AI didn't take your job. It froze the hiring line. Here's what that means.

Mar 16, 2026

Colin McIntosh, founder of Sheets & Giggles and resume expert behind SheetsResume.com, built and sold businesses and keeps launching projects he loves. He unpacks the 2025 hiring landscape and why AI is freezing hiring more than causing mass layoffs. He reveals a counterintuitive, all-human SEO strategy and a simple framework he uses to pick which ideas are worth pursuing.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Launched Family Sites And A Job Offer Calculator In Hours

Colin used Claude to launch three websites in a week including sites for his parents and a job-offer comparison tool.
One build was AversusBversusC.com to compare salary, equity, cliffs and present cash value across offers.

ADVICE

Use One-Click Mutual NDAs To Speed Sales

Remove friction from routine legal steps by offering simple mutual NDAs to speed sales demos and conversations.
Colin built ReadyNDA.com offering three free one-click mutual NDAs monthly to avoid two-week legal stalls.

ADVICE

Build Discoverability Not Just Software

Prioritize discoverability because you can build software fast but users won't find it without strong SEO, content, or distribution.
Colin built SheetsResume to rank #1 for "AI resume builder" by writing original human content and SEO work.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

There is a certain kind of founder who, after building and exiting a company, does not slow down. They just get quieter about it. Colin McIntosh is that founder. He sold Sheets and Giggles, the irreverently named sustainable bedding brand he bootstrapped into a multi-million dollar e-commerce operation, and then he did what most founders say they will do and almost never do: he kept building, but only the things he actually cared about.

This conversation covers the real state of the 2026 job market, the counterintuitive content strategy that put SheetsResume.com at the top of Google without a single AI-generated word, and the framework Colin uses to decide which ideas are worth his time. Along the way, it takes a detour through Babylonian flood myths, float tanks, and a giraffe-shaped carafe business that may or may not be a real thing.

WHY THE JOBS REPORT ISN'T TELLING THE WHOLE STORY

Colin breaks down the 2025 labor market with the clarity of someone who has seen thousands of resumes and placed hundreds of executives. The headline numbers look stable, but the underlying picture is messier.

The US lost jobs in 2025 outside of healthcare, with healthcare accounting for roughly 90% of all new job creation
Monthly job creation averaged a fraction of 2024's pace, with 2024 sitting around 149,000 jobs added per month
AI is manifesting primarily as a payroll freeze, not mass layoffs, as companies wait to understand what they can automate before committing to new headcount
Geopolitical instability, on-again-off-again tariffs affecting retail and its roughly $7 to $8 trillion slice of the US economy, a 40% drop in international tourism, and 300,000 government workers flooding the private job market are all compounding the pressure
The people suffering most are those laid off in 2025 who cannot find work after six, twelve, or eighteen months of searching

https://sheetsresume.com/

https://readynda.com/

https://www.rivierapartners.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colindmcintosh/

⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/estesryan/⁠

⁠https://aiforfounders.co⁠

⁠⁠https://kitcaster.com/application ⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://ryanestes.info⁠⁠