From Vendor to Market Maker: Selling Value, Not Price

This industry has long treated production as a line-item cost to negotiate down — but that model is breaking. In this session, David Rosendahl moderates a conversation with supply chain and value-engineering expert Oscar Chavarria, who draws on decades of experience across textiles and healthcare to reframe how printers and manufacturers should sell in an era of 40+ simultaneous micro-trends, compressed 15–21 day lead times, and customers reflexively pushing back on price.

Chavarria breaks down value as a function of “function over cost” and shows how to shift conversations away from price by uncovering what customers actually care about — often unstated priorities like markdown reduction, inventory risk, or margin benchmarks. He also demonstrates practical ways to use AI not as a search engine but as an analysis tool: mining LinkedIn profiles, sales call transcripts, and even five-star and one-star product reviews to surface unbiased signal about what customers truly value, then building that insight into a repeatable sales playbook.

Key takeaway: Companies that stop competing on price and start asking better questions to uncover what customers actually value can reposition themselves from commodity vendors into “market makers” — partners who create and capture value rather than just fulfilling orders at the lowest bid.

Resilience: The Human Side of Leadership

This isn’t a session about production, technology, or growth strategy — it’s about the people running the business. David Rosendahl (Founder & CEO, Mindfire, Inc, Co-Founder of She*t for Brains) and Dr. Glenn Pacquiam (resilience researcher and pastor) explore the often-unspoken toll of leading under constant pressure: payroll, staffing, customers, and decisions that never let up, alongside the personal cost leaders carry home to their families and relationships.

Drawing on Pacquiam’s research into burnout and hope among faith leaders — and its striking parallels to entrepreneurs and business owners — the session offers a practical framework for building resilience through two core moves: recovery (discerning the true condition of your “soul” and your current “season,” rather than assuming rest alone will fix things) and recalibration (establishing intentional rhythms across work, rest, renewal, and relationships). Particular attention is given to combating leadership loneliness through a “constellation” of five relationship types — authority, healer, sage, peer, and friend — rather than relying on any single relationship to meet every need.

Key takeaway: Resilience isn’t something you either have or don’t — it’s built through honest self-discernment and intentional rhythms, especially in relationships. The best thing you can do for your business is invest in a healthy, well-supported you.

Alex Sultenstall, CEO of FYUL (the company formed by the merger of Printful and Printify), unpacks how print-on-demand transforms unpredictable, viral demand from a business risk into a competitive advantage — using the explosive, unanticipated success of K-Pop Demon Hunters as a real-world case study of a trend that neither its creators nor Netflix saw coming.

Sultenstall traces why demand certainty is eroding across markets (more inputs driving faster-moving trends, the rise of micro-communities and niche affinity, and e-commerce’s “anything you can imagine exists” expectation), and explains why POD adoption still takes years even when the benefits seem obvious — pointing to lingering quality perceptions and the very different go-to-market strategies required for entrepreneurial merchants versus entertainment/licensing partners. He also details FYUL’s approach to AI (including AI-generated product mockups that let merchants ditch generic stock models), its hybrid first-party/third-party production network, and why sales/service, technology, supply chain, and day-one delivery all have to align for a company to successfully enter a new vertical.

Key takeaway: As demand becomes harder to predict, the companies that win won’t be the ones chasing trends after the fact — they’ll be the ones who’ve already built the design, marketing, and on-demand production infrastructure to instantly capitalize on a trend the moment it appears, without overcommitting inventory before they know how big or how long it will run.

For decades, polyester has been the industry’s toughest print challenge: heavy blockers, dye migration, and colors that shift from garment to garment. In this episode of Kornit Tech Lab, members of the KDNA applications team who ran the Atlas MATRIX beta share what changed. They walk through the new blocker and color layering sequence, why a single queue setting now handles cotton, poly, and blends side by side, and how the system held consistent results across close to 100 SKUs in the field. The conversation also covers breakthroughs in dye sublimated fabric printing, the redesigned MATRIX pallet that speeds up unloading, and how QualiSet now scores printhead health in real time. A candid, field tested look at the technology the team says finally lets them stop saying “we can’t print that.” 

This conversation brought together leaders from professional sports and business to explore what it takes to build winning organizations and connect with today’s fans. The speakers emphasized that sustained success starts with alignment, strong leadership, and a shared identity, supported by a willingness to learn and adapt through challenges.

The discussion also explored the intersection of sports, culture, social media, and merchandise. As fans increasingly share experiences and express their connection through what they wear, on-demand production gives teams and brands the ability to turn memorable moments into timely merchandise while reducing excess inventory.

Key Takeaway

Winning organizations are built through alignment and adaptability, while the future of sports merchandise is about turning real-time fan moments into meaningful, wearable connections.

In this conversation, former ASOS CEO Nick Beighton shares insights from his experience helping transform ASOS from a growing online retailer into a global fashion destination. Through stories from the company’s evolution, Beighton explores what it takes to build a truly customer-led business, embrace agility, scale a strong culture, and continually challenge traditional ways of working.

The conversation looks at the forces shaping the next era of fashion and retail, from AI-powered personalization and intelligent digital experiences to on-demand production, nearshoring, and the evolving role of physical stores. Beighton also reflects on the importance of purpose, creativity, bravery, and discipline in building teams that can adapt and innovate at scale. Looking to the future, he offers a compelling vision for a retail model that combines a highly engaging customer experience with lean, technology-enabled operations and faster, more responsive production.

Key Takeaway: The businesses best positioned for the future will be those that stay relentlessly focused on the customer while building the culture, technology, and operational agility to move as quickly as customer expectations do.

2026 is bringing a collision of forces — AI-led commerce, margin compression, trade disruption, labor constraints, and demand volatility — all hitting the apparel and decorated goods industry at once. This panel argues that direct-to-garment printing is no longer just a production method; it’s becoming an operating capability built for speed, agility, and on-demand economics in a market where traditional inventory models are breaking down.

Together they cover how digital printing supports sustainability (low waste, no speculative inventory), how real-time data and AI are reshaping decision-making, how brands are navigating tariffs and supply chain disruption through efficiency rather than price increases, and why authentic in-person experiences still matter even as digital and social channels grow.

Key takeaway: On-demand digital decoration turns speed and flexibility into a genuine competitive advantage — letting brands cut inventory risk, absorb economic shocks like tariffs, and test/ship designs (even influencer-driven ones) in near real time, all while being inherently more sustainable than legacy production methods like screen printing.

As AI moves beyond experimentation and into core business operations, fashion is being reshaped at every stage of the value chain — design, production, marketing, and sustainability. In this panel, five industry leaders explore how AI is collapsing timelines that once took weeks into minutes, giving small brands the tools to compete with retail giants, and shifting product discovery away from paid search toward AI-native search engines.

Together, they trace how creativity, once bottlenecked by technical skill and slow supply chains, is being unlocked at scale — while raising new questions about personalization, brand loyalty, and sustainable production.

Key takeaway: The biggest shift isn’t just faster design or smarter marketing — it’s the move from sequential to parallel workflows. When design, production, and marketing all run simultaneously on a shared data layer, brands can shrink concept-to-market timelines from months to days, reduce overproduction (and its waste), and let smaller, AI-native brands compete with legacy players who no longer hold a structural advantage in scale or ad spend.