I did not invest in an idea, I invested in a product, at least a prototype. A product I was told was completed years ago (and then again and again), a product I was told received at least one award, a product I was told many large customers had already signed contracts on, a product I was told had been through internal testing and did great, a product I was told manufacturers were looking at and a product I was told impressed UL and is now going to be tested by Intertek. There is a huge difference between that and a company that says "how about we make a microwave water heater, hmmmm, lets look into that, who wants to give us money?". Huge difference.
And yes, we are all supposed to be responsible for our decisions. But those decisions can only be made correctly when the information you are fed is correct. When the risk is not misrepresented, like it was here. When the company lies to us, which lately is becoming more and more obvious, it is not possible to correctly assess the risk and decide whether to go in or out. If they had been honest three years ago about what they actually had and what stage they were actually at I would not have even considered putting a dollar into this. Exact same company, exact same investor but a completely different decision due to a completely different representation of the facts on their part.
And nobody is looking to blame anyone, I have invested in plenty of other companies that for whatever reason went bad. Maybe some were even scams. But it was never obvious that they were lying to investors and that they had been lying for years. And sometimes when you lie this way, whether it's in court, in Congress, the board room or whatever, you go to jail. And at this point my guess is that avoiding that is what kept this thing going for at least the last year or so.
