Allison Seboldt had been toying with the idea of Fantasy Congress for years. As a fantasy football fan and Political Science major, she wondered if fantasy sports gameplay could be applied to politics.

The Free MVP (2018)

In 2018, during the midterm elections, Allison launched a completely free MVP with just 20 people on her mailing list. The platform let players draft real members of Congress who earned points based on legislative activity - speaking on the House/Senate floor, introducing bills, getting news mentions.

A critical moment came when a huge spike in users crashed the site. This made her realize people valued it enough to potentially pay. "Without that crash, I probably would have given up on the project."

Two Years to First Dollar (February 2020)

After working on Fantasy Congress for 2 years while teaching herself to code, Allison launched the paid version on February 10, 2020. Her email list had grown from 20 to 1,900 people.

• $257 revenue
• 21 paying members
• Very quiet launch (just social media posts and emails)

Her email open rates mysteriously dropped from 40% to 12-17%, which she believes cost her half her initial customers.

The COVID Pivot (June 2020)

When Allison lost her day job due to COVID-19, it became a blessing in disguise. She went full-time on Fantasy Congress, focusing on features for educators who could use it as a civics teaching tool.

The $1K Breakthrough (September 2020)

After months of experimentation, September 2020 became her first $1,000 revenue month ($1,196 total). She had been running Facebook ads ($435 spent, 5 purchases) and the strategy was finally clicking.

"This was huge for me - it proved the concept could generate $1K/month."

Best Month Ever (January 2021)

• $2,074 total revenue
• $823 MRR
• 20 new customers, 6 churns
• 7 schools bought annual plans
• Made 1/3 of total 2020 revenue in one month

The key insight: educators would pay $100+ for annual plans upfront. She started accepting purchase orders from schools.

The Challenges

Building Fantasy Congress meant wrestling with messy government data: "I don't even know how to begin expressing the struggle of working with government data. Different systems, different IDs, poor documentation, sometimes incorrect data."

She also faced the challenge of marketing a product that doesn't fit neatly into existing categories - not quite a game, not quite educational software.

• Free MVP: 2018
• First paid customer: February 2020
• First $1K month: September 2020
• Best month: January 2021 ($2,074)
• Peak MRR: ~$894