Founder stories
Online teacher productivity SaaS that automates student feedback for ESL teachers.
How Arvid acquired customers
Tools used to build FeedbackPanda
Arvid and his partner Danielle built FeedbackPanda for online ESL teachers, reaching $55K MRR before selling for a life-changing amount.
Arvid Kahl co-founded, bootstrapped, and sold FeedbackPanda, an online teacher productivity SaaS, with his partner Danielle Simpson.
Danielle was working as an online ESL teacher and experienced the pain of writing repetitive student feedback. This gave Arvid the perfect problem to solve.
FeedbackPanda got its first users from a single comment in a Facebook Group for online teachers. The teachers immediately understood the value because it solved their daily pain point.
Within two years, FeedbackPanda grew from zero to $55,000 MRR with 5,000 paying customers. They achieved this without hiring a single employee.
In 2019, they sold FeedbackPanda for a life-changing amount. Arvid then started sharing his learnings through The Bootstrapped Founder blog and podcast.
Arvid believes bootstrapping is a desirable, value-generating way of running a company. Not every business needs venture capital to succeed—most are better off without investor expectations of hyper-growth.
Solve a problem you can observe directly (partner was a user)
Facebook Groups can be your first distribution channel
Bootstrapping lets you build without investor pressure
Document your journey - it becomes valuable content later
Inspired by Arvid's journey? Generate a business idea in the Education space using AI and real founder data.
Arvid achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
$10,000
$660,000
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
See the complete breakdown: launch strategy, validation methods, startup costs, expert analysis, replication playbook, and more actionable insights.
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