From Classroom to CEO: How Founder Confidence Reshapes Region

True entrepreneurial confidence isn't generic inspiration; it is built on specific, practical capabilities. This is clearly demonstrated by the outcomes of the 2026 Tiny program, an initiative designed to equip  early-stage founders with these exact foundational skills.

Researchers at the University of Delaware tracked matched pre- and post-program survey results across specific operational strands of venture development within the program. According to the data, average participant confidence surged across every single domain measured, climbing from an overall pre-program average of 3.61 to a highly assured 4.47 on a 5-point scale.

📊 Metric Spotlight: Confidence Surges by Strand

Understanding Financial Realities (+1.25)

For many educators, financial modeling can feel like an intimidating, out-of-reach language. Many founders naturally focus on their curriculum or community impact while pushing budget planning to the backburner.

Dr. Mary Rice-Boothe recalled how workshops in the Tiny Fellowship  "helped me kind of get on the balcony more and kind of think longer term about what’s next around this," specifically noting that she "felt incredibly helpless, particularly around the finance parts" before learning how to structure an organizational budget.

Confidence in understanding financial realities shifts a leader from a mindset of scrappy survival to strategic, professional operation. It forces leaders to map out systemic infrastructure rather than treating their venture like a passion project.

Cynthia Benavides described this paradigm shift: "Before, it was like, okay, let’s do this class. I know I’m going to need these supplies and we need to market... [Now] it’s starting with the little and being able to build out... like oh my gosh, there is so much more behind that."

Armed with fiscal confidence, teams learn to leverage funding to expand their organizational capacity rather than attempting to handle every operational detail themselves. As fellow Shakita Perryman shared, shifting from a solo-operator framework to a strategic leader takes an immense weight off a founder's shoulders: "To realize that there are people who can help you, who want to help you, who have the resources that you need... it just kind of took like a weight, a burden that I don't think I necessarily needed to even carry for myself... Work your strengths, staff your weaknesses, right?"

Marketing and Reaching the Right Audience (+1.08)

Early-stage founders frequently struggle to articulate exactly who their solution is for, often diluting their impact by trying to build a "one-size-fits-all" program.

High marketing confidence gives a leader the courage to stop guessing, identify distinct community needs, and narrow their scope to where they can make the biggest impact.

Fellow Alex Mylius experienced this firsthand when a breakthrough coaching session helped her narrow a massive, statewide early childhood initiative into a hyper-focused model:

"It was a light bulb that went off and I was like, oh gosh, that’s exactly what I need to do… I was doing the classic thing of one-size-fits-all, and in that moment, I realized, no, there are differences that we can lean into."

Using Structured Practices to Understand Your Audience (+0.84)

This practice is a core element of the Tiny Fellowship and helps founders look at real, hard data and listen deeply to the community, giving founders the reassurance that their venture is meeting an authentic, validated demand. Bridgette Ojo highlighted this shift, noting the power of:

"Having more confidence in my idea and knowing that it wasn’t just something based off of my dissertation… it was actually something that people actually need and want and have been asking [for]."

For educators stepping out of standard classrooms, implementing these rigorous practices often cracks open entirely new horizons. Fellow Elisabet De Miguel described the process of stepping into structured audience research as an absolute awakening:

"It was like an open door for me that I have never known before. So I learned what I didn't know that I did not know."

Using a Pilot to Test Thinking (+0.83) and Running a Pilot (+0.56)

Founders realize that a pilot isn't a final exam, it's a tool for low-risk exploration. Fellow Emily McCullough shared how this completely reframed her approach:

"A coach at one of the meetings said, ‘You’re almost encouraged to fail on your first pilot,’ and I was so surprised by that… it just took a lot of pressure off of having it to be perfect."

By breaking the terrifying "finality" of a massive project launch into smaller, testable steps, leaders discover the operational momentum hidden inside the framework. Elisabet De Miguel observed:

"The model of cause and effect in a chain is like a domino effect. If you choose the right piece in the beginning and you put the next piece like in the right space... then you can continue growing. And this is something that I have learned in Tiny, how to plan the next small step, step, step to keep going."

Moving Past Imposter Syndrome

When our fellows first arrived, many carried massive, complex ideas paired with a heavy dose of imposter syndrome. Putting an unperfected idea out into the world takes vulnerability. For some, that transformation meant redefining their professional identity and breaking out of the mental box of simple administrative box-checking. As Alex Mylius shared:

"Historically I have just thought of myself as like just a program administrator…And it's like, no... there's a lot of space in that to think creatively, especially when it comes to problem solving. And I think that kind of this, this whole experience opened me up to that."

For others, the shift was deeply emotional and personal, validating an entrepreneurial calling that had almost been pushed aside entirely due to past hurdles:

"Knowing that 4.0 backed my idea, it’s given me this confidence to really push and move forward with it… it’s really helped me build my confidence back—sorry, I’m starting to cry—because I know I was kind of giving up… But now I have a solid idea. Somebody backed it, and that’s all you need." — Leeza Steward

Real Evidence: The True Catalyst of Confidence

One of the most profound takeaways from the evaluation is that sustainable confidence isn't built on empty encouragement, it is forged in evidence.

When our fellows' pilots went live, several ventures shattered their own expectations. The Parent Scholar Hub, a program that supports student parents in graduate school, originally planned to host just 3 to 5 student parents, wound up engaging 40 participants across two sessions.

This explosive pattern of growth and accelerated target response mirrored results across the cohort. Fellow Hira Adaya initially targeted five families to test her conversational strategy tools, only to discover a 100% routine implementation rate by the close of the pilot. Similarly, Shakita Perryman's Family Rhythm Lab experienced such rapid resonance during live pilots that community demand outpaced the schedule:

"Both of my in-person pilots, we literally had to like, 'okay guys, it's time to go' because the fellowship and the community that was happening... they don't want to leave. The demand is there."

Seeing hard numbers completely changes how a founder advocates for their work.

Fellow Perryman explained how a coach's push to anchor her project in data completely revolutionized her leadership style:

"A coach was like, ‘Give it numbers’ and I think that changed it for me into data… it made it more tangible. It made it easier for me… to have that data and feedback for myself versus some general, vague, generic thought of, yeah, I know they want it... I have real hard information, real hard data, real hard numbers, and it just makes it that much more real for me… it just makes it really real now." — Shakita Perryman

The Ripple Effect: Confident Leaders, Connected Communities

When a founder gains confidence across these operational strands, the impact radiates outward, strengthening the entire regional early childhood ecosystem.

Through intentional, face-to-face convenings held in Austin and Houston, the program acted as a collaborative infrastructure for the state of Texas. Instead of working in isolated, lonely silos, confident leaders began to see each other as resources, sounding boards, and co-conspirators.

As Elisabet De Miguel noted, building in proximity to peers dissolved the isolating self-doubt that plagues early-stage innovators:

"To know that there are more people like me, it helps me to be like, oh, you are not crazy. There are more like you. I know that you can come with them. You can reach them, collaborate in different parts of that our projects meet."

Fellow Denisse Baldwin pointed out that the confidence built in physical proximity to founders unlocked a network behavior that virtual spaces simply could not replicate:

"Even if you had done that same activity online with all of us—crickets. Nobody likes to talk for whatever reason… and so I think that was really like, ‘oh, I could help you. I know somebody.’"

By the close of the cohort, leaders who previously operated in parallel found themselves deeply linked to specialized partners across the state:

• University App Developers: Leeza Steward transformed her vision for the neurodivergent strength-tracking app Roots and Wings into a concrete engineering pipeline by partnering directly with the Rice Apps team at Rice University.
• Statewide Networks: Alex Mylius (First3Years) mapped out operational scaling goals alongside the Texas Library Association and regional Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) programs to embed infant-toddler developmental initiatives directly into rural healthcare and programmatic deserts.
• Interdisciplinary Products: Cross-city focus groups inspired Denisse Baldwin (United Way for Greater Austin) to integrate translation resources and instructional QR codes directly into bilingual frameworks after cross-referencing parent profiles with fellow cohort leader Jasmine Booker.

Activated Momentum Beyond the Program

Building the capacity and confidence of the person rather than just the product accelerates momentum:

• 80% of fellows plan to continue or expand their current pilot.
• 68% are actively seeking future partners or funders.
• 52% are moving forward with explicit plans to scale their venture.

Many have already utilized their new momentum to formalize boards of directors and launch official non-profit entities. Booker (Beyond the Books Consultant) intentionally shifted her commercial framework to a standalone foundation model (Booksmart Scribble Foundation), operationalizing an expanded board of directors to target major national retail and donation networks. Meanwhile, Cynthia Benavides leveraged data from her initial pilot to scale her Little Bakers Academy straight into multi-city programmatic sessions with school districts spanning Fort Bend and San Antonio.

When we invest in the confidence of local leaders, we aren't just funding a temporary education pilot. We are activating a sustainable, evidence-driven network of innovators who have the tools and the courage to change communities from the inside out.

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