Shwood still had a lot of investment. Great website with ecommerce $$$. If they are using alot of manual labor, they still need sanders, planers, saws, drills etc. $$$ If they hire manual labor they have to pay salaries $$$ If they invest in equipment to make the glasses, OMG, $$$$$$ Order fulfillment $$$
Basically, it’s expensive to get into manufacturing or import-distribution. Richard and Yo present the path of least resistance (get big order, get a bridge loan, ship ship ship). You can shift where you are spending your money, but at some point, you need a big pile.
$500-1000 might get you about 10 hours of a freelancers time. Most good ones won’t have time for this size project, so don’t expect to get someone with a ton of sun glass experience. 10 hours could be enough to get a basic computer render. Not anything that you can even prototype with, let alone get accurate factory quotes with.