by Heather Zager
Tips, tricks, and advice on getting a sewn product idea into development and manufacture.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
2/8/2024
Email Addresses
1 available
Phone Numbers
0 available
April 16, 2025
<p>Host Heather Zager interviews MADE client and brand entrepreneur William Hardcastle of WannaHug. WannaHug is a clothing line that aims to help every customer make a difference in someone’s life. Every garment purchased allows the customer to select another garment to donate at no extra cost. William talks with Heather about where the inspiration for WannaHug came from, how he set up the brand, what it cost, and how to handle setbacks. </p><p><br></p><p>Heather finds out from William how long it took him to get WannaHug from a concept to where he is now, in online selling. William is very transparent about timeframes, marketing, and the cost of the start-up, breaking down the initial costs for listeners curious about starting their own brands. One of the things William is open about is how he reshuffled his sale garments to better drive revenue and allow for more options in donatable items. The vision William has for giving back to his community is as admirable as his enthusiasm for the manufacturing process, something he truly enjoyed being part of.</p><p><br></p><p>This episode contains insights, detailed itemization, and inspiration for anyone interested in a brand startup, manufacturing, or creating a purpose-driven sales model. </p><p><br></p><p><strong>About William Hardcastle: </strong></p><p>William Hardcastle is the founder of WannaHug, a purpose-driven clothing brand that emerged from his time in Seattle. While working as a commercial diver, William and his wife were deeply impacted by the stark contrast between the city’s wealth and the needs of its underserved communities. This disparity inspired him to create a brand that not only provides high-quality clothing but also empowers consumers to make a meaningful impact. With every purchase, customers can choose a donation, enabling them to contribute to positive change at no additional cost.</p><p><br></p><p>—</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Contact Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services: </strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.madeapparelservices.com/">Website: MADEApparelServices.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MADEApparelServices/">Facebook: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/madeapparelservices/">Instagram: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeapparelservices">Linkedin: MADEApparelServices<br></a><br></li></ul><p><strong>Contact William Hardcastle | WannaHug: </strong></p><ul><li>Website: <a href="https://wannahug.com/">WannaHug.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-hardcastle-a63476aa/">LinkedIn </a></li><li>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wannahugclothing/">@wannahugclothing<br></a><br></li></ul><p>—</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Transcript</strong></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the MADE Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of MADE Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:28] Welcome everybody! Today I'm chatting with William Hardcastle who started his own brand called WannaHug. William, welcome. Let's start off by having you tell me a bit about who you are and how you started your brand.</p><p><br></p><p>William Hardcastle: [00:00:42] Thank you Heather, it's a pleasure to be speaking with you again. My name is William and I started the WannaHug brand when I was in Seattle. I was there at the time doing some more professional skills as a commercial diver. And whilst we were there, my wife and I found the discrepancy between the wealth and those in need quite large in Seattle, and it gave me the idea to start a purpose driven clothing brand, which empowers the consumer to make change at no extra cost. Through your purchase at 'Wanna' brand, you get to choose a donation, therefore empowering yourself and making a change in the world.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:01:19] That's a great idea, I love that. You just got that from what you saw going on in Seattle, the homelessness and things on the street?</p><p><br></p><p>William Hardcastle: [00:01:28] It's a beautiful place for a start, Washington. And Seattle has a certain buzz about it. There's obviously a great wealth there in Seattle, but unfortunately there's also a very large issue with homelessness and abuse that happens on the street. It seemed to me that those people tend to get left behind, even though there is such huge wealth there that could help that issue. One thing led to another and I thought, why isn't there a place for people to go where they can do what they're going to do anyway through consumerism, but make a difference and make the power of their choice, making it a positive impact in society.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:02:05] And bringing that across everywhere, not just Seattle. Absolutely, it's a great idea.</p><p><br></p><p>William Hardcastle: [00:02:09] It's a good place to start, but we hope to service the Midwest and beyond as it carries on.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:02:15] Excellent. How long would you say it took for WannaHug to get where it is today, from your concept and your idea up to where you're at right now? And expand a little bit about where you're at right now too. Are you in manufacturing or are you online selling?</p><p><br></p><p>William Hardcastle: [00:02:29] It all started when I came across your profile online back in February. Your page was very helpful, very self-explanatory as to what you'd be looking to do. It was a comfortable place to start because I was new to the industry. I'd never done anything in apparel or clothing or anything like that. I just knew where I wanted to go, so finding somebody like yourself was really helpful in getting my conceptions down on paper and then into design. Which came with a lot of things like the tech pack, your expertise, small business and what you need to have sorted before you reach the manufacturing stage. We worked together for maybe 3 or 4 months where we went through everything from design, cut and sew, choosing materials, everything that you need to get ready in order to go to manufacturing. Now as we approach the 9th or 10th month of WannaHug, we are at the manufacturing stage. We have signed off on all of the designs last week. We have seven garments in production and they will be due to release at the end of the year. And they will be sold through the website and marketed through our social media platforms. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, the usual ones.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:03:49] Great, that sounds excellent. What goals are you still trying to reach, if any, with your brand?</p><p><br></p><p>William Hardcastle: [00:03:57] With experience, and the more we experience within the industry, I'd like to get better at streamlining. This is the first time I've done anything myself, and there's always a place to streamline. I think that comes from being more thoughtful and perhaps planning better and being more realistic on timelines. That was a big thing for me. Being more realistic on timelines would be a good goal, because that way it unburdens pressure on yourself. Then a goal is to continue reaching as many people as possible and empowering those people to help others, like I said, at no extra cost. I guess a big thing for both of those things would be planning, I think that always helps to have a good plan.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:04:38] You ma...</p>
October 9, 2024
<p>Host Heather Zager interviews social media strategist Rebecca Scott about all things social media, including how often to post, where to post, and how much time business owners should spend on the task. Rebecca shares practical tips to help entrepreneurs improve their social media strategy, starting by identifying their ideal customers and choosing the platforms that align with their interests. From there, Rebecca shares tips for what to post, what not to post, and why engagement matters. </p><p><br></p><p>When Heather asks about how much time business owners should realistically spend on their social media, Rebecca outlines a basic social media management strategy for business owners, emphasizing efficiency through content batching and consistent engagement. The approach involves creating monthly content in advance, followed by daily engagement to foster audience interaction. The key steps include establishing content pillars, brainstorming ideas, organizing formats, setting posting frequency, and balancing content types. Time is divided across planning, creating, and scheduling, with daily engagement given high importance to boost algorithm performance. Below is a breakdown of these steps and the time allotted for each. </p><p><br></p><p>This episode contains insights, useful tips, and inspiration for business owners of all experience levels.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Rebecca’s Basic Social Media Strategy for Entrepreneurs:</strong></p><ul><li>1-2 hours planning and batching content</li><li>2-3 hours filming, editing, creating content, writing captions</li><li>1-1.5 hours creating graphics for posting</li><li>30-minutes scheduling posts</li><li>2.5 hours weekly for engagement</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>About Rebecca Scott</strong></p><p>With a decade of entrepreneurship under her belt, Rebecca Scott is an experienced social media manager and founder of Creative Nobility. Originally trained in graphic design, she began her career specializing in branding and print media. However, as the demand for digital solutions grew, she expanded her services to include social media management—developing a new passion that transformed her business.</p><p><br></p><p>Today, social media management makes up the core of Rebecca’s business, serving clients across Canada and the United States in various industries, including podcasting. Known for her dedication to staying ahead of trends, Rebecca is committed to providing her clients with innovative strategies to help them grow their businesses online.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Resources discussed in this episode:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.canva.com">Canva</a></li><li><a href="https://www.loomly.com">Loomly</a></li><li><a href="https://www.hootsuite.com">Hootsuite</a></li><li><a href="https://sproutsocial.com/">Sprout Social</a></li><li><a href="https://sproutsocial.com/">Planoly</a></li><li><a href="https://later.com">Later</a></li><li><a href="https://www.fiverr.com">Fiverr </a></li><li><a href="https://www.upwork.com">Upwork</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>—</p><p><br></p><p><strong><br>Contact Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services: </strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.madeapparelservices.com/">Website: MADEApparelServices.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MADEApparelServices/">Facebook: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/madeapparelservices/">Instagram: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeapparelservices">Linkedin: MADEApparelServices<br></a><br></li></ul><p><strong>Contact Rebecca Scott | Creative Nobility: </strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://creativenobility.com">Website: CreativeNobility.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/creativenobility/">Facebook: CreativeNobility</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/creativenobilitysocial/">Instagram: CreativeNobility</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/creative-nobility/">LinkedIn: CreativeNobility<br></a><br></li></ul><p>—</p><p><strong>Transcript<br></strong><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Made Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of Made Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.</p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:30] Hello everyone! Today we have Rebecca from Creative Nobility with us. We are interviewing her on everything social media. So Rebecca, welcome. Let's just start off by having you tell me a little bit about your business and what it is that you do.</p><p>Rebecca Scott: [00:00:44] Awesome. Thanks for having me here today, Heather. I guess I'll start off by saying I'm a social media manager. I have had my company for, actually this month is year 10. So it's pretty exciting. I'm happy that I made it to 10 years. You know how it is with starting up a company and entrepreneurship, all that fun stuff. I started off just as a graphic designer, that's what I went to school for. It was called Electronic Publishing at a university here in Canada, in Calgary. I started off by doing graphic design, branding, mostly print for my clients, which is kind of dying out a little bit now, which is sad. But that was one of the main reasons that I ended up adding social media to my offerings, because people were looking more for that digital offering to grow more online and to get more online sales. That wasn't something that I originally had planned on offering, but it developed into this new passion that I had about 7 years ago. So I started doing that, and that's about 95% of what I do for my clients now. It's clients from Canada and the US across all different industries. A lot of them have podcasts like yourself, and I fell in love with doing anything social media, and I am on my phone a lot, which is a bit of a downside, but it's good because I'm always learning. Staying on top of trends that way and making sure that I'm giving my clients the best chance at growing their business as possible.</p><p>Heather Zager: [00:02:27] And that makes sense because I think in any industry, the best thing you can do as a business owner is be flexible. You have to see what the customer wants and move towards those trends to stay afloat. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Very cool. I have a couple of questions that I'm going to go over with you and we can take this any direction that it tends to go. Some things that I thought of that my clients might be interested in is, how many times per week should someone spend doing social media, especially if they're doing it themselves. What can they expect to be the percentage of time, if they're really going to do this well, and try to gain a following to sell their product or their brand or whatever it is that they're starting up.</p><p>Rebecca Scott: [00:03:13] That is a great question. That's one that I get asked often by prospective clients and business owners who are looking to do their social media themselves and aren't quite sure. It does depend a little bit on your comfort level with social media. If you're comfortable creating assets and how many platforms you're going to be on. In general, I asked a bunch of my friends who own businesses, and then read a study as well, and it said that 43% of business owners spend around 6 hours each week. So I went through my process of what I would think a business owner with maybe not a ton of experience would do with their own social media. And I came up with a bit of a breakdown that I thought I would share with you. And this might...</p>
September 25, 2024
<p>Host Heather Zager shares valuable insights for new and small brands looking to simplify their manufacturing process to save time and money. She emphasizes the importance of narrowing down design options to keep costs reasonable and avoid overwhelming inventory numbers. Heather suggests starting with one design in a size range with limited colors to keep costs manageable. Once success is reached with that design, other options can be explored. </p><p><br></p><p>To help streamline the process and validate design ideas, Heather recommends sharing design options on social media to gather feedback. This also helps build a strong social media presence and encourages engagement. Listeners will also hear practical tips, such as how to learn more about material sourcing and pattern-making to save time and money in the long run. </p><p><br></p><p>These strategies not only simplify production but also ensure that brands make informed decisions, minimizing risk, and maximizing profitability.</p><p><strong>About Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services Founder and Owner</strong></p><p>Heather Zager found her calling when she signed up for a beginning pattern-making course and realized she had a passion for technical design. She subsequently enrolled in the Apparel Design and Development program at Seattle Central College and graduated two years later with her Associate of Applied Science Degree.</p><p><br></p><p>After graduation, she began working with Meta assisting in developing and designing augmented and virtual reality wearable tech gear. In 2020, MADE Apparel Services was born with the idea of helping makers, inventors and designers bring their own sewn product ideas to manufacture. Since then, she has worked with various businesses such as Santa’s Tailor, Feathered Friends, Wolfpack Gear and Classic Accessories, helping them achieve their goals in design, development, pattern making, sewn construction and manufacture.</p><p>Today, Heather continues to grow her knowledge and share her experiences with others to bring their visions to reality.</p><p><br><strong>Resources discussed in this episode:</strong></p><ul><li>Episode 4: <a href="https://www.madeapparelservices.com/podcasts/material-sourcing">Concept to Customer Part 2: Material Sourcing</a></li><li><a href="https://www.madeapparelservices.com/blog/2024/06/20/fabrics101">Choosing Fabrics: Fabrics 101</a></li><li><a href="https://forms.zohopublic.com/madeapparelservices/form/NewsletterSignUpForm/formperma/ByPGwzAL80eA8UAKiAZuWITkogDzAUCs6WEVI2RqSc4">MADE Apparel Services Newsletter</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>--</p><p><strong><br>Contact Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services: </strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.madeapparelservices.com/">Website: MADEApparelServices.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MADEApparelServices/">Facebook: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/madeapparelservices/">Instagram: MADEApparelServices</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeapparelservices">Linkedin: MADEApparelServices<br></a><br></li></ul><p>--</p><p><br><strong>Transcript</strong></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Made Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of Made Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:00:29] Welcome back to my podcast. Today I'm going to talk about a few things you can do to simplify your design idea to better prepare you for manufacture. And by prepare, I mean helping you to understand ways you can keep the development and production of your idea moving forward so you save time and money. It's totally fine if you decide against these tips. My goal is only to help you to see the consequences of each of these so that you can more confidently make a decision now about your production plans. So the first and most obvious way to reduce costs and simplify getting to manufacture is to really think about how many designs you actually need. I've had clients with upwards of 15 design ideas, and this is because they feel their website should be full, but 15 is usually too many to start.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:01:21] Even if you have a following on social media, you don't have any historical data to tell you what they will like or not like. Also, having fewer designs is much easier to track, especially when you realize that each design will have to come in a size range. And if you have colorways for each design too, you'll end up with dozens of inventory items to keep organized and keep track of. Instead, share your designs on social media and ask your following to pick their top three looks. Depending on how many people respond, and what they say, you'll get a really good idea of interest before you spend a lot of money guessing what designs will be popular. Plus, you build engagement and they get to be involved in supporting you. By the way, if you feel your site needs to be full, take a step back and ask yourself instead, what is unique about your brand over everyone else selling something similar? I find that folks who want a lot of designs on their website haven't really thought about what it is that's selling their designs. Most of the time you just need a good founding story, but if you still feel you must fill your site with items, then consider using branding blanks, which are just pre-made garments that you can have custom printed with your logo. You can use those as a way to fill in space on your website, rather than developing a lot of unique designs. Now, if you aren't on social media yet, or you don't have a landing page where people can go and sign up for updates and know where to follow you, then start working on that instead of more designs. The goal of gaining this following is to have some pre-sales. This will help you to know your order quantity, which sizes and colors are most popular, so you can be more confident that your first order you place for production will be on target with your demand, and you don't end up with extra supplies, colors, or sizes that you don't need. And this brings me to my next tip.</p><p><br></p><p>Heather Zager: [00:03:27] So if you still feel like you need a whole bunch of designs, then maybe this logic will help to convince you to minimize. So let's take, for example, that you have one design. Well, each design obviously needs to come in a size range eventually. Let's say that there's five sizes, extra small to extra large. That is the average number of sizes that a manufacturer will allow before they start charging you extra. If you haven't done pre-sales or any kind of customer surveys, which isn't uncommon at this point, and that's okay, then you likely don't know what sizes will be most popular. So, let's just say you need to start out with 5 of each size, so that's a total of 25 pieces. 5 in extra small, 5 in small, 5 in medium and so on. Now, also consider if you have colorways for each design, and usually there's about three. So, let's do blue, yellow and red. That probably means you need 5 of each color, also. 5 blue in extra small, 5 red in extra small, 5 yellow in extra small and repeat that for each size. This brings the total to 75 pieces. Now, if you're using a US based manufacturer, you're probably looking at somewhere around $15 a piece as an average. So that brings your total cost to make 75 pieces to $1,125 for one design. Now, if you reduce by one colorway, your total becomes 50 garments, bringing ...</p>
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