Q2 2026 Update - Batch 5, Batch 6, and Building the Machine

August 20, 2026

Dear Monoblocc Community,

This update is about six weeks late, which is probably a fitting place to start.

The reason you are reading a Q2 update in August is closely related to the reason some of you waited longer than you should have for your rigs: when operations are effectively being run by one person, doing the work and communicating about the work compete for the same hours.

I have consistently prioritized moving orders, solving problems, and building better systems. That was usually the right choice for getting things done, but not always the right choice for keeping everyone informed.

So rather than write around it, here is where Monoblocc stands, what Batch 5 exposed, what has changed since, and why Batch 6 is an important step toward operating better.

📣 Where we stand

More than 1,800 Monoblocc rigs have now been delivered, up from around 1,300 at the end of Q1.

That happened during what was probably our most difficult operational quarter so far.

At the same time, I deliberately reduced advertising spend throughout Q2.

I want to address that directly because I know some customers have seen Monoblocc ads while waiting on an existing order and reasonably wondered why we were still advertising at all.

Selling significantly faster than we can ship is how a delay turns into a much bigger problem, so I pulled advertising back to keep new demand closer to what our operations and production could actually absorb.

But stopping completely would not have solved the problem either. Consistent order volume keeps manufacturing moving, protects production capacity and pricing, and funds the larger production runs that ultimately allow us to get away from long pre-order cycles.

If I had stopped selling entirely to focus only on shipping it would have created new problems in different areas as we need momentum get profitable, grow and build the cash flow to move out of pre-orders.

So the ads you saw were deliberately fewer than they could have been - and deliberately not none.

🛠️Batch 5 exposed the machine

Batch 5 became much more complicated than a single “batch” should ever have been.

Behind the name were essentially two main purchase orders, with overlapping customer orders and overlapping SKU requirements.

That overlap mattered because Monoblocc orders are bundles made up of multiple individual components. Some orders allocated to the original Batch 5 purchase order still needed one or two components that had to be produced in the following purchase order before the full bundle could ship.

At the time, I made the decision to keep calling all of this Batch 5 rather than announce Batch 6 while a meaningful part of Batch 5 was still being fulfilled.

In hindsight, that made the external picture much more confusing than the reality.

Across roughly 500 orders grouped under Batch 5, customer experiences were very different. A large part of the original purchase order shipped on time, with many customers receiving their rigs as early as February and March. Later orders shipped in additional stages, while some individual orders were held up considerably longer.

The particular mix of components in an order played a big role. Larger or more unusual configurations naturally have more individual SKUs, which also means a greater chance that one missing component can hold up the entire bundle.

There were other issues too. In some cases, products showed as available on the website when the underlying component inventory was not actually sufficient to fulfill the order. That was a technical and inventory-allocation problem that needed fixing.

So there was never one single “Batch 5 delay.”

For some customers, Batch 5 was essentially uneventful. For others, it became an unacceptably long wait.

And from the outside, our communication made it look as though Batch 5 itself had taken half a year to manufacture and ship. That was not what happened - but by grouping several overlapping production and fulfillment stages under one label, I made it very difficult for customers to see the difference.

Batches will continue to exist and will still be communicated for pre-orders. What is changing is the system underneath them: larger production runs of the difficult-to-produce components, clearer commnunication on the store, and individual fulfillment batches drawing from that inventory instead of repeatedly starting production from zero.

✅ What actually got built

A custom fulfillment system

For a long time, Monoblocc's fulfillment planning relied too heavily on spreadsheets.

That works surprisingly well until you combine pre-orders, configurable bundles, component-level inventory, several production runs, multiple warehouses, and staff handovers.

Then it really does not.

I looked for software that could properly handle our particular combination of pre-orders + component-kit bundles + configurable bundles + production batches, and I could not find anything that fitted the workflow.

So I built it.

Our new internal fulfillment tool connects batch management and order management and works at the underlying component level rather than treating every bundle as a standalone product.

It has already run more than 30 fulfillment runs and is dramatically more stable than the spreadsheets it replaced.

More importantly, it makes the operation much less dependent on one person remembering how a particular spreadsheet works.

Rebuilding operations

My original order-management hire left in March.

Since then, I have hired for the role three times, with the latest person joining recently.

In a company this small, changing the person responsible for operations effectively means retraining the entire operations department - because, for most of this period, that department has consisted of one person.

It also exposed something I needed to fix: SOPs alone are not enough if the underlying process still depends too much on individual judgment.

The combination of better tooling, clearer production structures and better documented workflows should make future staff changes less disruptive.

A new warehouse

We have also been onboarding a new warehouse.

That process added complexity at exactly the wrong time, but it gives us access to markets and fulfillment options that had been impossible to support from our US warehouse.

The important part is what it enables going forward rather than the onboarding work itself.

Better manufacturing terms

Our main manufacturer has been one of Monoblocc's most important partners from the beginning.

They produce all of our custom CNC-machined aluminum parts, making them both a major part of our cost base and a major reason why the quality of the finished product is as high as it is.

They have also grown with us - from very small initial production runs to increasingly larger ones - and have been consistently reliable throughout.

More recently, their confidence in Monoblocc, the product, and ultimately all of you buying it has led them to extend increasingly better payment terms. In practical terms, that means they are helping finance our growth by allowing us to manufacture more before the full production cost has to leave the business.

For a company at our stage, that is incredibly important. Traditional bank financing is difficult to access while we are still small, and scaling production would otherwise mean repeatedly finding more capital every time we move to the next level of volume.

Their support lets us place larger orders, hold more of the custom parts that take longest to produce, and reduce how much each new batch depends on another manufacturing cycle starting from scratch.

📣 On communication

This deserves its own section because it has been the most common - and most justified - complaint.

When capacity became constrained, I prioritized work that could immediately change an order: fixing fulfillment issues, refunds, address changes, production work, warehouse coordination and similar tasks.

That helped move orders, but it also meant general status communication fell far behind where it should have been.

The reasoning may have made sense in the moment. The outcome was still not good enough.

Going forward, the most effective ways to reach Monoblocc are:

Email - the primary channel for anything related to an order, refund, return or change.
Website Chat - best for quick product and configuration questions (our AI chatbot responses have become really good in that area).
Discord - the most direct place to follow what is happening behind the scenes and talk to me and the wider community.

Better communication ultimately also depends on better operations. If order status is clear internally, answering a status question should take seconds rather than requiring an investigation.

That is another reason so much work has gone into the underlying systems.

🚚 Batch 6: changing how we manufacture

Batch 6 is not just another batch.

It is roughly three times larger than our previous largest individual purchase order and about 1.5× the size of all of Batch 5 combined.

More importantly, we are changing what we manufacture and when.

The new model is:

Front-load the custom parts. CNC-machined Monoblocc components have the longest lead times and are the hardest items to replenish quickly.
Produce significantly more of those parts upfront and hold them for future fulfillment runs.
Purchase generic components incrementally as each batch requires them rather than tying up capital in every component at once.
Draw from the larger production pool as individual batches are fulfilled, reducing the amount of manufacturing that has to happen from scratch each time.

It is essentially a hybrid between larger-scale inventory manufacturing and just-in-time purchasing.

The customer-facing batch structure still remains. If an order is a pre-order, we will tell you which batch it belongs to and communicate the expected timeline around that batch.

The difference is what happens underneath it.

Instead of every new batch depending on another complete manufacturing cycle, more of the difficult-to-produce Monoblocc components should already exist and be ready to draw from.

That is the real significance of Batch 6.

It is the first major production run built around the operating model we want to use going forward: larger production runs behind the scenes, with smaller fulfillment batches drawing from them as needed.

➡️ Since Q2 ended

Because this update is arriving in August rather than immediately after quarter-end, several projects that were still underway at the end of June have also moved forward.

Most notably, we have begun working with a distribution partner in Japan.

Japan is a market we have wanted to enter for some time, and having a local partner gives us market knowledge and distribution capabilities that would be difficult to build ourselves at our current size.

It also adds production volume to the wider Monoblocc ecosystem, which helps us manufacture more efficiently across all markets.

The Batch 6 production strategy described above has also been developed further during these last few weeks, and the new fulfillment system is now being used in day-to-day operations rather than simply being a development project.

So while this is technically the Q2 update, the picture today is already somewhat further along than it was on June 30.

✅ Our guarantee remains unchanged

If you have an outstanding pre-order, you can request a full refund at any time.

Every Monoblocc product remains covered by our warranty and return policy.

And if your Batch 5 experience was particularly poor, please email us. We will look at the individual order and make it right.

Building the machine

Batch 5 exposed where Monoblocc had grown faster than the systems behind it. Q2 was largely about fixing those systems while still keeping orders moving.

Batch 6 will be the first large-scale test of much of what we have built. Batches themselves are not disappearing, but over time each one should require less manufacturing from scratch because more of the difficult-to-produce

components are already sitting in inventory.

The goal in the medium term is not to eliminate batches. It is to make each one much less dependent on starting another production cycle from zero.

Thank you for your patience, your feedback, and for continuing to follow the journey while we build this properly.

More soon - and sooner next time.

Thank you for your support!

Wolfgang
CEO / Co-Founder, Monoblocc