Range Planning: The Step Most Founders Skip That Changes Everything
How to plan your product range strategically so you know exactly what you are designing, what you are charging, and how it all fits together.
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Show Notes
Intro
I’m Bhavna Rishi, founder of BuildTheDreamBrand, and for over 20 years I’ve been helping founders, artists and fashion startups design, launch and scale brands – from museums like the V&A, Chatsworth House and the British Museum, to first-time founders who started with nothing but an idea and a sketch.
And in this episode of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of Building the Brand, I want to walk you through range planning — the step that most fashion founders skip entirely, and the step that changes everything.
Episode Summary
Most fashion founders skip range planning and go straight from inspiration to sampling. The result is collections that look random, cost too much to produce, and confuse customers. In this episode, Bhavna shares the range planning framework she uses with every client — the four roles every product must play (hero, gateway, statement, complementary), how to price your range as a three-tier system using price anchoring, why your first collection should be 5–8 products not 20, and how to build a range plan document that saves you months of wasted effort.
Show Notes
- Why most first collections fail despite having beautiful products
- The four roles every product must play: hero, gateway, statement, complementary
- How to price your range as a system using three tiers and price anchoring
- Why your first collection should be 5 to 8 products, not 20
- The recommended first collection structure that actually works
- How to calculate your blended margin across the whole range (target: 60%+)
- What your range plan document should contain: the five sections
- How to cut products ruthlessly so your collection has focus
Timestamps
- 00:00 — Cold open: the 27-product collection that sold 3 units
- 02:00 — What range planning is and why it matters
- 06:00 — The four roles every product must play
- 12:00 — Pricing your range as a system
- 17:00 — How many products do you actually need?
- 21:00 — Building your range plan document
- 25:00 — Action step and episode close
Action Step
Open a blank document. List every product idea for your collection. Assign each one a role: hero, gateway, statement, or complementary. If you cannot assign a role, cut it. Then check: do you have at least one hero and one gateway? Is your pricing across at least two tiers? That is your range plan.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If you are building a fashion brand and want expert guidance, book a free discovery call with Bhavna.