One of the most important jobs of a founder is to recognize when things aren’t going quite right, and make the necessary decisions and take action to correct them before customers are impacted. Founders are often faced with thousands of micro-decisions daily to keep their companies laser-focused on delivering products into the right markets at precisely the right time.

Yesterday, we made an error in our customer care function that resulted in personal information from approximately 70 customers being shared with a small group of other customers. We have disabled the misconfigured account and have taken steps internally to add safeguards against this happening again in the future. We sincerely apologize for our error and will be offering the impacted customers one year of LifeLock. We will also continue to invest more in our infrastructure and customer care, which will only be more important as we grow.

Being a founder in an intensely competitive business means you occasionally have to eat crow. It’s humiliating, it doesn’t taste good, and often, it’s a humbling experience. As Essential’s founder and CEO, I’m personally responsible for this error and will try my best to not repeat it.

I remain heartened and motivated by the groundswell of support that Essential has experienced since unveiling the company on May 30th. We continue to believe deeply in our vision and the innovation we are bringing to life via our Home, Phone and 360 Camera products. I humbly thank our customers and channel partners for your patience and understanding as we proceed with the launch of our first products.