Sourcing is the single biggest lever in physical product economics. Get it right and you have a moat. Get it wrong and you're competing on marketing forever. What's inside: → The Factory vs Trading Company decision rule (and when to switch) → Canton Fair: pre-fair, during, post-fair playbook (April fair starts in 18 days) → The 3-Phase Supplier Evaluation Checklist → Payment terms decoded — Trade Assurance vs T/T vs L/C → The first-email template that gets a real reply → 5 cultural negotiation principles (Guanxi, Mianzi, indirect communication, WeChat, long-term thinking) → A 30-minute QC inspection checklist for incoming goods PLUS — the Free Sourcing Directory (Sample Edition) is now in the Classroom under Directories. 30 hand-picked suppliers across 6 categories: - Sourcing Agents (JingSourcing, Leeline, CJ, Minden, Supplyia) - Supplements & Nutraceuticals - Electronics & Gadgets (Foxconn, Pegatron, Quanta, Compal, Wistron) - Health & Beauty - Home & Kitchen - Fulfilment & 3PL Validated websites, contacts, certifications, and a trust score on each one. The Premium edition has 480 suppliers — but the free 30 is already a lot of operator-grade signal in one place. Two things to do this week: 1. Read the module (35 mins). 2. Run the Phase 1 Initial Screening on 3 suppliers from the directory. Then come back and tell us what you found. Discussion question for the comments 👇 What's the biggest sourcing mistake you've made? Was it a supplier choice, a payment issue, or a quality surprise? How would you avoid it next time? Real stories teach more than any framework I can write. Drop yours below — even (especially) the painful ones.

our first 5 employees are one thing. Your 5th to 25th? That's where most operators break. Module 9 just dropped and it's the hiring playbook I wish I had before burning $80K on bad hires. What's inside: → Org charts for every stage ($0–$1M, $1M–$3M, $3M–$10M, $10M+) → The Hiring Decision Matrix — 3 questions that tell you hire vs. outsource vs. contractor → 15 interview questions that separate operators from order-takers → 5 hiring mistakes that cost $15K–$50K each (with the exact fixes) → How to preserve culture when you go from 5 to 25 people The key insight: At $1M, you're both the Visionary and the Integrator. By $5M, you need to specialize. By $10M+, you need a full leadership team. This module shows you how to make that transition without burning out. One stat that should scare you: 60% of early hiring mistakes are culture mismatches — not skill mismatches. Speed beats polish. Every time. Hire for speed first, skills second, culture third. Drop a comment: Where are you right now? Solo? 3 people? 10? What role do you need most?

No seriously, walk me through your exact response. Who do you call first? Do you have a backup processor? How fast can you get manual orders running? When do you tell customers? Most brands I've worked with don't have an answer to any of these questions. And that's the problem — crisis response speed is 90% preparation. The playbook needs to exist before the crisis hits, not during it. Module 8 breaks down the full crisis framework: the severity matrix for instant triage, a 15-step response checklist, the 4-pillar Crisis Control Tower, and the 5 mistakes that turn manageable incidents into existential threats. Question for you: What's the single biggest vulnerability in your business right now? The one thing that, if it broke tomorrow, would stop everything?

Here's what my AI stack looked like 12 months ago: - ChatGPT for writing - Zapier for automation - Airtable for data - Make for workflows - Google Sheets for tracking - Slack for communication Total cost: ~$350/month. Time spent copying data between them: 45 minutes/day. The math didn't work. I was spending more time maintaining the stack than it saved me. Module 7 breaks down the 4-Layer Automation Architecture that replaced all of it, plus a daily briefing workflow you can deploy in 30 minutes and 5 copy-paste skill templates. Question for you: How many AI tools are you currently paying for? And honestly, how many do you actually use weekly?

I used to make every decision based on instinct. Revenue felt good? Keep going. Team seems busy? Must be productive. Then I tracked 10 metrics for one month and realized: - My CAC had climbed 35% without me noticing - Repeat purchase rate was 20% (I thought it was closer to 40%) - Fulfillment time had crept from 1 day to 4 days Module 6 breaks down the complete KPI framework by department (Finance, Ops, CS, Supply Chain, Marketing), plus the ops dashboard template and a monthly review agenda you can start using this week. Question for you: What's the ONE metric you wish you'd started tracking earlier? Drop it below.