Planning ahead is fundamental when drawing up a strategy: time and budget need to be your main concern. But considering time is money, I’d guess “BUDGET” is our keyword.

In order to define the cost of your project, it is important to understand the resources you will need, in terms of money, people and time. Subsequently, compare it with the actual available resources. The expenses you will incur are of two types: fixed (rent, utilities, invoices, salaries, etc.) and variable expenses (fabric and accessories purchasing, trade show fees, logistics costs, etc.).

The variable budget needs to be redistributed in different areas. Identifying which ones are more important, in order to avoid being blind-sided along the way:

• Development costs and Production costs:
  • Raw Materials / Outsourced Services / etc
• Logistics costs:
  • Raw materials / Production / Employees’ trips / etc
• Marketing + Sales Costs:
  • Trade Show participation / Advertising / Influencers’ fees / etc
• Unexpected Costs and Time losses

As previously mentioned, time is money. Following, a practical example that will help you understand why is: let’s say you are developing your collection and you are planning to go to the market after 8 months from the start of your project. The more you drag your project, the more money will go into it and the later you’ll receive the consumer feedback (which you will have just once your product is on the market), which is the only thing that will help you perfect your product and improve your sellings.

You do not need to rush. Take your time doing things correctly, but plan with a margin of error, just in case. 

To conclude, it is practically impossible to determine every cost of the project and to forecast in advance a certain timeline. Yet it is truly important to have a clear strategy in mind before starting. This will help, in case of hitches, to solve problems and redirect the ongoing plan without too many losses.

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 What is Mind Mapping?

Mind Mapping is a great way of approaching a new project that we strongly suggest you take into consideration. 

Its main goal is to help understand which are the main involved parts and how these communicate one to another. All this is achieved by organizing information visually in a kind of diagram. Such a diagram can be organized differently, based on the type of structure that will suit best the project in question; either way, once it is finished, it will result in a dense network of interconnections. 

The map can have a single epicenter, which is normally the initial concept, idea, or goal, from which other themes/ideas/etc branch off, or it can have more basic concepts as starting points. 

The Mind Map allows and facilitates visualizing the key concepts of the project and how they are connected. Despite the first impression, you might have when reviewing a map, which could give you a feeling of chaos, mind mapping if analyzed a little more in-depth will result as a strong and intuitive tool to communicate ideas to the rest of the team.

The best way to proceed is by starting to create a general mind map that can effectively synthesize the main pillars of your business. From there you can proceed to create sub-maps that concentrate on a certain department/problem/topic/ etc.

The efficiency of a Mind Map can be defined by 2 main elements:

• The structure: the map skeleton needs to be organized, rational, intelligent. In fewer words, it needs to be sharply structured to ensure it expresses the correct message.
• The graphic power: the map aesthetic is also very important to transmit a concept. When mind mapping it is important to use colors, fonts, and different dimensions as communication tools. You will be surprised how smart use of them can give you a winning result.

Mind Maps, thanks to their non-structure, are an analytical and artistic way to approach a problem. Analytical because it helps to deepen a theme through rational mental associations, and artistic thanks to its flexible structure and rules. 

This is one of the main reasons why Mind Mapping suits fashion projects very well, both in terms of brand strategy and collection strategy, since it allows to synthesize, comprehend and generate new ideas thanks to a very free approach.