In 2017, Colin McIntosh was laid off from his tech startup job and just three weeks later, he was channeling his 9-5 energy into launching his own company, Sheets & Giggles. The serial entrepreneur saw it as an opportunity to turn his passion for creative, sustainable products into a full-fledged business: a “[silly] pun-based bedsheets company.”
The key to Sheets & Giggles’ rapid growth? If you ask McIntosh, it’s not his irreverent brand identity and an ambitious mission to disrupt the stale home goods industry, it’s partnering with Amazon.
After managing in-store retail partnerships for a former employer, McIntosh said he prefers Amazon. He had seen firsthand the costly “slotting fees” and other requirements that come with getting products onto physical store shelves. “You have to be a phenomenal salesman to get in the door at a brick-and-mortar retailer and you have to actually guarantee, both financially and strategically, the sell-through in a physical store. And that sell-through is extremely difficult to achieve for a new company,” said McIntosh.
In contrast, the economics of selling in the Amazon store were far more appealing for the founder. McIntosh said that, all-in on Amazon, his costs average 25-30%, which is significantly better than the 40-60% fees that many other retailers demand. “If I can get 70% of every sale on Amazon that I make, versus 50% or 40% or 60% of every sale that I make in a brick-and-mortar store that comes with all those other extraneous risks, I would much rather sell with Amazon,” said McIntosh.
The ability to avoid hefty upfront fees and focus on profitable, direct-to-consumer sales has been a game-changer for Sheets & Giggles. It’s allowed McIntosh to bootstrap the business largely through crowdfunding and revenue, without having to raise massive amounts of venture capital.
With the economics in his favor, McIntosh made Amazon a central part of his growth strategy from the very beginning. Just six months after shipping their first orders, Sheets & Giggles saw their Amazon sales skyrocket - from $3,000 in March of 2019 to over $90,000 the following May.
McIntosh credits the brand’s unique, humor-driven Amazon product page as a major driver of this rapid growth. As a self-described “big copywriter” who loves “making people laugh with words on a page,” he filled the Sheets & Giggles listings with punny jokes, fourth-wall breaks, and other quirky elements that helped the brand stand out in search results. This, combined with a strategic focus on the emerging “eucalyptus sheets” product category, allowed Sheets & Giggles to claim a dominant share of that fast-growing category
Looking ahead, McIntosh hopes to expand the Sheets & Giggles brand into new product categories while staying true to its irreverent, playful spirit. And he encourages other aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap, despite the risks.
“The risk-reward ratio is so skewed in favor of reward,” he said. “If you can do it, do it. I’ve been able to help out so many people from just starting this [silly] punny bed sheets company that, like, it’s a dream come true.”