Mendi: Real Brain Training - Anytime, Anywhere.

August 3 update
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 11:29:15 AM

Dear Backers,

We hope you are all having an amazing summer so far! The weather’s beautiful here in Stockholm and the spirits are high as we are putting together one of the last production updates for Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

As you might have read in the comments, so far we’ve shipped nearly 6000 Mendis worldwide, and are going 1000 strong every two weeks (as previously communicated). According to the latest estimates, all of the Kickstarter pledges will be fulfilled by mid/late August which is a milestone we’ve been working hard towards for the past few months. If by the end of this month you still don’t have a tracking email - please reach us over at [email protected] and our logistics team will help you track down your shipment.

We will then switch to shipping to Indiegogo backers in late August. The plan is to ramp up to 1000 units every week right from the get-go, which means that all of you will have your Mendis by late September.

The feedback you’ve provided so far has been extremely valuable in shaping our product roadmap, and we’re excited about what’s to come in the Mendi companion mobile app within the coming months. Thank you all for being with us on this remarkable journey towards better brain health - we look forward to getting all of you started very soon!

In the meantime, please join our Facebook group where you can read stories from our fast-growing community of users and supporters: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mendivip

Over and out... for now!

June 24 update
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 05:32:17 PM

Dear Backers,

We are back with another update, although with some delay. We always endeavor to regularly update you, but this time, we wanted to wait until confirming that the 2000-3000 (Kickstarter) cohort was successfully shipped. Finally, the milestone has been reached and we are happy to announce that we’ve now shipped Mendis up to #3439 (with an exception of 60 devices which will ship next week). Most of you will receive your tracking emails by early next week - the plan now is to ship 800 units every two weeks, and publish new updates every time we reach this benchmark.

One of the reasons we are experiencing shipping delays is the address database in BackerKit. When just a single incorrectly formatted address from BackerKit is sent to our shipping partner, the entire batch is put on hold until that’s resolved. We therefore have to correct formatting inconsistencies manually one by one, often needing to resort to looking up individual addresses in Google Maps. The team is considering several alternatives on how we can effectively and efficiently verify your addresses before shipping, in order to make the process smoother - more on this in the coming updates.

Our focus now is to ship to Kickstarter backers with backer IDs between 3440-5000. We will provide another update when we’ve sent packages to all of you in that cohort and move on to the 5001-7000 cohort.

What does this mean for Indiegogo backers? Your contributions will be put into production in late August and will begin to ship in September, after all Kickstarter backers have received their Mendis. In the meantime, please join our Facebook group where you can read stories from our fast-growing community of users and supporters: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mendivip

Thank you for all the kindhearted feedback you’ve given us over the course of the past four weeks!
 

Looking forward to getting all of you started with your Mendis soon!

May 26 update
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 27, 2021 at 11:21:40 AM

Dear Kickstarter backers,

It’s been some time since we last updated you, so we’re sending this update to ensure that you have the latest information.

We have now shipped thousands of Mendis across the world, and we are overwhelmed by the positive feedback we’ve received from so many of you so far! It confirms to us that Mendi is making a real difference in people’s lives. We are incredibly excited to make the technology that was previously exclusive to professional athletes, NASA astronauts and top-tier CEOs available to you from the comfort of your home. Now you get the same chance to rise to the next level.

We are also honoured to be a part of a community as involved and knowledgeable as this one. Your continued feedback and engagement ensures that we’ve been able to improve the Mendi experience for the thousands of users who will join our journey in the coming months, so, again, thank you all so much.

These testimonials and countless of more can be read in our Mendi Early Access group.

Production velocity

Ramping up a production assembly line for a complex neurofeedback device requires meticulous attention to details in order to ensure a high yield rate. We are still not at the production velocity as we would like to be, and we are committed to delivering top quality Mendi devices to every backer. We think this is way more important than maintaining a certain production velocity. We are currently able to produce around 150 devices per day and because we prioritize quality over quantity, we will stay at this rate for as long as we feel we need to. We think this is the right call, even though we realize this impacts our timelines.

When will my device arrive?

Thank you for the feedback that our previous production tables have been confusing! It’s been complex because the backer ID ranges have been spread across several different “pledge types”, making the information hard to read. Then there’s the added shipping time on top of this. It’s not obvious and we understand that this is too complex. We also ship with multiple carriers, where EU customers receive devices through UFL/EasyShip (usually via YunExpress, DHL and other carriers), and non-EU customers receive their devices via UPS. This means that, despite our best efforts to balance these two logistical streams, there will be momentary cases of when backer #2100 will receive their device a few days earlier than backer #1900, for example.

Rather than continuing to show confusing tables, we’ll make it simpler this time:

• We are currently shipping to backers with IDs 2001-3000.
• Once we have completed shipping to this cohort, we will send another update here when we’re progressing to 3001-4000, and so on. (With the current production velocity, expect an update every other week.)

There are a handful of trailing shipments where we have been unable to deliver Mendis due to various issues. To those affected by this, we have already reached out to you about it. To anyone else with a backer ID less than 2000: if you still haven’t received a tracking email, please have a look in your spam folder. If you still can’t find it, we ask for a bit more patience before contacting us about it, as we assure you that we are processing shipments as quickly as we can. If possible, we’d like to focus on shipping rather than answering individual questions about the status of your shipment, because it’s the same team handling both of these work streams. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation!

Clarifying the tracking emails and shipping information

Over the course of the past few weeks, a number of you have had questions about our shipping partners and carriers. YunExpress has caused a bit of confusion due to its less-than-ideal tracking system and communication. To everyone reading this update: Mendi ships to EU customers via EasyShip/UFL and their warehouse in The Netherlands. To customers outside the EU, we ship directly from our factory in Sweden. That is why some people received EasyShip/YunExpress/etc tracker emails and others have received them from Exmo AB / UPS. No devices are ever originating outside of Sweden or NL, despite what the sometimes confusing tracking emails may suggest. Hope this clears up the confusion around YunExpress!

To those of you who are still waiting for you Mendi: we can’t wait for you to begin your journey towards better brain health by providing you with the tool you need to control your brain activity!

Warmly,

David

April 19 update
about 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 08:19:16 AM

Dear Kickstarter backers,

We’ve been hard at work during the past week to improve our production yield rate, which is the percentage of Mendi devices that pass our rigorous quality control standards. When we started the production line a few weeks back, the rate was not high enough, which meant that some of the produced devices didn’t pass our tests, leading to unnecessary material waste.

We have now identified a number of optimizations that have helped us reach a yield rate close to 100%, which is really great news, both from an environmental as well as from a production velocity point of view! Thanks to these improvements, we are now quickly ramping up our production: last week we produced 200 devices that all passed our quality tests. This week we’re aiming for 500, and the week after that, 750.

Please find the new production schedule estimate below. We’ve tried to make this a bit simpler to read than the last time.

Kickstarter backers: you first need to know your Pledge type - there are three of them:

• Early Bird Priority - these backers will receive their devices first - they should all leave our factory and ship out to you on Monday next week.
• Early Bird / Best Price - these backers come next, roughly within the next 5 weeks
• KS Special / Special Price - these backers come last, around 4th of June

Here is a video showing you exactly the steps you need to take in order to find your pledge type and backer number:

Once you have this info, scanning the table below should be easy. Start with your pledge type and then, within that pledge type, compare your backer number against the number ranges on the far right of the table. The week corresponding to that line is the week when your device will be manufactured - please allow an additional 2-3 weeks for shipping and you will know when your device arrives at your doorstep.

Hopefully this information is clear. We are extremely excited to ramp up our velocity and start to hear from many more of you about your experiences using Mendi! Here are some of the exciting reports we’ve received from some of you so far - please join us in our Mendi Early Access Facebook group to share your own experiences!

To those of you who are still waiting for your devices, we are very, very grateful for the patience and understanding from all of you. We can’t wait to ship your devices to you soon!

Warmly,

David

March 31 update
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 03:15:58 AM

Hi Kickstarter backers,

To those of you who are also in our Mendi Early Access Facebook group, this will already be old news, but to everyone else here: We are very happy to announce that we’re shipping worldwide as of this week!

In the past couple of weeks, we have been working to streamline the assembly line and were able to work out a number of efficiency problems during assembly, so things are ramping up fast now. That said, we had a bit of bad luck because a few people were hit with Covid-19 at the assembly line, which impacted our production rate in the past couple of weeks. The good news is that we are now picking up steam and we’ll ramp up the production quickly and considerably from here on!

Below is an updated timeline - if you compare this with our January 27 update, you will notice that after the week of April 16, we should be caught up with the previous production estimates:

So, to be concrete: this week we’ll be shipping out about 150 devices - if you have a backer ID between 1-150, expect a tracking email within the next few days. Next week we’ll produce about 600 more and ship them on Monday April 12, and so on, until we reach a production rate of about 1500 devices per week.

Please note that we run these devices through rigorous testing to minimize issues, and as a result, these production amounts are conservative estimates. With a bit of tail wind, we may be able to beat these estimates over time given that we’re now fully up and running.

I will provide more updates as they come. To those of you who will be receiving your Mendi in this round, we really would love to hear from you and learn about your experiences! Expect us to reach out to you unless you beat us to it. Thanks for your patience and for being part of our journey towards healthier brains!

David