I join a business two or three days a week as its senior product and operations person: running range development, managing suppliers and factories, holding the critical path, and building the processes that keep all of it moving on the days I'm not there. It suits owner-led product businesses that need the seniority of a head of product without a full-time salary attached to it.

Usually not another junior pair of hands. If suppliers, sign-offs and the critical path all run through you, the constraint is senior judgement, and adding someone who needs directing makes your day longer rather than shorter. What you need is someone who can hold development and production without being told how. That is either a head of product on the payroll, or the same seniority bought a few days a week.

No. The earliest decisions are the expensive ones to get wrong — what the product is, who makes it, what it costs to make and what that means you have to charge. Those get locked in long before anyone has a team or a warehouse, and unpicking them later costs far more than getting them right first time. A monthly advisory session or a defined project is usually the right shape at that stage: you keep making the decisions, and you have someone experienced making them with you. What matters is that you are actually making something, not how far along you are.

Write down the last ten things that stalled. If they stalled because nobody had time, you need capacity, and a good coordinator will fix it. If they stalled because nobody could make the call — which supplier, which margin, whether the sample is good enough to sign off — you need judgement, and hiring capacity will not touch it. Most owner-led product businesses hire for the first while the actual problem is the second.

Homeware, gifting, stationery, lifestyle and accessories are where most of my work sits. My background is fifteen years in luxury fashion product and operations, and the mechanics carry across: sourcing, sampling, costing, critical path, minimum order quantities, supplier management, delivery. The category changes the materials and the factory. It does not change how a range gets developed and delivered on time.

Start with the specification, not the search. Most sourcing goes wrong because the brief is loose, so the quotes come back non-comparable and you end up choosing on price alone. I develop the product to a production-ready spec first, then approach makers who genuinely work in that material at your volume, run the sampling, and negotiate terms and minimums. For a first product that is typically six to twelve weeks from brief to signed-off sample, depending on the material and whether tooling is involved.

I'm based in London and work with brands across the UK and internationally, including a retained client in Toronto. Either on site or remotely depending on where the work actually is. Supplier visits, sample reviews and factory work happen in person where it matters, and the rest runs perfectly well over a call and a shared file.