Central Standard Timing Re-Emerges, Plans To Liquidate Or Give Everything Away

11 4 3 dmoz

---

You may remember Central Standard Timing, the company that raised more than $1 million on Kickstarter to produce neat e-ink watches that look like slap bracelets with digital displays. The team behind the product said that they had simply run out of money to produce the watches, and all they have left are piles of components, technical specifications for assembling the watches, and an amazing plan that didn’t quite work out. In a final public post on their original Kickstarter page, the team blamed themselves and Flextronics, the California manufacturer contracted to produce the watches. Flextronics, they claim, is more used to production runs in the millions, not just a few thousand, and the company’s insistence on keeping information about its processes away from competitors is what kept CST from sharing as much with their backers as they would have liked. Responding to accusations that they spent a million dollars with nothing to show for it, CST produced a spreadsheet listing the parts that they’ll be getting back once the relationship with Flextronics is finally severed. This includes 100 fully-assembled watches, so that’s something. They’re left with two options now: they could find an investor to take over the project and produce the watches for real. The other option is to liquidate the company, selling off the parts that were produced, sending un-assembled watches and schematics to backers who want them, and a share of the proceeds from selling what’s left of the company for all backers. They concluded the update sounding appropriately contrite: We’d like to end with another apology from us to all of you for letting you down. As disappointed as we are in ourselves, we’re even more sorry to have disappointed our backers. We’re trying to keep our chins up, but we feel awful and are trying to resolve everything as quickly as we can. We’ll make every effort to get to the best outcome possible. An Apology to Our Backers + Parting Ways with Flextronics. [Kickstarter] (via Wareable) PREVIOUSLY: Watch Company Collects $1 Million On Kickstarter, Spends It All, Then Hides

1. by Laura Northrup
2. via Consumerist

First name:
Last name: