Everything here is what I actually use, or what I wish clients had used before they called me. Written by someone who owns the factories — not someone who buys from them.
Checklist · 42 checks
Documents to request before you travel, what to look at on the floor, how to test engineering capability with your own drawing, and the quality evidence that can't be produced retroactively. Includes notes on which questions factories prepare for — because mine have been audited hundreds of times.
Open the checklist →PDF · 5 tools
The five checks I run before any founder sends money to a factory: the 10 screening questions, how to read a mold quote line by line, the tolerances that only fail in the field, a due-diligence questionnaire, and the contract checklist that keeps the tool yours.
Get the kit →Data · Quarterly
What we actually pay for mold steel (P20, 718H, S136, imported ASSAB), injection molding machine time by tonnage, and die casting metal (ADC12, Zamak). Published every quarter from our own procurement records.
See current prices →Guide
Design decisions that cost more than supplier decisions, screening a factory on behaviour, reading a mold quote, tooling ownership, payment terms, and what inspection doesn't catch.
Read the guide →Coming · Q4 2026
Achievable tolerances by feature type and material in production — not in a sample — with the cost step at each tier.
Coming · Q4 2026
What to specify in an inspection plan so the defects that only show up in the field get caught in the factory.
The information asymmetry between Western founders and Chinese factories is the single most expensive thing in early hardware manufacturing — and almost all of it is preventable. I'd rather you arrive at a conversation already knowing what to ask. It makes the projects I do take on better ones.