to get a live feedback on our product. Here is a brief overview of the ones pre-selected :

• Apple Store, Brussels, Belgium - Jan 19, 2016

• CES, Las Vegas - Jan 6-9, 2016
• MWC, Barcelona, Spain - Feb 22-15, 2016
• Berlin, Germany - Mar, 2016
• GDC, San Francisco - Mar 14-18, 2016
• CeBit, Germany - Mar 14-18, 2016
• South America, - Mar, 2016
• NAB Show, Las Vegas - Apr 16-21, 2016
• Morocco - May, 2016
• Tokyo Game Show, Japan - Sep 15-18, 2016
• Ibc, Netherlands - Sep 9-13, 2016
• Futurecom, Brazil - Oct 25-28, 2016

That’s it for this long update.

Wishing you a cool, great and loving christmas and new year season.
Thank you once again for your trust, and your help, making this simple idea a great and huge success.