Manufacturing curriculum

Deciding to start

Helps you decide whether to start a company that makes things, and which kind: a hardware startup built to grow fast on investors' money, or a profitable shop or brand you own and grow at your own pace.

Finding and testing an idea

Helps you choose a product worth making, prove that people will pay for it before you pay for tooling, and decide who to build it with.

Prototyping and design for manufacturing

Helps you build a working prototype in WNC, then turn it into a design a factory can make again and again, at a cost and quality you can live with.

Protecting the idea

Helps you decide what to protect and how, whether with a patent, a trade secret or a head start, what a provisional application buys you, and where North Carolina inventors find free legal help.

Product safety rules (pick yours)

Pick the lesson for what you make. Each one names the safety rules that apply to it, the testing and paperwork they call for, and what has to be done before your first sale.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Forming your company and registering to sell

Helps you decide when to form your company and how to register to sell in North Carolina. A prototype and a few test sales can come first, but plan to form one, register for sales tax and look at product liability insurance before you sign a factory contract or sell in volume.

Getting it made

Helps you choose who makes your product, in WNC, elsewhere in the US or overseas, ask for quotes the right way, keep control of your tooling, and know what you may claim on the label.

Pricing and margins

Helps you add up what one finished unit really costs, set wholesale and retail prices that both leave room for profit, and price custom or contract work from a real shop rate.

Selling to your first customers

Helps you win your first customers by hand and turn scattered conversations into a sales habit you run every week.

Where you'll sell (pick yours)

Pick the lesson for where you'll sell first: crowdfunding, outdoor and specialty stores, gift and home shops, WNC craft fairs and maker markets, or other companies that buy parts and contract work.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Product-market fit and metrics

Helps you tell whether people want your product enough to pay before it ships, tell their friends and keep it, measured by pre-orders, referrals, returns and how fast it sells through stores.

Bootstrapping or raising money

Helps you decide whether to grow on your own sales or raise outside money, knowing that few investors back companies that make physical products and that inventory ties up cash either way.

Capital beyond venture

Helps you find money that doesn't cost you equity, from SBA loans for equipment and buildings to WNC lenders, state programs for manufacturers and crowdfunding.

Growing the company

Helps you get through the cash squeeze that growth brings, move from making things by hand to a steady production run, and hire and train your first production staff in North Carolina.

Founder stories (pick one)

Pick one long interview with a founder who built a company that makes gear, tools, furniture or equipment, including one who watched it fail, and take a single habit from it into your own company.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Founders from here (pick one)

Pick one story from someone making gear, housewares or tools in WNC, and take one idea from it into your own company.

Any one of these finishes the module.