MindStream Monitor Update & Future Plans

[Oldreefer44]

Has anyone filed a complaint with the FTC?

For what? A company acting in bad faith is unfortunately very common. A CEO with alternative facts? Not against the law unless filed as official statements to controlling entities. If this was against the law then there would be a lot of former CEO's in jail. IMO, most of the governing statutes favor them for obvious reasons. Sad but true.

 

[Bob Lauson]

Venture capitalist invest money in company. Company wants investors to be happy. Company takes money from customers. Money is used to show the company is doing well. Product ships to some customers based on new customers funding old customers orders......It sounds like a version of a Ponzie Scheme

 

[robbyg]

Venture capitalist invest money in company. Company wants investors to be happy. Company takes money from customers. Money is used to show the company is doing well. Product ships to some customers based on new customers funding old customers orders......It sounds like a version of a Ponzie Scheme

Ya great Ponzie Scheme!
Venture capitalist invest $10M in the company over a seven year period. Company takes in maybe $2M from customers and ships out about $500K worth of product and then stops taking orders thereby killing the scheme and leaving the Investors out about $9M

 

[kzp]

For what? A company acting in bad faith is unfortunately very common. A CEO with alternative facts? Not against the law unless filed as official statements to controlling entities. If this was against the law then there would be a lot of former CEO's in jail. IMO, most of the governing statutes favor them for obvious reasons. Sad but true.
[/QUOT

Venture capitalist invest money in company. Company wants investors to be happy. Company takes money from customers. Money is used to show the company is doing well. Product ships to some customers based on new customers funding old customers orders......It sounds like a version of a Ponzie Scheme

Venture capitalist invest money in company. Company wants investors to be happy. Company takes money from customers. Money is used to show the company is doing well. Product ships to some customers based on new customers funding old customers orders......It sounds like a version of a Ponzie Scheme

This is the exact analogy I made 2 weeks ago, and I got some blow-back on it from some posters. Your analogy seems quite appropriate to me--supported by the fact that when the company closed the on-line store and cut-off a real-time money flow, the company collapsed. The CEO admitted that this was the case yet in his 1st letter stated that they were well-capitalized.

 

[Hemmdog]

This is the exact analogy I made 2 weeks ago, and I got some blow-back on it from some posters. Your analogy seems quite appropriate to me--supported by the fact that when the company closed the on-line store and cut-off a real-time money flow, the company collapsed. The CEO admitted that this was the case yet in his 1st letter stated that they were well-capitalized.

That is not a Ponzi scheme at all. It has to involve an investment. There was also no incentive for recruitment of new “investors”.

 

[Tom reefman202]

To our Reef2Reef friends and followers,

Thank you for following the MindStream Monitor and for being a part of our community. Your interest in our mission has meant the world to us, and I’m reaching out to this group of passionate and knowledgeable reef keepers to sincerely apologize for not delivering on the product we promised and to also update you personally on the status of our company. As you may have heard, Step Ahead Innovations recently had to cease operations and lay off our really talented staff due to financial constraints. We are extremely disappointed about letting our customers down and not being able to deliver on our vision for the MindStream Monitor and its ambitious technology. We are sorry for creating frustration and uncertainty, and we hope to provide some transparency around what led to this point and what will happen next.

After seven years of development, including two years of beta testing, and $10 million in investments into our technology, the Monitor, and the industry itself, we launched a revolutionary new approach to water monitoring that we were, and continue to be, incredibly proud of. We were elated by a strong early response and consistent positive feedback, and the orders came flying in. While we had tried to anticipate demand and were ultimately able to ship about a quarter of our initial orders, we were unable to scale our manufacturing processes and systems quickly enough to keep up with the pace of new orders, and we began to fall behind. We had a strong desire to meet our promises, so we proactively provided customer discounts for orders that were behind schedule and we quickly processed order cancellations when requested.

But we became concerned with lead times as the backlog grew, and after hearing similar concerns from our customers, we decided to close the web store to focus all our time and resources into catching up. Once we realized just how long it would take to deliver the product to customers in our existing backlog, we felt it was the right thing to do to stop taking additional customer money and ensure we took care of those who had already paid us. At that point, we fully intended to re-open the store as soon as we could catch up. Unfortunately, stopping orders led to a cash crunch that meant we couldn’t cover our operating expenses, and despite extensive efforts to secure additional capital from our investors to bridge the gap, we were unable to close the funding round. After exploring every available option to keep things moving forward, we had to make the extremely difficult decision to close our doors at Step Ahead Innovations. While it became unavoidable, we do understand how frustrating it is that our customers were left with a product they can’t use, or no product at all, and no one to contact in customer support for an explanation. For that, we apologize wholeheartedly.

We are all incredibly disappointed in this outcome and are now working hard to see that our groundbreaking technology reaches the market by other means. The science is sound, our approach is proven, we heard incredible feedback from many real customers, and the capabilities of the technology are limitless. Currently, we are actively seeking buyers for the product, technology, and considerable assets, including an extensive patent portfolio that includes 11 US patents, 8 foreign patents, and wide-ranging trade secrets and knowledge associated with real-time water quality monitoring, science, and technology.

Our ultimate desire is to bring this paradigm-shifting capability to reef keepers worldwide. While we had hoped to do it as Step Ahead Innovations, we are now diligently working to enable a new firm to realize the potential for this innovative technology to revolutionize water quality analytics in a wide variety of industries (including beyond saltwater aquariums), so that we can make things right financially with our customers, satisfy our obligations to our creditors and investors, and ultimately give the science behind the MindStream Monitor another chance to truly change how aquarists understand and manage reef chemistry.

There is no question that we were severely challenged by our ambitious goals, but at our core we are passionate scientists, engineers, aquarists, and lovers of this hobby, and I want to assure you that we tried at every turn to act in good faith with our customers and the reef keeping industry at large. We hope that in the coming months there will be good news to share for those who still believe in the power of the MindStream approach, but in the meantime, I want to thank you again for your support and understanding.

Sincerely,
Brian Degen
CEO, Step Ahead Innovations, Inc.

 

[AnacapaReefs]

I could have told you this was going to happen. I was going to get one but decided to go with the Trident and stay with a successful and well-run company. I was on the brink of buying one of these and decided to wait a few more months to make sure they were successful in the first round. They sadly did not. Apologies to those of you who bought and received no product and no refund. I hope you get somewhere with PP/ CC Companies. I also feel bad for the company, which had a revolutionary product but was under poor management.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Bummer. Somewhat predictable but stilla bummer. The subscription model is outdated anyways.

 

[robbyg]

Bummer. Somewhat predictable but stilla bummer. The subscription model is outdated anyways.

In reality they are all subscription based. Unless you have a third party supplier for Reagents or Disks your system totally depends on them supplying you monthly or bimonthly supplies.

Contrary to popular belief the mindstream subscription included two disks every month. That’s why so many guys are just now running out of disks. I don’t even think they shutoff you’re cloud subscription. I may be wrong but as far as I can tell people’s accounts are still running.

 

[Bob Lauson]

That is not a Ponzi scheme at all. It has to involve an investment. There was also no incentive for recruitment of new “investors”.

I didn't say it was a great analogy. However, in the case of Mindstream the new investors are the new customers who "invest"

 

[Silver14SS]

More of a “rob Peter to pay Paul” situation to me. If not illegal, definitely not a recipe for success.

 

[ScottR]

More of a “rob Peter to pay Paul” situation to me. If not illegal, definitely not a recipe for success.

I don’t think they purposely had done this - take new customers money just to make existing customers happy with a continuation of service. I think they did believe and hoped that they would get back on their feet. However, that wasn’t the case. They did mislead new customers but I doubt it was done with malicious intent.

 

[jkcoon]

y'all are pushing a rope uphill, they'll be in bankruptcy soon and none of your refund claims will matter.... the "next owner" sure as heck isn't going to take on the debt burden.

 

[Crashjack]

y'all are pushing a rope uphill, they'll be in bankruptcy soon and none of your refund claims will matter.... the "next owner" sure as heck isn't going to take on the debt burden.

Also realize that any purchase of the company will be an asset purchase. In other words, a purchaser will only buy the assets and will have no responsibility to existing customers or any debts/liabilities of the company. That said, unless a new company did a complete redesign, they would want to sell disks to existing customers who already have units so as far as existing customers with units are concerned, they would likely get to continue using their monitors. What those customers won't likely have is any warranty.

 

[Variant]

Also realize that any purchase of the company will be an asset purchase. In other words, a purchaser will only buy the assets and will have no responsibility to existing customers or any debts/liabilities of the company. That said, unless a new company did a complete redesign, they would want to sell disks to existing customers who already have units so as far as existing customers with units are concerned, they would likely get to continue using their monitors. What those customers won't likely have is any warranty.

Why would a company set up manufacturing for only a select number of customers to sell discs? Would be noble but noy sure if financially a good decision since there is no scaling...

 

[robbyg]

Also realize that any purchase of the company will be an asset purchase. In other words, a purchaser will only buy the assets and will have no responsibility to existing customers or any debts/liabilities of the company. That said, unless a new company did a complete redesign, they would want to sell disks to existing customers who already have units so as far as existing customers with units are concerned, they would likely get to continue using their monitors. What those customers won't likely have is any warranty.

I agree. I also think that they will want to know that the money collected for units that are not delivered is refunded. People keep on talking about people who paid and never got the product and they are now out of their money. My question is how many people is that? I have a feeling probably 99% of the people already got a refund. The only way I don't see that happening is if you paid by check or with a Debit card

The reason a new entity would want to continue on with the existing customers is that they can literally label them as Beta testers for the first few months and put those that agree under NDA's. Provided they get the Robotic Automation finished first, which is what I would do. They can then send the disks to the current owners who signed NDAs and let them test them. While that is going on they can finish setting up the distribution and manufacturing center for the new units and train new staff to work in every area of the company.

This all assumes that they are not forced down the road of just selling off the IP. If that hapens this thing is lost for many years to come and existing owners are SOL.

 

[Crashjack]

Why would a company set up manufacturing for only a select number of customers to sell discs? Would be noble but noy sure if financially a good decision since there is no scaling...

If a new company purchased the Mindstream assets (this would include intellectually property), they would either move forward with selling units and disks, and the existing unit owners could purchase more disks; or if they felt the units/disks in current form were too costly, unreliable, labor intensive, etc. without a redesign, they would redesign and move forward, leaving the current unit holders no way to purchase new disks. The only way the current unit holders have a chance is 1) A new company purchases the Mindstream assets, and 2) The new company doesn't redesign the product to the point where the old product/disks become obsolete. The only way those who purchased units but never received them have a chance of getting all of their money back is through their credit card company/Paypal. They might get something back in bankruptcy, but it won't be what they paid.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I'm through with these companies that never deliver on their promises, I'm taking all my refunded money and putting it towards a vertex Cerebra!!

 

[lexinverts]

I'm through with these companies that never deliver on their promises, I'm taking all my refunded money and putting it towards a vertex Cerebra!!

Did you order a MindStream, Brian? Glad to hear you got your money back if you did.

 

[MnFish1]

What some seem to be forgetting - is that:

1. Credit cards are often very helpful in situations like this - even If you have and have used the product. Despite what the official 'rules' are (i.e. the supposed 60 day period)
2. Companies - can purchase 'charge back' insurance - such that if people request refunds - or credit cards as part of a dispute request a refund - they can access the insurance bought by the company - if indeed they did.
3. My guess is that the company is working through the 'winding down' process - and refunds, etc if any will be processed as able.

Note - all of this is speculative - not unlike many of the posts in this thread. Has anyone heard of a person whose credit card has denied a refund? And have they appealed that decision (as they are able to do)?

Has anyone that did not cancel their subscription stop receiving disks (yet?)

Has anyone filed a complaint with the FTC?

Companies are allowed to 'go bankrupt'. The FTC cant control that. Right? What would be the goal? - its an interesting thought - I'm only asking - because I hoped you would have a possible solution as compared to a general complaint?