Solo founder bootstraps Airtable API tool to $10K MRR in 2 years

Data Fetcher recently hit $10k MRR. It's still 100% bootstrapped with one full-time team member (me!).

Background

I studied engineering at university but always wanted to have my own business. After graduating, I worked for startups in London as a software developer while launching my own ideas on the side. One project, a TikTok influencer directory, made some MRR and I sold it for $55K.

The Idea

I was trawling Product Hunt when I came across API Connector for Google Sheets. It had 100,000+ installs. Having run into issues importing data into Airtable, I decided to build the same thing for Airtable.

I dug around the Airtable forums and found posts from people trying to connect to third-party APIs. This was enough validation.

Development & Launch

I kept the feature set minimal. The MVP let you sign up, enter API details, and run requests manually or on schedule. When I launched on Product Hunt, I credited API Connector's founder Ana with initial inspiration - she was super supportive.

The Grind to $10K

The launch got about 10 customers in the first month with <$200 MRR. Growth was slow but steady. After going full-time and improving the product continuously, I hit $10K MRR about 2 years after launch.