You did it. You created a toy company.
You have your first product idea.
You even have your first factory ready to go into production.
It's all easy from here right? OK - real talk. It is never easy. Ever. But there is one thing that can make it a whole lot easier...
Domestic Prototyping.
It is so tempting to have your production factory do your prototypes. They are generally 20% of the cost of US prototypes, or sometimes even FREE if you agree to produce the entire run with them. However what a lot of companies tend to not take into account is the financial cost vs. the true cost.
Financial cost: You save a few hundred dollars.
True cost. This is more complicated. When you have prototyping done domestically you have many benefits. One of which is time zones. When communicating with a domestic prototyper, even if you are on opposite ends of the states, the most you have to adjust is 3 hours. You can have a lot of back and forth in the workday with just a 3 hour difference. Changes can be made essentially real time.
When prototyping in China, generally speaking the start of their work day will be the end of yours. So the last thing you do in a day will be to make a request, and you won't be able to see the change until the next morning. So a change or review that might take an hour to iterate domestically, has now taken 16-ish hours internationally. Have another change request? That is another day.
Second is direct communication. Not even taking language barrier into account, domestically you can call and speak to the person who is prototyping for you directly. You can even zoom and make changes while on the call. In China, there is a hierarchy system of factory communication. You will NEVER speak to someone on the floor directly. Generally you will be speaking with a factory coordinator, who relays the request to a supervisor, who relays the request to the person doing the work. Ever play that childhood game "telephone." Yep.
Once you get the prototype to a good place via emailed photos you are going to want to hand inspect it, especially in the case of paint applications. To mail a prototype across the US using 2-3 day mail is generally maybe $25 (depending on the size etc) - From China that tends to cost 4X more, with risk of damage and customs delays. Just a few sample revisions being mailed to you from the factory can really start to eat away at that savings.
*and you may be saying "just wait until you approve the piece via photographs before requesting samples." I have NEVER worked with a factory that has been able to accurately represent a final paint sample via digital photo. Ever. No lie, a company I worked at lost almost 2 months on a paint sample once because the factory couldn't get the shade of purple right on a piece- and when we asked for photos of the piece under different lighting each one looked different every time, and was always different than the sample.
Keep in mind that factories aren't there to create, they are there to reproduce. Nothing will get you faster or better results than delivering a factory a painted and an unpainted prototype, and simply stating "Copy this sample." The few hundred dollars you save in up front cost will pay you back many times over with saved production time and stress.
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