EP.160/ SHEETS & GIGGLES
Building a Brand Through Shared Founder & Customer Interests with Sheets & Giggles Founder Colin McIntosh
Colin McIntosh, founder and CEO of Sheets and Giggles, discussed his journey from being laid off in 2017 to launching a sustainable bedding brand in 2018. Sheets and Giggles, which uses eucalyptus fabric, achieved its first million-dollar month in November 2020. Colin also shared his side project, Sheets Resume, which helps people with resume reviews and AI-driven advice. He emphasized the importance of customer experience, humor, and personalized interactions in retention. Colin highlighted the challenges of forecasting demand and the success of sponsoring content he personally enjoys to drive acquisition.
EP. 160
COLIN MCINTOSH
Introduction and Background of Colin McIntosh 0:00
Mariah Parsons introduces Colin McIntosh, founder and CEO of Sheets and Giggles, a bed sheets company.
Colin mentions his side project, Sheets Resume, which helps with resume reviews and hiring.
Colin describes Sheets and Giggles as a brand that has evolved from SpongeBob memes to COVID-19 recovery resources.
Colin shares his journey of founding Sheets and Giggles three weeks after being laid off from his previous company.
Sheets and Giggles: Early Success and Impact 1:23
Colin explains the origins of Sheets and Giggles, including the first shipment of eucalyptus bedding in October 2018.
He highlights the company's first million-dollar month in November 2020, two years after the first shipment.
Colin mentions appearances on Good Morning America and the company's charitable contributions.
He discusses the evolution of Sheets Resume, starting from free resume reviews on Reddit to a more structured AI-based service.
Challenges and Strategies in Resume Reviews 2:56
Colin shares his experience as a recruiter and the emotional impact of resume reviews.
He explains the importance of optimizing resumes for human screeners, who are often harsh and quick in their judgments.
Colin describes the development of Sheets Resume, including the use of AI to automate his best advice.
He emphasizes the personal relationships he has built with his crowdfunding customers and the importance of creating brand ambassadors.
Founding Story and Initial Marketing 7:28
Colin recounts his inspiration for starting Sheets and Giggles, including watching the movie "War Dogs" and a conversation with his ex-girlfriend.
He shares his process of brainstorming funny names for his business and choosing "Sheets and Giggles."
Colin discusses the initial marketing strategies, including Facebook and Instagram ads and the importance of copywriting.
He highlights the impact of the pandemic on e-commerce and the shift towards email marketing and SMS.
Acquisition and Customer Retention Strategies 10:30
Colin explains the three main reasons for using pre-orders: securing funds, proving traction, and building a community of brand ambassadors.
He discusses the evolution of acquisition channels, from Facebook and Instagram to TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
Colin emphasizes the importance of sponsoring content he personally enjoys, such as podcasts and YouTube channels.
He shares insights on the challenges of forecasting inventory and managing customer expectations during supply chain disruptions.
Product Development and Customer Experience 14:57
Colin outlines the product development strategy for Sheets and Giggles, including the addition of complementary products like duvet covers and pillows.
He discusses the importance of creating value on the product roadmap to increase customer lifetime value (LTV).
Colin shares his approach to customer experience, focusing on creating dopamine-inducing interactions through humor and personalized touches.
He emphasizes the role of good customer care in securing repeat sales and building long-term customer relationships.
Final Thoughts and Future Plans 32:45
Colin reflects on the challenges and successes of building Sheets and Giggles, including the impact of the pandemic on the business.
He shares his thoughts on the importance of not over-consuming and the need for sustainable business practices.
Colin discusses potential future product categories, such as pajamas, and the importance of thorough market research.
Mariah and Colin conclude the conversation with a discussion on the importance of taking risks and supporting fellow founders.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Sheets and Giggles, Colin McIntosh, e-commerce brand, sustainable bed sheets, resume reviews, customer retention, product development, acquisition strategy, customer experience, dopamine marketing, crowdfunding, Indiegogo campaign, customer care, brand archetype, entrepreneurial journey.
SPEAKERS
Colin McIntosh, Mariah Parsons
Speaker 1 00:00
Hello everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. Colin, thank you so much for joining me today. I know before we started recording, there's a lot of things going on in life right now, so it is extra, extra extra special that you've made the time to sit down with me today and share a little bit more about yourself and share what you've learned in this crazy ecom world with our audience. Everyone today, our guest is Colin McIntosh. He's the founder and CEO of sheets and giggles, which, if you couldn't tell from the name is a bed sheets company. And he is also now working on a side project called sheets resume, which is obviously in the resume world, helping HR and hiring and all that fun stuff. So we're going to dive into both today, focus more on the E com brand side, which shouldn't be a surprise for our audience. So Colin, I'll pass the microphone to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us that background that everyone loves to
Colin McIntosh 00:49
hear. He's he has a sustainable bed sheets business that he's been building for seven years, and he's helping 1000s of people every month with their resumes. It's like, what like, we love that. That's my I've always said that sheets and giggles, like the Seinfeld of brand. It's a brand about nothing. And I love, I love that because we've been able to, like, you know, jump from like, SpongeBob memes to like, helping people with like COVID And like, you know, recovery and resources. It's been really nice to like, have the freedom of that brand for the last, you know, almost decade of my life. So I founded sheets and giggles in 2017 three weeks after I got laid off from our last company, and I shipped our first unit of eucalyptus bedding in october 2018 it's made from Eucalyptus Lyle cell. It's a wonderful smooth fabric, softened and cotton, more breathable, more cooling and more sustainable. No micro plastics, unlike polyester, which is made from oil. So created that company in october 2017 get the first box in october 2018 yada yada yada. Had our first million dollar month in November 2020, and so about two years from first box to a million bucks in a month. There's a lot of yada yada in there, but that's kind of my my claim to fame is the sheets and giggles side of things, and we've been on Good Morning America, and I've jumped into bed on national television. And, you know, we've made Michael Strahan crack up, and we, you know, it's been such a fun ride for me. We've donated over over a quarter million dollars to charity since I started the company, and have a few 100,000 customers. So that's my main thing. And then with sheets resume, just a total fun passion project, side project, I'm the sheets and giggles guy. I might as well be the my pillow guy at this point. But you know, the girl world where I'm not insane, or at least the different type of insane, and, you know, I try to help people. And so I used to be a recruiter earlier in my career, my first couple years of my career, and I've been helping people on Reddit, online with their resumes, really, ever since then, for the last, you know, probably decade. And just about a year ago, or two years ago, I started doing one on one resume reviews because I was really trying to help people. And now, about a year ago, I put this AI wrapper onto all my best advice, and that's flown up quite a bit, and that's been really fun to, you know, kind of have this second thing in the background, and, you know, probably only takes, spends about five or 10 hours a week on it, but really awesome side business and passion project. I
Speaker 1 03:14
love it so, and we're going to get into all that yada yada yada in this podcast. That's what we're here for. It's the way life goes, right? But it makes sense very entrepreneurial view to have you know different different things, but still tied back to the passions of you know, things that you're creating. So let's walk through a little bit more in depth of sheets resume, because then we're going to flip into focusing mostly on, obviously your brand. So give us, like a background, because I love that you're on Reddit just giving reviews. I think that speaks to the passion that you have. Because most people I've so background on me. I was part of an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial program where the when you were actually a student in that program, you were in charge of recruiting and then hiring the class below you. So I've, I've reviewed quite a good amount of resumes. They all suck, right? They're all, yeah, it's not fun. I don't like it.
Colin McIntosh 04:08
Yeah, no, the thing about resumes, that's so fun. It's a representation of of oneself, right, on an eight by 11 piece of paper. And it's so emotional, such an emotional document. And I remember when I was a recruiter, I would get these great candidates that I would find, and you know, I would interview them, and they'd be amazing. And you know, I would screen the resume, and I would end the interview with like, hey, look, I'm excited to submit you to my client. Your resume just is terrible, and I need to redo it top to bottom for you before I submit you. And I was like, you know, 23 like, telling, you know, 30 something or 40 something year old candidates, like, you know, people who are applying for quarter million dollar a year jobs 10 years ago, you know, yeah, I'm telling them, like, I'm gonna redo your resume as a child. And, you know, they'd be like, Okay, I trust you. Like, sure. And, you know, and I would, I would redo it and then submit it. And. And sure enough, the client will be like, Wow. Like, what are the amazing resume and like, so that was kind of my first like, taste of, like, what a difference a resume can make. And then I could understand the screening. As someone who was doing the screening, I like to go through 1000 resumes a day, and this is what I always tell people, is they're not reading your resume. They're looking for positive signal in 10 seconds or less, because they have a stack of 1000 resumes to get through. And over the course of your day, eight hours, you need three hours to do other shit, talk to your boss, send emails, whatever, to drink coffee. The other five hours, you're just reading resumes. And that's 200 an hour. If you want to get through a stack of 1000 that's one that's three every minute, or one every 20 seconds that these people are blowing through. And so they're not reading the resume. They're just looking for signal, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. So you know, an AI can help with that a little bit nowadays, but AI errors on the side of inclusion because the AI can't get yelled at. The AI can only get fired and uninstalled if it keeps good candidates from getting through to the human screeners. So the AI always airs inside of inclusion, so people that stop optimizing their resumes for AI instead optimize for the human screener who can get yelled at by their boss and the human screener does not they have the opposite incentive system. They do not want to get told that they're an idiot because they don't understand the job that they're recruiting for, and so they will be absolutely brutally harsh when judging people's resumes. Oh, a typo. Gone like, oh, like, they have a one year work app. Gone like, oh, they like, led with, you know, their immigration status, like, oh, they probably don't speak English. Gone, like, literally, like, it's just like, it's some of it's nasty, some of it's not some of it's like, true, some of it's made up in their head. But this is the gatekeeper and so anyway, so I was trying to help people on Reddit the last six, seven years. I did resume reviews for people for free. Then I started charging for them one to one, because I just didn't have time to do them for free, and I needed to gatekeep my time somehow. And then I did this AI wrapper, and now it's helping literally, like 1000s of people every month. So it's been, it's been pretty crazy to see that progression. Just in my spare time. I was going
Speaker 1 07:15
to say that I think resumes are very applicable to anyone. So like, even though this podcast is mostly focused on brand side of things. I think a lot of our listeners will just be curious to hear from you with a background and just reading so many resumes. But yes, we can. We can switch into talking about sheets and giggles. And I just want to ask, like, why betting? Why did you choose when you were laid off by said company years ago? What drew you to it was it, you know, actually you you give me before I before I start guessing? Well,
Colin McIntosh 07:42
you could guess a million times, and you probably never get it. I I love listening to my competitors on with this question on podcast, because they're like, we went, we stayed in the hotel, and we felt the sheets, and we thought to ourselves, like, wow, these are amazing. I wonder. Like, there has to be a better way to me. I'm like, that's not true. I'm like, that's insane. Like, you didn't, like, stay at a hotel and then, like, found your business, you know, I but at the same time, my founding story is actually probably dumber and crazier. So who knows. But I was, I was watching this sounds so stupid when I say it out loud. I was watching war dogs with Miles Teller and Jonah Hill, and Miles Teller's character selling bed sheets out of the back of a pickup. This is, this is too specific, so, you know, I'm not making it up, right? Like, and, and, and I was, I got so frustrated with his character because he has to end up burning the inventory because he can't sell it to anybody. And I turned to my ex girlfriend. I was like, she's probably my ex for this exact reason. I was like, This is ridiculous. Like he didn't do any pricing research. He doesn't understand his customer, his demographics, he doesn't understand his go to market strategy. You know what? Paul of the movie and I literally wrote a bed sheet business plan. This
Speaker 1 08:55
really gives a lot of insight to who you are as a person. I feel, yeah,
Colin McIntosh 08:59
I'm a I'm a tough guy to love, let me tell you. And I and so my wife, we're celebrating a one year anniversary this week, and thank you. And it's very funny because I'm doing a lot of reading on ADHD, and all the symptoms that I've had my whole life that I've never really understood. And now I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah. So, so anyway. So whenever I write a business plan, of which I have probably 85 I buy a domain, and I try to bring it to life in my head a little bit. And I always think, what's a funny name for blank? And I own giraffe craft.com that would be carafes in the shape of giraffes, right? Yep, that's I own romanhem For com, for a hemp CBD business. I own work from rome.com. I work from home, and you can work from Rome. It's a travel agency for digital nomads. It will be growth mindset, pun based, betting a lot of fun based. Domains, embedded domains. And so anyway, what's a fun game for a veggies company? It hit me right away. Punch in the face, sheets and giggles, the domain was available. Sheets giggles.com, all the social handles were available, and I was off to the races with like, bringing it to life. And then four months later, I kept thinking about it and becoming slowly obsessed with it, thinking about the business model. It's a massive market. It's a highly fragmented category. There's no market leader, there's no brand loyalty, there's no switching cost. I just have to get in front of people a time of purchase with the most visually and zing differentiated brand in the marketplace. It just made so much sense to me, and then I got laid off at 1pm on a Monday. And when you get laid off at 1pm on a Monday, what do you do? You You go get bombed. And so me and my coworkers went across the street like a bunch of $2 margaritas that have gone to the Rocky the rock game. Remember the Marlins were in town. John Carlos Stanton had 59 home runs. I thought for sure he was going to hit 60 home runs because he was in Coors Field. And he had like 14 home runs and 13 career games there, and he struck out 10 times in the series, including three times that night. And that was the night that I told all my coworkers, I'm going to start a betting brand called sheets and giggles while I was jumping the skunk. And three weeks later, I incorporated and I did our Indiegogo in May 2018, six months later, and we raised $284,000 in pre orders, and then we shipped our first box. October 2018 it's been wild ride ever since then.
Speaker 1 11:28
Okay, I love it. There's a lot to dive into there. Yeah, too, yeah, I know it's stupid. It is, it is it is hysterical, though, like, sometimes that's just what it takes, right? And it's, I would argue it's not stupid, because now look at seven years later, there's something there.
11:42
All roads lead to now, yeah, so Exactly. Um,
Speaker 1 11:45
okay, so let's dive into strategy just a little bit, because I want to queue up, obviously, for the customer retention side of things, and talk about that acquisition. So obviously, I think pre orders, that's a pretty strong acquisition channel when you're first starting out. So walk me through a little bit of, how, how are you thinking about, like, why did you want to do pre orders? I think it's a smart move. Like, I'm, I'm aligned with you there. I think that's a great way to prove a business, obviously, right is you get that money before you invest in inventory. So walk me through that. And then kind of walk me through, like, how have you developed acquisition from your first, like, Indiegogo campaign? But
Colin McIntosh 12:20
like three reasons why you'd want to do a pre order right. Number one is very baseline. You want the money to be able to go make the product right. That's the easy. That's the obvious one. Number two is you want to prove traction to investors, to yourself to the market. You want to say this is a real idea that people want and that people will respond strongly to. And then number three is you can get a group of a few 1000 people who are responsible of both bringing the brand to life along with you. And I have a very personal relationship with my crowdfunding people. There's 1800 93 of them, and every one of those people I owe my entire career to, and I, you know, I would bend over backwards for them and do whatever I can for them. I've made some of their resumes like that, yeah, like, you know, like, yeah, the life is life is weird, but yeah, no, I do my best to, like, think about, like, the personal relationship with all my customers and those people I have a very personal relationship with. And so that's the third reason, is to create a huge group of like Euro day brand ambassadors that feel responsible as well, because they are for bringing something to life that didn't previously exist. And you know, you then you ship out that first box, the customer number one. You can't believe it, the day's here, and it's like, holy shit, this is coming to life. This is it. We're doing this. And so, yeah, those are my three main reasons for crowdfunding,
Speaker 1 13:49
Yep, yeah, I love that. And it makes sense. You have those very early adopters who are going to be very, very affiliated with your brand, yeah? Which is, like, why, you know, people go on crowdfunding platforms is because they want to do that like they are, that type of consumer, where it's like they want to be first to get something. They want to be part of a journey, right? All that stuff. So it makes sense. Okay? So then walk me through, obviously, you get that group of 1800 you said, right? And then you, I'm assuming, go into mostly selling through your site, having inventory, either on site or through three PL or something, some fulfillment center. Walk me through then how acquisition changes as you're growing as a brand. Well,
Colin McIntosh 14:29
I mean, I've got seven years during a pandemic, before, during and after a pandemic that changed the whole world. Tiktok didn't exist when I started the company, YouTube shorts didn't exist. Facebook and Instagram were obviously the dominant, dominant platforms. Yeah, I think your question is a good one, but I don't even know where to begin. You start with Facebook and Instagram in 2018 very basic, very easy, static landing pages, images copy. Copy. Everything's copy, copy, copy. That's where I excel. That's where I win. I'm a copywriter. I love I should write. I could write for Seinfeld. I could write for Spongebob, the early Spongebob, when it was when it was good. You know, I could write for my favorite podcast would be comedy podcast. I love writing, and I think that that's the early success. Is, like, people read our writing and they're like, Wow, this is, like, written with a scalpel. Like, this is incredible. You know, there's parentheticals and asides and fourth wall breaks and, you know, there's easter eggs, and we're having fun with people. And then, like, 2020, comes around. People start staying at home. Ecommerce explodes. Amazon starts to scale up pretty significantly. That's a different platform, versus Shopify, versus direct. You know, email marketing becomes more important for those the retention piece, like we talked about, I don't think I did any email marketing for the first like year of the business, which was really stupid, yeah, yeah. Really stupid, really, really. It shows how unprepared I was for this journey, honestly, in the beginning, um, and you know, then, like, setting up your clay deal flows, your automations, like your SMS, and then SMS becomes big. SMS wasn't big when I started the company in 2017 2018 Like, it wasn't a big marketing channel. And you know, there's been so iOS 14, and you know Facebook attribution, and like that battle there, and you know the absolute bloodbath that is Search Engine Marketing. And you know, do podcast advertising and YouTube sponsorships. And you know, I could go on about any one of these things. I don't know what's most interesting to you and your audience. I would tell you the most successful thing and the biggest insight I've ever had is to sponsor things that I personally like. And maybe it sounds obvious to some people, but you know, your brand is you as the founder, the best parts of you, I would say. And so people who resonate with your brand are going to be people like yourself and people like yourself listen to the same things you do, they watch the same things you do, they respect the same people you do. And so I sponsor as many people as I can who I've been listening to for 510, 20 years since I was a kid. In some situations, we sponsor, you know, a podcast called The Dan levitard Show, which has 2.4 million daily listeners that I've been listening to since I was 14 years old for 20 years on am talk radio, um, you know, in South Florida, growing up driving to high school, and you know that type of audience that I know intrinsically is large, and I and I know who they are, and I can speak to them in an inside voice and inside joke way that no one can speak to them. And so like a sponsored journalist who I read, like independent journalists whose work I really respect, and I make them their own landing pages that, like, make fun of the fact that they're taking corporate money. And I'm like, like, they are, they sold out, you know? Like, look at this. Like, you know, that's great, yeah? And I'm like, the good news is, the only thing I'll ever ask is, like, you know, like, larger tariffs on cotton or something like that, you know, yeah, just poke, you know, like, yeah, yeah. You just had side follow, soft hitting journalism, you know. And anyway, like that. And then, like, you know, sponsoring Colorado Public Radio, which I listen to, sponsoring YouTubers who I love, and I build them their own landing pages, and I reference all the inside jokes that only their community would know. That I know that, that insight has been, I think, really very powerful for me, and it's led to the best ROI of any sponsorships we've ever done. Because people love it when they think that you, you are one of them,
Speaker 1 18:51
yeah, like you're it's the, it's like FOMO, and it's being on the inside, right? That's the whole thing before, like FOMO marketing. But also,
Colin McIntosh 19:01
yeah, formal marketing is really hard. So marketing is, like, you gotta have drops, you gotta have you gotta have, like, you know, limited. Something's limited, limited, limited. Limited time is always good. I mean, that's artificial, right? You can put a limited time barrier on, on anything, but, yeah, sorry, go ahead. I think there's like, so much to talk about in the acquisition type of thing, but, like, it's overwhelming, like, it's honestly like, and I've had to hire really good people, and I've had to let them do their work, and I've had to not be the founder with both hands on the wheel, and I've had to get out of their way, and I've had to, I've called them and I tell them, like, hey, just so you know, I will never fire you for trying something new. I will always thank you for taking a risk, and please feel completely confident and empowered to do whatever you think you want to do that is best. And I'll never, ever punish you for an action bias and like that type of I think internal conversation, like very explicitly, is very important too, to do really crazy, zany things that end up working out. Yeah,
Speaker 1 20:00
yeah. I agree. I feel that as a personal on the personal side as well, like I work and thrive under those conditions for Malomo, like, full time, and it's like, take a risk, do some things, and I am very much an advocate for it. It is a better environment just to if you can get the right people in that environment to really just throw spaghetti on the wall, see you at six, and then go from there. So I love the idea of sponsoring. We actually haven't had someone who's explicitly said that on the show, like sponsoring things that you like as a person, or like what you like outside of your brand. So I really like that, that thought process with acquisition, because you're right. There's a lot of channels that's nothing new to anyone who's listening to this show. Exhausting. It's exhausting. Yes, exactly. And I think that's, that's, that's a good tidbit for people to take and, like, think through. And we can now focus on the retention side of things. So obviously very hand in hand with acquisition. If you can give me a summary of, like, how you're approaching retention, because obviously your product is naturally like you want it to wear long it's not something that you're like consuming the same way you would like food and Bever or something like that, right? Totally.
Colin McIntosh 21:05
And it's a it's a monstrous challenge. I mean that, and I know it's hard, because I have sort of an anti consumerist stance in the sense of, like, Americans are really good at one thing. We're really, really good at consuming we're really, good at buying things. It's why we have trade deficits with smaller countries, because we consume more than they do to whoever's listening. So, you know, like, it's not because they're ripping us off, because we buy a lot of shit. Um, yeah. So, you know, like, so for me, learner rebinding and buying more bed sheets, I've always messaged, like, if you don't need new sheets, don't buy them, right? If you do need new sheets, buy them from us. And that's kind of been like the the core message, like you cannot consume your way out of this crisis that we've created. Of you know, climate, plastics, oil production, pollution, you cannot consume your way out of that. You cannot buy enough electric cars to to turn back died. You have to stop buying things, as a matter of fact. And so, you know, for me, it's always been this interesting tug, this tug of war between, like, you know, I'm a great marketer, and I and I'm good at what I do, and I know how to do it, and I like buying things, and I like being a consumer, and I like my, my, you know, cushy lifestyle at the same time. Like, I don't want people to buy 789, sets of bedding if they have a two bedroom house. Like, what? Like, no. Like, you need, like, two sets per bed, you know what I mean? Like, maybe three. And so for me, it's actually been about creating more value on the product roadmap. So when we started out, it was bed sheets, comforters, extra pillow cases. Then we added duvet covers, then we added blankets, then we added a heavier blanket, then we added mattress protectors, then we added pillows, then we added a mattress and eventually we were doing coffee and T shirts and sleep masks and, you know, really any category which enhanced the sleeping experience. We haven't gotten into pajamas, but I feel like that's an absolute bear, and I don't want to necessarily go into apparel without thinking about it more deeply. But like we've, we've really expanded our product categories, and we've really focused on complimentary products for our audience. And if you get 100,000 customers for your bed sheets, and they love them, and they trust you, and they understand that you are obsessive at your product development, a lot of them are willing to buy your mattress, and a lot of them are willing to buy your pillow, and a lot of them are willing to try your, you know, your blankets and you know, your your mattress protectors. And so we've done a really good job, I think, of like building out that, that product mix. And now people, kind of, you know, instead of having maybe $150 LTV, maybe they'll have a three or $400 LTV over on average over their lifetime. And then that really works well with, you know, 60 or $70 cost of acquisition. And so that's, that's kind of what we focus on to build LTV,
Speaker 1 24:09
yeah, yeah, that makes sense of and I hear that a lot on this podcast, especially for products that aren't consumable, right, where there's a natural baked in retention of, like, as long as they like the product and the experience you're going to get right, like people are going to
Colin McIntosh 24:22
continue shopping so jealous of consumables and subscriptions, because I feel like it would make life so much easier. Oh, how much do we need in six months? Well, we currently have this number of subscriptions, and we're growing at 20% a month, so we're going to need to order this many things. And it's like, wow, what a nice, easy way to do forecasting. Instead, it's like, our first 3q ones were like, 200 grand, 700 grand, 2.1 million. Like our first 3q ones, and I was like, through a pandemic and everything. And it's like, okay, how do you forecast for like, going from 200 grand to 2.1 million? In a two year period in your q1 you know what I mean? Like going through a global a global supply crunch, yeah, it was a nightmare.
Mariah Parsons 25:06
So you do your best effort. That's how you forecast, yeah.
Colin McIntosh 25:09
And then you get yelled at by a lot of people. Why are you out of pink? It's like, well, there was this thing called the COVID 19 that ruined the world supply chain. Like, it's like, you know, like, it's so dude. American consumers, they're, I don't know what it is. I love them. I love people. I believe that everyone is the same person, that we're all representation of oneself. Oh, my God. American consumers, like, get a grip, dude. Like, not everybody is a multi trillion dollar company like Amazon that always has 27 colors in stock at any given point in time. Like, why are you always out of paint? It's like, it's because it's 1% of our sales, and it's really hard to forecast how many units we're going to need. And we don't want to sit on a bunch of extra units, because that's just sitting on cash that we paid for those. Like, and then we could pay for storage and the pallets and the air conditioning facilities, oh my God, and like, and I don't think that people should know this, that they don't work in supply chain. I think when I was like, 25 and I was starting my career in consumer products, I was selling into Target, actually, I was selling my product into Target, and I was walking through the aisles of target, and I realized at that moment in time that, like, I know how my product gets built, but I have no idea how any of these other products get built and that. So that's like, gives me empathy for like, the average person who like, yeah, people don't know. Yeah. They know how the potato chips get on the shelf. They don't know how the toothpaste gets on the shelf. Like, they, they don't know and that, you know, and so it's just kind of like magic.
Speaker 1 26:45
It's a luxury if you're not, if you're not in the industry. I say this all the time with now that I obviously, with Malomo, work for an order tracking company. When there isn't really good order tracking notifications, I am like, like, I'm like, what is happening? Furious, what are you doing? Yeah, I personally won't send, like, where's my order support tickets to a brand, because I know that that's,
Colin McIntosh 27:06
I know it's, it's a mess. Yes, it's a mess,
Speaker 1 27:09
unless it's like, I literally don't even know if the order got confirmed. And then it's like, Okay, that's fair game. I need to know if I need to reorder this. Well,
Colin McIntosh 27:16
actually, you've got a really cool customer acquisition channel, aside from the podcast, obviously, but you, as you shop online, you are, in fact, they should give you $1,000 a month budget to buy whatever you want on the internet, because every single time you buy something, that's another interaction with a customer service team that you could recommend your software to for their own Tracking I'm
Speaker 1 27:40
gonna say you thought of the idea you could tell your boss to
Colin McIntosh 27:44
seriously, be like, hey, it's $12,000 a year. That can kill the company. You should get $1,000 a month to reimburse you for online shopping, and that will turn to so many customers. I love that idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1 27:56
we actually do, like, we get a lot of customers who they are tracking, like one of their own shipments, and then it says, like on the bottom, order tracking powered by Malomo. And then they inbound, because other founders buy stuff, right? Others Exactly. They support each other. So we actually do get, like, a lot, and then obviously, chat with events and all that stuff. So I think
Colin McIntosh 28:15
you gotta go right to your boss, and you gotta pitch this $1,000 budget. I think that
Speaker 1 28:20
I'll just time stamp this exact, this exact time
Colin McIntosh 28:23
your job is, like, I now I'm thinking, my job is shopping. That's great. That's what I'm saying. Is like, that's a big part. My God, my wife would like, go,
Speaker 1 28:32
yeah. Anyway, yeah, yeah. I mean, I do. I do a lot of like, Yeah, I do a lot of shopping just because of, like, I want to support founders, I'm meeting and all that stuff. So it does naturally fit. But I also wait bringing this back. It goes back, like, I'm a shopper, where, like, I don't want to over consume. So I appreciate, I wanted to say this. I appreciate you articulating that of like, being a founder, but like, don't over consume so, but yes, I'm in the same lane where I'm like, I only shop on like DDC brand sites. I don't shop like third party websites, third
Colin McIntosh 29:03
party, Amazon, whatever. Yeah, I tried to tell people, I actually had an idea for a startup called machete monkey, that you would be a plug in on Chrome, and when you were shopping on Amazon, you'd click the plug in and it would open up the web page for the brand that you're looking at on Amazon, and it would basically put through the how do you get through the Amazon jungle? You follow the monkey with the machete, right? So it's called machete monkey, and a lot of brands
Speaker 1 29:30
would love that, because that's very difficult to get shoppers from Amazon to their site, so
Colin McIntosh 29:35
totally and there's a way to do it. You just crawl the page for the UPC code, and then you find the UPC code on the direct site, and then you open up the direct site for the same UPC matching. I love that idea. I still love that idea. Yeah, with it for sure. Yeah. And then, and then it's just, like a honey business model, right? Like, then you, like, try to, then still get affiliate discount their affiliate models, yes, anyway, and I'm just giving your audience free business ideas. Um, okay,
Speaker 1 30:01
but I'll bring us back to retention to kind of round out the episode, because we're definitely approaching the end of the hour when I think about obviously customer retention, product development, like you said, makes a lot of sense, but I want to hear your feedback on more the customer experience side of things, because that's also obviously one of the biggest players that brands and customers both care about, because if someone has a horrible experience, they're not going to return no matter. To return no matter how good that product is, or at least for a while, like they'll have to let time heal that wound. How you're thinking about customer experience. So
Colin McIntosh 30:31
for me, I obsess over the customer experience. I like, I'm really, really I write every word of copy on the packaging. I write the CEO note. I write the the jokes on like we have on the corner tags of the bedding, like bottom left corner and stuff like we have little jokes like, on the tags. You know, that, like, people will make the bed, and they'll breathe the joke, and they'll laugh and they'll smile and like, it's okay, like the popsicle sticks you had when you were a kid, you know, like you finished the and, but like, you know, kids don't grow up, they just get bigger. And like, I think that, like, adults would really enjoy that type of, like, little laugh in the middle of their tough day or their evening before they go to bed, give them a little dopamine, you know, like a little hit. And so I think about customer experience in terms, actually, I do think about it in terms of dopamine. Like, if you can make people sort of addicted to you, in the sense of, like, every time they interact with you, they laugh or they smile. I think that they're going to keep coming back for more of that, like hit more of that, like engagement and interaction. So every email we send is funny, every text message we send this funny. Every every time we put something in the box or a joke or a tag, it's gotta be funny. And I'm adjuster like, that's my archetypes. That's my brand archetype. But I think about customer experience very like, from the first moment they see our ad to the time they spend on our website, to you know, when they track their order, to when they get their product, to their unboxing, to the first time they wash their sheets, to the first time they make the bed, to the time they undress the bed, to when they reach out to our customer care system. Every single piece of that is really meticulously crafted. And I really put a lot of big, big premium on Customer Care. And I really focus on like, you know, good marketing will get you the first sale. It'll never get you the second sale. Only good product and good customer care will get you the second sale. So that's, that's my philosophy.
Speaker 1 32:27
Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great place to round out the episode. This has been so much fun. We've we've covered a lot honestly and in just a little short amount of time. So I'm excited for our audience to hear it. And thank you, Colin for making the time. Yeah,
Colin McIntosh 32:39
for sure. I hope they they like the the nature of the conversation. I feel like we bounced around a lot. I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 32:44
Yeah, I mean, that's how I prefer it. That's how I make this podcast what it is. So everyone's used to it and they love it, so that's why they stick around.
32:52
Nice to meet you. Marana, thanks as well.
