$100K ARRin 5 years

3 milestones

Milestone achieved August 2019. Current revenue not tracked.

De $130 en vuelo a $320k/mes: La historia de Going

Founder

Scott Keyes

Co-Fundadores•Non-technical•USA

Commitment

Full-time

Experience

First-time

Product

Going (Scott's Cheap Flights)

Boletín de correo electrónico y aplicación que envía ofertas de vuelos baratos y tarifas de error a suscriptores.

Type

SaaS

Industry

Viajes

Model

Suscripción

Marketing Strategy

How Scott acquired customers

Growth Channel

Boca a Boca

Also Used

SEO / ContenidoComunidades

Tech Stack

Tools used to build Going (Scott's Cheap Flights)

MailchimpCustom flight scrapersWordPressStripe

The Full Story

TL;DR

Scott encontró un vuelo redondo de $130 a Milán y convirtió su pasatiempo de búsqueda de vuelos en un negocio de 2M+ suscriptores.

Nunca tuve la intención de ser fundador. Solo era un tipo pobre recién salido de la universidad, queriendo visitar Europa, y cada vez que buscaba vuelos, parecían costar $1,000 o más.

El momento de $130

En 2013, encontré lo que probablemente es el mejor trato que he conseguido, un vuelo redondo sin escalas de Nueva York a Milán por $130. Ese trato solo estaba disponible durante aproximadamente cuatro horas.

Fui a esquiar en los Alpes, hacer senderismo en Cinque Terre, a un partido del AC Milan, y hasta el Lago Como. Divino. Y aún llegué con más dinero de lo que habría gastado si hubiera pagado $950+ por el boleto.

La lista de correo electrónico

Cuando volví, todos mis amigos seguían preguntando "¿La próxima vez que encuentres un trato, puedes hacérmelo saber?" En lugar de recordar a todos, comencé una simple lista de correo. Cada vez que encontraba un trato, les informaba a todos a la vez.

El accidente

Fue un accidente feliz. Durante 18-24 meses, fue solo un pasatiempo. Luego la lista creció lo suficiente como para que me diera cuenta de que quizás es hora de pensar en esto como un negocio.

Del pasatiempo al imperio

Hoy hay 75 personas en el equipo, más de 2 millones de miembros, y más de mil millones de dólares ahorrados en tarifas aéreas durante los últimos ocho años.

Nuestros ingresos mensuales son de alrededor de $320,000. Nuestros gastos que no son laborales son casi enteramente para alojamiento web y correo electrónico más varios software.

El trato original: $130 Nueva York a Milán
Suscriptores actuales: 2M+
Ingresos mensuales: $320k
Tamaño del equipo: 75
Ahorro total en tarifas aéreas para miembros: $1B+

Key Takeaways

Los grandes negocios pueden comenzar como pasatiempos resolviendo tus propios problemas

Los boletines por correo electrónico pueden escalar a ingresos recurrentes masivos

El boca a boca es poderoso cuando entregas valor excepcional

No necesitas ser un tipo fundador, la pasión puede llevarte allí

Originally published onMercury Blog

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Scott's Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) playbook into your next test.

See what it covers before you sign up: the pattern worth copying, the channel to test, and the risk to avoid when you adapt this story.

Pattern

$100K ARR

Channel

Boca a Boca

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Scott's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from Boca a Boca
A risk check before copying the Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) playbook

See what a proof brief covers

See what it covers first. Create an account only if you choose to unlock.

Inspired by Scott's journey? Generate a business idea in the Viajes space using AI and real founder data.

Milestone Journey

Scott achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR

Primer Cliente

1 year

August 2015

Avg: 3 months

+1 year to next milestone

$10K MRR

$10,000

2 years

August 2016

Avg: 1 year

+3 years to next milestone

$100K ARR

$3,840,000

5 years

August 2019

Avg: 3 years

5 years

Total journey time

Milestones achieved

Scott's Path to $100K ARRPremium

The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone

How Scott actually did it

7/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Scott's own published sources. Quoted claims are the founder's words, verified verbatim; anything marked as our analysis is exactly that.

Where the idea came from

Audience request

After Scott landed a $130 nonstop NYC-to-Milan deal in 2013, coworkers kept asking him to flag the next great fare, so he started a simple Mailchimp list to alert everyone at once rather than track people individually.

“coworker after coworker asked me to let them know next time I found a fare like that so they could get in on it, too. So rather than try to remember each person I was supposed to alert, I decided to start a simple MailChimp email list instead so I could alert everyone at once.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Validation

Validated before building

Talking to usersValidated5000 signups

The list grew organically through word of mouth for about 18 months (a few dozen friends to hundreds), and Scott treated crossing 5,000 subscribers as the signal that there was a real business here, not just a hobby.

Scott has said that hitting 5,000 subscribers was the moment he decided to turn the hobby into a for-profit startup.

“When it hit 5,000 subscribers, I realized it was time to turn Scott's Cheap Flights from a hobby into a for-profit startup.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

First test users

Personal networkFree testers

The first subscribers were friends and coworkers who personally asked Scott to let them know about his next cheap-flight find, so he put them on a simple email list.

“So rather than try to remember each person I was supposed to alert, I decided to start a simple MailChimp email list instead so I could alert everyone at once.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

First paying customer

Existing audienceFree to paid upgrade$2

The first paying customers were existing free subscribers who were offered a premium tier at a deliberately low $2/month with a money-back guarantee so price wasn't a barrier for early adopters.

“We launched the premium service at a super-low price point — $2/month — and included extensive money-back guarantees so no potential early adopters would be deterred by price.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

Word of MouthScalingWorked~44% of growth

Word of mouth was cultivated deliberately: fast, generous customer support rather than spending on ads.

“But given that we had a product people liked, we went all-in on customer service.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Scott's own explanation is that people trust friends' recommendations far more than advertising.

“People don't trust ads; people trust their friends.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Communities · Reddit (r/IAmA, r/entrepreneur)ScalingWorked

Scott ran Reddit AMAs on r/IAmA and r/entrepreneur that hit the front page; one crashed the website with a signup spike right after the site launched.

“Scott went on Reddit and did an AMA, which crashed the website and once again created a huge spike in sign ups.”

Indie Hackers AMA: Scott Keyes and Brian Kidwell, co-founders of Scott's Cheap Flights

He credits Reddit's niche communities and treats it as a two-way relationship: contribute genuinely (answering flight questions for free) rather than just self-promoting.

“First, Reddit is an incredibly powerful resource.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Other · Press coverage (Business Insider)Pre-launchWorked

A friend who worked at Business Insider passed the story to a colleague, who wrote a viral article linking to Scott's email list, taking it from 300 to 5,000 subscribers overnight.

“A friend of mine who worked at Business Insider flagged it for a colleague, who wound up writing an article that went viral. The article included a link to my rinkydink email list, and literally overnight it went from 300 subscribers to 5,000.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Scott attributes the spike to a mix of preparation and luck rather than a repeatable PR strategy.

“Getting those early subscribers was equal parts skill and luck.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Paid AdsFirst customersAbandoned

Rather than test paid acquisition, the team deliberately chose to reinvest into customer support instead of ad spend.

“And instead of putting money into ads, we put money into hiring customer support folks instead.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

What didn't work

TeamLaunchCost: time

Scott stayed the sole flight searcher too long, out of pride and fear of hiring, and pushed himself close to burnout before bringing on other flight searchers.

“I took myself to the edge of burnout before being willing to bring other flight searchers onto the team and trust that they could do the work as well”

Indie Hackers AMA: Scott Keyes and Brian Kidwell, co-founders of Scott's Cheap Flights

What they did instead: Hired additional flight searchers and let go of doing all the deal-hunting himself

OpsScaling

The company scaled back international coverage, dropping flights departing non-US airports (including Canada), because the team lacked the capacity to do it well.

“we just didn't have the man/woman power to feel like we were doing a good job covering flights departing everywhere around the world”

Reddit AMA (mirrored): "I'm Scott from Scott's Cheap Flights" - book launch / $202 Japan flights AMA

What they did instead: Narrowed to covering flights departing 168 US airports only

How it changed as they grew

At launch: 1 person (Just Scott, running the list as a side hustle alongside his freelance journalism job)

Today: 75 people (75-person team, 2M+ members (as described in a 2023 interview))

Bootstrapped

Pricing new tier: Free only → $2/month premium tier

Scott started charging once the free list outgrew Mailchimp's free tier and he wanted to at least cover the $50/month Mailchimp would otherwise charge him.

“I started thinking how I could try to recoup the $50/month Mailchimp wanted to charge me and just breakeven”

Reddit AMA (mirrored): "I'm Scott from Scott's Cheap Flights" - book launch / $202 Japan flights AMA

Pricing increase

Scott came to see periodic price increases as a positive lever, while grandfathering existing subscribers on their original price.

“One surprising piece of advice is that price increases are your friend.”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

What broke as they grew

As the list grew from thousands to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, Scott repeatedly had to switch email service providers and scale server capacity to keep sending reliably.

“What works for a 5,000 person email list doesn't work as well for a 50,000 person email list, and certainly not for a 500,000 strong list. We've had to switch email carriers, upgrade our server capacity beyond what I ever thought would be necessary”

Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business

Sources (4 in the founder's own words)

Mercury Blog: Q&A with Scott Keyes, founder & chief flight expert of Going · third party · 2023-05
Going.com: The Scott's Cheap Flights Story (company timeline page) · third party
Indie Hackers: Scott's Cheap Flights - From Small Side Project to Booming Business · founder-authored · 2017-06
Indie Hackers AMA: Scott Keyes and Brian Kidwell, co-founders of Scott's Cheap Flights · founder-authored · 2018-05
Reddit AMA (mirrored): "I'm Scott from Scott's Cheap Flights" - 2020 travel resolution AMA · founder-authored · 2020-01
Reddit AMA (mirrored): "I'm Scott from Scott's Cheap Flights" - book launch / $202 Japan flights AMA · founder-authored · 2021-05
CNBC: How a 29-year-old turned an obsession with cheap plane tickets into a $1 million business in under 2 years · third party · 2016-11

Launch Strategy

How they introduced the product to the world

Soft Launch

Initial go-to-market approach

Low risk — lets you iterate quietly

Validation

How they tested demand before building

Hablar con Usuarios

Method used to confirm market interest

Launch Pricing

Price point when the product first launched

Gratis

Initial pricing strategy

Common for building initial traction

Starting Audience

Whether they had followers before launch

Started from Zero

Built audience alongside the product

63% of founders in our database started from zero

Time Investment

Average weekly hours during building phase

60 hrs

per week on average

Full-time dedication

Initial Investment

Capital required to get started

Bootstrapped with sweat equity only

Most founders in our database bootstrap

Biggest Challenge

Transitar de pasatiempo a negocio y contratar un equipo

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Frequently asked questions

How much does Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) make?

Going (Scott's Cheap Flights)'s current revenue is not publicly tracked. The story documents the journey to $100k arr (achieved in 5 years), but the founder has not published updated revenue figures.

What is Going (Scott's Cheap Flights)?

Boletín de correo electrónico y aplicación que envía ofertas de vuelos baratos y tarifas de error a suscriptores. It operates in Viajes.

How long did it take Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) to reach $100k arr?

Scott Keyes took 5 years to reach $100k arr with Going (Scott's Cheap Flights).

Was Scott Keyes a solo founder?

No. Scott Keyes built Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) with co-founders.

What marketing channel did Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) use to grow?

Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) grew primarily through Boca a Boca.

What industry is Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) in?

Going (Scott's Cheap Flights) operates in Viajes.

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The Full Story

TL;DR

Scott encontró un vuelo redondo de $130 a Milán y convirtió su pasatiempo de búsqueda de vuelos en un negocio de 2M+ suscriptores.

Nunca tuve la intención de ser fundador. Solo era un tipo pobre recién salido de la universidad, queriendo visitar Europa, y cada vez que buscaba vuelos, parecían costar $1,000 o más.