Get it Made, Get it Sold: The Basics of Sourcing & Sales for Entrepreneurs
Jeff Staple · Founder, Staple Design
A veteran streetwear founder walks you through pricing backward from the shelf price so you never build something you can't sell.
Jeff Staple built the streetwear label Staple starting in 1997, and this class is built entirely from what he calls the mistakes and failures of doing that for close to two decades. The structure is unusual and deliberate: rather than walking chronologically from design to sourcing to sales, he starts at the finish line, the sale, and works backward to sourcing. The logic holds up. A founder who prices a bag at 1,000 dollars needs a very different factory than one pricing it at 50 dollars, and knowing which one you're aiming for before you call a vendor changes every decision that follows.
The pricing math is the spine of the course
The cost-to-wholesale-to-MSRP chain gets the most airtime, and for good reason. Staple walks through a concrete example, a 10 dollar shirt cost doubling to 20 dollars wholesale doubling to 40 dollars MSRP, and then flips it to show how a founder should work backward from a target shelf price to figure out what kind of factory and fabric they can actually afford. This reframes an early-stage founder's biggest blind spot: chasing an aspirational price point without checking whether the market of buyers at that price actually exists. The honesty here is refreshing. He tells students point blank to ask themselves how many people would really buy a 2,000 dollar bag from a brand nobody has heard of, rather than letting ego drive the pricing decision.
The class also earns its keep on the unglamorous mechanics of order forms and payment terms. Ship dates versus cancel dates, the difference between a style and a SKU, and the full spectrum from prepayment to consignment are all explained with enough specificity that a student could build a working line sheet from the lesson alone. The tech pack section, where Staple shows an actual production example of a shirt coming back from the factory in the wrong fabric because the factory prioritized fit first, is one of the more useful moments in the course because it sets a realistic expectation: even a well-made instruction sheet still needs two or three rounds of sampling.
Where it thins out
The trade show section is candid about real costs, a bare booth running around 5,000 dollars and a dressed-up presence easily hitting 20,000, but the story of hustling attendees near the bathrooms at a 1997 convention is more nostalgic than actionable for someone selling in a market now dominated by direct-to-consumer online channels. Staple acknowledges the DTC shift exists but spends most of his sourcing and sales advice on the wholesale-to-retail-store model that built his own brand, which means a founder planning to sell only through their own website will need to translate a fair amount of the material.
The course also stays narrowly apparel-focused despite gesturing at broader product entrepreneurship. Someone making candles, notebooks, or hardware will need to do some translation work on the SKU and tech pack sections, even though the underlying pricing logic transfers cleanly. At 109 minutes across fourteen lessons, nothing overstays its welcome, but the closing section on fulfillment and the psychology of a retail sale, while charming, adds sentiment more than new instruction. This is a strong, specific class for someone about to negotiate with a factory for the first time, less essential for someone who has already shipped a collection or two.
The standout
The price-first-make-later method, which works backward from MSRP to wholesale to cost so the founder chooses a factory and fabric that actually fit the price point instead of guessing after the fact.
What you will learn
- How to calculate cost, wholesale, and MSRP pricing backward from a target retail price
- How to build a line sheet with ship dates, cancel dates, and payment terms (prepayment, COD, net 30, consignment)
- The difference between a style and a SKU, and how to track inventory across colorways and sizes
- How to prepare a tech pack so a factory can sample a garment correctly
- How trade show economics work, including realistic booth costs and how to network at one on a shoestring budget
- How to build a costing sheet that accounts for fabric, trims, freight, and hidden fees
Best for: A first-time apparel or product founder who has a brand and designs but has never negotiated with a factory or built a line sheet.
Skip it if: Anyone outside physical product manufacturing, or a founder who already has production and wholesale experience and needs advanced negotiation or DTC growth tactics instead.