AT Inventors 3 is focused on Logistics and Production for your product to help improve the practice of Athletic Trainers EVERYWHERE.

Production

Origin of production, taxes, and duties

Cost per unit and minimum orders

Payment options with vendors

How do you price your product

E: dial in all of your costs and then add 15% in case of overages.

A lot of people do not understand this statement, but it's good to shoot for 5X to cover all the other expenses we talked about. Rent, insurance, time, labor…

Really slim margins do not offer you any protection.  Everyone needs to make their money. 

Using the SanDisk memory card example - the card is the same shape and size as it changes storage capacity but the price keeps going up.

Stay focused and do not spread yourself too thin.

E: Shipping can be a big experiment as well. Saving one inch could save you lots of dollars.

J: Everyone liked the custom cardboard boxes but they cost more…

E: I was going to pay $90 for 10 stickers...I decided to go with a vinyl sticker cutter instead...it has been well worth the time and investment.

Passive income streams are another option we did not really cover.

What is your relationship with your vendors?

How do you handle quality control and setbacks from vendors

J: As someone who does not have access to a lot of warehouses I had to prototype to troubleshoot quality control and how they handle the load.

I used SGS as a third party inspection company

How involved do you want to be with production?

Do you want to learn a new trade or use a vendor for production

J: Is it worth your time and money to pay someone or do you need to learn how to do this.

E: Look at efficiency and what you really want - do you want to learn how to sew.

How do you keep things in stock or when do you know you need to purchase more

Just in time manufacturing, WIP or large batches of inventory

Where do you store large batches of inventory?

* Elysia, please answer this one. I do not want people to look into my supplier because of my partnership with the warehouse

Logistics

How will the products arrive to you?

Will you ship your product and storage

Order fulfillment systems

How involved do you want to be from start to finish?

Websites, credit card processing, and fees 

J: Affordability was the key - square seemed to be the best fit for me now.

They are a one-stop shop for me.

E: I got a quote from a company to build a custom site with everything I want for $14K

There were not as many eCommerce sites available

I felt I would be stuck with that with minimal support.

We went with an eCommerce site and used the money to get exactly what we wanted.

With your website try to answer every customer service question with an article or video so that you can reduce the personally answered questions.