Closing the gap between
Design & Production
Helping furniture and home goods brands build products
that are beautiful to design and practical to manufacture.
Closing the gap between
Two languages. One process. Most brands are missing the translator.
Design and production speak different languages. Design teams optimize for aesthetics and function. Production teams optimize for repeatability, speed, and cost. Without someone who speaks both, the gap between them fills with assumptions — and assumptions become errors, cost overruns, and redesigns.
What most brands don’t realize is that the direction of dependency runs from production toward design, not the other way around. Your factory’s capabilities, tolerances, and materials define what’s actually possible. Great design works within those constraints. Design that ignores them looks beautiful in CAD and creates problems on the floor.
That gap is where I work.
With a background that spans concept design, CNC programming, engineering documentation, and factory floor production, I understand both sides of the conversation. My role is to close the distance between what was designed and what can actually be built — without compromising the intent behind either.
This is for you if you're...
Launching Your
First Collection
You have a strong design vision and a manufacturer lined up. But the drawings aren't fully resolved, the BOM is incomplete, and you're not entirely sure what questions the factory is going to come back with. You want someone to review what you have before production begins — not after the first samples come back wrong.
Expanding an
Existing Line
You've launched successfully and now you're adding new products. The design process that worked for your first collection is starting to show cracks as complexity increases. New SKUs, new materials, new production challenges. The handoff between design and production needs to be tighter than it was before.
Moving From
Custom to Repeatable
You've been building one-off or semi-custom products and now you want to manufacture at scale. The problem is that custom workflows don't translate directly into repeatable production systems. Drawings that worked for a single piece need to be engineered for consistency, efficiency, and manufacturability across every unit.
How I Work
Every engagement follows the same path — starting small, building trust, and only going deeper when it makes sense for both of us.
Step 1 — Free Discovery Call — 30 minutes, no cost
A focused conversation to understand where you are in your product development process and whether there’s a genuine fit. No pitch, no pressure. If it makes sense to go further, I’ll tell you exactly what that looks like.
Step 2 — Working Session — $250, 60 minutes
A paid working session focused on one specific design-to-production challenge you’re facing right now. We look at a drawing, a BOM, a material decision, or a production constraint together and I give you my honest technical assessment. You leave with clarity and concrete next steps regardless of whether we work together further.
Step 3 — Design-to-Production Assessment or Custom Engagement
For brands ready to go deeper, the full assessment covers your complete drawing package, BOM, manufacturing risk, DFM opportunities, and cost reduction potential — delivered as a written report with a findings review call. For more complex situations, we define a custom scope together based on what your product development process actually needs.
About Mike
I started as a CNC programmer and fabricator — receiving drawings, interpreting intent, and figuring out how to build what designers imagined.
Later I led design and engineering teams, developing products from concept through prototype and into production. Along the way I managed $1M+ in custom furniture and millwork projects across North America, built and scaled a CNC department from a single machine to a multi-shift operation, and launched Sonoforma, a teak furniture brand built in Nicaragua that has been featured in Wallpaper, Design Milk, and Contemporist.
That path — from the factory floor to the drawing board and back — is what makes this work possible. I understand what designers are trying to protect and what production teams are trying to avoid. My job is to make sure both sides win before anything gets built.
I’m Canadian, based in Nicaragua, and work remotely with furniture and home goods brands across North and Central America.
