Course Overview
How the course is laid out, how the tools keep your work, and where to begin if you already sell.
The Foundry takes a supplement brand from an idea to a store that's taking orders, getting reorders and staying on the right side of the and . It's written for the person making the decisions, so where a job belongs to your manufacturer, lab, or attorney, the course teaches what to ask for and how to tell a good answer from a bad one.
The Five Phases
Each phase settles one set of decisions, in the order they depend on each other.
| Phase | What it settles | What you'll have at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Strategy | Market, formula, claims, and the math behind the price | A formula brief, a price ladder with margins that work, and a cash plan |
| 2. Infrastructure | The company and everyone you'll depend on | A company, a cleared name, a manufacturer, insurance, and a store that can take payment and collect sales tax |
| 3. Trust | What a shopper sees before they buy | A compliant label, product images, and a product page that makes an honest case |
| 4. | Bringing people to the page and measuring what works | Tracking you can trust, reviews, creator content, ads and a weekly routine for spending on them |
| 5. Operations | Everything after the order | , reorders, subscriptions, customer support, and a process for when something goes wrong |
The course ends with Your Plan, which gathers everything you've entered into one page you can print or share, and After Launch, on what comes after the first product.
How Each Module Works
Every module opens with its objective, then a Strategy section with the thinking behind the decision, then an Action Plan of numbered steps. Most end with an Asset: a calculator, a checker, or an annotated example to work from. A warning near the end covers the most common way the decision goes wrong.
- Your work is saved. Anything you enter in an asset is kept with your account, so you can close the page and pick up on another device.
- Numbers carry forward. The prices and costs you set in Unit Economics feed the later calculators, so you enter them once.
- Terms are defined where they appear. Hover over or tap a term with a wavy underline for a plain-English definition, or open the Glossary.
- Some steps take weeks to come back. Trademark searches, insurance quotes and manufacturer samples all involve waiting on someone else. Start them when the module says to, and keep reading while you wait.
Reference and Examples
Two sections sit outside the lessons, for use during and long after the course.
- Reference has six pages: Launch Readiness, your go or no-go list before spending on ads; the Operating Calendar, for every recurring check; Every , for each lot you make; Packets to Send, with ready-to-copy messages; Records to Keep; and the Toolkit, which puts the tools you'll use every week in one place.
- Examples are finished pages built for the course's example product, the NutraInsiders Liver Detox Liquid: a product page, a label, a testing and quality page, a subscription flow, three bridge pages, a home page, and the emails and text messages a customer receives. Open one beside the module that explains it.
If You're Starting From Scratch
Work through the phases in order. The early decisions set numbers the later ones depend on: the dose sets your cost, your cost sets your price, and your price decides how much you can spend on an ad.
If You Already Sell
Start with Launch Readiness. Every item you can't tick links to the module that fixes it, so one pass through the list shows you where your gaps are. If you already know what's wrong, start with the module that covers it.
| If this sounds like you | Start with |
|---|---|
| Ad dashboards look good, but the bank balance doesn't agree | Tracking & Attribution, then Unit Economics |
| Every first order loses money | Unit Economics, High-AOV Bundles and Upsells & Cross-Sells |
| Customers buy once and don't come back | Habit Formation SMS, Retention Emails and Subscriptions |
| Ads keep getting rejected, or an account was restricted | Compliance Word Bank and Ad Account Health |
| Your processor is holding a reserve or froze the account | Payment Processing |
| You've never tested a lot independently | cGMP & Labs |
| You keep running out of stock, or throwing expired stock away | Inventory Forecasting |
| Nobody outside your team has reviewed your label | Label Compliance |
Next, you start where every supplement brand should: by buying from the competitor you're about to take on.
This is one module of The Foundry
The Foundry takes a supplement brand from formula to first reorder, with a working tool in every module and your numbers carried between them.