What's It Like Being a TinySeed Founder? (Part 2)
A year ago we wrote What's It Like Being a TinySeed Founder? in the middle of our inaugural batch — now, a year later and a month before our applications open again, we thought we’d revisit the question with the experiences of our second batch.
“In the first two months of the program, TinySeed has already been a phenomenal addition to our company. Specifically helping us evolve our pricing and strategize on how to develop relationships with enterprises to help transform the business. Since joining TinySeed Batch 2, the company has been experiencing substantial improvement in almost every component of our business.”
What changes did we make between our first and second batch?
Our first “retreat” for the second batch — held remotely over Zoom due to the pandemic.
We learned a lot from our first year! One of the biggest changes we made from batch 1 to batch 2 was adding an education component — we now start the TinySeed accelerator year with a series of presentations that we call The TinySeed Playbook. We give highly-detailed advice about sales, marketing, pricing, hiring, and other topics that we find most early B2B SaaS startups need, which gives our founders a head start on best practices.
We also now split the founders into smaller mastermind groups. in batch 1, we had a group call with every founder, but only had a few minutes to spend with each founder. Now, founders give their updates to their smaller mastermind group (and the TinySeed team) every other week for accountability and advice.
In addition to the mastermind and Playbook calls, we still schedule regular Q&As with our impressive list of mentors. While it might seem like there are a lot of video calls happening with the Playbook, masterminds, and mentor calls, we make sure there are no more than an hour of meeting time scheduled each week.
We did move 100% remote with our second batch; we held no in-person retreats due to COVID-19. We’re keeping an eye on the vaccine rollout and anticipate at least a couple in-person retreats for Batch 3.
“In just a few short months, TinySeed has helped SegMetrics grow more than I thought was possible in such a short time. The help of not only the mentors, but also the other founders, has given us expert advice on every part of our business and marketing.”
Podcasts featuring TinySeed and founder stories
We find that podcasts are a great way to really get a feel for the TinySeed team and the experience of being in the accelerator. Here are some recent notable episodes:
Between 2 Mics
Rock Felder and Zach Moreno are the founders of SquadCast and the hosts of this popular podcasting podcast. Episode 27 features Rob and his wife Sherry (ZenFounder) where they chat about podcasting and announce their acceptance into TinySeed.
TinySeed Announcement with Rob & Sherry Walling
Rob and Sherry’s years of experience launching startups and building communities have been key to their success in podcasting. Read on for more about how they see the overlap between podcasts and entrepreneurship … and what they’ve learned from that overlap!
Slow & Steady
Hosted by Benedikt Deicke (Userlist) and Brian Rhea, and they chatted about Userlist’s acceptance in an earlier episode this year.
Userlist is a TinySeed 2020 Company!
Benedikt shares the big news that Userlist is part of the TinySeed 2020 batch! Userlist also shipped in-app messaging and launched a new pricing tier. Brian shares that the Mozilla job offer will probably be rescinded as a result of COVID-19 and wonders about the best path forward.
Indie Hackers
TinySeed founder Rob Walling was on the Indie Hacker’s podcast (hosted by TinySeed mentor Courtland Allen):
Bootstrapping from an Investor’s Point of View with Rob Walling of TinySeed
Rob Walling spent years bootstrapping successful SaaS businesses, and today he's helping others do the same as the founder of TinySeed, the first accelerator for bootstrappers. In this episode, Rob and I discuss common misconceptions around fundraising, how to succeed as a founder from an investor's point of view, and why now is the best time to be an indie hacker.
The Effective Founder
The other TinySeed founder, Einar Vollset, was interviewed on the Effective Founder podcast hosted by Andy Baldacci. While the podcast focuses more on TinySeed’s Fund 2 fundraising, the episode is a great introduction to Einar and his specialties.
Einar Vollset on COVID-19, TinySeed, and more…
Today, I’m talking with Einar Vollset, a General Partner at TinySeed, the first startup accelerator designed for bootstrappers, and the Managing Partner at Discretion Capital, a technology enabled Investment Bank focused on M&A, due diligence and strategic partnership development.
TinySeed Tales, featuring Gather
Season 2 of TinySeed Tales features another startup from Batch 1: Gather (an interior design project management software) built by founders Scottie and Brian Elliott. Listen in to get a feel for how Rob advises the startups in TinySeed.
“TinySeed delivered everything they promised: A quick and efficient application process, fair investment clauses, high quality and continuous mentoring, being part of wonderful community of bootstrappers. Getting into TinySeed was probably the best decision we’ve ever made regarding ScrapingBee.”
Applications for our third batch will open for two weeks starting January 11th, 2021. Check out the application questions in this blog post, sign up for our email list for updates, or email hello@tinyseed.com if you have any questions.
