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cover of episode Episode 765 | TinySeed Tales s4e9: Making the hardest decision

Episode 765 | TinySeed Tales s4e9: Making the hardest decision

2025/3/13
logo of podcast Startups For the Rest of Us

Startups For the Rest of Us

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Colleen Schnettler
R
Rob Walling
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Colleen Schnettler: 我创办了Hello Query,这是一个SaaS业务。在过去三年中,我经历了寻找客户的困难,以及与联合创始人的分歧。尽管我努力尝试各种方法,例如冷推广和市场营销,但始终难以获得足够的客户来维持业务的持续发展。最终,在权衡了各种因素,包括机会成本和个人精力之后,我做出了关闭Hello Query的艰难决定。虽然这个决定令人沮丧,但我为自己的努力感到自豪,并且从中学到了宝贵的经验教训,这些经验教训将指导我未来的创业项目。我目前正在运营SaaS Marketing Gym,这是一个为创始人提供辅导和营销服务的公司,它取得了比Hello Query更好的成绩。 我从Hello Query中学到的最重要的一点是,在创业初期,快速执行和及时调整方向至关重要。我应该更早地开始冷推广,并且在产品开发方面投入更多精力。此外,与联合创始人的合作也存在一些问题,如果我们能够更早地坦诚沟通,或许能够避免一些不必要的麻烦。 虽然Hello Query的失败令人沮丧,但我并不后悔做过这个项目。我从中学到了很多东西,这些经验教训将指导我未来的创业项目。我相信,只要我不断学习和改进,未来一定能够取得更大的成功。 Rob Walling: 作为TinySeed的联合创始人,我见证了Colleen在Hello Query创业过程中的努力和挑战。她的故事真实地反映了创业的艰辛和不确定性。虽然Hello Query最终关闭了,但这并不意味着Colleen的努力是徒劳的。她从中学到了宝贵的经验教训,这些经验教训将指导她未来的创业项目。此外,她还建立了广泛的人脉和网络,这将为她未来的发展提供有力支持。 Colleen的故事也提醒我们,创业并非一帆风顺,失败是创业过程中不可避免的一部分。重要的是,我们要从失败中吸取教训,不断改进和完善自己,最终走向成功。在创业过程中,要学会权衡各种因素,包括机会成本、个人精力以及市场需求等。不要害怕失败,要勇于尝试,不断学习和成长。

Deep Dive

Chapters
Colleen Schnettler discusses the difficulties she faced in acquiring and onboarding customers for her SaaS business, Hello Query. Despite tripling her MRR, she still struggled with the high costs and effort involved in finding new customers. She reflects on the importance of outpacing success and avoiding long-term side projects.
  • High customer acquisition cost and onboarding effort
  • Low conversion rates despite initial interest
  • Difficulty in finding a repeatable path to customer acquisition
  • Importance of outpacing success and avoiding long-term side projects

Shownotes Transcript

Is it time to shut down for good? 

In this season finale of TinySeed Tales, Rob Walling sits down with Colleen Schnettler, founder of Hello Query, to reflect on her journey over the past few years.

Colleen candidly shares the challenges she faced while trying to grow her SaaS business, including the difficult decision to shut it down after struggling to find traction. Moving past a painful part in her founder journey, Colleen is excited about her new venture where she’s already seeing early success. Join us for this honest look into the final days of Hello Query and to hear Colleen's resilience in the startup world.

**Topics we cover: **

  • (1:07) – Difficulty in finding and onboarding customers

  • (5:32) – Why didn’t it work? 

  • (9:29) – How did the co-founder split affect the business?

  • (13:11) – Founder regrets

  • (18:49) – Reflecting on the decision

  • (22:38) – Anything that you would have done differently?

  • (25:21) – Moving forward to founder coaching and marketing

Links from the Show: 

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question) for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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