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

Colin McIntosh was fired twice and laid off once before he started Sheets & Giggles, a direct-to-consumer bedding company that hit $1.2 million in monthly sales within 25 months of shipping its first box. He now works from bed, or from a river in Denver with his laptop balanced on a rock, running a 40-person operation. The path from directionless employee to seven-figure founder was not about a brilliant product idea. It was about building a business model first, validating with extreme personal engagement, and using a marketing strategy that relies on sponsoring content he genuinely loves.

Business Model First, Product Second

McIntosh’s core operating principle is that most aspiring founders get the sequence wrong. Instead of finding a problem and then building a solution, he advocates for building a business model first. He calls this “founder-market fit”—identifying the kind of business that aligns with your existing skills, temperament, and what you are best at in the world. He wrote his entire business model before he knew what the product would be. The logic is that if you have a problem, others likely share it, but the real question is whether they will pay for a solution. By designing a business model that makes sense for your own capabilities first, you can then tweak the product to fit that model, rather than forcing yourself to operate in a space where you have