My $1 Million Business Solves a Common Office Problem: Warmür

This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Jane Helman, the Australia-based founder of Warmür, which sells office chair blankets designed to keep people professional and warm on Zoom calls and in the workplace. The brand is now stocked on Uncommon Goods, Amazon US, CA and AU; Walmart online; Grommet online; and Staples Canada.

Founded in 2021, Warmür spent its first few years building to $150,000 in revenue. Then in 2025, Helman relaunched the brand with a new design direction, and in just six months, July to December, generated approximately $200,000 across direct sales and wholesale. With $500,000 in combined retail value stock either in production or in the pipeline, Warmür is on a clear trajectory toward $1 million by the end of 2026. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2021, I was living in Canada, and it was February, so it was absolutely freezing. I had been laid off from my job, so I was a bit down on myself. And, like most people during Covid, home by myself. I started reading through a stack of books, wrapping up in a giant fuzzy blanket to get cozy. 

Spilled coffee led to frustration — and a business idea

One day, as I was reading and taking notes, I leaned forward to reach for my pen, and the blanket knocked over my coffee. I was like, “There’s no way. This is so impractical.” Assuming I’d be doing this for a while, I searched for a nice-looking wearable blanket online. And all I came across were blankets with hoods and big bulky things with avocados on them. I was like, “This is so not my style. I’m a beige girl.” I just wanted a blanket that looked nice and draped seamlessly over the desk chair — so if somebody jumped on FaceTime or said, “Join this Google Meet,” I’d still look good. I decided to make one for myself since I had a lot of spare time. 

Using a childhood sewing machine to start a business

I drove home and picked up the sewing machine I’d gotten when I was 12. I had no idea how to use it. It was still in the box. I brought it back, and on my living room coffee table, sewed together the first prototype. I just had this vision in my head of what I would want it to look like. A very rough idea. I’m not a fashion designer whatsoever. I went to the fabric store and asked the employees which fabrics might work well for an office chair blanket, and they suggested fleece. I bought a bunch of different materials.

 The very first thing I did was have somebody sit in a chair, and I put two scarves over their shoulders, and I was like, “I love it. I see the vision.” Then I cut out different shapes on the floor until it made sense. Because I was a bit of a mad scientist in the sewing department, the product development process did take a lot of trial and error. Starting with even getting the sewing machine to work. But eventually, I had a functional product. I took the blanket over to a friend’s house and asked them what they thought. My friend’s brother walked in and said he’d take ten. He wanted to give them to employees at his insurance firm. 

For some reason, it felt like a very isolated need. But as soon as I put it out into the world, everyone was like, “That’s exactly what we’ve been looking for.” And I was like, “Wow, okay.” I was not trying to start a business here. I was just trying to solve my own problem — but I saw a major opportunity for the product in the workplace, particularly in the realm of corporate gifting. 

Working at Shopify brings valuable business lessons

Ironically, a couple months after I came up with the idea, I started working for Shopify. It was kind of a match made in heaven. It was an opportunity for me to learn the ecommerce world and also to use my own product every day. So that really helped me with product development. The very first ones that I made, probably for the first year, were manufactured by a local seamstress. Because if I learned anything from that first prototype, it was that sewing is definitely not my thing. So I brought it to her, and she made me a paper pattern. At that point, I was selling on my own website that I had built through Shopify.

Then I actually posted a video on TikTok that went viral in that first year. I had a retailer based out of New York reach out, Uncommon Goods, and they said they wanted to stock the product. I was like, “Oh no, here we go.” That pushed me to get real manufacturing because the seamstress said, “I’m way too busy. I can’t make hundreds of blankets in my little shop.” 

I really wanted to partner with other women-owned businesses, and ones that were local at the time. Also, I pretty much built this business off asking people around me questions and learning from others. So I wanted to give back to the community a little bit. My next manufacturer actually took me eight months to find. Uncommon Goods was extremely patient. That manufacturer, a women-owned facility, ended up being in Toronto. I worked with them for the next three years, until we outgrew them as well. 

I bootstrapped the business entirely. Pretty much all of my savings have gone into this. Everything has been reinvested. There’s so much that goes into building a business, and I never want it to seem like I’m doing it all alone, but right now, I am the only official employee. I do get tons of help from different contractors: family, friends, the community. Networking is huge in business. Having people around me to bounce ideas off of has been key to the business’s success. 

After the business went live on Uncommon Goods, we had a ton of interest from other retailers and partnerships. In 2023, I quit my job at Shopify to work on the business full time. The company was extremely supportive of that decision, which I love about Shopify. They want everybody to experience being a merchant and an entrepreneur. So it was a really lovely exit, and I felt like I’d learned so much about business. 

Of course, challenges are around every corner when it comes to building a business. But that keeps it exciting. Our biggest challenge came last year when we launched two new colors, two new designs. We had such good initial feedback after putting them online that I decided to open a pre-order because I thought they were about two weeks away from landing. It was our first time importing them from our new factory in China into Canada. So that was the first time we’d gone through an actual import — and the blankets got flagged in customs. 

Navigating manufacturing communication nightmares

Being overseas, the communication was a nightmare. I had about an hour at night between 10:00 and 11:00 PM, and then an hour in the morning from 3:00 to 4:00 AM, for me to wake up and communicate with them. It was about three and a half weeks of those late nights and early mornings. I was setting my alarm to wake up in the middle of the night to check in. It was pretty ridiculous and very stressful. But at the end of the day, I took a lot of important lessons from that on how to be prepared and not underestimate the time that it’ll take to get things in the country. I also learned how to approach customer service effectively — to keep people updated and not make them guess or wonder where the product is.

For the first four years in business, we ran with pretty much the exact design that I prototyped on my living room floor. While it was super functional, I knew it would definitely need to be upgraded in the future. So as those years went on, I collected all the feedback I could from customers. I was like, “Tell me what you love, what you hate, what could be better.”

We spent a really long time designing an upgrade with all the features people were asking for. So things like a headrest zipper, just in case a chair had a headrest — nobody wanted their Warmür to be above their head. Buttons in the front so that the blanket would stay on nicely. We added tassels and fringe to the bottom so that it would actually blend in with office decor. It used to just be a straight edge. And then we also compounded a fleece to the outer knit material, that way the inside was truly like a blanket, versus being just like a soft brushed fabric. 

An Oscar nominee gifting moment boosts visibility

Earlier this year, Warmür blankets were featured in the gift bags for Oscar nominees. My grandmother had actually been telling me for years, like, “You have to get Warmür into the Oscar bags.” And I was like, “How does somebody do that?” But I was actually talking to a copywriter of mine who asked if I’d ever thought about Oscar gifting — and she knew someone who could help make it happen. That’s why networking is so important. We sent 45 Warmürs to all the nominees and first-time directors. So that was super exciting, and it was awesome to see the gift bags come together. Then, as the celebrities were getting them, a couple of them took photos with their bags or did a little unboxing. 

Looking to the future, this year, I’m so excited about our Australian expansion, which is happening right now. As the season changes, it’s been really fun to explore new markets — because we’re going into winter in Australia at the moment. Last year, we did a business conference that really validated our corporate gifting angle. So we’re really leaning into corporate gifting this year. Also, we’re gearing up to the launch of some new SKUs coming out in September. As the season changes in North America again, it’s really fun to give everybody something fresh. We’ve got customers who pretty much collect them all; every time we launch a new color, they grab one. So I’m excited to see what they think. 

Anyone can start a business: focus on the first thing first

Anyone can start a business. That’s coming from someone with zero business experience. I went to school. I have a degree in health science, so it was so far from what I’m doing now. When you’re trying to build a business, if you look too far ahead at the big picture, the big scary goal, that can be too much, and it almost puts you off from even wanting to try. So anytime my friends say that they want to start a business, I just tell them to focus on the first thing first and the next thing next. Just keep your vision really small at the beginning, because business will naturally guide you into growth. 

When I was getting that Uncommon Goods deal and I had no idea what to do, I just thought, “Okay, next thing I need is manufacturing. How do I get that?” And that was my sole focus. I didn’t worry about packaging and shipping, and all of those things, because that was too overwhelming. Anybody can build up to entrepreneurship. It just takes time, patience and a lot of perseverance. 

This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Jane Helman, the Australia-based founder of Warmür, which sells office chair blankets designed to keep people professional and warm on Zoom calls and in the workplace. The brand is now stocked on Uncommon Goods, Amazon US, CA and AU; Walmart online; Grommet online; and Staples Canada.

Founded in 2021, Warmür spent its first few years building to $150,000 in revenue. Then in 2025, Helman relaunched the brand with a new design direction, and in just six months, July to December, generated approximately $200,000 across direct sales and wholesale. With $500,000 in combined retail value stock either in production or in the pipeline, Warmür is on a clear trajectory toward $1 million by the end of 2026. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2021, I was living in Canada, and it was February, so it was absolutely freezing. I had been laid off from my job, so I was a bit down on myself. And, like most people during Covid, home by myself. I started reading through a stack of books, wrapping up in a giant fuzzy blanket to get cozy.