169: Colin McIntosh — Developing Your Business Model for Your Startup
You’ve probably spent a lot more time working on your product or service than you have working on your business model. Today’s guest shares his insights on how to develop your business model no matter at what stage your company is currently.
Colin McIntosh is the Founder & CEO of Sheets & Giggles, a company that develops comfortable eucalyptus lyocell bed sheets. He comes from a family of entrepreneurs and has a B.A. in Economics and a BBA in Finance & Business Law at Emory University.
Why did Colin decide to create a bed sheets company? He didn’t start off with this product in mind at first. He actually sat down and wrote out a business model he would feel incredibly proud of, and then built it out from there.
He was looking for a massive commodities market, he wanted a physical product, he wanted a product that was largely retail but had room to be brought to life online with the right consumer model, and he also wanted a traditionally very ‘boring’ market. By laying out these guidelines, it helped him search for the right product.
Colin also knew he wanted to make his product sustainable and use crowdfunding options as opposed to venture capital right off the bat. When he was able to prove market traction, then he was able to seek more traditional sources of funding. Colin knew pitching VCs his company name would not excite them.
Colin sees so many founders spend too much energy in the product development stage. They spend millions of dollars just to develop a fantastic product only for it to completely flop in the marketplace. Colin doesn’t want people wasting years of their lives or their money on something that can never come true. This is why it’s so important to focus on the business model.
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