I believe some issues have been slightly blown out of proportion and a lot of new users who don’t know much about the company are making conclusions out of context, or at least without any experience with the company.
However, several of the complaints that were made by users of great experience here, are definitely coming from places many of us have been in before. Tigerlilly, Ooohyahhh, future, sillykitty, etc have been with this company in their ups and downs and I think they are definitely qualified to make certain criticisms that may sound harsh, but are in the long run constructive and important for the company if they want to continue to be considered not only the pheromone company with the most effective products, but one with the best relations and respect from their customers.
Steve has always been great when answeting questions when asked directly (at least he has been in my experience), but it is true that sometimes things get lost in translation, or that lately the forum feels like it has lost transparency and (I hope I am wrong in this) some of its treasured honesty.
Let me say that I love this company, because it has always taken care of its customers no matter what and that it has always strived to keep everyone happy (as impossible as it is sometimes). I really hope this continues, and that the growth the company has experienced is not affecting the original vision it seemed to once have.
However, many important opinions and point of views have been shared and the most solid criticisms have been made. What I would really like to see now is simply a response by those behind the curtains that deals with what we really all are waiting to hear.
Jasmin, MHarris, and even Steve: you are the only ones who truly know what is going on, and although we respect that a company cannot share everything all the time, I think an update on what is going on would definitely make us feel much better. I will ask directly the questions I personally would like to see addressed and hope to recieve an answer. I ask them as respectfully as I can:
What has been going on with the copulins? Is Michael Storer still working with Androtics? Has the company made progress or what has been setting the company back?
Is commercial Ammo still in the works, or has the company decided it isn’t going to pursue this idea anymore? Is the original scent not going to be reformulated, or has it not passed your standards?
I’d love to hear about where the company is standing right now, what plans it has, or what is is working on in the present.
I will of course trust that any statements made by androtics are honest and do not doubt the legitimacy of the company and I believe a few updates and answers would be greatly appreciated.
Hello.. I think I wasn’t clear enough in my post. I was just saying that it seems like there have been some sketchy business practices and that can easily dissuade new customers. Jasmin gave me a call but I wasn’t around, so I haven’t talked to her yet. As of right now… I think I’m going to take the “mature” route here and ignore this until I get my products and play with them. Forget I posted anything!
I only want to add one more thing to this thread and then I’m off to sleep. I’ve been away from the boards for a couple of weeks with just a few pops in to say a few things. So, all of this is pretty fresh for me. And because I wasn’t following this I seem to have a little bit of a longer perspective on it forwards and backwards, and I’m not so wrought up about it as everyone else is.
There were some baseless accusations made, and a lot of inflammatory talk has been going on - all very emotional - and not at all based on any facts. Someone started this sling fest, others chimed in, others felt attacked, or decided to jump in to defend someone they thought was being attacked.
This is a typical flame war going on and it is ridiculous in the extreme.
First of all, Androtics provides us with products to test at or below cost, so that we can report on them. They do gather the data… just talk to Steve on one of his down days when he is swamped with data trying to get it together and you won’t be talking about “window dressing” any more.
They do not owe anyone access to their proprietary or test formulas. To want those given out when they are trying to develop/design products is a ridiculous demand, and it is not going to happen. Just go over to LS and demand the same things and they will laugh their asses off at you.
Everyone is bitching about copulins. Well, I’m working on a formulation and have been for months. It is not as easy as y’all would want if you don’t want to deal with hazardous chemicals or use non-natural sources and synthetic chemicals. Y’all will have to wait. I’m going into surgery next week and I’m off the project until my health is under control, hopefully, very, very soon.
Tisha knew from the start, btw, that I’m working on this project. This makes her accusations around copulins even more surreal to my mind. She knows that it won’t be much longer, because I’ve kept her up to date on my progress all along. I haven’t let many people know about it, because it is all experimental right now, and there is no sure guarantee that my process will work. But there you go… if I can provide 100% natural copulins in the right ratios, they will be available. And if not, well, we learn something very valuable. I have every faith that I will be able to do this, but it takes real work and time, and all the false accusations and demands in the world won’t speed the process up.
About the changing structure of Androtics … again a lot of crap is being slung without a single bit of actual factual data. You can conjecture all day long, you will still not know what is going on in the background of Androtics. And they don’t owe you anything other than to provide you with low cost pheromones to test, that work, btw. That is why you all are here, correct? Okay, so they got excited about some company changes that they are poised to make. We don’t know exactly what those changes are, or what the holdup is. But so what? Again, I just think it is ridiculous for people to be demanding that they want it right now, whatever it is. "I don’t know what* it *is, but I want it right now!!!" How silly.
As far as honesty and integrity, that bit blew me away. Does no one else remember back when Androtics informed us all that they were low on cops and we couldn’t add them to our orders any more, and that until they solved their vendor/cops problem the new batches wouldn’t have them? Am I the only one? What a non-issue that is, but a few flames and look at all the brush fires that one little statement caused! We all knew IS/A and B wouldn’t have cops in it after the stocks ran out because they were totally up front with everyone about it - that there were no more cops. That is why Lust After Me is not available.
And here is the kicker for me… Since we are all a testing community, and reports have been made about batches that weren’t up to par, and Tisha was supposedly reading all these posts, don’t you think it would have been nice to try to find out who/what/where was going wrong so that Androtics could address the issue? Did you see ONE single post from Tisha regarding potential problems and asking for forum member feedback so the issues could be addressed? I didn’t. All I saw were accusations and flames for weeks and not a single request for DATA.
This was and is a non-issue. Sometimes the new batches/mixes suck. We need to report that. Negative results are just as valid and valuable as positive ones, maybe even more valuable. And in a testing community that is supposedly uncensored so that the data can be collected as cleanly as possible, that kind of data *is *valued.
And if there is a problem with a Consumer product, that needs to be addressed, absolutely. But the company has yet to not honor their 100% money back guarantee if any of their consumer products do not work. So if the consumer product doesn’t work and you send it back, and they refund your money, they get the message really quickly and fix it. What is there there that is dishonest or lacking in integrity?
Anyway, I’m saddened that this drama has temporarily derailed some testers from testing and gotten them riled up on both sides.
I wish Tisha the best. I hope she finds what she is looking for.
Meanwhile, do you think we can get off the emotional roller coaster and start testing and reporting again?
LittleLady, I just still wanted to write that because I’m sure lots of other new users are reading and getting the same impression you initially got. Sorry, I had to use your post as an example (well I hinted at it), but did not mean to single you out.
By the way littlelady, to give you my opinion, keep the mx135, I think you really will like it even if it is meant for the more experienced users. I as a guy have experimented with it, and found that at low dosages it is actually really lots of fun (I gotta keep it low though and put some -none on because it gives a girly vibe that may come off as a gay vibe on a guy). As a girl you will be able to wear more of it and see good results that I predict you’ll notice easily.
My post was really just meant bring some calm to new users, but mostly address the concerns of many of us.
Good luck with your experimenting!
Diane I’m not trying to pick a fight with you or anyone else but,
I’ve just read your response and it seems just as emotional as any other comment on this thread.
I must disagree, this is not a flame war, many of these arguments are reasoned and presented well, I’m actually surprised that many of the members have stayed above the fray and not resorted to personal attacks.
I don’t think anyone is asking for Androtics’s proprietary formulas, I do think members are asking for more clarity from the company.
While I understand that Androtics provides testers with discounted prices on their products, this discussion has been centered around the consumer products, not the experimental mixes. By definition the experimental mixes are being constantly tweaked. Androtics does a good job by releasing tests packs for testing in order to get greater feedback on possible variations of an MX. They even go as far as changing the MX number when a new scent profile is released.
However, this discussion has been centered around the consumer products, products that come with not just a money back guarantee, but a guarantee that Androtics as a company stands behind each an everyone of their sales. A company’s reputation is more important than their products, if customers lose confidence the quality of their products won’t be a factor.
You are probably correct in stating that any careful reader of the forums could probably surmise that IS.A and IS.B where temporarily removed from the products. Although, I have been around for a few months and have myself been confused on the issue. There are many contradictory posts in regards to that topic. However, Androtics is not just looking for a testing community, they are looking to develop a viable business that appeals to the mainstream. Not every new customers has extensive time to peruse the forums, it is to the benefit of the company to have easily accessible information either on smartmones.com and on the forum.
Finally, it is great that you are working on your own copulins formula, and while your progress may be helpful for future products, it is not really relevant to this discussion. As far as I know you are not an Androtics employee, and any progress you may have made in your individual research only carries the authority of your status as a forum member, although a very senior one.
It is obvious from reading your post that you are very passionate about Androtics, their products, and this forum, but I do think that your post has failed to provide any real answers. The concerns need to be addressed by Androtics employees, Steve, Jasmin, or MHarris, after all they are the only ones with the knowledge and authority to field these questions.
I have been following this thread with interest even though I am not the complaining one. But I think your post here is irrelevant of the issue raised by the ladies here.
Nobody is asking for the formula of the products.
Nobody is demanding ridiculously for copulin to be added immediately. They just feel upset that they are not informed that copulin has been taken out from some products.
I am not sure what you do in your project but your ‘project’ has nothing to do with the issue here because you don’t represent Androtics. Furthermore, nobody is complaining about the right amount of copulin to be added to the products.
The consumer products come with a money back guarantee. If the product is faulty, send it back. End of issue.
Once again I’ll try to be the voice of reason here.
The Consumer Products are also subject to change. Case in point is A314. Originally, it was formulated with 8 pheromones. It has been tweaked again and again both with formulation and scent. Today it has 16 pheromones I believe. We can label that practice as anything you want to label it. But the fact is, Androtics is the one who is investing all their effort and money and creative energy into formulations, not you, not me. And they can formulate any way they please. Other than the original A314 formula, which was sold, Androtics has yet to do a full commercial launch of any product. Until then they are all still in development.
And I think to characterize Androtics as somehow out to get the consumer, after their long history of having exactly the best customer relations anyone has ever seen is so hokey, it just blows my mind.
I think the issue comes in here as to whether this is a pheromone testing community and pheromone use support forum, which I’ve always viewed it as, or as just a site designed to push products. I think I know where the majority of forum members stand on that view, and it isn’t in the pusher category.
And they do stand behind their products, hence the guarantee.
See, this is exactly where the problems come in and why they eventually want to separate out the experimenters/testers and those who are only looking for ready made consumer products. This site is for support of users of the consumer products, not a site designed to increase their sales. The issues regarding this have arisen time and again and it has cost the company tons of money providing putatives, for example, to new “testers” below costs, who never, ever report on what they’ve bought.
If the forums had been separated out, the new formulations of IS/A and B, without cops (because there aren’t any) would have gone to the testers first. And it would have been a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and no worries about “follower syndrome.”
I know, and so does everyone at Androtics, and any members who remember when Androtics ran out of cops, that Tisha knew IS/A and B would be formulated without cops in them once the old batch ran out. The fact that she also knew that the company is working diligently through several different avenues to provide the absolute best copulin formula or effective analog to their clients makes the issue very relevant. The fact that knowing all of the above, instead of reporting on the product as ineffective or faulty, she chose to paint Androtics as nefarious, is relevant.
I’m passionate about the facts, chasm.
Steve, Jasmin, or Mike have no reason or responsibility to stoop to defending themselves from baseless accusations, innuendos, and demands. It wouldn’t even be an issue if it weren’t for Tisha making them. Anyone else coming on this board and saying the same things would have been boo’d off the stage. And you know it.
Those of us who are passionate about testing pheromones and get the data collection part of it, aren’t distracted by this kind of slight of hand. If you’ve read any of my posts you know that I am not a cheerleader for Androtics or tried to sell any of their products. I’ve reported as truthfully and accurately as I could, good results and bad, positive reactions and negative, and where my results have differed from other testers I’ve also discussed that - even when some tried to argue me out of my results.
People seem to forget that Androtics is mostly about experimental molecules and pheromones and mixes. Eventually they may be mostly into consumer products and I hope they are successful at launching many. But until they get the two divisions separated and separated fully, there is going to be problems.
A regular consumer shouldn’t be required to dig back through data to find something that might work for them, nor should they be subjected to all the reporting. They should just be able to come on a site, ask what would work for their particular needs and have it handed to them. Then there are no issues about changing formulas or test mixes. “Buy it, if it works, great! If it doesn’t, send it back for a full refund.” No worries.
And the biggest problem is that on a forum this size it is impossible for most people to read all the posts or to remember what they have already read. And most people can’t be bothered to go and do a message search to actually look at what someone has said over time. It is really easy to make accusations and have them believed because of it. And whether you believe the accusations or not depends on if you get the experimental nature of this or not. If you get it, the accusations are ridiculous. If you don’t get that, then it is about integrity of formula, and feeling betrayed when the formulas change.
And it is easy to misconstrue and take things out of context. And once one person starts something like this people get more than worried, they get frightened. Hence we get more accusations based on nothing but fear. And so it goes.
If Steve, Jasmin, and Mike started trying to address all these baseless accusations and innuendos it just drains hours of time and massive energy in drama and produces nothing constructive. And why should they? Take the time to read back through the forum, read even just a few months back and put it all together and you get a bigger picture. And if you are a consumer, sorry you got caught up in this. And if you are a tester, remember why you are doing what you are doing.
But that statement isn’t true, James. We were informed, back when Androtics first ran low on copulins. That is why we haven’t been able to get Lust After Me, and why Mystery Boy and Dirty are gone from the shelves. We were told that when the IS/A and B ran out that they wouldn’t have cops in them, unless they could get a new supplier. This whole thing was a non-issue from the beginning.
You wouldn’t know any of this unless you were on the women’s forum.
My project has everything to do with this since this whole issue of no cops is what propelled me into the project in the first place 4 1/2 months ago. And in this regard, everyone at Androtics and Tisha have been aware of it from the beginning.
Why do you think they were/are working with Michael Storer for a copulin analog? Think!
If you want the whole story go back 7 months and read all the ladies forum posts from that time onward. None of this is news, none of it is anything like it has been painted.
You know something, I was gonna stay out of it but I feel the need to say something in my defense.
For one, yes I know you were working on copulins because you told me and I always encouraged you. You asked me to keep it quiet and I did. Its not really what the members are voicing there opinion about though.
Your making copulins has nothing to do with what started this or what its about. While I to am confident you will do a good job its really not relevant.
I didn’t make " false accusations". I stated facts. Facts that Steve was aware I was going to post before hand and encouraged. I asked him should I or shouldn’t I ? His answer. They want honest accurate feedback so yes go ahead.
No one is demanding they want it right now. Your missing the whole point. They are asking for more communication from the people who know. No matter what the answer is… They could say one year or next month but at least acknowledge the questions and concerns from the members. That’s what its about Diane. You want honest accurate feedback then give honest accurate information. Its been almost a year since they addressed it and the women feel they are not being listened to. Sure you can call the office and talk to them but not everyone is going to do that and Steve could only say so much.
We are not talking about a test product we are talking about a consumer product. Again it has been address by Androtic that structural change is coming. This was over a year ago and then nothing was ever mentioned again. Once again lack of communication. Sure I could tell you guys what coming but its not my place to do so.
You don’t think I addressed it with them again and again ? Don’t you dare question my honesty or integrity or the job I did on this forum when I was moderator. I busted my ass for these people and I busted my ass for the forum members here. They were well aware there was distress among the female members. I spoke to Steve all the time and talked about the concerns that were being voiced to me. He heard me and understood but the people who had the ability to address and fix the problem didn’t listen.
I do read every post and I did make them aware there was a problem with some of the feedback coming in. Before I posted on it I tested for myself. The issue of copulins has been going on in this forum since 2006 You’ve been here 9 months and I know you think you know all there is to know but you don’t. I have been here over 4 years and have stood by this company through bottle leakages and orders that were taking weeks to get to the members due to the move, through censorship problems, through a dishonest lab tech that screwed up all the mixes. I have seen it all and I have backed them up every time. I spent countless hours helping new members learn to use the products and grow comfortable in this forum. Don’t you dare question my motives or my integrity
Bottom line people…
Androtics did state that they were low on copulins and they did say they were reserving them for the mixes. That is not the issue. The issue is they didn’t say anything when they finally did run out in mixes. We are asking for communication, to be heard and acknowledged.
I talked to Jasmin yesterday and I told her. Its not just about copulins. The women of this forum have come to me countless times because they feel they are not being heard. Its why we lost some long time experienced women testers. When the men “bitch and moan” about something they are on it right away. They may not be able to fix the problem but they acknowledge it and respond. Before you say “why didn’t you just tell them” I did again and again they didn’t hear me. I feel this time she did and they will consider our view and concerns
Androtics is a excellent company with excellent products that made a communication mistake. They are not trying to cover anything or deceive anyone. Its great to keep things light and fun but sometimes you need to address the issues. They took some things for granted and they are human just like the rest of us.
They hear you now ladies… It took a loud noise to get their attention as it often does when people take things for granted … but they hear you now and they are reaching out. I suggest you reach back constructively and convey your needs and wants while they are listening.
While I am clearing the air I may as well mention this…
I am not leaving because of copulins or because Androtics did something dishonest which I Do NOT feel they did. Or because of the rumors a certain someone is spreading about me being mad cause I wasnt paid. They took care of me.
A moderator can only be as effective if they have the trust and respect of the members. I told you all countless time I work for you not for Androtics. To gain that trust and respect you need the administration to back you up just like I backed them up all these years. The moderator is the go between for the members and the company. They failed to back me one to many times and they failed to hear me when I voiced the members concerns. It became obvious that due to comments like the ones Diane made above about my integrity and other behind the scenes things going on with the members that ya’ll thought I didn’t know about that certain members lacked that trust and respect for me and were attempting to undermine my position and authority here. If the admin.. had backed me up as I did them it would not have been a issue but they chose not to.
It became obvious when I received a scathing PM that accused me of being shameful and having trust issues that no matter how hard I fight for the members or this company without the administrations support I can not be effective. it was the straw that broke the camels back.
Damn right I brought it up. Because I do have integrity and care about the consumer and because I was encouraged to so they would see the obvious answer from the members when they responded since they didn’t listen to the answers that were given to them. Yes that’s right, told to. Then when it came time to back me up I was left out to dry. So get off your fucking high horse. You like facts then don’t pretend you know them when you don’t.
Boo’s for what Diane for telling the truth which is what they have always asked for from the beginning. Truth works both ways dear.
Dont try to tell people what I knew. I talked to them everyday and I know what I was told and what I told the members here. Steve knows it to and can thank you all he wants but its not me being shameful. At no time did I try paint them as nefarious and I will say it flat out. You lie and not only here on this forum but with a few things you have said about me to people in PM’s. I stated in my post that yes I was upset they didnt say anything but the product was still good and the company still number 1 in CS and quality.
I suggest you read it again and get your facts straight. Im Distressed
I was not going to post on this, but Diane, that is my recollection as well. At the same time, I can see some validity to criticisms of how clearly this was communicated.
And I would like to concur with OohYahh that if products are being tweaked, but reporters are not provided with codes to report that will identify the exact tweak to Androtics, the reporting doesn’t mean much, because they can’t possibly keep track of what batches everyone has at any one particular moment. This wouldn’t involve giving everyone their proprietary mixtures, just codes or dates.
I have been operating under the assumption that none of my Androtics products have copulins in them. Moreover, it was my understanding that before their previous copulin formation ran out, instant sexiness only had a “trace” of copulins (I believe Tisha posted this to me but I am not going to go dig out the thread) – given what I now know about copulin-enhanced products (other brands I have tried), a “trace” is not going to make the difference between an effective and ineffective product, IMO. Anyone with a functioning olfactory sense is going to know whether a product has a significant amount of copulins in it.
That being said, since we are airing grievances, the one thing that really bothers me on this forum is the censorship. Either this is an uncensored forum or it is not, just don’t claim it is uncensored when it is not. Either we are free to discuss other companies’ products or we are not. I have found the secret rules tiresome, childish, and unprofessional. At least two people have been banned from the forum in the last couple of days. One of them voiced criticisms, but (again IMO) they were not what I would consider inflammatory. The banning of any mention of one particular competitor has, IMO, backfired terribly.
Yes I did say trace amount unfortunately it did make a noticeable difference to the seasoned users and some of the new members who ran into trouble.
I will repeat what I have said even in my first report on the lack of copulins. This dosnt mean the product was ineffective at all. It still brings hits it just didnt have the kick of the previous formulas.
Since we are exchanging quotes and are questioning my integrity…
Exchanged one month after the customization of copulins was removed from the store because of a shortage of cops The guys were asking for Dirty. At this time I called about it and asked if this meant that the ladies product didn’t have copulins any more. I was told they stopped with the heavy cop formulas and the customizations but had enough to maintain the consumer mixes,…
I scoured this forum from head to toe. No mention of lack of copulins in the consumer products. In fact it was implied otherwise.
Still Bottom line is they didn’t try to deceive anyone or cover anything up. Everyone one is guilty of assumption. Some assumed it was not in the product… Some assumed it was… Androtics assumed we knew about it…
Simple miscommunication which have now been responded to and acknowledged. Its a mistake we all can learn from or continue to produce a war over.
I vote for learn from it and encourage more communication on the forum between management and the consumers here in the forum. Cause I am not going to be here to do it for you.
i don’t wanan get involved dont even know why im posting
all i have to say is
people make mistakes, accept it and forgive them.
and to AD/SM imo you should post on your product description on the store exactly what is in it to avoid this. The you can say if you read the description it states exactly what is in it.
i to am in sales, i sale motorcycles, i can not sell an 883 as a 1200 xD
anyways forgiveness is always great, steve will make mistakes, tisha will make mistakes, i will make mistakes we all will, just gota forgive and learn from them.
Ah this is a great post. I think you get to the heart of the misunderstanding here, which was really puzzling me. Thank you for kindness and understanding here.
I certainly apologize upfront for any misunderstanding, and I’ll do my best to elucidate away any confusion as I can. I will also study this situation and upgrade communication processes to make things better in the future.
The only active consumer mixes with our (mostly plant based) copulins (or any kind of so-called “copulins”) around that time were Lust After Me and Dirty.
If you do a google search of androticsdirect.com (and google’s data is still kind of old, so it’s not like we changed this or some other deceptful thing you might see a truly dishonest company like pherlure do), you’ll see that we didn’t really have many products with copulins.
This description has not been edited since we started. You can use both Google’s cache and archive.org to verify this.
It was never, and has never been advertised (meaning at smartmones.com) as containing copulins, although we certaintly did mention it on the forum at for the time it time.
The timeline goes something like this:
V1.0 had none. From what I can tell from our note (I’m not the master of the women’s context here )… Due to requests (some women are copulin crazy and WILL tie up phone lines and saturate email with anything remotely copuin related!), we put them in for a very brief time with v1.1. Then sometime is either very late 06 or in 07, when our reserves were low, we took them out again and moved to 1.2, where the version has remained.
This is not even necessarily something that Steve would know, since I don’t think he was even a client at the time the versions changed over. He’s been with us for awhile, but not forever. He seemed to make an honest mistake of simply speaking out of what he knew to be true.
At that time, btw, we had Jasmin on the phone for something like 10 to 14 hours a day. Just an amazing amount of time. There was really no one on the forum that we didn’t talk to verbally. We were as close to our customers as we could be.
At that time, a lot of notice of changes, and supply warnings, were issued verbally. We did have the expectation (perhaps wrong on our part) that this information would then be shared with the forum publicly.
I’m sorry for expecting something that was perhaps unrealistic. I do not know, however, how we could always function without making a communication mistake or deletion. Sometimes you innovate things far faster than you can publicly edict. Mostly I think of large, “make a big deal out of this” public notices and edicts as a function for ethical & mission positioning statements to establish a culture, as well as a function of marketing when you really want to sell a product (and we don’t really do much “marketing” yet – not the really flashy, get-attention type anyway)
We did try emailing a bit early on when there were changes, but… honestly, a lot of the time we were afraid to email clients about basic notices over little things, because we’d see a huge spike in sales. A spike we could not handle. We simply did not have enough people power at the time. An nowadays, oh my gosh, even though we have more people and capacity, if we emailed over 16k people… we might get the gears all jammed up again.
There is always a downside to every upside. It’s tough to consider some of these things.
A sort of “soft notice” is probably best for our type of R&D store model, but I guess sometimes nobody is going to catch a small bit of text, or understand that what we share on the phone about certain product or mix changes might best be shared far and wide on the forum.
I will deeply consider how to handle this. As I mentioned before, again, a sort of “Bugtrac” system or changelog as they use at sites like Sourceforge, might be best. That might be the best way to distribute information without unduly flooding ourselves with sales, and creating an order & customer service situation that we are not prepared to handle.
Ok, I think this is the key right here. It’s understanding what Jasmin meant. I’m sorry it wasn’t more clear, but I’ll explain it here.
To me, this means we have no copulins we’re going to sell to you. It means we have inferior level copulins and we’re not going to give them to you, because we actually like our people. I’m pretty sure this is what many people would think when they read this, but I’m guessing that without further details you might not fully understand why Jasmin said what she said.
Again, I’ll explain it.
See, even now, we have gallons of what someone out there thinks are “copulins”.
We disagree.
We think it’s a bunch of doctored vinegar.
We also have smaller amounts from different formulators of what THEY think are copulins. Again, we disagree. We think one might be diluted dog poop (ok, that’s not our exact suspicion, but it sures smell like it!), while another one (this one from a “competiting” company) smells like Welches’ grape juice.
We’re not going to take your hard earned money and give you some doctored vinegar, dog poop equivalent, or grape juice, like some other folks do. Does that make us evil?
If so, that’s exactly the type of evil I want to be. I want to be so evil, I won’t sell people garbage, even when they desperately want to buy it.
That’s just our choice, and I ask you to respect that, and see how we actually meant this to be a GOOD thing. A kind thing.
It’s no different, really, than how Apple held out on a miniature laptop until they came out with the MacBook Air.
Lots of people wanted a small Mac laptop right away, but some reason, even though Apple has almost infinite investor money, AMAZING amounts of the world’s most talented employees, as well as over $30 billion of CASH in the bank (unusual for any corporation, since the tax system with holding taxes, etc. is designed to destroy a company’s cash holding to literally FORCE them to lend from banks), it took them years & years & YEARS to fulfill this want. It happened eventually, but it only happened after they were able to make a prototype they found acceptable.
Some companies have class. Apple, Nordstrom, etc. Some even have love, like Trader Joes and hopefully us (at least I have a lot of love for people in general, and I know Jasmin always loved talking to everyone here). Some don’t.
Maybe with some folks, they don’t care about the reality of what a company sells 'em. Maybe they WANT the placebo effect. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I hate to condemn anyone for what they want, even if I don’t personally want be the one selling it to them.
I, personally, would feel awful if I sold things like that. I, personally, also would believe that I’m part of the downfall of world if I participated in behaviors like that – in making a world I wouldn’t want to live in, or have my children live in. But that’s just me. Maybe I’m wrong. But those are my personal choices, and this company is affected by my personal choices as Apple is by Steve Jobs.
(and btw, for those of you who know your tech history… I didn’t always like the end result of Steve Jobs – it was only the past few years where I considered even touching an Apple; I was sore about them, honestly, because they outsold and sort of helped destroy a truly amazing-beyond-belief computer at the time – The Amiga. The mid 80s were back when, hardware-wise, Macs were absolutely inferior in comparison to something as revolutionary as The Amiga, except for some apps such as Hypercard and some DTP. Apps for writers were where Apple shined. Although the Mac was still great for some purposes, overall the strangeness of the Amiga being overlooked at the time reminds me something like Pherlure. “Well, Pherlure has superior hype. Something like the Amiga may be superior in “reality”, but their hype is inferior so I’m not convinced. I ain’t buying somethin’ without the right propaganda. Nope. No. Nuh uh. No way!”)
Yes, this is a wonderful way to put it.
I assumed we were pretty clear. Even now when I read it, it seems clear enough to me.
And therein lies the problem. You are 100% right. The problem is that you aren’t me. You don’t know everything I do. You also don’t necessarily know me and my preferences well enough to have figured out our statements. I apologize for that. I figured I wrote enough at the beginning of this forum for people to really “get” our culture, but even that is making possibly dangerous assumptions. Again, I apologize.
The lesson here, I guess, is always (or as many times as possible), write as if you are talking to somebody who is completely new, who knows absolutely nothing, and has no pre-knowledge.
This is certainly the best way to success with communication. It would mean, however, that we could participate less in the “conversations” here and write more in dictational style (not dictator, heh, I mean literally… you know, like the old fashioned way of dictating something to a secretary, to then be distributed throughout an org). More of a top down model of communication, where you don’t enter the stream so much, you post sort of articles and stickies and whatnot.
There’s an interesting new(er) book called “Give War a Chance” by P.J. O’Rourke. He has some interesting points!
Nonetheless, I much prefer being productive and as KIND as possible. I grew up in pain, and around people who didn’t know any better but to treat people with less than respect. Less than kindness. Less than human worth. To treat others without dignity.
I hated that, and that’s not what I aim to do in my own life.
In my life, I want to treat people as what they are. Grown children who are infinitely capable of any good (or evil), but hopefully folks who have good enough taste to make more good than they ever would evil (but perhaps they do a little bad by ACCIDENT – and that’s ok; we learn from mistakes).
Thank you for clearing that up, Tisha. I finally had something concrete to respond to other than completely puzzling and vague comments that we or Steve or somebody was a big boob. I mostly searched for MX feedback and whatnot on this now massive forum, so sussing out the posts involved in this misunderstanding was very hard for me! Overwhelmed by “my own” forum, you could say… Heh
And thank you very kindly for your time here and all the folks you’ve been a kind resource to. If there’s some way we can be of aid to you in return, just let me know.
Thankfully, we didn’t do that. If you search the store with google with site:androticsdirect.com copulins", check the Google cache, and then double check old records with archive.org, you’ll see that we never advertised Instant Sexiness on the store site with copulins. Not recently, not in the near past, or the far past. Never.
This seems to be completely about a misinterptation of what we said on the forum, and depended highly on “soft notices” given on the forum and on the phone. As Tisha said, we assumed too much. Assumed too much insider knowledge, and perhaps assumed too much about our culture’s insistence on quality. (i.e., how we won’t sell something we wouldn’t use ourselves)
I think she’s dead-on here. I’m certainly sorry about that. I’ll try to figure out a better way of communicating these things. Hard (more obvious, more concrete) notices, but not so hard we overstimulate sales activity and end up with a fulfillment logjam.
Very true. Mistakes are how we learn. How anybody learns. It is said in some circles that those who are most successful, simply made the most mistakes.
Thank you for your kindness and understanding. I appreciate you.
