Founder stories
Founder stories
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412 stories found
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Richard Wang
how richard reached 30k mrr with a reddit marketing tool
After shutting down an AI product nobody wanted, Richard Wang spent a month answering Reddit marketing questions, gathered 300 people who shared the same pain, and only then built Leadmore AI. More than ten of them paid in week one.
$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSMarketing
CH
Crystal Harrison
how a bookkeeper of 25 years shipped a tax tool for freelancers without writing code
Crystal Harrison spent almost 25 years watching freelancers get blindsided by tax bills. She used an AI dev tool to build SnapTax in evenings and weekends, and reached her first 3 paying customers eight weeks after launch.
Erster Kunde in 21 days·Solo
SaaSFinanzenAustin, Texas
AC
Angus Cheng
how a hong kong developer reached $1k mrr converting pdf bank statements
Angus Cheng spent thousands on Google Ads and barely broke even selling PDF conversion credits. Switching to subscriptions and writing blog posts got Bank Statement Converter to $1K MRR in ten months, then past $7K with ads switched off.
$1K MRR in 11 months·Solo
SaaSFinanzen🇭🇰 HK
Ruslan Leteyski
Checkout X
Bootstrapping Checkout X to €600k MRR before Shopify shut it down
Ruslan Leteyski turned a workaround built for a doomed online pharmacy into a one-page Shopify checkout that reached 6,000 merchants and €600k MRR, all without ads or the App Store.
$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSE-CommerceSofia, Bulgaria
Katt Risen
how katt risen grew a no-code newsletter to 11,400 subscribers and sold it for $35k
A non-technical generalist from Belgium turned a viral build-in-public tweet into a two-year newsletter that earned about $33k and exited for $35k.
$1K MRR in 9 months·Solo
Info-ProduktContent-Erstellung🇧🇪 BE
MD
Mat De Sousa
how mat de sousa bootstrapped widebundle to $25k mrr as a student
After three failed Shopify apps, an engineering student built a bundling app in two weeks and grew it to $25,134 MRR in under a year with no paid ads.
$100K ARR in 10 months·Solo
SaaSE-Commerce🇫🇷 FR
SD
Shaun Donnelly
how a london indie dev grew a workout app to $3,630 mrr
Shaun Donnelly started Personal Best as a hobby and turned it into a full-time iOS app with 500,000+ downloads and $3,630 in monthly recurring revenue by the end of 2025.
$1K MRR in 3 years·Solo
Mobile AppGesundheit & WellnessLondon, United Kingdom
Max Schmitt
how a solo dev sold 239 copies of his invoicing app in 2025
Max Schmitt has built Cakedesk, a one-time-purchase invoicing app, as a side project since late 2021. In its fourth year it sold 239 new licenses, up from about 170 the year before.
$1K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SonstigesFinanzen🇩🇪 DE
Orel Zilberman
after 600 days and zero dollars, writestack became a $110k a year tool for substack writers
Orel Zilberman burned through roughly $70,000 and a dozen failed products before a tool for Substack creators finally started paying. Here is how he got there.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSContent-Erstellung🇮🇱 IL
Mattia Pomelli
how sleek.design reached $10k mrr six weeks after launch
Mattia Pomelli and two friends repurposed an earlier design tool into Sleek, an AI mobile app designer, and reached $10k MRR within six weeks of launch without spending on ads.
$10K MRR in 1 month·Team
SaaSDesign🌍 Remote
PA
Pranay Agarwal
how Pranay Agarwal grew Mockey.ai to $12k a month by adding download limits
Pranay Agarwal and his co-founder ran Mockey as a free, ad-supported side project for years. Adding subscriptions and download caps roughly tripled revenue, reaching about $12k a month.
$10K MRR in 11 months·Team
SaaSDesignNew Delhi, India
BW
Ben Waterman
how a non-technical finance pro built strabo to $1k mrr with no-code and seo
Ben Waterman left a finance job to build a personal finance dashboard with no coding background, starting in Bubble and reaching $1K MRR with 1,100 monthly active users.
$1K MRR in 9 months·Team
SaaSFinanzenLondon, UK
AV
Aurelio Volle
how a lawyer and a developer bootstrapped wp umbrella to $110k mrr
Aurelio Volle and his co-founder lived on French unemployment support while reinvesting every euro into WP Umbrella, a WordPress maintenance tool that grew to $110K MRR without outside funding.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSEntwickler-Tools🇫🇷 FR
Gil Hildebrand
how Gil Hildebrand bootstrapped Subscribr to $10k MRR in 100 days
After an unprofitable VC-backed crypto startup, Gil Hildebrand picked a calmer market, presold 50 lifetime deals to a 1,000-person email list, and reached $10k MRR within 100 days of launching Subscribr.
$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSContent-Erstellung🇺🇸 US
Nic Polotnianko
how nic polotnianko grew blogtopin to $15k mrr after four years of failed products
A Ukrainian software engineer spent four years shipping products that went nowhere, then built a Pinterest automation tool to scratch his own itch and grew it past $15k MRR.
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSMarketingDnipro, Ukraine
Junaid Ansari
how two freelancers turned Draftss into a 7-figure productized design service
Junaid Ansari and his cofounder packaged their freelance design and code work into a flat monthly subscription, then grew it to a 75-person bootstrapped team serving thousands of founders.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
Agentur / DienstleistungDesignMumbai, India
John O'Nolan
how john o'nolan bootstrapped ghost to $10m arr as a non-profit
Rejected by Y Combinator twice, John O'Nolan crowdfunded Ghost on Kickstarter and built it into a $10M ARR open source publishing platform owned by a non-profit foundation.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSContent-Erstellung🌍 Remote
Josh Pigford
how josh pigford turned down millions, then sold baremetrics for $4m
Josh Pigford built Baremetrics in days to scratch his own itch, grew it past $1.5M ARR, walked away from a deal that collapsed at the finish line, then sold a year later for $4 million in cash.
$100K ARR in 5 months·Solo
SaaSEntwickler-Tools🇺🇸 US
KK
Katie Keith
how katie keith turned a wordpress agency into a $1.7m plugin business
Katie Keith and her husband ran a WordPress design agency for seven years before betting on plugins. By 2025 Barn2 booked $1.78M in revenue, most of it recurring.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSEntwickler-Tools🇬🇧 GB
David Bressler
how a non-coder built an ai excel tool to $20k in two months
David Bressler spent his paternity leave building an AI Excel formula tool with no-code Bubble, then watched influencers turn it into a fast-growing freemium business.
$100K ARR in 4 months·Solo
SaaSAI / MLOrlando, Florida
Thomas Frank
how thomas frank made $1m/year selling notion templates
After a decade making content, Thomas Frank made $1 million in a single year selling Notion templates, with the line peaking at $100k a month in one-time template sales.
Erster Kunde in 0 days·Solo
Info-ProduktProduktivitätColorado, USA
Reilly Chase
how reilly chase landed hostifi's first 11 customers in three weeks
With an IT background but no SaaS experience, Reilly Chase built a UniFi hosting tool, launched it with a single tweet, and found his first 11 paying customers in three weeks by going where Ubiquiti users actually hung out.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSEntwickler-Tools🇺🇸 US
Dominik Sobe
how dominik sobe turned notion into a $3k mrr help center business
A self-taught Austrian developer needed a help center for his app, hated every option, and built one on top of Notion instead. HelpKit hit $3K MRR and 130+ customers within roughly a year.
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSProduktivität🌍 Remote
Eddy Vinck
how a part-time dev got blog recorder to $250 mrr in 6 months
Eddy Vinck shipped his first SaaS, Blog Recorder, as a part-time project and reached $250 MRR and $2,000 in total revenue in six months, with his first customer coming from his own developer network.
$100 MRR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSContent-Erstellung🇳🇱 NL
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A note on these stories: The founders featured here represent those who publicly shared their success. Not every startup succeeds, and timelines vary widely. These stories are meant to inspire and educate, not to set expectations.
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