Founder stories
Founder stories
Browse Stories
21 stories found
JI
James Ivings
how leave me alone reached $10k mrr by unsubscribing people from spam in the open
James Ivings and Danielle Johnson launched a one-click email unsubscribe tool on Product Hunt in 2019, then grew it to around $10k MRR while publishing every metric on a public open-startup page.
$10K MRR in 7 years·Team
SaaSProductividad🌍 Remote
Andrew Mason
Descript: The Groupon Founder Who Built a $550M AI Video Editor by Editing Audio Like Text
After founding Groupon ($16B IPO) and watching it unravel, Andrew Mason built Descript — an AI video editor that lets you edit media by editing text. He acquired a voice-cloning AI startup and rebuilt the product from scratch.
$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSCreación de Contenido🇺🇸 US
Nadav Keyson
Riverside: From a Failed Debating Platform to $80M in Funding — How Two Brothers Built the Go-To Podcast Recording Tool
Nadav and Gideon Keyson, two Dutch-Israeli brothers, failed with a live debating platform nobody watched. They pivoted to remote podcast recording, launched on Product Hunt with 2 paying customers, and landed Hillary Clinton within 6 months.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Team
SaaSCreación de Contenido🇺🇸 US
AU
Andres Ugarte
Solo Founder Builds Apple Design Award Finalist Finance App
Andres Ugarte started building Copilot Money in 2018, creating a native iOS finance app that became an Apple Design Award finalist.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
App MóvilFinanzas🇺🇸 US
Guillaume Moubeche
Guillaume Moubeche Bootstrapped Lemlist from $0 to $250K ARR in 365 Days
Guillaume and two technical co-founders built Lemlist, reaching $250K ARR in one year with $0 in funding through Product Hunt and AppSumo.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSMarketing🇫🇷 FR
AJ
AJ Built Carrd to $1M+ ARR as a Solo Side Project
AJ built Carrd as the most ambitious solo project he had ever taken on, spending about a year on it to test if people wanted one-page websites. Now it powers 3.3M+ sites with 2.2M+ users.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSDiseño🇺🇸 US
Joshua Xu & Wayne Liang
HeyGen: From Snapchat Engineer to 40K Enterprise Customers with AI Video
Joshua Xu left Snapchat to build HeyGen, growing to 40K+ enterprise customers and $35M+ revenue with AI-generated video avatars.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Fabrizio Bianchi
How a Weekend Project Became a 3M+ User Color Tool
Fabrizio Bianchi built Coolors in a weekend in 2014, and it grew to 3M+ users through viral simplicity.
$10K MRR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSDiseño🇮🇹 IT
Nathan Latka
Podcast Host Turns Interview Data into $150K MRR SaaS in 100 Days
Nathan turned his podcast interview data into Getlatka, reaching $20K/month in 100 days and $150K MRR within a year.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Julien Nahum
Bootstrapped a Notion form builder from $0 to $10K MRR in one year
Julien built NotionForms to solve his own problem, reaching $10K MRR in 12 months through Product Hunt and SEO.
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSProductividad🇫🇷 FR
Guilherme Rizzo
21-Year-Old Self-Taught Brazilian Developer Makes $100K with CSS Extension
I'm from Brazil and built CSS Scan because I always wanted to know what border-radius, box-shadow, or font-family an element I see has. Fast Progre...
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Extensión de ChromeHerramientas para DesarrolladoresBrazil (now Taiwan)
Robin Vander Heyden
ManyPixels
Unlimited Design for $359/Month: Productized Service to $60K MRR
Robin didn't have a job and decided to launch a productized service offering unlimited design work for a fixed fee per month. Rapid Growth He gr...
$100K ARR in 4 months·Team
Agencia / ServicioDiseño🇺🇸 US
Alexander Isora
How I built a landing page builder to $10K MRR as a solo founder
I've created 20+ products over the years. Unicorn Platform was the one that really got off the ground. I don't have any KPI or growth goals. I'm not c...
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSHerramientas para Desarrolladores🇺🇦 UA
AB
Alex Belogubov
From Failed Launch to $10K MRR and 6-Figure Exit
Alex initially launched Replyze in October 2023 on Product Hunt, but it was unsuccessful. Ready to sell for $20-25K, he received an interesting offer....
$10K MRR in 8 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Adriaan van Rossum
Privacy-First Analytics: From Tenerife Idea to $100K ARR
Adriaan van Rossum came up with the idea for Simple Analytics while on holiday in Tenerife. He wanted to build a privacy-first analytics tool as fast...
$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSHerramientas para Desarrolladores🇳🇱 NL
Ivan Zhao
Rebuilt the product 4 times, moved to Japan, now $567M ARR
We rebuilt Notion 4 times before it worked. At one point, we moved to Japan to rewrite the entire tech stack. Now we're at $567M ARR with 30M+ users....
$100K ARR in 8 years·Team
SaaSProductividad🇺🇸 US
Joe Thomas
Near bankruptcy to 10M users after pivoting based on Product Hunt launch
We were near bankruptcy when we launched on Product Hunt. 3,000 signups in 24 hours saved the company. We pivoted from usability tests to video record...
$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSCreación de Contenido🇺🇸 US
Grant Lee
60K users in 8 months, then 60K more in 1 week after adding AI
Gamma grew steadily to 60K users over about 2.5 years. Then we added AI, and over the following 2.5 years grew to 70M users. Now at $100M ARR. The...
$100K ARR in 6 years·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
AJ
$1K on launch day to $1M ARR with zero marketing spend
Carrd launched on Product Hunt and made $1K on day one. It grew to over $1M ARR with absolutely zero marketing spend. The Launch Product Hunt la...
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSProductividad🇺🇸 US
Justin Jackson
From $33 to $30K MRR in 1 year - achieved 5-year goal in 12 months
Transistor went from our first $33 customer to $30K MRR in just one year. We achieved what we thought would take 5 years. Product Hunt Success W...
$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
SaaSCreación de Contenido🇺🇸 US
Marie Martens
Built a $3M ARR form builder with 800,000+ users and an 8-person team
Tally grew to more than 800,000 creators and $3M ARR with an 8-person team (4 full-time, 4 part-time). The secret? Product-led growth with viral loops...
$100K ARR in 5 years·Team
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Browse by Industry
Explore founder stories in your niche
Hit a revenue milestone?
Share your journey and inspire other founders. We'd love to feature your story.
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.
Never miss a new founder story
We add 5+ new stories every week. Get them delivered to your inbox along with insights on what's working for founders right now.