July 7th

Once again, Jonathan Jou calmly gives some advice:

Alex,

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, in hopes that you'll actually listen. The backers who have been voicing their concerns are the same backers who won't be appeased by more promises. I would like answers, and I have reason to believe answers will be the first step in salvaging your relationship with your backers.

As backers, you've given us far too many reasons to be worried about your odds of succeeding and too few reasons to hope that you've made any progress at all. We still don't know what your final product will be, how you plan to finish it, or when you will even know that the end is in sight. We're not happy with how things look, and your handling of the situation only gives us more cause for concern.

To be clear, I'm trying to figure out the best possible outcome for you at this point, and I'm hesitant to put faith in your fundraising prospects or the new deadline you've promised (instead of any sort of actual product).

As of now, here are the problems I see:
1. You owe physical rewards to 1,217 of your backers, a great deal of your time, or the time of your team to 76 of them, and a plane ticket (to events whose dates have come and gone) to someone who gave you more than enough to afford them.
2. You have never given us any sort of financial, technical, or even factual breakdown of what's happened between now and last February. It looks like a lot hasn't gone as planned, and your backers don't know what went wrong, much less how you're going to fix it.
3. None of us have any idea where you're going with this, and the most alarming part is that we can't say for sure that you do, either. Everyone can and should pursue their dreams, but from what you've been willing to tell us, it really seems like your project wasn't ready for Kickstarter, which means you've taken a lot of money and don't have enough to show for it.

In all honesty, I don't see how you can solve any of these problems. Instead of answers, we're left with a mess of missed deadlines, volunteer staff, incomplete software, and unsettling lack of information to assure us that things are going to change for the better. I want to believe that things have changed for the better, and stop worrying that they've changed for the worse. That starts with telling us the truth.

So again, I urge you. Please stop working on Code Hero. Just you.

Tell us what's wrong. Don't let your biggest supporters become your worst enemies. Answers will do you far more good than any more promises. I'm willing to forgive being overly ambitious, but at some point broken promises start looking like fraud, and backer discontent will trigger legal recourse. It seems unavoidable that you're going to be explaining yourself before a judge, but I'd hate for an unfortunate situation to turn into unbridled hostility.

We're frustrated because we gave you our hard-earned money to help you succeed, and now we're not sure giving you our money was the right decision for either party. I doubt anyone here would choose vengeance over compromise, but you're not giving us anything to work with. Give us something to work with—help us help you.

Sincerely,
Jonathan

I don't think there's really much for me to add. Listen to your backers, Mr. Peake. They're saying what they want.