sales, financingI am almost ready to call retailers and finance the manufacturing for my products. The problem is, bulk part orders will have a 4-6 week manufacturer lead time.
Should I:
or
I’m sure that the bank would prefer to see that I have some orders before giving me a loan. Do retailers expect you to have the product ready to ship when you call? What is the generally accepted approach?
Go for option 2 if it’s feasible. Getting the order first will solve 95% of your problems, including negotiating the funding with your bank.
Retailers expect you to have the product ready to ship or nearly so when you call, and that is the generally accepted approach.
But they’re also usually open to founders who call them saying they’ve a prototype on hand and are doing a market study and looking for early adopters before moving further. The main difference between the two is you’ll want a C-level exec – or at least a manager who can sponsor you throughout the organization – rather than some random person within the organization with no say beyond price, quality, or logistics.
As a bonus you may get sobering yet insightful feedback. Until you actively try to sell what you’d like to build, you’ve no idea if it’s actually useful to anyone.
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