We are paid out of what we build, never out of a client's pocket up front. That means the people we work with risk nothing to start, and it means we only do well when they do. The terms below exist so that neither side has to raise the subject of money at an awkward moment: it is settled here, in advance, in the same words for everyone.
What we do
We conceive, develop and market goods and services. Depending on the project that can mean the concept, the formulation, the packaging, the brand, the supply and manufacturing arrangements, the campaign, and the selling. We bring the work; the client brings their name, their following, or their idea.
What the client keeps
Their name, their likeness and their story remain entirely their own, always. Anything they owned before we met stays theirs. Nothing here gives SHEFANU a claim on a client's existing business.
What SHEFANU keeps
Where the invention is the client's own, it stays theirs entirely. What we create around it is ours: the brand name, the trademark, the packaging and product design, and the campaign material. Where we develop the product itself, the formulas and designs are ours as well.
In both cases we license what we own to the product for as long as we are working together, so the client can sell freely from the first day without having to own our tools.
How we are paid
We charge no fees up front. We earn through ownership: a royalty on every unit sold for as long as it sells, a stake in the product company, or a combination of the two. Where we bring an existing invention to market, our share is that stake or royalty together with exclusive rights to market it for an agreed term.
The figure is set against what each side actually brings — the effort, the cost and the risk carried — and against what is standard in the industry for licensing, royalties and equity. It is written down before the work begins, and it is never less than the minimums published below.
Costs
Whoever funds the production carries that cost and recovers it from first revenue. Where SHEFANU funds the work, our share reflects it. Where the client funds it, theirs does.
If we part ways
The client keeps their name and everything that was theirs. Our licence ends, and anything we created returns to us, with a continuing royalty on products already brought to market by our work. No one is trapped, and no one leaves empty-handed.
Exclusivity
While we are engaged, we are the exclusive marketing and brand partner for the products we develop together. In return we commit our time, our contacts and our capital to them.
Confidentiality
What a client tells us stays with us, and what we develop stays between us until launch. Our discretion is contractual: new products are perceived as conceived solely by the client.
Written first
No work begins until the terms are agreed in writing — not a sample, not a formula, not a presentation. It protects both sides, and it takes an afternoon.
The minimums, and why they are what they are
These are floors, not asking prices. They are published so that no one on either side of a table has to raise the subject, and so that the same terms are offered to the first client and the thousandth. Every figure below sits at or beneath what the industry charges for the same work — that gap is deliberate, and it is how we intend to earn the work.
An invention that is already theirs, taken to market by us
20% of the product company, or 8% of net sales where there are no shares to hold. Never below 15%, or 5%.
We fund and carry the build: sourcing, formulation trials, packaging, compliance, the launch and the selling.
Licensing agents who place an inventor's product with a manufacturer commonly take 30–50% of the royalty stream, and venture studios that build a company alongside a founder take 30–80% of it. A fifth, for doing both jobs and carrying the cost, is the lower end of what this work is worth anywhere. We would rather take a fifth of something that reached the market than half of something that never left the garage.
Our own line, with a client as its face
The line is ours. The face earns up to 5% of wholesale, and never more than 8%.
We conceive the product, own the formulas and the brand, fund the run and sell it. The person lending their name carries no cost and no risk.
Name-and-likeness licences in beauty and personal care run at 3–10% of wholesale revenue, occasionally to 12% for a household name. Paying at the middle of that band for a name, while we carry everything else, is honest on both sides.
Developed together
Each side owns what it creates. Our marketing share is never below 10% of net sales.
Where two parties both bring substance, ownership follows the work rather than the loudest voice. The floor exists so that a shared project cannot quietly become an unpaid one.
The brand we build
Always ours. Not negotiable.
The name, the trademark, the packaging and the campaign material we create belong to SHEFANU and are licensed to the product.
A product on a shelf sells on its brand as much as on its contents. If the brand were handed over, the work of years could be ended with thirty days' notice and nothing would remain of it. This clause costs a client nothing they arrived with, and it is the reason we can commit fully to a project instead of hedging.
The tail
Royalty continues for three years after we stop, on products our work put on the shelf.
Building a brand takes longer than ending a contract. Without a tail, any client could use the launch and dismiss the builder the week it starts to work. With one, nobody is tempted, and nobody has to be suspicious of anybody.
An annual minimum, once a product is launched
A modest yearly minimum royalty, beginning only after the product is selling.
Exclusivity has to be earned on both sides. The minimum means a product cannot be left dormant while our hands are tied, and because it begins only after launch, it never becomes a bill to a client who is still getting started.
Brands we license in, and the people who introduce us
We pay no more than 8% of wholesale for an inbound brand licence. An introducer earns 5% of what that client earns us, for two years.
Where another company's name adds value to a line, that licence is held by SHEFANU and not by a single product, so it can serve more than one. Introductions are paid properly, because the people who open doors are worth keeping.
Distribution
Wholesale at 50% of retail. Distributors no deeper than 60% off.
The ordinary retail rule: a shop doubles what it pays. Pricing below this floor means paying a retailer out of the maker's margin, which is the fastest way for a young brand to fail quietly.
Signing, and the record we keep
Agreements are signed in a browser, on one screen. There is nothing to print, nothing to post and no signing service between us.
A typed name is a signature
Under the federal E-SIGN Act and California’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, a name typed into an agreement binds exactly as a pen does, provided the person meant to sign, agreed to sign electronically, and can keep a copy. Our signing page does all three at once: the whole agreement is on the page, the consent is a tick beside the signature, and a copy is emailed the moment it is signed.
What we store, and why
Three things are kept with every signature, and they are what settle a disagreement years later:
The agreement exactly as it appeared at the moment of signing, word for word, rather than a link to a template that could be edited afterwards.
A seal over those words. The text is run through a standard calculation that turns it into a 64-character code. The same words always produce the same code, and changing a single comma produces an entirely different one. If anyone ever says “that is not what I signed”, the calculation is run again: a matching code proves the document is the one that was signed.
The time, and the address it was signed from, together with when the link was first opened, so the sequence of events is on the record as well.
Your copy is yours
A PDF reaches the signer immediately, and the completed agreement, signed by both sides, follows as soon as we countersign. Ask us at any time and we will send them again.
These terms are identical for every client and every project. Nobody has to ask to be paid, and nobody has to wonder what will be asked of them. That is the whole purpose of publishing them.