It is the VU-1 team’s great pleasure to announce that our custom equipment has arrived and is currently being tested at an “assembly station” near our subcontractor. We plan to move the equipment to our plant on Friday (tomorrow) where it will undergo 3-5 days of fitting calibrations and final testing. Stanley Chao heads to Asia early next week to be on site for inspection and to begin the initial runs to test yields. The excitement generated by this news is palpable in every phone call and email flying amongst team members.

With the arrival of the equipment and the final UL inspection and factory tour set for June, it’s time to start producing bulbs. We expect to be fulfilling initial orders in July. (For everyone who has traveled this path with us, checking in on this blog, you understand the magnitude behind that last sentence.)

I’d like to take a moment to again thank everyone involved who has made this moment possible. I especially want to thank Stanley Chao, Cameron McLeod and the small army of engineers that have been working around the clock that we have assembled. It’s been a long journey but the payoff—producing energy-efficient, affordable, mercury free, superior light quality bulbs—is here.

Please note that this blog post will likely be the last update posted until we have bulbs coming off the line in July. Should there be ANY material event that would change the information communicated above, we will immediately deliver that information. Again, thank you for following our updates and we look forward to sharing information in July when production is in full swing.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

Our team also met with retailers who asked questions and showed strong interest and enthusiasm for the benefits offered by our bulbs.

Coming off the strength of these two shows, industry buzz about ESL technology and our product is growing. With full-scale production and shipping still on target for July, we look forward to bringing you more updates about our outreach efforts as follow-up from the shows continue.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

Naturally, we’re all very excited about finally putting the wheels in motion and we feel reasonably comfortable targeting the July shipping goal. As always, our updates are based on information that we currently have available.

I want to again applaud Stanley Chao, Cameron McLeod and the teams they have assembled both here and in China that are making it possible for Vu1 to achieve its goal of mass production of the ESL R30.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

LIGHTFAIR International wrapped up today and, as always, the lighting industry dazzled with everything from the simple lamp to over-the-top illuminating displays. Vu1 was in attendance and happy to see so many old and new faces drop by our booth. Though I was unable to attend, our sales and marketing team reported back on the happenings.

Our team displayed Chinese-made Vu1 ESL R30 incandescent replacement bulbs and they were very excited about the interest they received about our new technology. The question on everyone’s mind, of course, was when the product would be on the market.

Back in China, as you are aware, we continue to wait for delivery of a new piece of equipment that is needed to complete our production line. There will be three to five days of training time and then we will be able to better determine yields, allowing us to share our production schedule.

We hope that being able to experience the R30 and see its light quality at LIGHTFAIR amplified your excitement for our upcoming launch.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

While awaiting pump delivery, we continue to move forward with all additional aspects of manufacturing. We look forward to communicating our progress to you next week. Please come by and see us at Lightfair.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

I want to once again reiterate my utter faith and confidence in our current team—specifically Stanley Chao and Cameron McLeod. These two leaders have worked tirelessly over the last five months—literally non-stop. They’ve accomplished more in five months than others have in much more time.

Which brings me to a delicate matter. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize and take responsibility for some senior hires in the past that  went awry.

What happened? It’s quite simple.  When you run a business, every day you have to do two things: 1) Ask yourself what is going right and 2) attempt to isolate and fix what is going wrong.

The new team has dissected the entire process and, as you have read, we have isolated the troubled spots and put the fixes in place.  While having to make fixes is frustrating, we are making progress—substantial progress. Our shareholders now have the right team in place to get us over the finish line and deliver our bulbs.

Nothing is being left to chance. I have been exceptionally transparent with our team and the board, telling everyone in no uncertain terms that we will have ONE more bite at the apple. This is why we are taking our time and not shipping our bulbs until we have it right. We have learned from our mistakes and are the stronger for it.

Again, I am confident that Stanley, Cameron and the many people they have brought on board to help us deliver an exceptional lighting experience will be able to deliver for Vu1 shareholders. More importantly, they will deliver on promises to purchasers of residential lighting who need not accept the compromise we believe our competitors offer.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation

LIGHTFAIR offers Vu1 a significant opportunity to introduce our bulbs and ESL technology on a widespread basis. In addition to the 23,000+ attendees, the conference features more than 200,000 square feet of exhibition space “housing the most celebrated and progressive names in global lighting design.” Based on our experience at this show last year, we feel it offers an amazing opportunity for Vu1 to gain exposure and generate industry buzz, as we had interest from literally hundreds of distributors, retailers and utilities.

Members of Vu1’s sales and marketing team will be on site showcasing the bulbs that are being produced in China and demonstrating ESL technology to the more than 23,000 design, lighting, architectural design, engineering, energy, facility and industry professionals from around the world expected to attend.

Vu1’s exhibitor booth number is 108. Please join us if you are in the area.

A quick update on China

Stanley and Cameron continue to make great strides with our partners in China.  Cameron has been able to increase efficacy and efficiency in the electronics manufacturing testing process while Stanley has done a terrific job managing the many new relationships we have commenced over the last month or two.  The new equipment has been ordered and the subcontractor is expecting delivery shortly.  All other processes appear to be moving smoothly at this point in time.

We will provide another update next Thursday.

William B. Smith
Chairman and CEO
Vu1 Corporation