We're Small. That's the Point.

There's a rule in startups that you never admit to being small. Every app describes itself like it's three weeks from taking over the world. Communities are always “thriving”, growth is always “explosive”, and the team photo is angled to look like there are more chairs.

I want to try the opposite, because I think the truth is actually our best feature.

How small are we?

SideStall is at the stage where I personally notice every new stall that opens. Not a dashboard summary of them. Each one. I look at what they've named it, what their first product is, and sometimes I email them just to say I saw it and it looks great. That's not a growth tactic. It's just what happens when the numbers are still human-sized.

And when you reply to a SideStall email, here's exactly who reads it: me. That's the whole customer service department. Tell me what's broken, what's confusing, what you wish the app did. I read every one, and I answer.

Why early is the good part

Think about the stalls we exist for. Nobody drives past a roadside honesty box and thinks “hm, too small to trust”. The smallness is the charm and the guarantee: you know exactly who you're dealing with. I want SideStall to earn trust the same way its stalls do.

Being early with us means your feedback actually changes what gets built. It means your stall isn't one of a million listings. And it means when something goes wrong, the person fixing it knows your name.

One day I hope we're big enough that I can't greet every stall personally. It'll be a genuinely sad day for me and I'm in no hurry.

So if you've been thinking about opening a stall, this is honestly the best time to be here.

Santo Arabia is the founder of SideStall. Say hello: hello@sidestall.au. He means it about reading every reply.