Services
Three ways in. One discipline underneath.
Sourcing & Supply when the specification is in hand. Venture & Market when the direction is still to be set. Design & Development when the product does not exist yet. Every route begins with the same intake and the same 48-hour feasibility check, and a person answers inside 24 hours.
01 ~ Sourcing & Supply ~ Phoebe Ye
The sample you approve is the product you receive.
Sourcing & Supply
Brief → Sample → Logistics ~ Phoebe Ye leads, on the ground in China
The specification exists, the volume is known, and the question is which factory can deliver it at a landed cost that holds. The firm works its vetted factory base across eight material pillars: paper, plastic, textile, linen, sensor, circuit, module and battery. Growth runs from 1,000 units to enterprise volumes above 10,000.
Every stage ends in an artefact the client can hold: a feasibility note, a landed-cost matrix, a selected factory, a golden sample, a delivery record. The 48-hour check and the 7-day RFQ are the two commitments the firm publishes. Pure low price is not the firm’s territory. If a target price is below the factory’s sustainability threshold, cost is not low; it is deferred risk, and the client is told so.
48-hour feasibility check ~ 7-day formal RFQ ~ mid-production inspection ~ 100% pre-shipment audit ~ balance released only on a passed audit
Stage 1
Strategic Supplier Mapping
Within 48 hours of intake the firm says whether the brief is possible against current Asian raw-material indices, which of its vetted factories can deliver the specification, what discovery is needed where the base is incomplete, and the outcome: go, no-go, or needs clarification.
48-hour feasibility check
Artefact
Feasibility note on the sourcing ticket: factory shortlist target, the index benchmark used, operational fit.
Stage 2
Comparative Cost Validation
Within 7 days of a go, a formal RFQ from two to three vetted factories, normalised into one landed-cost matrix: works price, local logistics, export duty, ocean freight, destination duty. One document, the total cost at the destination port for each candidate.
7-day formal RFQ
Artefact
The landed-cost matrix. The total price at your door is known before the first deposit is paid.
Stage 3
Commercial Selection
Samples from the leading candidates, an in-person factory visit where the engagement size justifies it, final negotiation on aggregate volume. Pierre presents the matrix with a recommendation; the client owns the selection.
Artefact
The selected-factory record and the signed scope. Status reported in the weekly check-in.
Stage 4
Product Architecture
The golden sample: the physical benchmark every unit of mass production is measured against. Specification sheet, moulds where required, certification and testing (REACH, RoHS, FSC, OEKO-TEX, ASTM as required), and the acceptable quality limit with minor, major and critical defect thresholds. Signed off in writing before any batch starts. No sample ships internationally until it has been physically inspected in Asia.
Artefact
The approved golden sample, the locked QC checklist, test reports and certificates. The sample you approve is the product you receive.
Stage 5
Production Command
From order placement to destination receipt: milestone tracking, a mid-production inspection at roughly 15% completion, a 100% pre-shipment audit against the golden sample, loading inspection with a photo set, freight, customs documentation with a verified HS code, and the balance payment released only on a passed audit. Nothing leaves the origin port until the operations team has physically touched the product.
Artefact
Inspection reports, the loading photo set, the customs set, destination receipt and the closure record. Lead time as agreed at stage 2.
02 ~ Venture & Market ~ Pierre Blanquett
A product that keeps its place is a business.
Venture & Market
Intention → Attention → Retention ~ Pierre Blanquett leads, Shanghai and Hamburg
For the European company entering China, the Asian brand entering Europe, and the founder whose venture has to be built across both. sentiention is the method: each word names a stage of a cross-border venture, and each stage is a service the firm has carried since it opened. Where the firm holds a named role inside a partner’s own team, this is the service in practice.
€500k minimum US market entry per year ~ 18 to 24 months China lead time ~ 9 months DACH B2B sales cycle ~ 48-hour follow-up window
Intention
Strategic Project Architecture
Before anything is sourced or built, the direction has to be stated clearly enough to act on. Most companies carry it implicitly and have never put it into a single sentence, and that sentence determines every decision that follows. The feasibility and go/no-go work: market attractiveness, entry route, structure.
Typical questions
- Is China the right entry, and through which structure
- What the DACH B2B cycle means for the cash plan
- Whether the venture is ready to scale at all
Attention
Operational Build-Out
The work of finding what the venture actually needs: the products, the suppliers, the lines that supplement what is already being sold, and the partners who make the crossing possible. Not done at a distance. Partner search and factory qualification in person, and the trade-show work that is decided before and after the show itself.
The numbers
- 3 days as a visitor beat 3 weeks at a desk
- 80% of trade-show success is before and after
Retention
Active Growth Management
Bringing it to market and holding the position once it is there. A product that arrives once is a shipment; a product that keeps its place is a business, and the difference is in what is built around it. Go-to-market, operating continuity and the cash to sustain it: interim mandates, operating-partner roles, and the follow-up discipline that turns a first order into a standing one.
In practice
- Nordling Outdoor ~ Partner & Growth Lead
- WandWert Deutschland ~ Strategic Partnerships
03 ~ Design & Development ~ Piotr Zalewski
Architecture removes a category of decisions from a person’s day.
Design & Development
Brand → Product → System ~ Piotr Zalewski leads, Systems Architect
When the product does not exist yet, or exists without the presence it needs. The work is built so that the sourcing discipline can pick it up where the design ends.
- Brand and product direction: the name, the mark, the register, the range
- Packaging and the specification sheet, ready for the 48-hour check
- The digital presence: the site, the intake, the routing behind it
- The operating system the venture runs on once it is live: tickets, records, the knowledge platforms
- Golden sample signed off before any batch, then the handover into sourcing
Brand and product direction ~ packaging ~ digital presence ~ intake and operating systems ~ handover into sourcing