Industrial Designer with a Pet products brand - AMA!

I’ve been thinking of starting my own business and started sketching out a business plan. HR is something that I’m not confident in though.

I was thinking of hiring a designer and engineer to handle product development, a supply chain/logistics/purchasing person and a sales person. Then outsource graphic design, marketing, warehousing/fulfillment and accounting. All the while doing production in Asia.

If you could start over, what positions do you think you need to keep in house and what could you outsource?

I launched an ecomm site and was lucky to partner from day one with the leading modern cat blog.

Depending on your volume, a farmers market or local event of some kind is a great way to start!

If you have product ideas I can help you brainstorm first sale ideas…

No brand secrets! Just wanted to keep the thread about making a biz, not about my company :slight_smile:

Road Map: Honestly, no. I started and grew this company in probably all the wrong ways. I largely rely on instinct, which is admittedly not ideal.

A bigger thing regarding Road Maps is actually the overall plan for a new company. I started it as an experiment, and grew it part time over many years. It’s still a tiny company, and only in the past 3-4 years has it been a FT effort. Because I did not launch with any product dev or dales goals/targets, I did not have a map laid out to get to them. I do not recommend following my approach! I will apply everything I have learned the slow slow slow way to the next brand I build and should be able to match my current sales within 1 year, not 8.

PO to delivery is a standard 90 days, with ocean shipping. Development can take 1-2 months for sketches, proto’s, etc. Sampling from the factory is an average of 3-4 weeks per round. Go to the factory to work with them directly if you can! It’s eye-opening.

QC is a bit of a challenge. I used an agent that I knew and trusted to source the factories, and they watched QC. But I did not have a real QC process in place, and I do regret that. Luckily, there haven’t been any major issues - my products are quite simple - and any issues that have come up are mostly the last 10% of getting the product to look or function “just right”. I am alway MUCH pickier than my customers, and rarely have any QC complaints that have to do with production.

My first FT hire would be a Marketing Director. Online marketing can be endless and can eat up every minute of the day. Once the websites, warehouses, and production is set up, the day to day is mostly automatic, and doesn’t need any hands on to work.

I would like to hire a designer/developer on a project basis to help to get my sketches and proto’s documented into spec and engineering files that I can send to the factory. Know anyone? :slight_smile:

CATS! I did have cats at home and did want to make products for them. To learn more about the market I went to a couple trade shows and saw that there was definitely a lack of well-designed cat products. And the LOLCAT phase was just kicking in as well, so it was a a perfect storm.

I would outsource repeatable tasks that don’t need much/any creative decision making. Everything else I would keep in house. Now, I do plan to hire a CEO at some point, and they’ll likely be remote, but I do consider that in-house.

Let me push back a bit on you - what part do you WANT to do? I’ve had hands on every part of my business, and although that may be the slower way to grow, I’ve learned everything and can now understand exactly who to hire and for what role (when the time comes).

Tell me more about your ideas (or PM if you don’t want to share publicly)

Primarily, I want to set strategy and coach. When needed, I’ll design, engineer, graphic design, sales, marketing, publicity, verify accounting (AR, AP, taxes, expenses), negotiate with suppliers. I imagine that year 1 I would design and negotiate with suppliers 70% of my time and do sales 15-20% of the time. Year 2, I would hope to be able to spread myself across more of the business’s activities.

Follow up for you: why a remote CEO?

BTW: Just looked at your company. I love your work! I wish I still had my cat!

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I run the business from my laptop, from my house or where ever I am traveling, so there’s no office. A remote CEO would have to be happy to do the same…

Thanks!

Go adopt a new cat - there’s plenty that need homes!

You’re in MTL, right? There’s at least 2 Cat Cafes you can go visit right now to get your fix!

Awesome! Sounds like you are on the track and things are already in process. I really like Shopify for ecomm sites, so check that out when the time is right.

If you have any questions along the way, feel free to ask me here, or in a PM, or at my site in the signature below.

Any tips for finding manufacturers over-seas? It’s the part I’m currently stuck on. I’ve gotten a few quotes from places in the US but the quotes they have given me have been absurd.

Making things in the US is tough. And much more expensive than overseas. But doable, if you design for manufacture and plan the pricing for the cost.

For China, Alibaba is an OK place to start looking. Pay attention to Factory listings vs Trading Partner listings. If you are a designer, you may want direct access to the factory.

Finding an agent may be a good place to start out - check out http://www.e-bi.net. I’ve talked to them, but have not worked with them, so go at your own risk.

Go to a tradeshow in China - you’ll learn a ton and meet all the factories you can imagine.

Trust and Communication are important in exploring any new business relationship, so if you can find any recommendations from other designers for factories that may go a long way. What materials/process do you need?

It’s a huge topic, so if you have a smaller specific question, I may be able to help more…

I’m not looking to start a business anytime soon, but I just wanted to say thanks for the interesting read.

Also, your products look fantastic!

Thanks! Reach out when you’re ready to roll. I’m happy to help!

Something that I’ve seen with US or North American based factories is they will quote high for new work. The key is having an existing relationship with them or get to the right person and explain how you will bring them more work in the future. Sometimes tooling fees are the easiest thing to negotiate, if that’s your sticking point. If the product doesn’t require a lot of manual labor, it should be competitive in the US.

Agreed - Labor is the expensive part. Sometimes if you factor in the cost of ocean shipping to the US and duty, the price gets closer. I think there’s a tax discount for made in the US also. The attitude it one sticky point for me - so far, all the US factories don’t seem to want to do any bit of work outside whatever is normal and easy for them, while China factories will get anything done, anyway possible.

With the right planning and design for mfg, it can/could all be done here in North America.

Money talks in both locations, and the bigger the order, the more likely we are to get some good pricing, attention, flexibility, etc.

Let’s hear from some more designers!
Who out there is thinking about skipping the design consultancy and starting your own brand?

What kinds of products are you thinking about?

What’s holding you back from making the leap?

I’ve definitely thought about it… I think I always run the CBE on do I want to design most of the time, but for other people, vs design just a small part of the time but for myself… in addition to predictable income and using other people’s money to do good things vs using my own capital or assuming the real risk of using other’s loaned capital. If I could find that right investor who said “hey Michael, I’d like you to start an American competitor to the Ariel Atom, and I’ll give you all the money because I’m rich and I like you”… that would be another story :slight_smile:

Michael - I don’t know your career arc too well, but I know you’ve had your hands on a lot of amazing designs and projects. If that’s still keeping you excited and challenged, then that’s awesome. I’m redesigning a bunch of the pet products now, and having a blast, but actual design time for my brand is maybe only 20% overall. I love the freedom of working solo, and managing my own time, and building a long term asset, but as far as staying excited about creative projects, I’m missing out. I tend to go work on my vintage car to get some hands-on-materials time these days!

As you’ve worked with some big brands (I think), I wonder if your instinct is to go out big with a new brand of your own? It may be hard to think small once you’ve worked big, but how about making a fun side project with the goal of only earning $10k next year? Low pressure, new things to try out, low risk.

With shopify, Amazon FBA, kickstarter, and Wordpress, it has never ever been easier to start a company. And if the product is designed for mfg, then local factories could be utilized as well (opposed to the can-do-anything of China factories, which also come with high MOQ’s)

That’s my 2 cents, based only on a bunch of assumptions… happy to chat anytime if you want to bounce ideas!

Whenever I think of doing my own project, I realize how little money I might make. Hard to justify spending all my free time for a year to make an extra $10k and risk losing $20k.