I Make $1M/Month From Bed

Colin

• Background and origin story
  • Was fired twice and laid off once while working full-time jobs and decided to stop working for other people.
  • Helped a friend run a Kickstarter for wearable tech, threw a launch party in Seattle, and gained life-changing mentorship in his 20s.
  • Bought three mentors lunch weekly, asked questions, and worked for himself for 6.5 years.
  • Incorporated Sheets & Giggles in October 2017, shipped the first box in October 2018, and reached about $1.2 million in sales by November 2020 (first million-dollar month at ~25 months).
• Pivotal moments and turning points
  • Validated the idea by building a brand identity map, financial model, and business model, then shared them with respected peers for feedback.
  • Sold before building by offering a $100 sheet set for $69 to early email signups, captured 11,000 emails with a 45% conversion rate.
  • Achieved $45,000 on day one of a campaign, which snowballed into a $284,000 campaign, driven by high email conversion and personal engagement.

Products and Offerings

• Core product(s) and what each one does
  • Direct-to-consumer bed sheets and related bedding sold primarily via sheetsandgiggles.com on Shopify, with additional sales on Amazon.
  • Products include sheets, comforters, duvet covers, pillowcases, throw blankets, pillows, crib sheets, mattress protectors, and a mattress launched in late 2022.
• Supporting tools, side projects, or experiments mentioned
  • Started with five colors and five sizes; expanded to seven sizes and 17 colors with hundreds of SKUs.

Metrics and Financials

• Revenue figures, user counts, and financial milestones
  • Reached about $1.2 million in sales in the first million-dollar month.
  • Day-one campaign revenue of $45,000, scaling to $284,000 in the full campaign.
  • Sales split roughly 90/10 or 80/20 between Shopify and Amazon.

Strategy and Growth

• Overall vision and positioning
  • Build a business model before the product, focusing on founder-market fit and a large, differentiated category.
  • Differentiate by not ironing sheets and by creating a brand that polarizes (aiming to piss off at least 20% of people).
• Primary growth engine or method
  • Email list building and high-conversion pre-launch signups, followed by social proof and personal engagement.
  • Paid and organic channels including Facebook, Instagram, Google, Amazon, podcasts, and YouTube sponsorships that align with the founder’s personality.
• Key tactics, channels, or strategic steps
  • Used crowdfunding math to set day-one goals, targeting $30,000 from 300 customers at $100 AOV.
  • Answered every social media comment and customer email personally and wrote all website copy for years.
  • Relied on referrals and emotional investment by involving customers in product decisions via surveys.

Tech Stack and Infrastructure

• Tools, platforms, and technical approaches referenced
  • Shopify for ecommerce, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Rebuy for cart upsells, AfterShip for order tracking, Okendo for reviews.
  • Showwiz (or similar) apps for tracking, an AI chatbot (SiteGpt) trained on the website to handle customer care and offer discounts.
  • Midjourney and Dolly for image creation; ChatGPT to overcome blank-page problems for copy ideation.
• Notable technical decisions, trade-offs, or architecture choices
  • Chose tools that integrate directly with Shopify and reduce customer-care load; prioritized AI chat for cost efficiency and sales.

Lessons and Advice

• Direct advice given to other founders
  • Build a brand identity map, financial model, and business model before anything else; validate with respected peers, then with customers.
  • Sell before you build using wireframes, signups, or promises of launch pricing to prove demand.
  • Choose a brand name that is spellable, shareable, memorable, descriptive, SEO-friendly, and has a .com.
• Hard-won insights and key takeaways
  • Engage personally and granularly with customers; kindness plus hard work plus intelligence leads to good outcomes.
  • Work-life integration can include non-traditional spaces (working from bed, a river) to maintain creativity and mental wellness.