10 · Line Architecture & MVP Scoping
Week 10 · 25 hours
Objective
Decide exactly what you are making first, in what quantities, in what sizes and colours — and lock it. Week 10 is a hard gate.
Why it matters commercially
Every additional SKU multiplies inventory risk, minimums, cash requirement and operational complexity, while adding almost nothing to a first launch’s credibility. The discipline of shipping one excellent thing is the whole game at your stage.
Core concepts
SKU maths, and why it’s brutal
A SKU is a unique sellable unit: style × colourway × size.
| Configuration | SKUs | Pairs at 20/SKU |
|---|---|---|
| 1 style, 1 colour, 6 sizes | 6 | 120 |
| 1 style, 2 colours, 8 sizes | 16 | 320 |
| 2 styles, 2 colours, 10 sizes | 40 | 800 |
| 3 styles, 3 colours, 12 sizes | 108 | 2,160 |
At a $32 FOB, that last row is $69,000 of inventory. The first row is $3,840. This table is the difference between a business and a bankruptcy.
Size curve
You do not order equal quantities per size. Order to a size curve reflecting real demand distribution. For men’s footwear a common Western curve, roughly:
| US size | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of run | 8% | 15% | 22% | 24% | 19% | 12% |
Treat these as a starting point, adjust for your actual audience, and ask your factory — they see real curves constantly and will tell you if yours is odd. Getting the curve wrong means you sell out of 9s and 10s in a week and sit on 7s and 12s for a year. Those leftover sizes are where your profit went.
Deciding the first drop
Answer these, in writing, and commit:
- One style. Which of your three candidates, and why.
- How many colourways? Recommend one, or two if the second is genuinely a different customer.
- What size run? Recommend a truncated whole-size run for drop one; state it clearly on the site rather than hiding it.
- How many pairs total? Driven by your budget and your factory’s MOQ, informed by Module 19’s pre-order test.
- What retail price? A first hypothesis; Module 18 will validate it.
- What is explicitly deferred to V2? Write the list. It relieves the pressure to cram everything into drop one.
Naming the style
You need a style name and a style code now, because they go on the tech pack, the BOM, the box, the barcode and the invoice.
- Style name: short, sayable, checkable for trademark conflict (Module 17).
- Style code: systematic, e.g.
AC1-BLK-01(style-colour-version). Boring is correct.
If you ever add a second style
The classic small-brand line architecture, for reference when you get there:
- Hero — the style the brand is known for. Never discontinued, refreshed in colour.
- Companion — a different silhouette family, same point of view, for the customer who won’t wear the hero.
- Seasonal / limited — small runs, material stories, drives urgency and email signups.
You are building the hero. That’s all.
Do this
1 · SKU model (4h). Build the SKU table for three scenarios — minimum, planned, ambitious — with pairs, FOB cost, landed cost estimate and total cash required. Look at the cash number for the ambitious scenario until you feel appropriately uncomfortable.
2 · Size curve research (3h). Find or ask for three real size curves. Build yours. Justify any deviation from the norm in writing.
3 · The lock document (4h). One page. Style, colourway(s), size run, quantities per size, target FOB, target retail, target ship date. Sign and date it. Put it at the front of your build log.
4 · Deferred list (2h). Everything you want to do and are not doing in drop one, with the reason. This becomes the input to Module 25.
5 · Tech pack V02 (6h). Update the tech pack with the locked scope: final size run, final colourways, style code, final quantities. Bump the version.
6 · Pre-RFQ preparation (5h). Prepare your quotation request package for Module 11–12: tech pack V02, cover letter, quantity scenarios (150 / 300 / 500 pairs), and a factory questionnaire.
7 · Outreach block (1h).
Deliverable. SKU scenario model; justified size curve; a signed one-page scope lock; a deferred-features list; tech pack V02; and a ready-to-send RFQ package.
Self-check
- How many SKUs is one style, two colours, eight sizes?
- What is a size curve and what happens if yours is wrong?
- What are you explicitly not doing in drop one?
- What’s your style code and what does each part mean?
Traps
Scope creep after the lock. The lock is the point. If you break it, break it consciously, in writing, with a note of the cost and delay it causes.
Full size runs on drop one. US 6–13 with half sizes is 16 sizes. At even 15 pairs each that’s 240 pairs of a single colourway. Truncate.
A “small” second colourway. There is no such thing. A second colourway is a second material buy, a second lab dip round, a second set of minimums, and a second inventory position. Only do it if it’s genuinely a second customer.