In late September 2023, Unplugged reopened pre-orders for the UP Phone. We made it clear to new customers that we would be unable to begin production of Batch 2 until after receiving at least 6000 pre-orders. After meeting the 6000 unit objective, we estimated a timeline for production and shipping of 150 calendar days.
I am thrilled to report, we have secured a significant infusion of production financing, giving us the resources to fully commit to manufacture a production run substantially larger than the original 6000 unit goal.
Three separate developments make this possible. 1) Orders continue to come in at a healthy clip; 2) Interest from channel partners is growing; 3) The inbound attention and sales raise the confidence of our investors and finance partners.
This is a tremendous milestone for Unplugged. We’re in mass production. Let’s go!
Production was initiated just before the new year. This puts us in a position to shorten the timeline. Customers will not have to wait until we reach the 6000 unit goal.
Orders for Batch 2 UP Phones will ship in early May 2024.
As our long-time followers may already be aware, we shipped Batch 1 of the UP Phone in early October 2023. Hundreds of customers have already received their devices and are using our full-fledged hardware + software solution to shield their privacy and to protect loved ones and businesses.
Early reports are very positive.
- A few customers are already returning to order additional units for family members or to outfit members of their businesses with UP Phones.
- One of our customers, a military veteran, said “We [he and his wife] have great respect for what you are doing, and we pray for your success... We are grateful for what you are providing for patriots, and could not imagine a better investment (on many levels...)”/
- Another customer, who works as an analyst, reached out to me two weeks ago. His mom had put him onto Unplugged just when we were getting the company off the ground. He reached out to let me know that he loves his UP Phone (he was one of the Batch 1 customers), and he made an unsolicited inquiry to invest in the company. We’ll see where that goes.
Our central goal is to make privacy convenient for everyday people. It’s very gratifying to see this mission resonate with our customers. The UP Phone is finding an audience and excitement is continuing to grow.
As mass production gets underway, we continue to advance the development of our operating system and software suite. We’ve also added hundreds of third-party apps to the UP Store. We’ve onboarded multiple team members to offer full-time, high-touch customer service, and we are training and building out more technical documentation.
In summary, we’re here to stay -- forging forward in our mission to restore privacy in the digital lives of our customers.
- Ryan
President, Unplugged