Friday, July 24, 2009

Still cranking out orders! and dreaming of COD MW2

Right to the good stuff...705 out of 1421ish outstanding. Here are some the actual ones that went out this afternoon:

Diablo Battle Chest
Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3)
Wii Nunchuck & Remote Skin - Glow Green
Paprika (I hope that wasn't the seasoning)
Kingston 2 GB microSD Flash Memory Card SDC/2GB
Kingston 2 GB microSD Flash Memory Card SDC/2GB
Fable II
Wall-E (Three-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition
Blacksite: Area 51
Coby MP305-2G MP3 Player with 2 GB Flash Memory FM Radio, USB Drive and LCD – Black
Starry Night Sky Explorer Win/Mac [Jewelcase]
Drinkwell Pet Fountain Cleaning Kit (i dont know what that is?)
Microsoft Wheel Optical Mouse
Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)
Medal of Honor Airborne x 3!

Now for all you math and physics majors out there lets not jump to too many conclusions about when we will be caught up. Remember, besides velocity, we should also have acceleration to factor in. Heaven forbid JACT catch some momentum and pick up more speed!

So, I'm thinking about putting some effort into JACT on Twitter. I mean, we many not be SHAQ or Stephen Fry, but "what if you lived in a world..."

Also, check out Coveroo. I met them at a trade show and it's quality. What about JACT logos engraved to employee phones. yay or nay? I guess I gotta see if I can get a deal with them!

Friday, July 3, 2009

So as promised the stats on the latest and greatest craze...the ratio of our prize shipping performance. For many of you, you've experienced great times with JACT. For others, well, times have been a bit rocky. 9.5% unemployment is pretty staggering! So here are some details...out of 1389ish orders that have rolled in during this time, we have shipped out 513 as to date. The remaining may seem a bit daunting, but it's a small fraction of the totals we have completed during our entire existence. So, 513 out of 1389 is the current status. The duration of the time of order has little to do with who gets what first. It's finding the right sponsors and resources to fulfill the demand.

We want to thank everyone during this Beta phase. It's a misconception that our initial push at creating JACT was all fine and dandy. We have had a pretty successful Beta period. We went from nothing but a thought to building software and a system to run behind the scenes that we are very proud of. We committed ourselves to REAL LIFE testing so that we could bring to market a viable product. Instead of having in-house testers hammering away 24-7, we decided to really test with real life testers like all of you all. Thanks for the support. We considered prize costs as the trade off for in-house testing costs. In the beginning, we thought that maybe 1,000 to 2,500 people would partake and give us great insight. What we were not prepared for was the sign-ups well beyond that. As the registration increased, we set out to start this engine and go out and try to get enough sponsors to support the growing community. This was the goal of our business anyways so we thought we might as well start now. So we were able to sign up a few sponsors to keep up with the demand. Almost instantly, more and more people signed up (which is great!) and we brought more and more sponsors. Suddenly, however, things took a slight turn to where our economy hit a rough spot. More demand than supply began to take it's course.

Let me make it clear, that we love the demand. Demand drives business and that's what we set out to accomplish. Coming full circle, we find ourselves working with a new set of challenges but stick with us and we will follow through.

So I wanted to address beginnings, motivations, and expectations. Years ago as we were all enjoying games we had an idea. Plenty of ideas stay ideas. They never even see the light of day. I will tell you what it all comes down to. We thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a rewards system like all the other rewards programs out there but for video gaming and make it cool...not purchasing or doing something obvious like complete these deals and buy this and jump through this hoop..." Credit card points mean your spending money. Airline miles means you are spending money flying thousands and thousands of miles. We wanted to find a way to give back to the gamers for giving so much to the industry. I mean my god, we made the video game industry the most lucrative entertainment media of all time! So yes, we had ambitious goals and yes we started with no exact calculation to follow. Can we achieve it? I think we can and I think we will. We ran this site in beta to make sure we could develop an honest system first and foremost. Going forward it's up to us to figure out the nuts and bolts of this. We didn't start this company with gobs of money and commercial backing. It was a few guys (and it still is a few guys (and gals) eking our way through to make this work. You want to discuss a start up lifestyle, well bring your documentary cameras and you'll capture life in its true essence trying to bring something to life. We're not some fancy New York/San Francisco dot com start up. We don't have uppity lifestyles or condescending ways of whisking around patting ourselves on the back. What you know about startups, STOP. Please, the world isn't so transparent.

So all the assumptions being made should check themselves at the door before they enter the world of JACT. If you believe in the idea, stick with us. If you don't, well, we were never meant to be anyways. We appreciate each and everyone of you. We appreciate you through the good time and especially through the tough times. If you cannot accept this than there is nothing more that we can do as we are doing the best we can with the resources we have available.

We always thought of ourselves as trying to make a difference. Yeah, our difference might not being curing diseases or feeding the hungry, but ours still seems like it could mean something. We appreciate all the questions, comments, concerns, and criticisms. Don't get me wrong. Just try to have some perspective on things. We are not delivering your health insurance or mortgage refinancing. We are trying to provide you with a means to have a more enriching gaming experience. I'll end with this. We've had almost 4 long hard working years of great progress. The last 8 months have thrown us a few curve balls, but I'll tell you this...you don't want to pitch us too many curve balls cuz we'll adjust and knock it out of the park soon.