On the ground in China. On the buyer's side, always.
Before you commit a dollar to manufacturing in China, know what could go wrong.
15 years buying for a global brand, 10+ years running the floor in Shenzhen. Both sides of the table, on your side, distilled into a free 15-minute read.
You are not careless. The system is built so these bite first-time founders.
China Landing: 10 Landmines
A field guide for Western hardware founders. The 10 ways smart products stall, blow budget, or lose their IP on the China side, and what to do instead. No fluff, no supplier pitch.
No spam. One useful email a week, max. Unsubscribe in one click.
Tony Ma
Founder · Flaming Field
Both sides of the table, on your side
- 15 years buying China supply chains for Newell Brands, as senior sourcing director & senior program director. I know what a global brand needs before you ask.
- 10+ years running factory operations: product development, program management, quality & manufacturing. I know what the floor tells you, and what it hides.
- COO of Rootsense, a Shenzhen product company that develops its own hardware. I carry real product risk, not just advisory risk.
- Flaming Field is a Hong Kong independent entity.
- No suppliers to sell you. No commissions. No factory kickbacks.
- You pay me. That is the only incentive I have.
Go deeper: feasibility audits from $199
When you are serious about a China build, I deliver a written audit you can keep, forward to a partner, or act on the same day. Two ways to buy it:
Buy a fixed bundle and skip the stage-by-stage build-up. One tier, one fixed price, and one complete deliverable you can act on in days.
Lite · $199
Written go / no-go verdict · top-5 risk map with severity · forwardable cost & lead-time table · one round of email Q&A. Fully async.
Standard ⭐ · $599 (list $799)
Lite + landed-cost model with tariff & FX sensitivity · risk register with mitigations · stage-map timeline · 30-minute debrief call.
Deep · $999
Standard + preliminary supplier shortlist (desktop-screened) · NNN-ready IP checklist · compliance gap analysis · 30/60/90 roadmap · 2-week WhatsApp Q&A.
The full audit fee carries as credit into the matching phase package.
See what a full audit looks like
Prices are illustrative anchors; every engagement is quoted project-based.
Buy the documents I use on every China engagement
The same editable delivery documents I run real engagements on, packaged so you can run them on every order. Instant download. Yours to keep. One-time price.
The China Delivery Vault
All 21 delivery documents across the three kits — Sourcing (6): shortlist, RFQ comparison, audit summary, quote normalizer, fraud checklist, bilingual RFQ package; Development (10): spec book, milestone & tooling plan, decision log, production schedule, launch checklist, ECO tracker, milestone payment schedule, golden sample sign-off, mold lifecycle tracker, DFM review; Inspection (5): PSI report, corrective-action tracker, post-shipment follow-up, failure decision tree, supplier KPI dashboard — plus the monthly Market Memo.
$97 once · not a subscription
Saves $14 vs the three kits separately.
See full contents & inside every document
Sourcing Kit
6 documents: supplier shortlist, RFQ comparison, audit summary, quote normalizer, fraud checklist, bilingual RFQ package.
$37
See contents
Development Kit
10 documents: spec book, milestone & tooling plan, decision log, production schedule, launch checklist, ECO tracker, milestone payment schedule, golden sample sign-off, mold lifecycle tracker, DFM review.
$47
See contents
Inspection Kit
5 documents: PSI report, corrective-action tracker, post-shipment follow-up, inspection failure decision tree, supplier KPI dashboard.
$27
See contents
Cost anchor: under 1% of the deposit you're about to wire. Where a document talks to the factory, it is bilingual English / 中文 — the version the factory manager reads is the one that governs.
Read Field Notes — the free monthly copper / plastics / steel Market Memo. Same one email list as the field guide: join here.
Questions, answered straight
Are you another sourcing agent trying to sell me a factory?
No. Flaming Field takes no supplier commission and binds to no factory. I am paid by you, to protect your side of the table.
Why should I trust a 15-minute read over my supplier's assurances?
Because your supplier's job is to make the sale. My job is to tell you the 10 things that bite founders after the contract is signed, when it is expensive to undo.
What is actually in the audit, and what does $199 buy?
A written go/no-go with a top-5 risk map and a cost and lead-time range you can hand to a co-founder. No live call required on Lite; the Standard and Deep tiers add a 30-minute debrief call. Higher tiers add the landed-cost model and a preliminary supplier shortlist.
Two ways to start
Grab the free field guide now, or book a 15-minute diagnostic and I will tell you, straight, whether your China build is ready.