What is Maker's Row (MakersRow)? Maker's Row (MakersRow) Review

Maker's Row is a B2B marketplace where small businesses can easily find manufacturers and suppliers who can meet their product sourcing needs.

About Maker’s Row

Maker's Row has built a platform to connect designers and foundries, shortening the distance from idea to finished product. The manufacturing industry is changing. This change is not only about the update and iteration of production machines, but also because crowdfunding mechanisms like Kickstarter allow small groups' ideas to be scaled up. But what is the next step after fundraising? Contacting factories, at this time many projects begin to look for overseas foundries. Currently, there is a startup company that hopes to bring manufacturing back to the United States. What Maker's Row does is to connect product designers and foundries, and it includes information on factories in the United States. Currently, it is mainly clothing factories, and the categories will be expanded in the future.

Currently, the site has more than 10,000 manufacturers and 100,000 brands, which has generated more than 2 million products.

Suppliers can sign up for a basic account for free, and all buyers must sign up and pay a $35 per month basic account fee.

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Unlike ordinary yellow pages directories of enterprises/factories, Maker's Row is well designed for interaction, and can filter out the factories that can complete the work according to the different stages of the project. Whether it is from design draft to sample making, or from initial sample to customization and modification of production line and finally large-scale production, designers can view the information of various factories and get in touch with them. Before, designers may have to ask for suitable factories. Maker's Row can reduce many communication barriers between designers and factories. Tanya Menendez, the co-founder of the company, understands the difficulties faced by small manufacturing companies in the Internet age. Maker's Row is an online platform that aims to eliminate friction between designers and manufacturers. This website allows designers to find manufacturers that can meet their requirements in the country, and on the other hand, it also enables manufacturers to show the quality of their products to potential customers in a clear and easy-to-understand way.

Founding Background

Founder Matthew Burnett was a former watch designer who had worked for brands such as Marc Jacobs and Izod. He was often troubled by communication problems with overseas manufacturers. "Every time I deal with a new manufacturer, it's like a gamble."

After he founded his own brand The Brooklyn Bakery, he met Tanya Menendez, who worked on Goldman Sachs' bank automation project during the day and helped Burnett build a new brand at night. When they were looking for a suitable production partner, they thought of creating a website like Maker's Row to simplify and optimize the outsourced production and procurement process. Later, Scott WEINer joined the founding team as a technical director. They raised $75,000 as start-up capital.

Financing

On July 19, 2013, Maker's Row announced that it had received $1 million in seed investment from two well-known venture capital firms, Index Ventures and Comcast Ventures, with participation from Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and Joanne Wilson (wife of famous venture capitalist Fred Wilson).