Elevator Pitch: Tinybeans

Elevator Pitch is a regular feature on Lifehacker where we profile startups and new companies and pick their brains for entrepreneurial advice. This week, we’re talking with cofounder Eddie Geller from Tinybeans.

In 128 words or less, explain your business idea.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Well that was exactly the case with Tinybeans. Our co-founder, Stephen O’Young, couldn’t find a satisfactory solution to help his eldest child overcome speech delays or easily and securely share moments of his newborn. Recognising that other parents would also be struggling with the same problem, Stephen along with fellow parent Sarah-Jane Kurtini and myself (also a dad) set out to create a platform where parents could track and record the developmental milestones of their child, as well as celebrate and share the small and beautiful details of raising their family.

With Tinybeans we give parents the power to create, store and share their children’s moments in one seamless experience. With tools and alerts built in, it also makes it easier for parents to actively guide a child’s development and invite their family and friends to join the journey with them.

What strategies are you using to grow and finance your idea?

We recently raised $2 million in Australia as a seed round to accelerate Tinybeans’ global growth. Up until that point, the business was bootstrapped and we achieved tremendous growth and traction globally in part due to our absolute focus on product engineering and user experience which in turn helped us to build a very loyal fan base that love telling the world about Tinybeans. We also chose to partner with large child-focused organisations that saw the potential of what Tinybeans could offer to their customers. This helped us gain a foothold in new markets and grow users there.

What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?

Fast growth is a tremendous plus but also a curse. For us, the biggest challenge we are dealing with at the moment is growing pains and trying to find a balance between exploring all growth opportunities that present, while still maintaining focus. There are hundreds of opportunities at the moment, so our ability to prioritise and ensure that our resources are devoted to the areas that will have the biggest impact on the business is challenging.

How do your differentiate your business from your competitors?

The number one factor that differentiates Tinybeans from others is our absolute devotion to product engineering and user experience. We believe that by building an incredibly simply, impactful and engaging app and providing outstanding customer service, our users will tell the world and many more people will fall in love with Tinybeans. You cannot underestimate the power of word of mouth. It has been the fuel, which has helped our rapid growth.

What one phone, tablet or PC application could you not live without?

Would it be bad to say Tinybeans! All the founders are active users of our app and use it every day. Our families would be devastated if we didn’t take daily moments of our kids and share them with them.

What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?

The best piece of advice I have received would have to be that execution eats strategy any day of the week. I am a firm believer in this. The only true way to grow your brand is to deliver when it counts.

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