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6: The Rebound Project: Rebuilding Momentum After a Co-founder Split

In Episode 6 of TinySeed Tales, we follow Colleen Schnettler as she navigates the aftermath of her co-founder breakup, launches a "rebound" product, and ultimately returns to her original vision with a fresh AI-powered approach. This episode offers valuable insights for solo founders on resilience, the importance of shipping quickly, and managing emotional energy through uncertainty.

The Immediate Aftermath: Stress and Self-Doubt

Following her split with co-founder Erin, Colleen faced a wave of uncertainty and self-doubt about her path forward:

"My immediate gut reaction was, I need to walk away from this idea. I need to walk away from this name. I'm just going to do something else. I have other ideas. I'm going to pursue a different direction."

Colleen hadn't shipped code in some time, which contributed to her uncertainty about tackling all aspects of app development solo—from authentication to deployment.

The Rebound Project: Get Podcast Leads

To rebuild her confidence and shipping momentum, Colleen created a new product called Get Podcast Leads, drawing on her experience as a podcaster. The tool aimed to help podcasters find and manage sponsors by leveraging podcast APIs, transcription, and AI.

Her "launch" was minimal by design:

"Launch would be a strong word. I think I tweeted about it once."

Colleen quickly determined that the economics didn't work for this market:

"Podcasting is a tough market. Low margins, podcasters are broke. So the fact that they would shell out additional money seemed unlikely... If I'm going to do productized consulting, I should do it in Rails and make real money, not for podcasters who are like, 'I'll pay you 20 bucks if you find me a sponsor that'll pay me 200.'"

When Rob asked if she could have learned this without writing code, Colleen admitted:

"I think I knew before I built it that this was going to be the outcome, but building it for me was more about getting that muscle of shipping activated again... I had a lot of fun and it gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to ship something."

Rob aptly described Get Podcast Leads as Colleen's "rebound relationship" after Hello Query—a project that helped her get back in the game, regardless of its commercial prospects.

Finding Clarity: Unfair Advantage vs. Sunk Cost

After the podcast project fizzled, Colleen found herself "at the bottom of another trough of sorrow." This forced her to reconsider her path forward:

"I went back full circle to what is my unfair advantage here? And it's hard with this. You have to separate sunk cost from Unfair Advantage."

This reflection led to a crucial insight: her two years of experience with internal reporting represented a genuine advantage, not just a sunk cost. More importantly, she recognized that internal reporting solved a clear, monetizable problem:

"It is so clear. It is so hard as someone trying to start a business just to come up with a problem that people are willing to pay money to solve."

The AI Pivot: Hello Query Reborn

Combining her original vision with her newfound AI experience, Colleen relaunched Hello Query as an "AI assisted SQL Report builder." The product allows non-technical employees to query databases using natural language, then export, schedule, and share those reports.

Interestingly, this version aligned closely with Colleen's pre-co-founder vision:

"Let's go back. Let's think about what I wanted to do. And I wanted to do little take off little bites of this problem, little bites at a time, put it in front of people, let the vision change as needed."

The AI component, initially added almost as a marketing feature, generated unexpected excitement:

"The AI also, I wasn't even going to ship that. I added that. It was almost going to be more of a marketing gimmick to be like, 'oh, AI.' And then people were so excited about it and I was like, 'oh, right, okay, people are so excited about this, so this should be part of the offering.'"

The Shipping Mindset vs. Perfectionism

A significant theme in this episode is the tension between shipping quickly versus extensive planning:

"For whatever reason, there was a lot of thinking. It was like we have to ship the right thing the first time... All advice is true because it worked for the person giving you the advice. So you're always going to have people in the business building community who have both sides of this."

Rob emphasized the value of getting real feedback rather than endless speculation:

"You and I can sit for two hours and guess what people are going to do... well go ask them. Right?"

Colleen used her Twitter network to rapidly validate concerns like whether users would connect their production databases—getting real-world data much faster than she could through speculation.

Managing the Emotional Runway

Colleen introduced the powerful concept of "emotional runway"—a founder's motivation and resilience over time:

"This is a ultra marathon. This isn't going to be done despite what people on the internet tell you, you're not going to shift something in a weekend that's going to make you a million dollars."

Rob expanded on this with a crucial insight:

"Funded companies fail when they run out of money. Bootstrapped companies fail when the founder runs out of motivation."

Colleen explains her approach to managing this emotional energy:

"I really, really enjoy being in the code. I like talking to people, but it's very draining... What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to spend a week, maybe 10 days shipping a new feature that I know I need and then following up with these people who are trying it to see how it's working for them."

Despite the challenges, Colleen maintains her belief in persistence:

"I think it's just good to remember for most people that don't quit, it eventually works out. Most people, if you look at these success stories and you really dig into them, most people that don't quit, it eventually works out."

The Fork in the Road: Internal BI vs. Marketing Analytics

As she gathers initial user feedback, Colleen faces a critical decision about product direction:

Internal BI Tool Direction

Helping internal teams in larger organizations create, schedule, and share reports

Potential for premium pricing from bigger companies

Marketing Analytics Direction

AI layer on top of platforms like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, etc.

Excitement from her network but possibly a more saturated market

"They're two totally different directions, and I find both of them to be really appealing... If I went the marketing route, people would just be, I think people in my network would be so excited if I put AI on top of your Google Analytics."

Rob identifies this excitement as potentially misleading—the "curse of the audience":

"I call that false demand, the curse of the audience... Everybody's really interested and then they're not actually that interested to solve a problem, but they just want to interact with you."

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