Wow, holy shit, where to even begin with Rama Works. Cheated on his ex-GF Kate, who was really the backbone and brains of the company, and sued her. Took group buy funds for various projects and bought expensive stuff like McClarens and expensive house in the millions. After making keyboards, he went off the deep end and started making dumb shit like chess sets, baseball bats, mini cars, lighters, planters, his own jumpsuit for use when he eventually ends up in prison, ducks, etc. Basically doing everything in his power to not deliver on keyboards and keycaps and making stuff no one even asked for in his feeble attempt to project the company as the next Apple.
Just your usual lack of communication and not fulfilling orders. Also taking on commissions to do things like Cerokoting keyboards but just holding onto the keyboard and never sending it back. Pretty much did this shit for years.
These guys hosted a couple of large keyboard meetups in PH. At some point, a bunch of their employee were 'retired', probably b/c they burning money. Just look at all the inflated position names: Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Research and Development, Chief Digital Officer, Finance Manager, Human Resource Generalist, Public Relation Manager, Fulfillment Manager, Fulfillment Officer, Community Manager.
Standup guy that had twin babies and focused on family after dwindling customer interest in custom keyboards. Mainly known for macropads that mounted to the underside of desks.
Started off good, but like most other vendors that started out in the world of custom cables, eventually turned to the dark side. Failed to deliver on things like some keyset GBs and ended up ghosting everyone. Other vendors in the community like NovelKeys and Omnitype had to step in and rescue some of these keysets.
TKC did alright, but had their fair share of controversy, with things like delayed shipping of GBs, colormatching issues with deskmats and keycaps, and Terry Matthews being a dick to a bunch of people. At least TKC shutdown gracefully, as opposed to a lot of other places here and had a closing sale.
WASD Keyboards was an early vendor known for custom printed keycap sets and Costar-made keyboards. They resisted modern trends like hotswap, QMK, and gasket mounts, sticking with outdated designs and DIP switches for configuration. Despite customer requests, they were slow to adopt USB-C and other modern features. Third-party solutions later emerged to add QMK/VIA support to their boards, revealing their unusual matrix layout. They also sold Vortex Pok3r and their own CODE keyboards.
Kono was an offshoot of Input Club, but it was kinda sketchy from the start, having brought in Andrew from Drop. They did alright early on with fulfillment, like with SA Symbiosis 2.0, but at some point they just started being a trash-tier vendor.
Designer of various keyboards like the Viktus Styrka, M0lly, and SP-111.
Design Studio based in Melbourne, Australia which released the PLX keyboard
Just another vendor getting caught buying too many keyset extras and not paying designers and invoices.
Ran a bunch of group buys but never paid GMK for them, leaving their customers out to dry. Went bankrupt. Was really shitty at communicating as well.
Made some shitty artisans. Sold some keysets. Failed to pay GMK for the Euler set. Sent out an email blast to all affected customers promising that proto[typist] would cover their sets costs with GMK and international shipping from UK to US with no discussion then dipped.
Started off selling switches and bringing Chinese keyboards into the international market such as the Molly, Beacon70 and Zan40. Had persistent fulfillment delays throughout their operation. Ran a GB for the infamous Kyubi kit that failed to deliver on time, spawning multiple dramas. Made last-ditch efforts to recover before exit scamming by deleting their Discord without any statement.
Designed great boards such as the Hex3c and many more. Exit scammed with their last group buy board.
Delivered boards in collaboration with brands like TGR and Singa. Ended up delivering Kei's with battery and Bluetooth issues in 2024 before going radio silent ever since.
Once of the few good vendors on this list. Was a great place for custom keyboard cables. Had one initial shutdown but then came back for bit.
Started off doing keyboard foam cutting, then got into Choc stuff. Got overextended due to group buys for keycaps and shutdown due to that and health issues.
Just your typical scummy cable maker. Ran GB for osu! gamepad and failed to deliver on that. Also has a jizz blanket, as mentioned in ex-girlfriend's lengthy exposé about him.
Had totally shit quality control for Sunsetter, which sunsetted the business.
One of the OG vendors in the keyboard community, did good stuff like making BKE Topre domes and Cherry MX deskmats available. Originally started off doing cables, but successfully progressed from there.
Mainly sold the basic range of Gateron switches, switch parts, initial run of Let's Split PCBs.
Ran a bunch of group buys for keyboard cases, went off and bought fancy watches and car.
Got super greedy and ran a shitton of keyset GBs during pandemic and bought a ton of extras in a pyramid-like scheme. Fucked over a ton of people so gigachads CannonKeys and NovelKeys had to come to the rescue.
Ran GBs for the 40% keyboard degenerates, but had life issues and went silent.
Sold switches, stabs, springs, etc.
Was famous for their Marshmellow switches and Thic Thock springs. Their accountant took all of the money and ran, leaving owner in shambles and had to close down the business.
Was a weekly show hosted by Chewwy and Osiris.
Ran GB for Panc40 and GMK Thai Tea and ghosted everyone.
Store for various Choc boards with emphasis on steno, Jane went MIA.
Started as a builder of 3D-printed dactyl boards, and selling miscellaneous SA blanks, grab bags, loose keys, and closet finds. Ran a successful GB for SA convex small bars in the spring of 2022, then quietly stopped shipping orders soon after. Lives on as a nonfunctional zombie storefront to this day.
A small shop that ran group buys for DSS Carpinteria and DCS Paperwork, before gracefully shutting down after the owner lost interest in the hobby. Was one of the original vendors of Gazzew switches.
Stopped communicating about some GMK GBs.
Yet another scummy cable maker. Ran cable GBs to match up with keysets while not fulfilling past cable orders. Dug himself into shitty NFT stuff.
One of the ones who kicked off the trend of exposed through-hole components, but then ghosted customers and stopped fulfilling orders.
Owner harassed a Twitch streamer, so other vendors cut ties with him. Accused someone else of slandering him, leading to video of him threatening someone and punching air vigorously.
Ran GB for Geekarch BOW R2 and ghosted. Did a shitty job with previous GBs as well.
Yet another podcast with some interesting guests, hosted by VogonPT and TherminGoat.
Ran a number of group buys for his own keyboard designs. Went bankrupt. Infamously beaten up by Xondat at UK keyboard meetup.
One of the original members in creating QMK firmware, Skully had to step away from Clueboard due to life stuff.
Was a weekly show on Twitch with build streams interspersed during the week.
Offshoot of Top Clack by former co-host Manofinterests, covered news/group buys.
Ran group buy for Rukia. Went off and bought ice cream machine.
Disappeared of the face of the Earth, leaving his devoted followers in his Discord server disappointed and wondering where he went off to after a move during the pandemic.
Podcast hosted by Alexotos, Spacecables, and Chasedotgg.
Australian cable maker. Tried to come up with his own keyboard marketplace.
Ran GB for The Ave and Romac. Ran into some personal issues and decided to ghost everyone like 90% of the other people on this list.
Had partnered up with BastardKB to do Dactyl Manuform builds, but never fulfilled the orders and went off to buy new Macbook, PC, and boat.
Don't kid yourself, Hipyo has always been fucking cringe and just shills shitty keyboards by praising them as the greatest keyboard ever like how Trump praises everything he has as the best thing ever. So to have him here as a keyboard 'Content Creator' is kind of a stretch, as he was really dead from the beginning.
Ran group buy for LuminaKB, a corian keyboard. Threw bunch of blame on manufacturer and ran out of money.
A podcast hosted by Egla and KwerDenker, who brought a more European perspective on keyboards, including their love for ISO (yuck). Also ran a GB for an ISO Enter with the show's logo on it.
Designed the MiniVan and dedicated j-spacers for jailhouse blues mod (remember those lol). MiniVan layout is a pain to get keycaps for b/c of freak caps needed like 1.75u R1 Backspace. Tried to do crowdfunding to raise $500k on Kickstarter for HuB profile keycaps but failed and also pissed other designers off by ripping off their colorways for HuB. Kinda lives on as Trash Man Keyboards. He also once posted on r/cummingonkeycaps.
Had some interesting boards run like the Mechmini 2. Espectro GB went all crazy, as the manufacturer went MIA, and there was weird shit about having to track down the factory owner. Kinda like Michael Jordan, Dave/evolize retired and untired from the keyboard community a few times, and in his final departure from keyboards, he went off to do storm chasing.
Ran a number of group buys for keyboard cases like APX, Scarlet Bandana, Aluminum Let's Split cases, and then exit scammed.
Ran GB for the Contra (formerly know as the Danck), leading to one of the worst soldering jobs most people have ever seen. Composed of Hiney, End, and K1.
Podcast hosted by Walletburner after the demise of KeebTown.
Was a weekly show on Discord hosted by TennisShoeNinja, Garrett, and Walletburner.
One of the first mechanical keyboard podcasts out there, hosted by Jack of OLKB and wildpanic