The Opening Bid
The following entry is just sharing how I stumbled my way through productization. If you copy my steps and it blows up in your face (legally, financially, or otherwise), that’s on you, not me. For real advice, ask someone whose job it is to give it.
It is finally time to find a manufacturer, and the process began surprisingly simply! For this part of the process, I jumped straight to alibaba.com without hesitation. There are incentives to manufacture in the US, but there were two reasons that persuaded me against it.
US factories are not on a centralized network, making it hard to find and contact the right factory for the job.
From the factories that I was able to find online, most only take large orders from established companies. I represent neither of those.
Despite this, I still sent a query to 3 US-based factories. None of them got back to me, so Alibaba it is.
Caption: The home page of alibaba.com.
To start on Alibaba, I registered an account and started writing the “Request for Qualification” document. This is pretty much a standard system across the manufacturing world where buyers can put out a project and have multiple suppliers give them a quote, at which point you can narrow them down to the one that you think best suits your project. The RFQs on Alibaba typically consist of 5 sections:
Product Name, find something that clearly identifies your product.
Product Category, choosing from a dropdown list that narrows down what the product specifically is.
Detailed requirements, outlining what is needed from the manufacturer, including a light rundown of materials, parts, electronics, packaging, and finishing. Also include general information such as dimensions and application.
Supporting documents, since this RFQ will be sent out to an extremely large number of suppliers and individuals, I strongly suggest not putting detailed drawings in here. I created an un-dimensioned version of my assembly drawing that gives suppliers a rough but good idea of what I’m asking them to make.
Sourcing quantity, give a rough estimate of how many you are looking to make. This is not set in stone, and in later communications it is perfectly acceptable to ask them to quote you prices at different order quantities. This number is more about magnitude, 10, 100, 1000, 5000, 10k, etc.
Here is my “Detailed requirements” section of the RFQ:
We are looking to order a specialized protractor tool for precise measuring purposes.
The product is a machined aluminum protractor consisting of 5 parts and 2 screws with 2 parts sliding in grooves allowing the protractor to swing its “arms”. We have design files and prototypes. We are interested in getting a sample produced and would like to request a quote based on the following specifications:
Material: Machined aluminum
Machining requirements: some dovetail undercut grooves
Assembly requirements: 4 unique parts, 5 parts in total secured together by 2 screws
Dimensions: 100mm x 100mm x 7.5mm
Finishing: Light polish, UV printed high-detail markings
Packaging: Rigid paperboard, 2-part telescopic box wrapped in paper with printing
Application: Suitable for technical drawing and precise measurements
Thank you and we are looking forward to your quotations.
Bonae Artis LLC
Caption: Supporting document provided along with the RFQ offering a rough overview of the product.
And the last thing to do? Click the little orange button to begin The Opening Bid.