In 2023 I wrote a product description that was entirely accurate and explained nothing. 100% cotton, 50 x 70cm, machine wash at 30. What I'd never decided was what time of year anyone was supposed to buy it, or why. That decision sets almost everything upstream of it.

A podcast quote about running a business as a proof of concept sent me back through three years of my own trading history. I'd spent two hundred hours making and six telling anyone the business existed. There are only four things that can be wrong when a product business isn't selling, and most people fix the wrong one.

A viral pitch promises print-on-demand will pay your bills while the platform takes a small cut. I checked both claims — one against the published fee schedules, one against five years of my own sales data. The numbers point the other way round.

A local school asked for a logo and "some merch" for its 200th anniversary. Here is the whole process, from reading the brief to sourcing three suppliers to 300 finished badges, with the real numbers and the judgment calls that don't show up in a spec.

In fashion, newness is the business model. Small product businesses copy the collection calendar without any of the conditions that make it pay. Here's what that reflex actually cost me.

Someone asked me what they could make with £500. I told them they were starting with the wrong number. The budget can't choose your product — only the objective can.

I found three businesses successfully selling calendars, decided the demand was real, and ordered 25. I sold one. Here's the difference between demand for a category and demand for your product — and why mistaking one for the other leaves you with a spare room full of stock nobody wanted.

The most uncomfortable kind of feedback is the one you can't argue with. Which is why founders keep choosing the validation methods that produce the blurriest signals. Blurry signals delay grief — and they delay decisions.

Nobody needs a £38 ceramic bowl. But desire isn't about need — it's about the weight in your hands, the uneven glaze, the feeling that this one was made by a person. Most product businesses reach for the cost sheet when something doesn't sell. The real problem is almost always somewhere else.

"Lightweight cotton, natural colour" can mean ten different things depending on who's reading it. That's not a factory problem — it's a specification gap. Here's how to write a brief that removes the guesswork before sampling begins.