Pre launch (2018)
Email capture landing page
Built a brand identity map and financial model, then launched a pre-launch signup page offering early-bird pricing ($69 vs. $100 retail) to capture emails. Ran surveys to involve subscribers in color/pricing decisions, making them emotionally invested.
→ 11,000 emails captured at 46% email capture rate
Launch Day (October 2018)
Email list crowdfunding campaign
Sent a highly personalized, distinctively written launch email to the 11,000-person list, applying crowdfunding math (targeting 30% of goal on day one). List converted at 4.5% vs. expected 3%, generating 450 customers at ~$100 AOV.
→ $45,000 in sales on day one
Users 450 users
Month 1 (October 2018)
Email crowdfunding campaign
Sustained the crowdfunding campaign momentum through continued email follow-ups and word-of-mouth from emotionally invested early subscribers sharing the brand.
→ $284,000 in first 30 days
Early growth (2018–2020)
Founder direct community engagement
Colin personally answered every social media comment, responded to every customer care email, and wrote all website copy himself for years to build deep 1-on-1 relationships with customers at scale.
→ High brand loyalty and word-of-mouth; laid foundation for scaling
Scaling to $1M/month (2018–2020)
Facebook instagram google amazon ads
Ran paid performance marketing across Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Amazon. Described as consistently effective channels for the DTC bedding brand.
→ Contributed to revenue growth toward $1M/month
Scaling to $1M/month (2018–2020)
Podcast and youtube sponsorships
Sponsored podcasts and YouTube channels that Colin himself personally loved and watched. Strategy: founders whose personality matches the audience of a channel they love can write authentic copy, inside jokes, and brand-voice landing pages, dramatically lifting conversion rates vs. generic ad pages.
→ Conversion rates on sponsor-specific landing pages were significantly higher than all other pages on the site; cited as a surprising breakout channel
Milestone (November 2020)
Multi channel
Combined all channels — email, paid social, podcast/YouTube sponsorships, Amazon — reached first $1M revenue month approximately 25 months after first shipment.
→ $1.2M in sales in November 2020
MRR $1.2M
Ongoing / Post $1M month
Ai chatbot onsite
Deployed a GPT-based chatbot trained on their website (SiteGPT) to handle customer care. Bot offers a 10% discount code ('AI') after good conversations. Cut customer care tickets by ~30% and became one of their top-performing discount channels.
→ -30% customer care tickets; chatbot became a top discount code driver at ~$50/month cost