Eddie Geller has been an entrepreneur and investor in the online world since 1994. Eddie was the founder and CEO of Unique World – a successful management consulting business that grew to a 100 person, $15m business before successfully exiting to a large US company in 2011.
As a seed investor in PushStart in early 2012, Eddie saw something special in Tinybeans. As one of the startups that was incubated through the Pushstart program; it was a certain standout.
Over 2012, Eddie mentored the Tinybeans team and fell in love with the opportunity and decided to invest and become active. Through 2013, Eddie drove the commercial aspects of the business which enabled him to take on the CEO role in early 2014. Now he drives the organisational strategy, partnerships and growth prospects and has aspirations to create the largest nurture network in the world reaching 100M users by 2018.
tinybeans.com @tinybeanskids facebook
Business can be instrumental as it has the ability to amplify messages in a way that has an impact, if of course it is done with the right intentions…
Tell us a little bit about your idea and what made you decide to take the plunge and make it happen?
The idea for Tinybeans was born when co-founder Stephen O’Young couldn’t find a satisfactory solution to help his eldest child overcome speech delays or easily share moments of his newborn son.
Please explain your business model.
Our strategy is around user growth at this stage. We are building out the platform, executing marketing campaigns and driving innovation across the product to grow users.
We offer printing today, which generates some revenue, but our plan is to release a premium version in the near year with several other products that will drive revenue.
What are you working on right now and what are you most excited about in the next three months?
Internationalisation of our platform and setting up an office in the US.
What challenges have you faced when starting or growing a business/organisation in Australia?
- Finding awesome staff that want to work for a startup and appreciate the highs and lows of it
- Focusing on the areas that will make a difference. Too many ideas that don’t align to the goals so can get easily distracted.
What is one idea you are willing to give away for free?
Invent a toaster that can detect when the toast is brown and turns it off. Surely in today’s day in age burnt toast shouldn’t exist!
What people/companies/organisations do you think are doing really cool stuff in your industry, in Australia at the moment?
Cool? Struggle to think of any. Obviously Atlassian is amazing and so is BigCommerce and Campaign Monitor – but cool? They are all B2B plays. Not many consumer plans out of Australia…
Booodle.com for its ambitions
Pinch.me for its incredible growth and strategy
What about internationally?
Life360 – amazing!!!
What role do you think business can play in affecting social change?
Business can be instrumental as it has the ability to amplify messages in a way that has an impact, if of course it is done with the right intentions…
Like this one…http://www.bombas.com – buy one pair and give one pair to homeless.
Also many new business opportunities are being developed to drive social change. Solar… Environmental… Car sharing/riding…
Name 3 websites you would recommend to our readers.
Are there opportunities for people to get involved with your idea (e.g. are you looking for funding, interns, marketing help)?
Always looking for bright interns looking to be part of a fast growing startup.
We’re aiming to build a community of Australian idea makers helping each other. If you could have one question answered about startups, marketing, social media, accounting, monetization, product development etc. What would it be?
What’s more important? User Acquisition or Retention?
What’s your favourite bar/café/restaurant?
Too many to list!
