In response to SW’s post of 31 May 2022, we would like to clarify the position as follows.
In Feb 2021 (a month after the original estimated delivery of the HD Bases KS Campaign) Justin McCoy sent us an email that ended ” I will be announcing the closure of Secret Weapon this month. We’re not able to weather the pandemic.”.
In order to provide SW with a cash injection, we agreed on a rolling 3-month deal where we pay SW $10,000 for a 3-month license to produce bases in the UK. We paid the first $10,000 in advance to help SW in the immediate and would begin the 3 month period once we could make the models. SW began sending us masters of their bases so that we could produce moulds for production.
Approx. 1 month into the first period Justin notified us they needed more funds. We agreed to pay for a further 3 months in advance as we were offered SW paints to sell alongside the bases for no additional charge.
Approx. 1 month later we were asked for even more money. We requested to see their accounts so that we could understand where the funds we provided were going and why outgoings did not match (or even come close to) the numbers we were originally given.
During this period while we were trying to help Justin save his business (and in turn put him in a position to continue to employ his staff and fulfil his outstanding kickstarter campaign) Justin took a vacation. The limited accounts that were provided revealed what we deemed to be inappropriate spending.
At this point Justin was told we would not make additional funds available. His salary was a significant outgoing and we could not see how this was justified in the current circumstances.
In response to this Justin said (again) that he was closing the company and that our agreement does not exist. At that point we had already incurred costs of approx. £15,000 making moulds for the purposes of production in addition to the $20,000 we had paid to SW and in return were yet to sell one single SW base.
We have contacted US Bank to register an interest in SW however no one we have talked to is able to confirm they have actually repossessed SW IP.
We are not stopping Justin from communicating with his HD Bases Kickstarter backers in any way and in fact would encourage Justin to show those backers exactly where their money has been spent and what there is to show for it.
If we do end up in possession of the SW IP we will reach out to the HD bases KS backers and see if it is possible to get product into their hands.
To conclude, we would like to make the following clear:
- SW had already made the decision to close as early as February 2021. This was months before we even discussed (let alone entered into) the licence arrangement.
- We have never made or sold any counterfeit SW product (nor would we!). All SW products were made under licence as described above.
- There is no formal ongoing dispute with SW on this issue.
- We are not in any way responsible for SW defaulting on its obligations to US Bank, or anyone else it owes money to.
Safe to say we wish that we had never crossed paths with Justin McCoy.