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Starter kit

You found the name. Now make it real.

A short list of physical things most new brands end up buying in the first few months. Nothing fancy, nothing you need on day one.

These are Amazon links. If you buy something, Brandzli earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.

What to buy first

Almost none of this is needed on day one, and buying it early is the most common way a new brand spends money before it has any. The order below is the one that tends to hold: nothing gets bought until something forces it.

Print comes first, because it is the cheapest and because it is the first time the name exists outside a browser tab. A stamp and a box of card stock cost less than a month of most software subscriptions, and they are what turns a decision into a thing.

Shipping gear waits until you have shipped by hand and disliked it. The first ten orders should be packed at a kitchen table with whatever is in the house. You will learn what your parcels actually weigh, what they actually cost to send, and whether the thing you are selling needs a box or a bag. Buy the scale and the printer after that, not before.

Content gear is last and the easiest to overbuy. A phone from the last five years shoots better video than most dedicated cameras did a decade ago. What a phone cannot fix is bad light and bad audio, which is why the list has a light and a microphone on it and no camera at all.

One rule underneath all of it: buy the thing that removes a job you are already doing badly, not the thing that looks like what a real business owns.

Make it official

Print and paper

The first time your name shows up on something you can hold.

Print is where a name stops being a domain and starts being an object. It is also the cheapest category here by a wide margin, which is why it comes first: you can find out whether the name looks right in ink for the price of a takeaway.

Printing your own cards is worth doing before ordering any, even if you later order properly. A name that reads well on screen can sit badly at business card size, and you will only see it once it is in your hand. Heavy stock is what separates a card you printed from a card that looks like you printed it.

A self-inking stamp does the work of printed packaging without the minimum order. One stamp puts the logo on plain boxes, plain bags, plain tissue and a note, which means you can buy unbranded packaging in any quantity and brand it yourself as you go.

If you sell things

Shipping basics

For the first orders you pack yourself.

The order this gets bought in matters more than what gets bought. Mailers first, because they are consumable and cheap. The scale second, once you have been surprised by a postage price. The printer last, once writing addresses by hand has become the slowest part of your day.

A digital scale earns its place by removing guesswork rather than saving time. Postage is priced in bands, and a parcel that sits just over a band costs noticeably more than one just under it. Knowing the weight before you buy the label is the difference between choosing the box and finding out about it afterwards.

Thermal printers are the one piece of equipment here that changes the shape of the work. They print from heat rather than ink, so there is no cartridge to replace and nothing to dry out between quiet weeks. The saving is real but it is a volume saving, which is why it belongs after the habit exists and not before.

Show up online

Content setup

For the photos and videos your new handles will need.

The camera is almost never the problem. A phone from the last few years out-resolves what most people need, and no amount of sensor fixes a room that is too dark or audio recorded from across it.

Light first. Daylight through a window is free and frequently better than anything you can buy, and the argument for a light is repeatability rather than quality: it lets a shot taken at nine in the evening match one taken at noon, which is what makes a feed look deliberate rather than assembled.

Audio second, and it is the upgrade people notice without being able to name. Viewers forgive a soft image and leave over bad sound. A clip-on wireless microphone moves the mic from across the room to a few inches from your mouth, which is the entire trick.

A tripod is last only because it is the obvious one. Anything filmed one-handed reads as filmed one-handed, and the wobble is the first thing that separates a shop's video from a friend's. It also frees both hands, which matters the moment you are demonstrating the thing you are selling rather than talking about it.

Common questions

What do you actually need to start a small business?

Less than any list suggests. A name you can hold, a way to take money, and the thing you are selling. Everything on this page is what comes after that, bought in response to a problem you have already run into rather than in anticipation of one. If you are buying gear before your first sale, you are furnishing an office rather than starting a business.

Should I buy shipping supplies before my first order?

Buy the mailers, not the machines. A pack of poly mailers costs little and means the first order can go out the day it arrives. The scale and the label printer only pay for themselves once packing has become a routine, because until then you do not know what you are packing or how often.

Is a thermal label printer worth it for a small shop?

It stops being optional somewhere around a few orders a week. Thermal printers use no ink at all, which is the whole point: the running cost is the label, and nothing dries out between uses. Below that volume, printing labels on ordinary paper and taping them on works.

What equipment do I need to film product videos at home?

Light and sound, in that order, and a way to hold the phone still. The camera in a recent phone is not the limiting factor. A window at the right time of day is free and often better than a ring light; the light matters when you need the same result at nine at night as at noon.

Do I need business cards in 2026?

For most online businesses, no, and that is not the reason to have them. A card is useful in the rooms where you meet people in person, and printing a small batch yourself is the cheapest way to find out whether you are in those rooms. Print twenty, not five hundred, until you know.

What should I do before ordering anything with the name on it?

Check that the name is still free everywhere you intend to use it, and that nobody has taken the matching handles since you decided. Printed stock and custom stamps are the point at which a name stops being reversible cheaply. A search takes a few seconds and the stamp takes a week to reorder.

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