How Speeed.co Uses the Operational Side of Fourthwall to Run Its Own Supply Chain

Most Creator brands come to Fourthwall looking for an easy way to launch merch without having to manage inventory or fulfillment themselves.

Speeed is not most brands. 

For the past two years, the popular automotive and lifestyle YouTube channel hosted by James Pumphrey has manufactured and self-managed its own merchandise operation in Southern California. 

Unlike many brands that use Fourthwall for print-on-demand, Speeed.co uses it to run the front end of its operation, utilizing the platform’s tools to build a comprehensive storefront with checkout, payments, and a membership program for dedicated fans. 

For Tim Moore, who handles Speeed.co’s merch, that's the point. Fourthwall isn't a fulfillment crutch for Speeed, but a commerce infrastructure that lets them sell their way.

"I think it really comes down to simplicity," says Moore. "If you're coming into it like us, where you have an ability to sell a reasonable amount of shirts, and you care about the quality of things in the way that we do... I think going the route of self-fulfillment is good."

In this case study, we chat with Tim Moore from Speeed about how the team built a successful self-fulfilled merch business using Fourthwall. 

He also shares what they learned along the way and what other brands can take from their experience when selling and fulfilling their own products.

How Speeed Launched After Donut Media and Sold 350+ Orders in Its First Merch Drop

Speeed launched in August 2024 after a major shift at Donut Media saw Pumphrey, along with former Donut CCO Jesse Wood, departing the company after nine years. 

Shortly after their exit, a few more members from Donut’s team, including Zach Redpath and S.R. Brandon, followed suit and joined Pumphrey and Wood as co-founders on what would be their next big venture—Speeed. 

The channel quickly took off, bringing Pumphrey’s audience over and giving the team a chance to build on what they had created at Donut while taking the content in a new direction that felt entirely their own.

Moreover, when it came to planning their merch, they wanted to take that venture head-on, along with creating a membership program that would give fans another way to support the brand.

The team worked with Fourthwall CEO Will Baumann early on, initially just to launch a membership program, but were quickly convinced Fourthwall was a viable option for ecommerce operations as well.

Speeed put that plan to the test with its first merch drop on Black Friday 2024. 

But unlike most holiday merch launches, the team didn’t use clever marketing tactics or offer discounts to build excitement—everything launched at full price.

It was a gamble that paid off, netting Speeed 350+ orders over the most competitive shopping weekend of the year.

That early launch gave the team its first real indication that Speeed's growing audience was willing to support the brand beyond simply watching its content.

Why Speeed Skipped Print-on-Demand From the Start

For many Creator brands, print-on-demand is the easiest place to start. 

For one, you don't have to buy inventory upfront, and fulfillment is handled for you. Plus, you have the freedom of testing different products without having to take on a lot of financial risk.

But for Speeed, print-on-demand was never really part of the original plan. The team preferred doing everything old school, with Moore saying they had always liked the touch and feel of traditional screen printing over more common print-on-demand techniques. 

“Print-on-demand has come a long way, but a couple of years ago you could definitely tell the difference to the touch between the two,” says Moore. “I think it was just a quality play for us. I don't think it was even a conversation that we would try POD with Speeed."

For the team, that decision came down largely to quality. They wanted more control over how the shirts were made, how they felt, and ultimately what fans received when they placed an order.

That's not to say Speeed completely avoids print-on-demand today. The brand currently uses direct-to-garment for a couple of designs, but most of its merch is still produced separately, and the Speeed team fulfills it all.

"Everything is still fulfilled in-house," Tim says. "Nothing is going out like the traditional POD model."

That hands-on approach also fits naturally with Speeed's content and the identity it's been building from the beginning. While cars may be at the genesis of the brand, fashion, design, and art have also been part of the conversation since its earliest videos.

"Our second video is about Carhartt; we're talking about fashion and clothing, and I think being able to double down on providing T-shirts and accessories that we can stand behind the quality of is not a preference but a requirement for us,” says Moore.

That same attention to detail carries over to the design and production process. Instead of outsourcing the creative direction, Speeed develops its designs in-house, with co-founder Jesse Wood, artist Rylie Jobe, Tim, and even James himself all playing active roles in the process.

For production, Moore works with a group of vendors he's built relationships with over years in the industry. 

"We try to stay in the LA area, just so we have eyes on the process," Moore states. "I'm pretty frequently driving around town picking up samples and picking up batches. It might cost us a couple bucks per piece extra, but it's part of the story and part of the authenticity of it all."

That approach may cost Speeed a little more per product and require more hands-on work, but that's the tradeoff the team is willing to make. 

For them, controlling how the merch looks, feels, and gets made isn't just an operational choice. It's part of what makes the products feel like Speeed.

Fourthwall as a Storefront, Not a Fulfillment Platform: Easy Setup, Harder Inventory Reporting

With the company already planning to produce and fulfill most of its merch in-house, Moore and the team didn’t need a platform to handle production, but one that provided an easy-to-use storefront that could handle the ecommerce side of the business.

That's where Fourthwall came in. Right away, they found the platform’s setup straightforward and painless. 

"Especially at the beginning, it was simple, and it (Fourthwall) just felt very intuitive, very plug and play," Moore said.

Moore already had over a decade of experience working with Shopify, so he knew his way around ecommerce platforms. 

What he liked about Fourthwall was that there wasn't much of a learning curve. He could jump in and start building, using the same muscles he had used on Shopify with past stores he operated.

As Speeed continued using Fourthwall, Moore also noticed the platform adding more tools that worked well for brands like theirs that handle their own products and fulfillment.

"I feel like some of the features that are released that benefit us as a self-fulfilled brand kind of popped up over time, as we've invested in the platform. That's been cool."

But one feature has stood out more than anything else—Fourthwall handling sales tax.

"That's my favorite part of Fourthwall, because I've just been through hell over the years,” Moore said about Fourthwall’s Merchant of Record. “Having that all handled in-house by Fourthwall is gold. It's so good."

For Moore, having Fourthwall handle that work removes a major headache from running the store and gives the team one less complicated part of ecommerce to manage themselves.

However, there is one trade-off to Speeed's setup. Because Fourthwall is commonly used by Creators selling print-on-demand products, managing inventory for a brand that keeps its own physical stock can require a little more work.

"Inventory management is the one thing that's been kind of tricky, just because the platform's set up for print-on-demand, and inventory isn't really an issue in that regard," Moore says. 

"Pulling reports has been particularly a challenge."

Even then, Moore doesn't see it as a major problem. Speeed's approach is different from how many Creator brands use Fourthwall, and because he's closely involved with production and fulfillment, he tracks internally and generally knows how much inventory the company has available.

"I have to imagine we're one of the few bigger brands doing it this way,” he says. “I have a pretty good mental read on inventory at all times, so it's never really that big of an issue."

For Speeed, that's ultimately the appeal of Fourthwall. They can control the parts of merch that matter most to them (aka production, quality, and fulfillment), while Fourthwall handles the ecommerce side, allowing them to focus on production full-time. 

How Speeed Fulfills Its Own Orders: 21-Day Shipping and Batched Screen Printing

While Fourthwall powers Speeed's online store, almost everything that happens after someone places an order is handled by the Speeed team.

In fact, much of the operation runs out of Moore’s garage.

During the brand's recent anniversary pre-order campaign, that setup processed roughly 5,000 orders, showing just how much the team can handle themselves.

That’s because instead of relying on forecasts and investing heavily in pre-made inventory, Speeed advertised a 21-day shipping window and implemented a batched production schedule, putting screen print orders in after the first, second, and third weeks of the sale, respectively. 

Despite a few unexpected production setbacks, Tim and his partner, Molly, QC'd, prepped, and shipped the entire order over the course of a month without any third-party fulfillment help.

“It’s obviously hard, hands-on work, but when you set inventory up to flow in at a reasonable pace over the course of an activation, it’s still manageable to handle in-house.”       

Speeed has also started releasing collaborations with companies that naturally fit the brand.

One of the biggest examples is its collection with H&R, which grew out of a sponsored video filmed in Germany and Poland.

"H&R was definitely one of them," on Speeed's dream-collab list, Moore says. "It's a brand that we would have already been excited about doing a collab with... James has used H&R suspension on his cars since he was a teenager."

For Moore, the collaboration wasn't just exciting because of the company involved. It also gave Speeed's creative team the freedom to design something they were genuinely proud of.

"They let us do whatever we wanted to do with the design, and our artist Rylie went to town on it. I think it's one of the coolest collab pieces I've seen."

Interestingly, the team doesn't rely heavily on spreadsheets or sales data to decide which products become permanent and which stay limited.

Instead, those decisions usually come down to instinct.

"We don't have a boss telling us what to do. We don't necessarily have revenue targets," Moore says. "It really is more of: we like something, we think it'll stick around, it sticks around."

That creative freedom is part of what makes Speeed's merch feel different. 

Rather than chasing every trend or constantly releasing products based only on sales numbers, the team focuses on making items they genuinely want to wear themselves and trusts that their audience will respond the same way.

Memberships Built Into the Store: Trial Month Discounts, Discord and Book Club

One of the biggest features that stood out to Moore on Fourthwall was the platform’s membership tools and how easily they integrate with their storefront. 

Speeed offers two membership options: a free membership and a paid tier called Legion of Speeed, which costs $7 a month. 

Paid members get access to the podcast, a private Discord community, and exclusive discounts on merch.

For Moore, though, the biggest advantage isn't the membership program itself. It's that everything lives in the same place as the merch store.

"That's one of the main features that we love about Fourthwall—that it's all integrated," he states.

Before Speeed, Moore had managed membership programs across several different platforms, and keeping them connected to an online store was always a challenge.

"We used YouTube memberships at one company, and then a custom white-label platform at another, and it was just so hard to keep the link between the two platforms. That's something you don't even think about with Fourthwall."

One feature in particular has made a noticeable difference: fans can opt in to a trial month of the membership program and automatically receive the member discount when they check out.

"We get a lot of retention from that, Moore claims, especially from a lot of people that I don't think would have checked out our membership program if they didn't see it there.”

He has even seen brands try to replicate this on Shopify through plugins, but that approach always means two separate platforms trying to talk to each other—a clunky, frustrating workaround. 

For him, the add-to-cart membership feature is the standout, and the fact that it's native, rather than some complicated plugin or API connection, makes all the difference.

The memberships also help strengthen the community beyond the storefront.

Sales and special merch launches often lead to an increase in memberships, while the members-only Discord server has become a place where fans regularly discuss new products, ask questions, and share ideas. 

Because Discord connects directly to Fourthwall, the Speeed team can also communicate with customers without sending them elsewhere.

"Whether that's a customer asking about their order, or sometimes they'll send us ideas for designs... having that built in has been fun."

The team has even used Discord to create activities that have nothing to do with buying merch.

One example is Speeed's Book Club, which launched alongside a tote bag that reads, "let the boys read." 

The idea was simple. Encourage the community to read together and give members another reason to participate beyond shopping.

"It was one of our missions to get the boys to read."

That community-first mindset reflects how Speeed approaches memberships overall. 

The goal isn't just to offer discounts. It's to create a place where fans can interact with the team, connect with one another, and feel like they're part of something bigger than the products themselves.

Speeed's Next Fulfillment Decision: Warehouse, Small Shop or Third-Party Vendor

As Speeed continues to grow, the biggest question isn't whether the team will switch platforms but rather how they'll handle more orders as their operation expands.

Right now, all of the fulfillment is still handled in-house. But as sales increase, Moore knows they'll eventually need to decide whether to keep expanding their own operation or hand some of that work over to someone else.

"There's a big question you have to ask yourself at this point: do I trust third-party fulfillment? I historically haven't, which is why we set things up this way," he says. 

"We're currently in the process of weighing: do we get a warehouse, a small shop? Do we scale DIY style on our end? Or do we start looking for a third-party fulfillment vendor that we trust?"

Right now, the team is leaning toward continuing to grow Speeed's in-house operation. Moore enjoys being involved in every part of the process and likes having complete control over how orders are packed and shipped.

"I lean more toward the first route just because it's fun for me and cool... It's like my own little test environment here that I control all the levers of,” says Moore.

“That's been really fun—to run a miniature warehouse in my own home."

Whether Speeed eventually moves into a warehouse, opens a dedicated fulfillment space, or partners with a trusted third-party company, the team doesn't expect its online store to change.

For Moore, those are two separate decisions. 

Fulfillment may evolve as the business grows, but Fourthwall will continue to power Speeed's storefront, memberships, and customer experience for the foreseeable future, no matter where the products are made or shipped from.

Choose the Platform That Fits How You Already Work, Not the Other Way Around

When asked what advice he'd give other Creator brands trying to decide between an all-in-one fulfillment platform and a platform focused on ecommerce, Moore says the answer depends on how your business actually operates.

Instead of choosing a platform first and building your business around it, he believes brands should find a platform that fits the way they already want to work.

"It has to do with scale.  If it's one person running a channel and also running their web presence,” he states. “Fourthwall can do that.”

“And if it's a team of seven people like us, with essentially full-time fulfillment operations in the garage, you can use the platform in a similar way. It all works together. It's something you can definitely grow with—it's versatile."

Moore also likes that the platform doesn't lock brands into one way of selling merch. A Creator can start with print-on-demand, move to screen printing later, or even combine both approaches as their business grows.

"Especially on a platform like Fourthwall, you can always flip the switch—if you want to do a run of screen-printed shirts or hats, you can do it that way as well, and you can mix and match too."

For Tim Moore, that's one of Fourthwall's biggest strengths. Brands don't have to choose between having complete control over how their products are made and having an easy-to-manage online storefront. 

As Speeed.co has shown, you can run your own production and fulfillment while still using Fourthwall to power your store, memberships, and customer experience.

Rather than forcing every Creator into the same business model, Moore sees the platform as something that can adapt as a brand grows and its needs change.