Groundwork and Growth: Tiller’s Year in Review

Friends of Tiller,

In two words, the themes of 2017 for Tiller were “groundwork” and “growth.”

Our customer acquisition has been up and to the right over the last year, including a projection for January (chart below). With the marketing and product investments underway, we’re focused on accelerating growth in 2018 and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.

In September we hired Edward Shepard, our first marketing employee. Two years ago, Edward launched Parent.co from a blank domain. It’s now one of the leading digital publications in the parenting space, with millions of readers, over five hundred writers, and dozens of viral posts. He’s off to a great start with Tiller, and I’m thrilled to have Edward on the team.

Also in September, we closed our oversubscribed round, giving us rocket fuel as we enter 2018.

In November we hired Randy Hulett to lead spreadsheet product management. Randy previously co-founded the Seattle Coffee Equipment Company which sold to Starbucks. The company’s Clover is featured in many Starbucks stores worldwide. Randy lives and breathes spreadsheets (he built Clover’s production system in a spreadsheet). He’s informally advised Tiller for the last year, and it’s great to have him leading spreadsheet product management.

Both Edward and Randy highlight the benefits of a distributed team. Edward is in Vermont, and he rose to the top of 360 applicants who submitted an application, with five essay questions, to apply for the role. Randy, a Seattleite, is in Spain with his family for a multi-year adventure.

Both are outstanding hires, and I am confident it would be hard to match their talent and fit with Tiller if we were recruiting only in Seattle.

(Screen shot below from our daily, all team stand-up).

We’re fired up as we head into the new year. This has been a fun update to write. I really love the team I get to work with at Tiller. We share a common view that this is important work, we see the outsize positive impact Tiller is having on our customers’ lives, and we are excited about the opportunity ahead.

Wishing you all a fantastic new year. I am grateful for your support.

– Peter

PS: If you haven’t signed up for the Tiller Money newsletter but want to see it, let me know and I’ll add you to the list. Curated by Edward, it’s a weekly email focused on the best personal finance content from around the web. He’s also amped up our Tiller Twitter activity if you’re on Twitter.

PSS: We continue to see more unsolicited emails from customers and job applicants both, like this one that I just received from a former executive producer at CNN. “Thanks to Tiller, I now have the best awareness of my finances I’ve ever had, which has helped my decision-making and future planning. I’ve attached a heavily number-redacted version (looks like a classified document, ha) of my Tiller Dashboard. It tells me everything I need to know at a glance.”