If you want to succeed as a wholesale brand, you need to succeed globally. succeed globally. This is a reality Jacobo Muñoz abides by and one he first learned as a design student in Switzerland and then while running an NGO in Malawi. Muñoz will be the first to admit he has endured his share of bumps in the road; he has launched brands only to watch them fail. But with andJacob, he had developed a line of stone and glass homewares that hotels and retailers around the world have bought into.

Here are the lessons he’s learned along the way:
While attending ECAL in Lausanne, he celebrated the bold colors of his native Mexico. “I was all about blue and pink and yellow; it was beautiful. But my instructors did not think so,”he admits.“‘It might be beautiful in Mexico,’ they said, but they challenged me to think globally. What kind of products cross borders and are as at home in Paris as they are in Sydney and New York?” Gray, black and white. That was the answer. “They feel at place in the bathroom of any luxury hotel, whether a Mandarin Oriental or a Rosewood.”

While running a craft-driven NGO in Malawi, Muñoz realized it might be extremely affordable to create products in Africa, but it can be prohibitively expensive to ship them, especially large chairs, which his craftspeople specialized in. Back in Mexico, crafting products costs more but shipping is far easier and more affordable. With a clear vision for his product, he focused on the math that would allow him to reach and maintain profitability.

He started with the retailers. If they sell a cup for $20, andJacob wholesales it for $10, which means Muñoz needs to produce it for $2 to maintain an 80-percent margin. He then works with his artisans to achieve that price. If they are unable to, he adjusts the piece (its size, composition etc) to meet the artisans’ needs.