250-Soft Goods Design & Manufacturing with Mark Thibadeau of Black Thread Creative

Episode

250

Soft Goods Design & Manufacturing with Mark Thibadeau of Black Thread Creative

“The critical thing for me to know is: what problem are you trying to solve, and why do you want to do this?”

Soft goods can solve product-design problems that plastics and metal cannot—and they can often reach a convincing prototype with far less tooling expense. In this episode, Steven and Noah welcome Mark Thibadeau, principal and owner of Black Thread Creative, for a practical introduction to functional textile products, cut-and-sew development, and soft-goods manufacturing. Mark explains why an inventor should begin with the problem and purpose, not a finished design. Those answers guide hundreds of decisions involving fabric, webbing, zippers, seams, patterns, hardware, and construction. He describes how soft goods support rapid proof-of-concept work, where fabric can replace expensive molded parts, and how programmable sewing equipment improves production repeatability. The conversation also covers sustainability, restricted substance lists, retailer material requirements, durability, repairability, and designing every component for the intended product life. Most importantly, Mark warns that a beautiful sample-room prototype does not guarantee a consistent production run. Commercialization requires documented dimensions, realistic tolerances, quality criteria, and a factory capable of meeting them. For inventors developing bags, cases, straps, outdoor products, protective covers, or hybrid products, this episode offers a clear path from napkin sketch to scalable manufacturing.

Core Topics for this episode:

(possibly) Obscure pop culture references you might hear during this episode of Product Genius include Monty Python; Taken; CNC Music Factory; Sydney Sweeney; Alias; Titanic

Key Takeaways Include:

Define the Problem and Why

Fail Fast with Fabric

Specify Tolerances Before Production

Listen here:

Episode Blog

Soft Goods Product Development: From Napkin Sketch to Production

When inventors picture product development, they often imagine CAD models, 3D prints, injection-molded plastic, machined metal, and electronic assemblies. Yet many products carry, protect, flex, fold, cushion, insulate, or conform—and those functions may be better served by textiles.

Soft goods include bags, backpacks, cases, straps, covers, tents, sleeping products, luggage, and fabric components integrated into otherwise rigid products. Designing them well requires more than sewing skill. It combines industrial design, material knowledge, pattern making, prototyping, manufacturing engineering, sourcing, and quality control.

In this Product Genius conversation, Mark Thibadeau of Black Thread Creative explains how that process works and why soft goods can offer inventors a fast, flexible route to market.

Begin With the Problem and the Why

An inventor does not need a polished drawing before approaching a soft-goods designer. A napkin sketch can be enough to start. The critical information is more fundamental: What problem should the product solve, and why should it exist?

Those answers guide hundreds of design decisions. Should the product be rigid or collapsible? Must it resist water, abrasion, heat, chemicals, or UV exposure? How will users carry, open, clean, store, and repair it? What must it cost? Where will it be sold?

If the designer understands the intended user and outcome, the early concept can remain flexible. That creates room to find a better solution instead of merely translating the inventor’s first sketch into fabric.

Use Soft Goods to Fail Fast

Cut-and-sew construction can make early proof-of-concept work remarkably efficient. A designer may cut fabric, assemble a rough pattern, and test the basic function without first creating a detailed solid model, printing a large prototype, or purchasing tooling.

That speed encourages iteration. A strap can be shortened. A pocket can move. A seam can change direction. A panel can gain stiffness or flexibility. Because the designer can put a physical object into a user’s hands quickly, weak ideas fail early and promising ideas improve before major money is committed.

Soft-goods prototypes can also look surprisingly polished. Inventors should remember, however, that appearance and production readiness are different milestones. A beautiful prototype proves the design direction; it does not automatically define how hundreds or thousands of units will be controlled.

Consider Fabric Inside Hybrid Products

Soft goods are not limited to products that are obviously bags or clothing. Fabric, webbing, foam laminates, hook-and-loop material, and flexible sewn assemblies can replace selected rigid components.

A fabric hinge may eliminate a molded hinge, pin, and assembly operation. A sewn insulating sleeve may replace a complex molded cover. A strap or flexible panel may reduce tooling costs, part count, weight, or storage volume.

The reverse is also true. A webbing strap may look or perform poorly when a molded elastomer component would better match the product language. Material selection should follow function, user experience, cost, and manufacturing—not an assumption that every part belongs to the same process.

Understand the Soft-Goods Manufacturing Toolkit

Modern textile production includes more than an operator guiding material through a conventional sewing machine. Programmable sewing machines can clamp layers of fabric and webbing, then repeat a stitch pattern accurately and quickly. Cutting systems, templates, fixtures, dies, digital patterns, and specialized seam equipment also improve consistency.

These methods are especially valuable when a design repeats the same operation many times. The prototype maker may perform 48 placements manually; production equipment can execute the operation with far greater speed and repeatability.

Designers must still create the product around the intended process. Fabric thickness, layer count, seam access, turning sequence, edge binding, and hardware placement can determine whether an elegant prototype becomes an efficient production design.

Design Sustainability Into the Specification

Textile sustainability is more complex than choosing a fabric labeled recycled. Dyes, coatings, plasticizers, water-repellent treatments, adhesives, and other chemicals affect performance as well as human and environmental exposure.

Sophisticated brands and retailers often maintain restricted substance lists, or RSLs, that define materials and chemicals they will not accept. A product containing a prohibited substance may be rejected before a buyer considers its other merits. Inventors should identify target-market requirements early and request appropriate supplier documentation.

Durability is another part of sustainability. The fabric, zipper, thread, webbing, buckles, and seams should support the intended life of the product. Making one element dramatically stronger than everything around it may add cost without extending useful life. A thoughtful specification balances component life, repairability, performance, weight, and price.

A Perfect Sample Is Not a Production Specification

Sample rooms often employ exceptionally skilled sewing specialists. They can interpret incomplete information and create a beautiful one-off sample. A production line has a different objective: operators must execute defined tasks at high speed and repeat them consistently.

Without rigid tooling, soft goods can drift in size, seam location, symmetry, and assembly. That makes written tolerances essential. The product team must define which dimensions are critical, how much variation is acceptable, where measurements are taken, and what constitutes a defect.

A production package should address:

Patterns, dimensions, and seam allowances
Materials, coatings, colors, and approved substitutes
Thread, stitch type, density, and reinforcement
Hardware, webbing, zippers, labels, and trim
Critical-to-quality measurements and tolerances
Inspection methods and acceptable-quality criteria
Packaging, folding, and presentation requirements

The factory must agree that it can hold those requirements. If no tolerance is stated, the buyer and supplier have no objective basis for deciding whether a production unit is acceptable.

Choose Expertise That Extends Through Commercialization

A local sewing professional may be able to build exactly what an inventor describes. A soft-goods product-development specialist adds another layer: challenging the concept, selecting materials, designing patterns, planning construction, creating prototypes, documenting specifications, identifying factories, and protecting the design intent through production.

That continuity matters. Many manufacturing failures occur not because the idea was poor, but because information disappeared between the prototype table, sample room, and production floor.

Product Genius Take

Soft goods can lower tooling costs, accelerate proof-of-concept testing, and unlock functions that rigid materials cannot deliver. Start with the user’s problem and the reason the product should exist. Prototype early, choose materials for the intended life and market, and never confuse an excellent sample with a complete manufacturing specification. The path from fabric concept to scalable product depends on documented tolerances, quality standards, and a designer who understands both creativity and production.

Or, read the full transcript here:

Steven Julian

So have you ever been in your car, sitting in traffic, listening to your favorite podcast, Product Genius, and you thought to yourself, you know, I wish my car could be made out of fabric. And then I'd have denim rivets in my engine. Of course, you know, you can't do that. But plenty of other products are made of fabric. And we're going to talk to Mark Thibodeau from Black Thread Creative about all things soft goods. next on Product Genius. Do you want to be a successful inventor entrepreneur?

Noah McNeely

Struggling to get your product from idea to market?

Steven Julian

Well, you've come to the right place.

Mark Thibadeaux

Welcome to Product Genius, the down-to-earth podcast that explores important topics about inventing and launching new products. Noah McNeely is your trusted guide.

Steven Julian

With more than 20 years of product launch experience, he's here to help you on your journey to become a product genius. Let's get started.

Noah McNeely

Here's your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian.

Steven Julian

Hey, that's my line. Yes, it is another fantastic, stupendous, above board, highly above average episode of Product Genius. I am your slightly annoying co-host, Steven Julian, seated to my left this time. Not deep inside the layer, deep inside the administrative offices of Product Quick Start. Seated to my left is the intrepid producer, Jody Smith. And seated across the table is the man who puts all of this together, the man who is the genius who drives the other geniuses, of which I am not one, to the table. It's Noah McNeely.

Noah McNeely

Hello, and welcome to the fabulous administrative offices of Product Quick Start.

Steven Julian

I'm so excited. The very first episodes were done in these administrative offices, and there was a... Horrible reverb.

Noah McNeely

There was. And we moved back to the lab, but today the robots are having some AI hallucinations, so I thought it wasn't really safe.

Steven Julian

Yeah, yeah. So it's begun? Is that what you're...

Noah McNeely

No, in reality, I just have so many projects spread out all over everywhere that we couldn't set up the studio back there.

Steven Julian

Business is good because people are calling. Yes. And people are calling partially because of this show.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, I'm getting more and more people that... Call me up and say, hey, I heard your podcast. So that feels awesome. You guys are doing a great job, Jody and Steven.

Steven Julian

By the way, I want to let. the audience know that I will never refer back to the long-running joke of wanting to have Noah. let me do a show where we talked about goals because we did that. But I did inform Noah of my new master plan that I told him we need to have an audience participation show. We need to have a question. We need a frequently asked question, FAQ show or, you know, the audience poll show. They need to send in emails or, you know, they need to give us their idea.

I've got an idea. Call me. Let's put them on the show.

Noah McNeely

I like it.

Steven Julian

Yeah. We'll have to screen out Frank.

Noah McNeely

We might slip in some random crazy questions. Absolutely.

Steven Julian

I already have the first question because I've already got one from Frank of Frank's Cheesehammers, but that's another story for another time. We've got a fantastic guest with us today. Mark Thibodeau is here from Black Thread Creative. And Noah, how did Mark get on this show? Because I don't think he emailed you and said, I love your show and I want to be on.

Noah McNeely

No, no.

Steven Julian

You know him.

Noah McNeely

He didn't email us and give. a 30-minute pitch about why he's awesome.

Steven Julian

Wait, wait, that was my demo tape for doing the show. Wait.

Noah McNeely

No, no, I met you through Tiffany's. Go ahead. No, Mark is someone that I realized was awesome kind of right away. And I met Mark through, basically Mark is someone I've been looking for for years in this business. You know, I think people that listen, they know I make all sorts of stuff, plastic and metal and wood and all your basic widgets and gadgets and things. One of the things I've always struggled with is soft goods. So things that are sewn, things that are made out of fabric. It's always been difficult for me to find a good resource that's an expert in that space.

And so I put a thing out on LinkedIn and Mark responded. Turns out he'd moved back to Atlanta. So it was all very, it just, all the pieces fell into place and he came out. He's made some prototypes for one of my clients and the clients love them.

Steven Julian

Love it.

Noah McNeely

Anyway, that's why Mark is awesome. I'm going to, I'm rambling.

Steven Julian

And to quote, we both are, to quote Monty. Python, there's a group of people off camera going, get on with it. So Mark Thibodeau is here from Black Thread Creative. Mark, welcome to the administrative offices instead of the lair of Product Quickstart and our wonderful little Product Genius podcast.

Mark Thibadeaux

Thank you, Steven. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

Steven Julian

So if people haven't searched already blackthreadcreative.com, I love the tagline, we're bag makers. But go a little deeper. Talk a little bit more about soft goods and exactly what you guys do.

Mark Thibadeaux

Sure. Yeah. So at the core of things, we design functional products out of textiles. My background is really kind of in the outdoor industry. Luggage and backpacks, worked on tents, worked on sleeping bags, lots of fun stuff like that, fun products to use, fun products to design. And that still kind of transfers to anything that functions. So kind of with my industrial design background, we bring up a process to the design that really focuses on trying to figure out user needs and figure out. What kind of problem we're hoping to solve and then applying solutions to that and seeing what fits and what works well.

Steven Julian

Is most of your business working with? entrepreneurs and inventors who have an idea for who need something designed in terms of a soft good for their product and or if not? What are some of the other avenues? We won't spend a ton of time on them because our target audience is the inventor entrepreneur. But give me an idea of is all of your business that? Is most of it? Is half of it? Kind of give me a ballpark figure.

Mark Thibadeaux

Less than half is sort of inventors and entrepreneurs. You know, most of my clients are established companies.

Steven Julian

Okay. I was going to say, so before we, I do want to focus on the inventor entrepreneur because that's our target audience.

Noah McNeely

Like Liam Neeson in Taken, Mark has a particular set of skills which apply to clients of all sizes. And it is a very, again, to me, it's always been a very hard set of skills to find. So I think Mark has appealed to all sorts of clients.

Steven Julian

But so let's talk real quickly about the larger companies that you work for. I would imagine some of them do a lot of bags, do a lot of, and they're like, hey, we're. coming to you to help you with this particular new line that we're coming out. Is that fair?

Noah McNeely

And you don't, if you can't say the specific, if you can't say the specific companies that that's.

Steven Julian

I'm not asking him for this.

Noah McNeely

I'll leave the companies out of this. Okay. Yeah.

Steven Julian

So, so, so that's it. Yeah.

Mark Thibadeaux

A couple of different, a couple of different things here. So, you know, in some cases it's companies with existing. Soft goods, product lines, they already have in-house design, but they need more horsepower. They want to scale up or they have more projects than they can handle for, you know, this season, for example. Or it's a company that makes something else. They might make, say, hunting gear or fishing gear. And it's all injection molded and metals, plastics, composites. And they want to make cases or they want to make bags or they want to make, say, luggage that has their brand on it.

So I can help them kind of fit into their product language with uniquely functional product that, yeah, that then they can market and sell. Yep.

Steven Julian

Noah, I want to ask you because you started this show. by saying this area is not rife with... A plethora of choices.

Noah McNeely

Well, it's, I've never been able to find. It doesn't, I think.

Steven Julian

Now, is that because you're so picky?

Noah McNeely

Well, I don't know why, why exactly. But, you know, I've always, I kind of grew up starting with, you know, plastics design and stuff like that. So, this was always sort of one of those things right over the horizon of what I knew about and knew a little bit about. I knew, hey, there's industrial designers that do this. And, but I almost always ended up never being able to find them. So I go to like a local seamstress, which nothing wrong with local seamstresses, but they don't, they can sew something if I go and tell them, but they're just somebody in a room with a sewing machine.

Whereas Mark's a totally different level. And Mark, I think you're not just a guy with a sewing machine. In fact, you use some terminology the last time we met that I had never heard before. That was CNC sewing or CNC fabric or.

Steven Julian

CNC Music Factory, I know that.

Noah McNeely

Well, that's totally different.

Steven Julian

So talk a. little bit about this terminology, Mark, that got Noah all Twitter.

Mark Thibadeaux

Yeah, this is really, really fun stuff. It's programmable sewing machines. And, you know, they come in different sizes, different size clamps. And it would clamp, you know, a piece of fabric with, say, a piece of... Webbing or other trim that you might put on top and it will sew it in place in a very clean, repeatable way. And so you might, you know, if you want to, I think this project. we were doing 48 of the same operation, which is a little mind numbing, you know, from a prototyping standpoint. But once you get into the production stage, you can do it very quickly with a CMC sewing machine.

Noah McNeely

Cool. That sounded a little backhanded about the prototype I had you build there. I apologize. It was probably— We'll have to take that one offline. No, I did design this ridiculous thing that required Mark to basically redo the same thing, like you said, 48 times. So I apologize for that, Mark. But thank you for doing a great job on it.

Steven Julian

But he did finish by saying— I figured it was a test. Yeah, and he did finish by saying once we go into production, that'll be a—you know, he can do it.

Noah McNeely

No, it's more along the lines of you're an expert in soft goods and I'm not. So I probably designed it totally the wrong way.

Steven Julian

So actually, you're getting, Noah, you're getting a little bit, there's a little karma there because of all the people, all the stories that we've told going back to when Tiffany was hosting the show of people who are like, well, just have it do this 875 things that all. in the next second, you're like, yeah, okay.

Noah McNeely

My turn to be the band client.

Steven Julian

I can, yeah. Demanding, demanding. That's the word we use. So we're talking with Mark Thibodeau. He is here with Black Thread Creative. They handle all things soft goods. Mark, talk a little bit about prototypes. Talk a little bit about working with entrepreneurs. And I guess the first question I would ask Noah, and this was not the first thing he ever said, but in what he does with inventors, entrepreneurs, a lot of times it's... Hey, don't just tell me I've got an idea. So when someone meets with you, what would you like that?

And let's talk specifically about an inventor entrepreneur who's looking for some kind of soft, good help with a prototype. What can they bring to? what can they bring you that you would be like, great, now you're getting the best bang for your buck. I can I can work with you if you don't if you know, as long as you don't bring me something written in crayon. I mean, talk a little bit about what people can bring to the table. that would help the process.

Mark Thibadeaux

Sure. Yeah, I mean, you know, I can work from a napkin sketch, that sort of classic industrial design terminology, you know, a very rough idea. The critical thing for me to know, you know, if an entrepreneur comes to me is what problem are you trying to solve and why do you want to do this? That helps frame up, you know, a lot of the 400 design decisions that I might have to make. While I'm sitting at the sewing machine, if I know why they're doing it, if I know what they're trying to accomplish, I have a really, really a much better. kind of basis for making those decisions.

And that would be the first and biggest, just, yeah, what and why.

Steven Julian

One of the interesting things I found from talking to so many different... One of the geniuses that get around the table and do specific things in bringing someone's product to market is when they find themselves as part of the conversation. When you're working with entrepreneurs and inventors, do you find that a lot of times you're the first person that they're talking to in the process of bringing their product to market? Or is it... About half and half, and the other half of the time, it's someone like Noah who is working for someone to bring their product to market, and he says, I need to find someone in industrial design and soft goods to make this prototype that this person wants.

Mark Thibadeaux

Yeah, I mean, typically, and sort of in line with what Noah was saying, there's not a lot of us out there. So typically, I am maybe the one person they're talking to. And even in some cases, I've sought them out and said, hey, you should really try fabric. Also, I have this company. But it's, yeah, typically I'm kind of the one person that they're talking to and they're not super informed on what's possible, but they have some sort of some idea and they're kind of looking for the next steps and a little bit of guidance there.

Noah McNeely

So I think Steven was going to ask the question and I raised my hand at the same time. So he's deferring to me. So we'll come back to Steven's question. But I actually have a couple of questions in any order. And we can, don't, he's rolling his eyes at me.

Steven Julian

I'm having so much fun right now, even though I was late to the studio, I apologize.

Noah McNeely

Okay. I'm going to lay both questions out and then we can discuss amongst yourselves. One, for inventors and entrepreneurs, you and I have talked about, I think there's. Advantages to cut and sew a lot of times related to tooling and startup costs. I'd love for you to touch on that. The other question I had was in kind of relates to something you just said about, have you ever seen products where people have made them in plastics and stuff that should totally. have been soft goods and the reverse? Have you ever seen people try to make stuff in soft goods that should not have been soft goods?

Mark Thibadeaux

Yes.

Steven Julian

Wow, that was a long pause.

Mark Thibadeaux

I'll jump into advantages of cut and sew first. You can work quickly. You can prove concepts quickly. I like to talk about it in terms of failing fast. But you can easily put together a quick proof of concept and have a really reasonable chance of success. And it doesn't really involve any CAD time, 3D modeling, printing, anything like that. You can mock something up on a sewing machine pretty quickly and get to a proof of concept. And you can even get something that looks really finished and really polished. Now there's upsides and downsides to that as well, which we can touch on later on.

In terms of products where things should have been or shouldn't have been soft goods, I've definitely seen examples of straps. Sometimes they're on laptop cases or they're on. I've even seen them on some bike racks where... It's made out of like a webbing, which is like a really thick woven strap. You would know what it. was if you've seen it before, but it's basically a really strong strap where things are made out of webbing, and it really is kind of inconsistent with the design language of the product and should have been a molded piece, you know, PPU or other kind of stretchy plastic molded piece would have been much.

Better execution there. Now that's, you know, open to design interpretation, of course. But then there's cases where people have used a molded part and really should have thought about the fabric a little bit. I've seen like in really functional products like camping stoves, for instance, where there's been like molded, complex molded kind of koozies for like a hot. Like a pot you might boil water in and there's like a molded koozie around it. Could easily be a piece of fabric sewn into a circle. You know, and you get the right fabric and the right properties there and you can easily use soft goods instead of having to tool up and mold a piece of plastic.

Noah McNeely

Yes, that would have saved them thousands of dollars in tooling and probably per piece cost on that, right?

Mark Thibadeaux

Yeah, and depending upon your. perspective, it probably would have looked better as well. Lots of advantages there. Product Genius is brought to you by Opu Probiotics. Pre and probiotics you can pour directly on your tongue in delicious mint and mocha flavors. But the taste is just the beginning. With Opu, you can see improved digestive function, boosted immune system, easier weight management, improved mental health, and much more. Try today at getopu.com. That's getopu.com.

Steven Julian

We're speaking with Mark Thibodeau. He is here with Black Thread Creative. He's the owner and chief poobah of Black Thread Creative. And I just reset the show and now know I'm going to ask you a question. So how's that for pivoting? Because the question- Very determined and deliberate.

Noah McNeely

Yes.

Steven Julian

The question I was going to ask that I had my hand raised is- I think there's very obvious market for people who I want to create a new bag. I want to create something that is very obviously, this is almost completely a soft good. I need someone like Mark who can help me with that. I'm wondering in your line of work, I'm wondering as you're helping inventors, entrepreneurs, are there scenarios where they're not even? thinking of needing? Some kind of soft, good work. They're not even thinking of sewing and designing in that respect.

Do you, without giving away, of course, clients you're working with or clients from the past, but have you had to have conversations where it's like, no, no, we can't use duct tape. We need to, you know, we need to do this.

Noah McNeely

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. In fact, the project Mark and I are working on together now, I can't reveal all the details, but it's an outdoor game for all practical purposes. And it's got a variety of different components. Some are plastic, some are fabric, and we're in the exploration phase of looking at different scenarios. Now, in this one, pretty well knew we were going to have a fabric element to start with, and so that's why I reached out to Mark at the beginning. How we integrate that fabric can take a lot of different forms.

So Mark's been helpful with that. But to your point, there are other cases where maybe it's not even replacing duct tape with fabric, but there are places where we've got a plastic hinge that could be, which is. expensive to mold, and you've got to put a pin in it. Assembly is a pain. That could easily, in some cases, be a fabric-type hinge. that, frankly, I need to do a better job of considering as well. You know, these are things I'm aware of. But having someone with Mark on board that I can bounce these things off of will open up more opportunities there, even beyond what I was already thinking of.

And that gives my clients more opportunities as well to, you know, again, let's say we've got a product we're working on and for whatever reason, it's got to cost $5 or less because of the market space and we're at $6, $7. We've got to find places to save money on that. That might be looking at fabric in some places, in some cases.

Steven Julian

All I'm thinking is denim hinge. That's all I'm thinking of, but that's my problem, not yours.

Noah McNeely

And Sidney Sweeney can be the model for it. We don't need to get into that controversy today.

Steven Julian

So loyal listeners of our show will now know right about when we recorded this, when it comes out, because I think if you. did that a month later. The news moves so fast now and AI and the robots back in the lair that are, you know, yeah, exactly. Sydney Bristow from Alias. Anyway, Mark, I was going to ask you on your website, there's a. there's also a little. there's a lot on your website with. it's very clean, very straightforward. It's not it's not a rabbit hole necessarily. But I want you to.

I want you to talk a little bit about kind of designing for sustainability. Obviously, that is a. Very important concept in today's world. So when it's talking about dealing with fabric and dealing with soft goods, what role does sustainability play, especially when your clients are kind of wanting to focus on that?

Mark Thibadeaux

Yeah, that's a great question. And sustainability is a really big problem in the textile world. You know, you maybe have heard about how many clothes we buy that go into the dumpster. How we can make our textile products more sustainable. And there's a number of different ways where we can look at that. And the first is we kind of talk about an RSL list or a restricted substance list. A lot. of sophisticated companies will have this and they'll publish it and they'll use it as sort of a sourcing guide. Of what they can and cannot use.

And these are all, there's a minefield of chemicals that go into fabrics that can be harmful to your skin, that can be harmful to your child, that can be harmful to the atmosphere, that can be harmful to something else that it touches. We've all had color come off of our new blue jeans in the washing machine and stain everything blue. So those denim hinges might not work so well. Dang it. All of those are chemicals that go into fabrics and that's what makes fabric stiff or not stiff, soft or the color that we want or waterproof the way we want them.

And so navigating those chemicals when we talk about soft goods, what's going into the product, what are we exposing ourselves to when we use this product? That's something that we can help with at Black Code Creative. Every company's goals are different, but that's something we can certainly help with. And depending upon where you want to sell your market or sell your product, different retailers, for example, REI has a pretty strict list of substances they will not sell. And kudos to them for kind of taking a leadership role there. But a lot of other retailers are jumping on that.

That train as well. And so if you have a PVC in your product, for example, that's something they won't sell. And so it's a hard stop. As soon as you walk in the door, you don't even have a chance to get that product placed. So you have to be aware of this stuff and who you're selling to and what they're asking for.

Noah McNeely

And it seems like the other... I'm sorry, go ahead.

Mark Thibadeaux

Go ahead, yeah.

Noah McNeely

I was going to say, it seems like the other side...

Mark Thibadeaux

I can go deep on this one, so... Yeah.

Noah McNeely

We're going to keep crashing together like this, but it seems like the other side of that sustainability is also designing and specifying materials for the intended life of the product. So if you have a product that really should be something that's going to last for years, that probably drives you toward a different class of materials than if you have something that is really. going to be used once or twice and then goes into the landfill, will drive you toward thinner materials that degrade faster or whatever. The expert on different fabrics that do that, but it seems like that would be a really important level of creativity when you're developing a soft good as well.

Mark Thibadeaux

You're absolutely right. You know, we look at something as simple as kind of the thickness of the fabric for a more durable product. You know, you'd want something obviously thicker and heavier, but that limits what you can do with it on a sewing machine. So, you know, it's harder to move. It's harder to manipulate. So, yeah, you absolutely have to design for the materials that you want to use for, you know, kind of the right life cycle. A lot of folks, you know, want to think about, can this be repaired?

They want to think about, you know, is my zipper going to last longer than my fabric? Can we make them? Can we sort of optimize our costs so that it's all kind of balanced out, everything kind of falls apart at the same time? Or that it's going to last for? as long as you want to use it. Some folks want to put a lifetime guarantee on their product as kind of a way to facilitate trust with their customer. And you have to stand behind that. And so you have to design for that.

Steven Julian

It was funny. You were talking about a lifetime guarantee. That's why I would always close my business every 18 months and then reopen it and do a different name. But that is why I'm not in the line of work you guys do. I'm going to ask the question. that's on certain people in this audience, me included. Where'd the name come from? Black Threads Creative. Why?

Noah McNeely

Black Thread. Yeah. Sorry.

Steven Julian

Black Thread Creative. Why? Where'd that come from? Just one of us. Yeah.

Mark Thibadeaux

So black thread is, it came from sort of the depths of my own mind, you know, but black thread is the color of thread that you use in a prototype. So, you know, in a nice finished product, you might match your thread color to the fabric. It's a little sewer's trick, kind of helps create a really clean finish. In a prototype, you're not always as worried about. looks and you might be worried more about function. Black Thread kind of, you know, is a nod towards our prototype heavy approach. It's a nod toward our function first approach.

And I don't know, I thought it kind of sounded cool.

Steven Julian

I agree. Sounds very good.

Mark Thibadeaux

That's what Black Thread is.

Noah McNeely

Sort of a pirate element to it. I like it. I like it too. Before we kind of get to the wrap up here, one of the things you and I were talking about kind of... Pre-show chatting while we're waiting on certain people to arrive.

Steven Julian

Is that a backhanded compliment that I was late?

Noah McNeely

Absolutely. So you and I were talking about some of the things that Black Thread and you can do to help people. Obviously, we talked about design and prototypes, but we also talked about there's dangers that they're out there in the space. You can help them avoid and how to scale and how to commercialize and how to really. Find the right factories. A lot of the stuff I do, but really more in the soft goods space, I think. You want to touch on that for us and for our listeners?

Mark Thibadeaux

Yeah, I'd love to. We talked earlier about how easy it is to make a product. There's no tooling costs. It's possible to do it without any CAD work. And that's great for getting a quick prototype up and running. Once you go to commercialize, you don't have any tooling. The tooling really sets tolerancing and really sets sizing and scale. When you're dealing with fabric, if there's no tooling, you're kind of out in the Wild West when it comes to control of what you're getting off the production floor. Take that into consideration and realize that you might get a perfect sample from a sample room.

Those sample rooms are often the best sewers that you'll find. They're highly creative, highly intelligent people, and they deliver you a beautiful sample. When you scale and you go to a full production, you're dealing, I shouldn't say dealing, you're working with the folks who are trained to move fast and they are not looking at details. They're running a sewing machine at 3,000 stitches per minute, which is blindingly fast. And they're not always paying attention to details. So you have to make sure that your tolerancing is appropriate and. verbalized, written down.

The factory needs to know, you know, I can accept a plus minus three millimeter, five millimeter tolerance on these different areas. If it's in spec, great. If it's out of spec, great. If you don't give a tolerance, there's really no, it's not a realistic approach to manufacturing the soft goods. So you have to be aware of what your factory can do, what they're willing to do, what they're willing to commit to, and what's okay, you know, as the marketer of the product to accept.

Noah McNeely

And is that all stuff you can help? You can navigate for a client, right?

Mark Thibadeaux

Absolutely. Absolutely. We can do comprehensive lists of sort of quality inspections, specifications for product to make sure that everything is as intended as you want it. So when you take it to a factory to scale, you get what you want in the production run, not just from the sample room.

Steven Julian

Mark, I would think, I'm going to bet. That there are listeners to this podcast that right now are just screaming, I found what I was looking for. Mark will help me.

Noah McNeely

But they're not all 95-year-old women.

Steven Julian

No, right. I didn't.

Noah McNeely

know what that was all about.

Steven Julian

Well, listen, I, okay, apparently I got to work on my voices. I apologize.

Mark Thibadeaux

Wow.

Steven Julian

Just show up late for one recording.

Noah McNeely

You sounded like the old lady at the end of Titanic.

Steven Julian

What's wrong with the old lady from the end of Titanic? She was an iconic character that we're still talking about 30 years later. Okay, there are other people who are going, I want to work with Mark since I'm a pro wrestling fan. That's much better. Yeah, exactly. So if people want, if they need soft goods, if they need stuff put together, if they want to talk to you about denim hinges. Or maybe rayon. I don't know. I'm still trying to think of the best fabric to use for that. How do they get in touch with you?

What's the best place to go? Give website, phone number, email, whatever you want to give contact information-wise.

Mark Thibadeaux

Great. Yeah. So you can find me at blackthreadcreative.com. It's spelled just like it sounds, blackthreadcreative.com. You can also email me at Blackthreadcreative.com. So I'll see both of those. There's a contact form on the website you can use and that lists. phone number and email or you can just send me a short blurb right from the website. You can find me on LinkedIn as well and you can search for me or you can search for Black Thread Creative. And get in touch. Come one, come all. Love to hear from you. And we could just talk shop, if nothing else.

But also, if there's a way to work together, that'd be cool, too.

Noah McNeely

And you're in Atlanta, but you can work with clients anywhere, right?

Mark Thibadeaux

Absolutely. Can work anywhere. Yeah. And I've worked in my career all over the world. So I'm happy to work with anyone. From anywhere.

Steven Julian

And the connection may have been just a little wonky there. It's hihi at blackthreadcreative.com as the email?

Mark Thibadeaux

That's correct.

Steven Julian

Fantastic.

Mark Thibadeaux

hi at blackthreadcreative.com. All right.

Steven Julian

So one last question for longtime fans of this show, along to the loyal listeners, the dozens and dozens of loyal listeners of our show. On your contact form, are people allowed to just say, I have a great idea for a soft good, call me or reach out to me? Will you answer that immediately? Or like Noah, will you say, I'll get? to it, but it'll take me a while?

Mark Thibadeaux

I'll get to it as fast as I can. Yeah, absolutely. I have a great idea. I want to talk to you about it. And we can get the ball rolling.

Steven Julian

I like it.

Mark Thibadeaux

Get to a place where we can talk about it.

Steven Julian

Fantastic. Mark Thibodeau from Black Threat Creative. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We really appreciate your time. Noah and I are now going to talk about you behind your back as we wrap up the show.

Noah McNeely

Only good things.

Mark Thibadeaux

Thanks so much for having me.

Steven Julian

Absolutely. Thank you, Mark. Only good things. All right. So, Noah. Great guest. Great guest.

Noah McNeely

You know, I thought so. I'm doing my job bringing people to the table that are interesting. Absolutely.

Steven Julian

Absolutely. He is definitely a genius. I'm waiting for LinkedIn to sponsor our show because LinkedIn brought you guys together. Because you've told many stories. I mean, part of what you do is as you're helping people develop their products, like, okay, I'm going to need another genius. I'm going to need help with this. I'm going to need help with this. And you're like, I don't so. I need to find someone who does this.

Noah McNeely

Mark and I were... We're on campus in college at the same time at some points, but we never crossed paths, really.

Steven Julian

When he said textiles, I'm like, I know he went to tech.

Noah McNeely

So LinkedIn, you know, is a great way to, it is a great way to find people. So they brought me and Mark together. Now, it's also a great way to find people that are not great, but Mark turned out to be awesome.

Steven Julian

Wait, is that another, is that another shot at me?

Noah McNeely

No, not at all.

Steven Julian

All right, good.

Noah McNeely

You know, and if you're out there and you're one of my LinkedIn people. I do not need any more congrats on my anniversary. I get it.

Steven Julian

You want to hear a funny story about that? Sure. I get that about every three months.

Noah McNeely

Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. Because I have a few different roles. Right. I get one for this show. I get one for Product Quick Start. I was on the board of the Mechanical Engineering School at Georgia Tech. I get one for that. I get some for... Companies I'm. no longer a part of, which I don't even understand.

Steven Julian

Well, because nothing gets deleted off the Internet. That's what the robots and AI have found out.

Noah McNeely

I get this big clump of congratulations all at one time. And I don't mean to offend people. I know people do it because they're trying to be nice and all.

Steven Julian

They're also going through a long list and going, congrats, congrats, congrats, congrats, congrats.

Noah McNeely

And I think it's getting to the point where that's kind of showing people's age a little bit, maybe.

Steven Julian

Or showing that. This may be farmed out to someone that's not that actual person. There's that too. Or it might be automatic. Anyway. So we got a LinkedIn show coming up. I was going to give a quick shout out because when Mark was talking about the sustainability and he talked about how much clothing is thrown away, I bet you thought of the past guest that I thought of, refashioned hippie Maggie, who resells, right?

Noah McNeely

I actually had a comment about that episode I was going to share with you, but I'll share it now. On Spotify, that episode's actually grayed out. You can still listen to. it because it has the explicit content warning on it. I don't know if Jody, if you put that on there or Spotify put it on there, but she used some colorful language.

Steven Julian

Did you put, you grayed it out or they did it?

Noah McNeely

Okay. Okay. I didn't know if AI had found something she said.

Steven Julian

I didn't think it was all that bad.

Noah McNeely

No, no, no.

Steven Julian

Especially when you bleeped the stuff. And you bleeped it out, the one word. Yeah. So that's a great episode. And much as this is, and as every episode is. You know what makes it great, Noah? Because you bring geniuses to the table, and then when it's just you and me, you're the genius that shines. And it's produced in a genius way, and then you got me. So I want to thank Mark Thibodeau, blackthreadcreative.com. His email, hi, at blackthreadcreative.com. I want to thank Noah for putting this show together. I want to thank Jody for producing the show.

And I would hope somebody would thank me for being late and being a slightly annoying co-host.

Noah McNeely

Thank you.

Steven Julian

And we want to thank you guys for listening because we would not. do this if no one was listening. So we want to thank you guys for listening. We will catch you next time. And you can be a genius with us at Product Genius.