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A Baby's Sleep Problem Led to a $3.5M Business

Published 4 months ago • 2 min read

A Baby's Sleep Problem Led to a $3.5M Business

Matt Gira

August 7th, 2025

This week's deep dive is a fun one. Who said you can't bootstrap a physical goods company??

Also fun because I've known Liz for such a long time and saw this all happen live. It was so cool talking with Liz about the journey and seeing her manufacturing space in Holland, Michigan of all places.

Check out this week's deep dive 👇

"Liz, you are gonna sell a million of these." That was Liz Hilton's husband's reaction when he saw the prototype for the Swaddelini work for the first time.

He might have just said that because it was his first full night of sleep in two months, but he wasn't necessarily wrong either. Liz had just developed a "sleep sack" through advanced knitting techniques that allowed her baby to sleep through the night for the first time since coming home from the hospital.

But selling a million turned out to be harder than expected. She tried retail with no success. She tried Amazon with no success. She tried Etsy. Nothing worked until one video went viral on TikTok.

In this deep dive, I go over how Liz built a short-form video strategy from one viral TikTok video, why she decided to build her own manufacturing facility in Holland, MI, and how her strategy is changing today with organic reach declining across platforms.

Kit

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This email/section contains affiliate links. I earn a commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost.

One of my favorite tools is the email newsletter platform Kit.

Kit isn't just awesome for building an audience or keeping in touch with potential customers. Their team is one of my favorites out there - great mission and fully bootstrapped to over $40 million in annual revenue! Looking to build any kind of email list? You can use Kit for free up to 10,000 subscribers.

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Recommendations

​22 bootstrapping lessons I wish I’d learnt earlier​

Might be one of my favorite Linkedin posts of the year. Loved this one.

​Users Actually Want More Notifications​

Erin Rollenhagen, who I've done a deep dive on, posted this really insightful piece on notifications within software and how to think about them. If you're building a software prototype, give this a read!

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Matt Gira

Connect with me on LinkedIn!

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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The Quarter

Matthew Gira

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