I am a satisfied customer of BOTH LA and GAW. Both have their good and bad points, I won't elaborate about GAW on this thread, however. I do want to reiterate my advice for being a happy customer with LA, which is mostly an issue of managing your own expectations and providing for the fact that LA is essentially a one man company (Jack). Keeping in mind that Jack seems to handle marketing, pricing, logistics, supplier relations/product design, shipping, and finance all by himself (with tech support recently handed over to Andy/Henry) - that is a lot for one person!!! Yes, Jack should delegate many of these tasks, but he is ambitious and hungry, and so he doesn't. I completely disagree that the "one man band" approach is a bad thing or that it reflects badly on the industry. It is a fundamental reality in emerging tech that you will have one man bands. Some of these will turn out to be hugely successful (Yahoo!, Apple, HP, and many others started as 1-2 man projects in a garage). If you deal with LA, you are dealing with Jack so keep that in mind and follow some simple guidelines to stay a happy LA customer:
(1) Always ask Jack to provide a "drop dead" date after which point Jack agrees to refund your money. This is typically a week or so after his target date in my experience, though it does sound like he is trying to improve that. Still, be very clear and simple - "After date MMM DD YYYY, you will refund my money if my miner hasn't been shipped, correct?" Make sure Jack confirms such and you are set. FWIW, Jack beat the drop dead date 2/3 orders, and barely made it on one order. On 1/3 orders of mine he was inside the "target" date which is what he will usually quote. As an aside, GOOD LUCK getting a drop dead date from anyone else (except maybe GAW, I haven't tried asking for a drop dead date with them, since they provide comp for late delivery). The fact that Jack would give me drop dead dates is the reason I went with LA for the old Gridseed 5 chips in the first place.
(2) 2-3 days before your drop dead date, Skype with Jack and ask if shipped. Remind him that (a) your target ship date is past, (b) your drop dead date is MMM DD YYYY and only
- days away, after which he agreed to refund. Ask him to confirm he will be able to ship by drop dead date or else refund. The one time Jack barely made my drop dead date, this "reminder" was what got the product out the door.
(3) Communicate with Jack directly on any large order or for information pre-sales. He is very reachable via Skype, and also sometimes by PM. Posting here sometimes works too, but Skype is best IMHO. Jack is a nice guy, very honest and forthright in my experience. But everything in China (Asia generally) is about personal relationships. Treat Jack with respect and communicate with him. Jack is a smart guy too, so don't talk down to him but remember his English is imperfect (though infinitely better than my Mandarin lol). You may need to repeat things, ask for confirmation, restate what you understand him to be saying etc. Make sure any agreement with him is crystal clear before you order. But at the same time, don't treat Jack (or anyone for that matter) like your personal servant. He is in this to make money, and he is very good at it. Treat him like a business partner and you will be treated the same by him.
(4) Become a regular. This goes along with #3. Jack values repeat business. So become a repeat customer. My observation is that Jack/LA tends to get Gridseed/Innosilicon products before anyone else, but the initial order may be limited. So Jack is going to send those early units to his most loyal customers, which is not necessarily the biggest customer either. I am small potatoes (3 orders total with Jack), but go my LA90M long before I could have received it anywhere else even though my order quantity of 1 was not very enticing. But I am a repeat customer and have been supporting LA since Jack's first post - not because I have to, but because I believe Jack is honest, hardworking, price-conscious, and an early adopter ... all of which I value highly.
(5) Post reviews of LA's products. Jack is very stingy about handing out free product for reviews (e.g., I don't think he does anything for reviewers). I have suggested to him that he give someone like Dogie a free miner to write a professional review, but Jack prefers to have his paying customers do reviews. So write reviews when you get your products. This will help provide Jack with critical feedback, further your relationship with Jack/LA for future orders, and inform potential customers/members. FWIW, in both of my reviews posted earlier, I have been critical of some aspects of the product (especially the closed source drivers, and lack of login information for SSH access - both of which really irk me), but Jack has been very appreciative of the reviews nonetheless.
(6) If you have a problem, before you post here skype with Jack directly during business hours in China. I do not understand why so many folks have had customer service issues, so I can only guess that either they have not tried going direct to Jack via Skype, or they have been discourteous to him. For example, compare the following two conversations, and consider if you were a busy entrepreneur which you respect to:
"Hi Jack! Hope you are well. I just wanted to let you know that I haven't received my order that was supposed to be shipped last week. You said that the absolute latest ship date would be tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure you have shipped (or will ship by tomorrow as promised). Can you please confirm?"
vs.
"My order is late and I am losing money. I can't pay my rent. I am going to sue you if I don't get the miner next week."
Okay, maybe the last is over the top, but from some of the posts earlier maybe not. In any case, you get the point. Treat Jack as a business partner and he will treat you the same.
Best regards,
Z
