Albert Chow, Sc’01, stopped telling his mother about his business shortly after he started it because she was “terrified” he was making a mistake. After all, jumping from a well-paying management consulting job to start his own business was not without risk.
“I didn’t talk to her about it again until the acquisition of our company came through,” Mr. Chow says. “As immigrants, you chase and cherish stability. The vision of stability is very cookie-cutter.”
In a way, his family’s story had come full circle. Mr. Chow’s mother was an immigrant to Canada who worked as a seamstress in Toronto’s garment district. By 2023, Canadian mattress giant Sleep Country was offering to pay her son $43 million for the made-in-Canada bedding and mattress business he founded in Toronto’s “cut and sew” district six years earlier, called Silk & Snow.
Mr. Chow credits his time at Queen’s for his well-roundedness and his entrepreneurial spirit. He studied engineering, but many of his friends studied commerce. “In an immigrant household, having a very technical degree where the career path was safe was important to me. But, at the same time, I was always drawn to entrepreneurialism.”
After graduation, he went to work for multinational Accenture, where he stayed for about five years. He then moved into the retail world, where he did stints with Telus, Canadian Tire, and, finally, Loblaws.
“There was probably 18 months of overlap between Loblaws and Silk & Snow,” Mr. Chow says. “I think this is the case with a lot of entrepreneurial journeys and people starting new businesses – they want to de-risk themselves in case things go sideways.”
Silk & Snow had its beginnings in 2017 at a get-together with Kenneth Mo, an elementary school friend from Toronto.
“We always wanted to start a business together and one thing that we discovered was that there’s an entire supply chain of mattress manufacturing in Toronto,” Mr. Chow says. “We were driven to create a really high-quality product that was locally made, where we understood the full supply chain. I felt like that was a product that would resonate with customers.”
After a Kickstarter campaign, they made $40,000 in their first year and sales skyrocketed to $1 million in their second. By year three, they were making $3 million in annual revenue, and Mr. Chow felt comfortable leaving the trappings of his job and committing to Silk & Snow full time. Around the same time, they decided they wanted to expand into bedding and furniture and made a conscious decision to brand their company as a premium supplier with dreamy showrooms. It was a good move: They made $10 million in 2020 and started attracting the eyes of competitors.
“One actually called us and asked if we were interested in selling, and that kicked off the mergers and acquisitions journey we went on,” Mr. Chow says.
Part of the deal he eventually struck with Sleep Country was that Mr. Chow stay on as CEO. Asked if he has another business in him, he says he wouldn’t be surprised but, for now, he’s happy focusing on growing Silk & Snow to its full potential.
He credits Queen’s for his diversity of priorities.
“In my application to Queen’s, there were so many questions about extracurricular activities in high school,” he recalls. “And one of the most important things I learned at Queen’s was to be well rounded and I met a lot of people who were similar – who had more than one passion.”
