The founder of Honeycomb, a respected flight sim peripheral brand, Nicki, spoke out today about the situation at Honeycomb and what led to the delays in production, lack of communication, and, at the end of the day, a temporary hold of Charlie Rudder Pedal production and speculations if the company did not disappear with everyone’s money.
For a few months now, Honeycomb’s customers have been reporting a lack of communication, refund requests not being processed, and their purchased products not being delivered. To break the radio silence, Nicki has explained the situation with a story dating back to when Honeycomb was founded.
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Ownership dispute
Nicki explains that he founded Honeycomb with a longtime friend he trusted. The friend, whose name we do not know, helped finance the company initially and was responsible for the business’s financial side, while Nicki focused on product development. When the friend registered the company in Hong Kong, Nicki said he wasn’t included as an owner, and Honeycomb was 100% owned by the friend.
Since the Alpha Flight Controls were being finalised at the time, Nicki preferred to focus on that with a promise of receiving shares later instead of delaying Alpha Flight Controls to deal with this
First two years
Nicki explains that during the first two years, he focused almost entirely on product development and did not suspect anything wrong when reviewing the monthly and annual financial reports. The situation changed in 2022 when it became apparent that his friend was in financial trouble.
At the time, Honeycomb had a record year but still had a negative result by the books. That discovery led to Nicki investigating the financial situation in detail.
“Accounting error”
After further investigation, Nicki discovered that his now partner was selling the units to his distribution companies for a lower price than they had agreed on and that the service fees were much higher than they had agreed.
When Nicki confronted his friend about that, he received a reply that it was just an “accounting error”. Nicki accepted that argument and went on with his work on Honeycomb products.
The factory did not receive money
Charlier Rudder pedals were meant to start shipping around June 2023, but the shipping was delayed at FSExpo 2023 for “supplier issues” with the hall effect sensors used in the units.
Nicki now explains that the factory contacted him shortly after the expected shipping date and informed him they did not receive any money for the Charlie production or the several thousand Alpha Flight Controls and Bravo Throttle Quadrants they had manufactured.
Nicki comments: “The extent of the situation caught me completely by surprise.“
State of Charlie Rudder Pedals production
All parties – the factory, Nicki, and his partner – negotiated a deal, and Nicki overtook his partner in handling sales, distribution and factory partners. Nicki compensated the factory for the existing stock but couldn’t afford to pay for the injection tooling and a 50% deposit on the production cost upfront necessary for the production to begin. This leads us to a temporary hold on Charlie Rudder Pedal’s production.
Nicki managed to find a buyer for all the existing stock and decided to ensure that Honeycomb staff was paid, as Nicki’s friend did not pay them, instead of spending that money on the production.
Future of Honeycomb
Nicki is not expecting to receive payments for the pre-orders from his now ex-partner and thus is currently working on several finance deals to start production as soon as possible. While he does not know how he will pay it back, he is determined that all customers receive the product they paid for, Nicki mentioned.
He also recommends everyone who wants to get the product faster cancel their order, open a dispute with their credit card company, and order from one of the official resellers. Refunds on the website do not work as the store is owned by the Honeycomb entity in Hong Kong, and Nicki’s ex-partner did not pay for the service, so it was disabled.
A similar applies to replacements of faulty units. Nicki attempted to replace faulty units with working units from their European stock, but that is owned by his ex-partner, who does not cooperate with him.
In the end, Nicki shares a piece of good news. That is that the ex-partner agreed to be bought out of the company. With that said, Nicki is now searching for someone to buy his ex-partner out while he apologises for the situation, acknowledges what he could have done differently, and looks forward to bringing Honeycomb back.
