A good chunk of the DMs I get on social media are from hopeful entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed at the thought of properly setting up their businesses. Unfortunately, the fear at this early stage prevents a lot of businesses from ever coming into existence. Even as an attorney, I've been there and made mistakes myself, so now you can learn from my experiences and do things right from the beginning! 

We will start setting your brand up for success by getting some big decisions out of the way ASAP. You'll identify your brand's profitable niche, name and proper entity type, preparing you for what's to come in the rest of the program.

Module Highlights:

• Do your research up front. There is so much to think about, research and decide BEFORE you ever design your first collection and once you get it done, everything else will be SO much easier. I show you what you need to research up front so you can rest assured.
• Make your three critical brand decisions so you can move forward feeling focused and confident. These three decisions will lay the foundation for your brand's soon-coming success. 
• Make it legit. Not only will making all the business entity decisions now make everything feel a lot more 'real', it will also give you some extra motivation as you feel more invested and committed to your brand's success.

By now, we all probably know how to set up social media accounts, but do we all know how to monetize them? Considering how few are actually taking advantage of this enormous opportunity, the answer is likely a resounding 'no'. 

We will put you ahead of the curve with all the insider tips and strategies to make social media work for you. No need to wait for your production to begin, you'll start building your social media presence and audience right away with a foundational strategy and a concrete brand identity. 

Module Highlights:

• Develop the brand identity that will take you all the way to your successful launch and beyond! Before you even touch social media, you will establish and document a clear, custom brand identity that will go hand-in-hand with every other aspect of your business. 
• Identify from the start what your social media strategy will be going forward. Especially as things pick up, time flies and social media marketing will likely take a backseat to other tasks that seem more demanding, but you won't fall into the m.i.a (missing in action) social trap if you already have your strategy mapped out. 
• Start building your audience now - even with nothing to sell. It may seem daunting, but you'll tackle your hesitations and implement your new social strategy to start building your audience now! 

When you've dreamt of creating your own brand, you've probably thought a lot about designing the things you've imagined and actually bringing them to life. This is no doubt one of the most exciting parts of creating your own brand but there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to product development and production. Using our experience as your guide, you'll be able to avoid many costly mistakes the rest of us couldn't while leaving no detail unaddressed during your design process. 

You'll learn about all the ins and outs of the technical design process, from the planning stages through actually validating your designs pre-production.  

Module Highlights:

• Start your design process on the right foot. Hear some of our "best practices" design advice touching on everything from trend forecasting to collection cohesiveness.   
• Create the design documents that will eventually be the instruction manual for your first collection. Address every detail of your designs in a cohesive technical design package for your future manufacturer. From fabric characteristics to necklines, seams and notions, planning everything up front will allow for a smooth production and straightforward pivoting, if necessary. 
• Validate your designs using social media. Validation of your designs will give you the confidence and assurance you need to invest into the creation of your first collection. You'll discover just how valuable it is to validate your ideas prior to investing into a full-scale production cycle. 

When the time has come to finally turn your dreams into thread and fabric garments to share with the world, you'll want to have already made the important manufacturing decisions. You'll learn about the traditional garment production process and the much more efficient process we recommend for creating your first collection (and establishing your brand) on a budget. 

While reviewing our step-by-step production framework, you'll decide where to manufacture, which type of manufacturer(s) to hire and you'll begin reaching out and opening the lines of communication with garment factories you'd like to work with. 

Module Highlights:

• Make key manufacturing decisions so you know exactly where you're going. Where to manufacture? How to manufacture? Around how much will this cost? You'll make these decisions and more after learning about the different possibilities. 
• Prepare your customers' full experience. By now you've thoroughly considered every detail of your garment designs and can make informed plans for all the remaining physical components of your future customers' experience such as tags and packaging.
• It's time to reach out to manufacturers! I get questions about finding manufacturers regularly on my social media pages - for good reason. How can you trust someone you've never met to bring your dreams to life? We will provide scripts and advice for this crucial step in your business. 

The day you get to actually feel your first samples is the day your brand really begins to feel a new level of "real". We'll show you how to make the most of the sampling process and prepare for your first bulk production. 

You'll learn about the typical manufacturing timeline, our tips for everything from down payments to grading and the different methods of inventory management and order fulfilment. 

Module Highlights:

• Make the most of your garment sampling process. Not only will you maximize the quality and details of your final product by ensuring you have an effective sampling process, you will also set yourself up for an incredible launch! We will share with you how we've done this over and over. 
• Feel prepared to place your first bulk order. We know first-hand how daunting it is to place that initial bulk order. We will help you feel as prepared as possible when this day comes so you know exactly what to expect. 
• Post-production: what's next? So you managed to jump all the massive hurdles to reach this point - what's next with this order? You will decide now how you will be managing your inventory, fulfilling orders and ensuring your customers receive the experience you've planned for them. 

By this point, you've accomplished HUGE things with regards to your first collection and your brand in general. It's time now to create the tool through which you'll actually be making money! While there are several ecommerce website hosts around the internet, there's a clear winner in our experience and we will show you, step by step, how to get your very own ecommerce store set up and ready to make sales. 

From beautiful, budget-friendly product photos to sales-generating copy and effective policy pages, you'll have everything you need to successfully launch your brand. 

Module Highlights:

• DIY beautiful product photography for ecommerce and socials. Of course you can hire a professional photography studio for your website photos, but if you're working on a budget you can absolutely DIY this task. As life-long DIYers, we will share our best practices and advice for a great photoshoot, from planning as the way to the editing stage. 
• Create your branded website and get ready to sell. Being the boss designer of your new brand doesn't necessarily mean you're also an amazing graphic designer or website developer. You'll go through the website creation process step-by-step, not missing a beat.  
• Understand how to manage your new ecommerce store. Once you've created your website, you'll have everything you need to continue maintaining it to meet all your business needs. You'll learn about updating your policy pages, running sales and creating copy for SEO purposes.

Bringing your first collection to market is an incredible accomplishment and we want to maximize your success and profit during your launch! You'll begin preparing for your launch far in advance using our proven social and email strategies.

While it's not required, you will also learn about the potential benefits of pre-selling and how you can make it work for your first collection and later collections.

Module Highlights:

• Using the social media strategies from Module 2, build excitement for your launch far in advance. Discover how to tailor the social media strategies from earlier lessons to fit your first launch promotion. Learn to strategize for your first launch long before your first products are even stitched together.  
• Maximize your marketing efforts for your big launch. You will understand the benefits and mechanics of collaborations, branding and ads when promoting an upcoming launch. 
• Presale toolkit. Learn how to build trust, gather social proof and incentivize potential customers to pre-order before your collection is even made. 

The long-term goal in every business is to scale, multiplying profits exponentially and allowing for continuous growth. Learn the strategies that we have used time and time again to allow our business to continually grow and evolve with our customers. While many independent brands have achieved big months on occasion, discover how you can achieve success and steady growth consistently.

From discovering your staple products to managing ads and website analytics, you will learn to leverage data and sales to capitalize on happy customers. 

Module Highlights:

• Make business decisions based on data without being a statistician. I'm not a numbers person, but I learned quickly that there are some very important numbers in my business. Discover what these numbers are so you can use them in your own business to make the best decisions possible without feeling overwhelmed by all the data available.
• Informed future product selection. As designers, it's tempting to only make things we want to wear, while what we want to wear isn't always what our customers are interested in purchasing. Learn how to make product selection decisions that will maximize your profits rather than taking up space in your inventory storage space.
• Manage ongoing social media, email and ad marketing. Learn to follow the established strategies of every big brand we know and love to build recognition and loyalty among your ideal customers.