Christel Araujo

White label gets you to market fast with someone else's product and your logo on it. Custom product development is slower and more expensive, but you own the IP and the differentiation. The right path depends on what you're trying to build.

Founders often confuse these two partners and end up hiring the wrong one. A sourcing agent is narrow and tactical; a product development company is end-to-end. Which you need depends on how finished your product actually is.

Cutting out the middleman sounds smart until you become the middleman. Here is what going direct to overseas factories actually costs in time, quality failures, and intellectual property risk.