Bias V2 Group Buy delivered 1 year late and over 60% of units had visual defects. The manufacturer extorted Baionlenja large sums of money and delivered extremely poor quality keyboards. Name of the manufacturer has been redacted due to us receiving threats from the manufacturer.
This page documents what happened and what can is being done to recover from this incident.
Two manufacturers were considered for the GB, both of which were respected and commonly used in keyboard projects. “DDS” was at the time changing their anodisation process to be made in house, which made it risky to choose. Additionally they did not offer PVD treatment for parts.
”Manufacturer 2” was known for making keyboards for a high end custom keyboard brand, as well as the metallic novelty keycaps for several keycap sets. They also offered rainbow PVD which was a requirement for Bias V2.
Well known and respected keyboard designers were asked for their input, and no one had anything bad to say about Manufacturer 2.
With manufacturer 2 chosen, two prototypes were made which turned out to be flawless. The prototypes were very expensive compared to usual prototype costs, but nothing else was out of the ordinary.
MOQ was increased from the interest check to make sure there were enough funds to order a large amount of extras and to run the GB from a warehouse instead of an apartment.
The increased funds also allowed to deal with the unexpected issues regarding the manufacturer, which will be detailed below. The manufacturer constantly urged us to increase the MOQ even more by hiring a vendor for it. This would’ve resulted in even worse of a disaster on hindsight.
Over 120 extras were ordered, normally this would allow for perfect QC. Plan was to then sell the remaining extras and fund future in-stock projects with it.
At the original 100 MOQ, things would have gone just as bad, or even worse, due to not having nearly as many extras, emergency buffer or warehouse space.
Additionally extra was paid for the premium QC service the manufacturer provided, to make sure we would be receiving as few B-stock as possible.