We're Live: The Unexpected Journey to Beta
MyTinyCEO is officially in beta. But getting here? That's a story nobody tells you about.
"I thought the hard part was building the product. I was wrong. The hard part was everything else."
It's Official: We're in Beta
After months of work, sleepless nights, and more obstacles than I ever anticipated, MyTinyCEO is officially live and open for beta testing.
If you've been following along, you know I built this tool because I needed it myself. As a founder without an MBA or finance background, I struggled to create the business plan and financial projections that investors and lenders required. So I built MyTinyCEO to solve that problem—for me, and for every other founder facing the same challenge.
But today, I want to share something different. Not the polished launch story. The real one.
The Work Nobody Warns You About
When I started building MyTinyCEO, I had a clear vision: create an AI-powered tool that helps founders build investor-ready business plans. I knew how to code. I understood the problem. How hard could it be?
Turns out, building the product was just the beginning.
The Reality Check
For every hour I spent coding features, I spent three hours on things I never saw coming.
Legal Hurdles
Terms of Service. Privacy Policy. Cookie policies. Data processing agreements. GDPR compliance. California Consumer Privacy Act considerations. Disclaimer language for financial projections.
I'm not a lawyer. I had no idea how much legal documentation a SaaS product requires before you can ethically (and safely) let users sign up. Every document required research, drafting, review, and revision. Each one took longer than I expected.
Insurance Nobody Told Me About
Did you know that if you're building software that helps people with business planning or financial projections, you might need professional liability insurance? Errors and omissions coverage? General liability?
I didn't. I learned about it the hard way—through research, broker calls, and a lot of forms. Getting the right coverage meant understanding what risks I was actually taking on, and making sure I was protected if something went wrong.
The Administrative Avalanche
Business registration. Tax IDs. Payment processor applications. Merchant account verification. Bank account setup. Accounting systems. Invoicing workflows.
Each one seems simple on paper. In reality, each one is a rabbit hole. Payment processors want documentation. Banks want proof of business. Tax authorities want forms filed correctly. And all of it takes time—time I thought I'd be spending on the product.
The Security Gauntlet
Users trust you with their business ideas, their financial projections, their dreams. That trust isn't something I take lightly.
Security audits. Penetration testing considerations. Secure authentication. Data encryption. Backup systems. Incident response planning. Each layer of security meant more research, more implementation, more testing.
The Emotional Reality
There were moments I wanted to quit. Nights where I stared at a legal document at 2 AM, wondering why I thought I could do this. Days where the gap between "what I expected" and "what's actually required" felt insurmountable.
The timeline I had in my head? Throw it out. Everything took longer. Every task revealed three more tasks behind it. Every "quick fix" became a rabbit hole.
What Kept Me Going
Every time I felt overwhelmed, I remembered why I started. I built this because founders like me need it. Every obstacle I overcame was one less obstacle for someone else.
The irony isn't lost on me: I built a tool to help founders navigate the complexity of business planning, and building that tool taught me more about business complexity than anything else could have.
What's in the Beta
After all that work, here's what you get when you sign up for MyTinyCEO today:
AI-Powered Business Planning
Tiny, your AI mentor, guides you through every step of creating a comprehensive business plan.
Financial Projections
Generate 24-36 month P&L statements, cash flow projections, and balance sheets automatically.
Market Analysis
TAM/SAM/SOM calculations, competitor analysis, and market sizing based on real industry data.
Export-Ready Documents
One-click PDF exports formatted for investors, lenders, and stakeholders.
Is it perfect? No. That's why it's a beta. But it works, and it's ready for real founders to use it and tell me how to make it better.
What's Coming Next
The beta is just the beginning. Based on your feedback, here's what I'm working on:
- More business model templates (e-commerce, service businesses, marketplaces)
- Enhanced financial scenario modeling
- Integration with popular tools founders already use
- Team collaboration features
- Pitch deck generation
But the roadmap isn't set in stone. That's the point of a beta—you tell me what matters most, and I build it.
What I'm Asking From You
If you try MyTinyCEO, I have one request: be honest.
Tell me what works. Tell me what doesn't. Tell me what confuses you, what delights you, what you wish existed. I read every piece of feedback personally.
I built this tool for founders like you and me. The only way it gets better is if you help me understand what "better" looks like for your business.
Thank You
To everyone who's followed this journey, signed up for updates, or just sent a word of encouragement—thank you. Building in public means sharing the highs and the lows, and knowing people are rooting for you makes the hard days easier.
We're live. We're in beta. And this is just the beginning.
Let's build something great together.
— Steve Dickens
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