PART 1: What It’s Really Like to Build a Physical Product in China (When You’re Not an Expert)

January 31, 2026

We didn’t start Snack&Ride because we dreamed of starting a business.
We started it because we were tired of handing snacks to our daughter while trying not to crash a bike.

One afternoon over coffee, Niels was fumbling around with a friend's snack cup and said, “It would be pretty cool if you could attach a snack cup to a bike.”

I fully agreed, and I couldn't get the thought out of my head.

About a month later, we were still talking about it. At the time, I was unemployed and had time. I had some savings. And I had the mental space to explore something without knowing where it would lead.

So we started. Not because we felt ready, but because the idea wouldn’t leave us alone.

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We Didn’t Have a Master Plan. We Just Started.

Looking back, it’s almost funny how little planning went into the beginning. Maybe a bit silly.

We didn’t talk to a long list of people who “knew what they were doing.” Not because we didn’t respect their expertise, but because life was full. A toddler. A dog. A cat. Cold weather. Limited energy. There’s also something uncomfortable about asking for people’s time before you even know if an idea has legs.

So instead of waiting for permission or validation, we moved forward quietly.

What gave us the confidence to do that, honestly, was the era we’re living in. Artificial intelligence meant I always had a thinking partner. Someone to spar with. Someone to help translate vague ideas into clearer ones. Not quite an oracle, but a companion for figuring things out as we went.

Was that naïve? Maybe. It’s still too early to say whether that naïveté helped or hurt us. But it did get us moving. Quickly.

And movement mattered more than certainty.

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Why China. And Why Silicone Made the Decision for Us.

Choosing China wasn’t ideological. It was practical.

Once we knew the product would involve food-safe silicone, the decision narrowed quickly. High-quality silicone production is highly regional. Certain parts of China have deep expertise, established tooling infrastructure, and factories that specialize specifically in this kind of work.

This wasn’t about cheap labor. It was about capability.

If you want consistent, scalable, food-safe silicone production at a professional level, this is where the knowledge already exists. The factories know the material. They understand tolerances. They know what works and what fails in real-world use.

The material dictated the geography. Not the other way around.

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Trusting People You’ve Never Met

Manufacturing a product on the other side of the world requires a specific kind of trust. Not blind trust. Active trust.

We found our sourcing agent, Eric, on Upwork. He responded quickly. Almost too quickly. I asked him multiple times if he was a fraudster and whether he planned to steal my identity. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.

The biggest fear wasn’t quality or communication. It was money. That fear arrived shortly after the first few thousand dollars were spent.

Trust, we learned, doesn’t mean stepping back. It means staying engaged.

It meant asking questions. Picking up the phone instead of hiding behind messages. Being open to hearing when we were wrong, or when something needed further exploration after we had proof of concept. Letting someone else challenge our assumptions. Eric wasn’t just executing. He was contributing to the design thinking, pushing back on ideas that would have been unnecessarily expensive or impractical.

Trust, in practice, looked like collaboration.

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The First Prototypes Will Humble You

The first prototype taught us more than any conversation could have.

The silicone color alone was a shock. What we thought would be a deep mustard came back as full Dutch orange. That single moment triggered a complete rethink of our color palette. We realized the product needed to feel calmer. Softer. More neutral. Not visually aggressive. Which is hard for silicone!

Functionally, the problems were bigger.

The silicone was too thin. The lid popped off way too easily. And that was unacceptable for something meant for use outdoors, on bikes, in motion.

At one point, I had to say, “Imagine you’re riding a bike. Your child pulls the lid off and throws it. You have to stop, get off, turn around, pick it up, and the whole time your child might be screaming.” That scenario should have been in my original brief.

We went back to the drawing board. Thicker silicone. A more secure lid. Better integration of the screw into the silicone. Designing the mirror at the same time actually helped us solve some of these weight and balance issues.

The second version felt right. And then it wasn’t.

The wrong file was sent to the factory. The wrong color was used. The sample came back imperfect again. Fixable, yes. But only after committing to new production molds ($$!).

That was the moment it stopped feeling like an experiment.

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When It Becomes Real

When the costs climbed past five thousand dollars, slight anxiety set in. Not full meltdown panic, but a quiet, heavy realization that consumed our thoughts.

This wasn’t just an idea anymore. It was a responsibility.

For a few days, I lay awake wondering what on earth I was doing. Questioning whether this would ever sell. Wondering if I should abandon the whole thing and open a sauna instead.

We kept going anyway.

That was the end of Part 1. The moment Snack&Ride stopped being hypothetical and became a true investment.