I Make $1M/Month From Bed | Starter Story

Colin McIntosh, founder and CEO of Sheets & Giggles, was fired twice and laid off once before starting his own company. He incorporated the business in October 2017, shipped his first box a year later, and hit $1.2 million in sales in a single month by November 2020—roughly 25 months after launch. The business sells eucalyptus-based bed sheets, comforters, pillows, and mattresses direct-to-consumer, with about 80-90% of sales coming through Shopify and the rest through Amazon. What stands out is not the product category—bedding is crowded and boring—but the deliberate, almost architectural approach he took to building the business model before deciding what to sell.

Business Model First, Product Second

McIntosh argues that aspiring founders should not start with a problem to solve. Instead, they should start with a business model that fits their existing skills, temperament, and constraints—what he calls founder-market fit. He built a financial model and a brand identity map before he knew what product he would sell. He then sent those documents to people he respected and asked: "Does this make sense? Am I forgetting a cost? Am I charging too much?" Only after getting validation on the model did he move to customer validation.