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Tinybeans parenting network lists on the ASX

Cara Waters
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There's a word for parents who use social media to post endless updates of their offspring. It's called sharenting.

The founders of Tinybeans social media platform, which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday, are positioning their business to capitalise on the backlash against too much sharenting.

A safer way

Founded by Eddie Geller, Stephen O'Young and Sarah-Jane Kurtini in Sydney in 2012, Tinybeans promotes itself as a "safer way" for parents to record and share moments and milestones with family and friends privately and securely. 

Tinybeans issued 6.5 million new shares at $1.00 per share, raising $6.5 million as part of its initial public offering.

Geller, a father-of-four, says the platform is for parents who don't want to be a parent blogger or Instamum.

"There is way too much oversharing," he said. "The average five-year-old child has 1000 photos of themselves online before they turn five, that's crazy. We find privacy is a big push and parents are more conscious. We are the anti-sharenting app, we want to share hundreds of photos, but in the app, because there's no such thing as oversharing with families."  

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A gap in the market

O'Young first had the idea for Tinybeans after his parents kept asking for photos of his children and he got fed up sending them by SMS. He teamed up with Kurtini and Geller came on board when the pair applied to the PushStart incubator.  

Geller previously founded management consulting business Unique World, which he grew to a 100-person $15 million business before exiting in 2011, and has drawn on this experience to help grow Tinybeans. 

"We are solving the problem for parents who want to privately share the information, you own the information and get to control who sees your kids every day," Geller said. 

The Tinybeans app is free to download and use, with revenue coming from the option to upgrade to a paid premium version, photo printing options and advertising to users. 

Something different

Geller says Tinybeans offers something very different to giants of the social media world such as Facebook and Instagram. 

"They are all very generic, you can share everything with everyone," Geller said. "Tinybeans is only about your kid and when you own your information, it's incredibly private."   

We are the anti sharenting app, we want to share hundreds of photos a day because there's no such thing as over sharing with families.

Eddie Geller

The concept has caught on with 1.6 million registered users on Tinybeans and more than 580,000 monthly active users.  

Tinybean's founders have ambitions for significant growth, with Geller aiming for 100 million users by 2020.  

"There is an opportunity here and we want to take the steps today to really accelerate things," he said. "Listing on the ASX helps Tinybeans to efficiently access growth capital and allows more Australian investors to share in the company's future. We have an extremely loyal fan base in Australia and we have got users reaching out who want to participate and be involved in the company. Secondly, we wanted to build something amazing and wanted to build a wonderful private space for families."

From sweat equity to IPO

Tinybeans has been built mainly on "sweat equity", with Geller investing "hundreds of thousands" as an angel investor before a $2 million investment in a major seed round in 2014. 

But Geller says the time was right for an IPO, with turnover in the last six months reaching $650,000. 

"We didn't want to go through a private method to raise capital," he said. "Being a consumer company we love being public."   

Tinybeans will use the cash injection to expand its staff of 15 people, increase its advertising and marketing spend, further develop its technology platform and fund potential acquisitions.

​The IPO didn't incorporate any sell-down by pre-existing shareholders. Approximately 74.5 per cent of the shares on issue following the IPO will be subject to escrow for between one to two years.

Upon debut Tinybeans shares rose briefly to $1.20 and then fell to 95 cents. 

Geller remains convinced of Tinybeans' broader mission, which he says attracts a lot of high-wealth families and celebrities. 

"We think children's lives should be private and within the family there is a naivety of parents and family where they are oversharing the child's life," Geller said. "It's with the best of intentions but there are lots of scary reasons not to."  

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