Pipkin: Belkin Solved Cash Flow by Having Manufacturers Hold Inventory
Chet Pipkin · Advice Line with Chet Pipkin of Belkin International · Nov 13, 2025 · at 23:57
Chet Pipkin, founder of Belkin International, mentors an entrepreneur struggling with inventory cash flow by recounting Belkin's early vendor arrangements.
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“We had the same problem at Belkin. Not enough cash. No working capital to invest in goods. So the way we solved that issue was we formed a very tight alliance with the person that was manufacturing our stuff. And we built a lot of trust with them. And so it wasn't Like a viable financial model for them, but because of the trust we built with them, we were able to get them to build a lot of things for us, and to keep them on their books. And they allowed us to pull it off of them as we needed it. We could have never afforded to have had that, all of that stuff on our own books.”
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