Hi everyone. It’s been a busy month over here at Grounded Labs. In this update we’ll be showing off all of the efforts involved in scaling production to get tables delivered to you as quickly as possible. We’ll also talk more about Side Table Beta Shipments and share some additional learnings from Coffee Table testers. Let’s jump right into it. 

Production Scaling

Given the positive results from beta testing, we’re moving forward with full-scale production. One of the biggest challenges has been finding a supplier for the wood shell who can handle the 5000+ tables we need to produce in a relatively short amount of time without sacrificing quality. Our team on the ground in Vietnam visited half a dozen furniture factories, and we’ve split production of the shells between two factories to get tables delivered as quickly as possible. 

You can see photos of many of the shells we’ve made below. The factory isn’t the flashiest, but they’ve been producing very high-quality shells. Every surface in this factory was covered in a fine layer of sawdust.

The photo above only has around 100 shells in it, and we have thousands of tables to make. By utilizing two factories, we expect to be able to complete all of the shells within 6 weeks. In parallel we’re on the ground at our contract manufacturer training the team on table production. You can see some photos of our assembly space below. The contract manufacturer we’ve been working with for a few years just opened a new factory in Vietnam, and we’re the first ones to utilize this space.

Beta Testing

We touched on this in the last update, but overall we’re very happy with the results of coffee table beta testing. We identified a few mild mechanical changes that have already been implemented. We also squashed a few software bugs. Our biggest learning from beta testing was that we needed to bulk up packaging even further.

We shipped the beta coffee tables with very large custom pieces of foam, but still our shippers managed to shatter the glass top on two of the betas we shipped. We’re replacing the tables for those testers, and we designed some custom foam inserts that should improve the packaging further. We’re also partnering with a company that specializes in shipping oversized packages for the coffee table. 

Next up for testing is the Oasis Side Table betas. We did make some larger changes to the mechanics for the side tables, and you can see a few of the “engines” we’ve produced below. We plan on putting these into Side Table shells and starting beta testing in the next 2 - 3 weeks. We’ll select and email beta testers for the Side Tables in the next 2 weeks or so.

Timeline

Where does all of this put us as far as the timeline goes? We did have a small change due to the large effort that went into making sure that we find the best possible supplier for the wood shells. We’re expecting shipments to start in late September and continue into October and November. Coffee Tables will ship first due to their lower quantity followed by Side Tables. All shipments should wrap up before the end of November in time to be shown off for the holidays. 

Developing an accurate timeline has been challenging especially given the trade chaos of this year, and I apologize for the changes. At this point in the project, we’ve purchased or physically received many of the parts for production. This gives us significantly more confidence in our timeline estimates. We’re very eager to ship the Oasis Tables out to all of you, as I think the team has done an excellent job with design and production. 

As always, our small but mighty support team is the best point of contact for any order-related questions, and the best way to contact them is by emailing support@grounded.so