Founder stories
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One-time payment Business Stories
61 founders with One-time payment businesses
Key Statistics
Stories
61
Avg Time
1 year
Fastest
0 days
Solo
72%
Top growth channel
SEO / Content (17)
Pieter Levels
How I turned a spreadsheet into a $2M+/year business as a solo founder
In 2013, I sold all my possessions, packed a backpack and a laptop, and flew to Thailand to begin my digital nomad life. I was once a lost musician ea...
$456K/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSTravel🌍 Remote
Ben Tossell
From Product Hunt employee to building and selling Makerpad
After leaving Product Hunt, I wanted to teach people how to build without code - the skills I had learned myself. The Launch I launched Makerpad...
$1K MRR in 1 month·Solo
Info productDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Cory Zue
How I built a $10K+ MRR boilerplate business as a side project
SaaS Pegasus started as a side project while I had a full-time job. It's a Django boilerplate that saves developers weeks of setup time. The Origin...
$105K/yr·$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
Info productDeveloper tools🇿🇦 ZA
Monica Lent
From free newsletter to $50K+ in community memberships
I started Blogging for Devs as a free newsletter teaching developers how to grow their blogs. It evolved into a paid community, with free courses as l...
$24K/yr·$1K MRR in 2 months·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Justin Welsh
From SVP panic attack to $5M/year solo with 89% profit margin
I was SVP of Sales when I had a panic attack from burnout. I quit to build a solo business. Now I make $5M/year with 89% profit margin and zero ads....
$6.4M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Brian Dean
Failed with first 5 businesses, created Skyscraper Technique, acquired by Semrush
I failed with my first 5 online businesses before Backlinko worked. Created the "Skyscraper Technique" which became an industry standard. Eventually a...
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Pat Flynn
Fired Architect Creates LEED Exam eBook, Builds Multi-Million Dollar Brand
Pat Flynn was fired as an architect in 2008. He launched an ebook about the LEED exam based on his own study materials. The Pivot That first inf...
$1.9M/yr·$10K MRR in 2 months·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
James Clear
Habits Writer Builds 3M+ Subscriber Newsletter Worth $20M+
James Clear has been writing about habits and continuous improvement since 2012. In year one, his list went from 0 to 30,000 subscribers. Slow Buil...
$10K MRR in 5 years·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
Tiago Forte
Productivity Expert Launches Cohort Course, Builds $5M/Year Business
Tiago Forte 'rage quit' consulting with a month of savings. He created a course on SkillShare that became 2 on the platform. Cohort Model After...
$2.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Sahil Bloom
Private Equity Analyst Builds 800K Newsletter During COVID, $70K/Month
Sahil Bloom was working at a private equity firm when March 2020 hit. Instead of 70+ hour weeks, he was suddenly at home. COVID Opportunity He h...
$840K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
Ryan Holiday
Author Revives Ancient Philosophy with Daily Email to 320K+ Subscribers
Building on the success of The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday launched Daily Stoic in 2016. Daily Consistency Each morning, Ryan sends a shor...
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
Ben Thompson
Growth Engineer Launches Tech Analysis Newsletter, Builds $3M Business
Ben Thompson founded Stratechery in March 2013 from Taipei while working at Microsoft. Accidental Format He introduced paid daily updates in 201...
$5M/yr·$1K MRR in 7 months·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
Dickie Bush
Writer Creates 30-Day Challenge, Grows to 4,000 Students and Millions in Revenue
In December 2020, Dickie Bush tweeted: 'is anyone interested in doing a daily writing challenge for 30 days?' Rapid Validation Six days after th...
$500K/yr·$100K ARR in 6 months·Team
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
David Perell
Writer Launches Online Writing Course, $200K+ from First Two Cohorts
David Perell launched Write of Passage in April 2019 with ~150 students at $600. He ran it with Tiago Forte. Instant Success Even the first coho...
0$100K ARR in 3 months·Team
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Kieran Drew
Ex-Dentist Turned Copywriter, $142K Course Launch at $297
Kieran Drew quit dentistry on 2 September 2021 to write online full time, and launched High Impact Writing in May 2023. Premium Pricing He launc...
$100K ARR in 7 days·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Ali Abdaal
Medical Student Creates YouTube Content, $294K First Course Launch
Ali Abdaal started making YouTube videos in 2017 during his final year of medical school at Cambridge. The Grind He uploaded 85 videos with 0 vi...
$6M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Ramit Sethi
Blogger Waits 2 Years to Launch $4.95 eBook, Now Runs $10M+ Business
Ramit Sethi waited two years before creating his first product, building audience to 50,000 visitors per month first. First Product His first pr...
First customer in 2 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Marie Forleo
Business Coach Launches B-School, First Million-Dollar Launch in Year Two
Marie Forleo, along with Laura Roeder, created B-School. The first year enrolled a few hundred students. Fun Marketing The marketing broke all r...
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
DK
Dan Kulkov, Sveta Bay
Couple Makes $60K Helping Solopreneurs with AI Marketing Wrapper
My co-founder and I built FounderPal.ai, an AI marketing strategy tool for solopreneurs. The initial version only incurred a monthly cost of $150....
$215K/yr·$1K MRR in 1 month·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
GG
Gourav Goyal
Open-source Notion extension earns $9K+ while staying free to use
Built to solve his own problem with Notion navigation, Gourav kept Notion Boost open-source while still earning $9K+ through premium features.
First customer in 1 days·Solo
Chrome extensionProductivity🇮🇳 IN
Sergiu Chiriac
Solo dev builds AI directory of directories to $10K revenue in one year
Sergiu created a meta-directory listing AI tool directories, reaching $10K revenue by helping AI startups get discovered.
$60K/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
MarketplaceMarketing🇷🇴 RO
Dagobert Renouf
Left $100K dev job to bootstrap a logo startup with his wife
Dagobert quit his high-paying job to build Logology with his designer wife, growing from $300 to $3K/month using only Twitter.
$1K MRR in 3 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇫🇷 FR
MC
Mike Carson
How I built a $125K/month solo business by automating everything
Started as scripts to catch domains for myself. Two years later, $125K/month revenue with zero employees.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Daniel Vassallo
How I quit my $500K Amazon job and built $1M in revenue through small bets
Left Amazon with 150 Twitter followers. Three years later, $1M in cumulative revenue from info products and community.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Marie Poulin
From YouTube Tips to $40K/Month Teaching Notion
Marie discovered Notion in 2018 and started sharing tips on YouTube. When her audience asked for a course, she launched Notion Mastery to $40K/month.
$480K/yr·$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇨🇦 CA
Steph Smith
Doing Content Right
Trends content lead sells $28K of her guide in launch month
Steph leveraged her experience leading content at The Hustle to launch Doing Content Right, selling $28,414 in the launch month and $47,014 in the first three months.
First customer in 0 days·Solo
Info productEducation🌍 Remote
P
Prince
21-Year-Old Indian Developer Makes $3.5K in 2 Months Selling AI Chrome Extension Source Code
Prince built Helper-AI and earned $3.5K in 2 months by selling the source code on Gumroad - without a large following.
$1K MRR in 8 months·Solo
Chrome extensionAI / ML🇮🇳 IN
Jesse Mecham
Broke College Student Builds Spreadsheet Into Multi-Million Dollar Business
Jesse Mecham built a simple spreadsheet to manage money with his wife. That spreadsheet became YNAB, now used by millions worldwide.
$49M/yr·$10K MRR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
DP
Danny Postma
Danny Postma: From 7-Figure Headlime Exit to Building HeadshotPro
After selling his AI writing tool Headlime for 7 figures in 8 months, Danny Postma built HeadshotPro - now serving 196,000+ customers.
$3.6M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇳🇱 NL
Steve Kamb
Nerd Fitness: Building a 7-Figure Business for Fitness Misfits
Steve Kamb turned his nerdy approach to fitness into a 7-figure business, starting from around 3,500 email subscribers near his first $10K MRR milestone.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
Info productHealth & wellness🇺🇸 US
Marc Chapon
Dropshipping Store (Pets Niche)
From Restaurant Manager to $178K in 3 Months with Dropshipping
Marc Chapon quit restaurant management and built a pet store doing $178,492 in 3 months by dropshipping US/EU products.
$10K MRR in 3 months·Solo
OtherE-commerceMorocco
CA
Cody Arsenault
From 5 Failed Stores to $1 Million in Dropshipping Revenue in One Year
After failing multiple dropshipping stores, Cody Arsenault finally cracked the code: proper branding, niche focus, and relentless ad testing led to $1M in his first successful year.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
OtherE-commerce🇨🇦 CA
Satya Rajpurohit
How ITF Built a $2M/Year Font Empire for Indian Languages
Satya Rajpurohit co-founded Indian Type Foundry in 2009 and now designs fonts for Apple, Google, Samsung, and 300+ Fortune 500 clients.
$2M/yr·$100K ARR in 10 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇮🇳 IN
Pieter Omvlee
Nine Years of Side Project to Design Tool That Challenged Adobe: The Sketch Story
Pieter Omvlee started Sketch in college, took 9 years to ship it, and built the tool that dethroned Photoshop for UI design.
$100K ARR in 9 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇳🇱 NL
Tiago Forte
From Voice Disorder to a $1M+ Productivity Course Taken by 50,000 People
Tiago Forte developed his note-taking system to cope with a debilitating voice disorder. That personal system became Building a Second Brain, the world's most popular personal knowledge management course.
$2.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
Info productProductivitySan Francisco, CA
Zeno Rocha
From Hospital Bed to $250K: How a Dark Theme Became a Design Business
Zeno Rocha created the Dracula color theme in 2013 while hospitalized in Germany, after his laptop was stolen from his hospital room. Seven years and 3 million downloads later, he launched a paid version, and made $5K in 72 hours.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
OtherDesignBrazil → USA
Ben Francis
How a 19-Year-Old Pizza Delivery Driver Built Gymshark into a $1.45B Fitness Empire
Ben Francis was delivering pizzas when he started screen-printing fitness apparel in his garage. By partnering with YouTube fitness influencers, he turned Gymshark into a £1.45B brand.
$814M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
OtherE-commerce🇬🇧 GB
Robert Janezic
how a product designer made $53k selling two figma files
Robert Janezic spent six months building a Figma UI kit for Tableau dashboards, then sold it as a one-time download. He says two files brought in $53k over 506 days, all in his spare time.
$37K/yr·$1K MRR in 4 months·Solo
Info productDesign
Ramish
how ramish reached $32k in his first full year selling framer templates
A designer in Dubai left client work, committed to one model, and turned consistent Framer template launches into $32,908 across 2025 despite a $49 month.
$71K/yr·$1K MRR in 1 year·Solo
Info productDesignDubai, UAE
Juanjo Valiño
how juanjo valiño turned a repeated-code problem into a $15k month with wrapfast
After shipping 15+ iOS apps, Juanjo bundled the boring repeated code into a SwiftUI boilerplate called WrapFast, made $750 on day one, and rode a Black Friday surge to his first $15k month.
$180K/yr·$10K MRR in 9 months·Solo
OtherDeveloper toolsGalicia, Spain
ML
Michael Lynch
how michael lynch bootstrapped tinypilot to nearly $1m and sold it for $598k
After two money-losing years out of Google, Michael Lynch built TinyPilot in his third year as an indie founder, grew it to roughly $1M in annual sales, and sold it for $598,000.
sold for $598K·$100K ARR in 6 months·Solo
OtherDeveloper toolsWestern Massachusetts, USA
Max Schmitt
how a solo dev sold 239 copies of his invoicing app in 2025
Max Schmitt has built Cakedesk, a one-time-purchase invoicing app, as a side project since late 2021. In its fourth year it sold 239 new licenses, up from about 170 the year before.
$16K/yr·$1K MRR in 2 years·Solo
OtherFinance🇩🇪 DE
Thomas Frank
how thomas frank made $1m/year selling notion templates
After a decade making content, Thomas Frank made $1 million in a single year selling Notion templates, with the line peaking at $100k a month in one-time template sales.
First customer in 0 days·Solo
Info productProductivityColorado, USA
SR
Sergi Ruiz
how a personalized map shop quietly made over 500k as a side project
Sergi Ruiz and his wife launched Mapness in 2017 selling custom map prints. Organic Instagram posts grew into a six-figure pandemic peak, then a slow fade.
$9K/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
OtherE-commerce🇪🇸 ES
G"
Giacomo "Peldi" Guilizzoni
Selling wireframing software before the official launch
Peldi Guilizzoni launched Balsamiq as a one-person wireframing tool, got a sale before launch, and passed $100K in total revenue in less than five months.
First customer in 0 days·Solo
SaaSDesignBologna, Italy
AP
Amy Porterfield
From a $267 first launch to a $120 million course business
Her first digital course made $267 and she cried about it. Sixteen years later she reports a $120 million business built on relaunching the same courses.
$100K ARR in 6 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Brian Balfour
Brian Balfour ran Reforge on customer money for five years before he raised anything
Reforge started as a weekend side project Brian Balfour ran while still at HubSpot. Five years later it was profitable with eight figures of revenue, and only then did he take outside money.
$30M/yr·First customer in 4 months·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Chris Meade
Chris Meade emptied a $7,000 401k into volleyball nets and sold them out of a trunk
Chris Meade pulled about $7,000 out of his 401k, spent all of it on inventory, and sold nets off the sand on Venmo. Eight years later CROSSNET had passed $35 million in sales and was acquired.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Dawson Whitfield
How Dawson Whitfield went from a Google Trends tab to $70,000 in a month with Logojoy
A designer who had made about 150 client logos built his own logo maker in two and a half months, launched it on Product Hunt, and made nearly $70,000 in February 2017.
$100K ARR in 6 months·Solo
SaaSDesign🇨🇦 CA
DK
Deepak Kanakaraju
Deepak Kanakaraju blogged for three years before asking anyone for money, then pre-sold 250 copies of a course that did not exist
Deepak Kanakaraju spent three years writing at DigitalDeepak.com without selling anything. In August 2016 he published an outline for a course he had not made, emailed his list, and took 250 pre-orders in a week.
First customer in 3 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇮🇳 IN
Ezra Firestone
How Ezra Firestone turned $434,256 of ads into $1.4 million in a single month
BOOM! by Cindy Joseph made almost nothing for four years. Then Firestone published the exact numbers behind a month where $434,256.72 of advertising produced $1,422,500.15 in sales.
$20M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Gretta van Riel
How Gretta van Riel turned $24 and an Instagram account into $600,000 a month
Gretta van Riel started SkinnyMe Tea in May 2012 with $24 in her bank account, while still working a full time marketing job. She says the brand was doing $600,000 a month within six months of launching.
$100K ARR in 6 months·Solo
OtherE-commerce🇦🇺 AU
JK
Jake Karls
How Mid-Day Squares sold 500,000 bars in its first 11 months
Jake Karls and his two co-founders started making chocolate bars by hand in a condo kitchen in August 2018. Eleven months in he posted that they had sold 500,000 of them.
$20M/yr·$100K ARR in 9 months·Team
OtherE-commerce🇨🇦 CA
Jason Leow
How Jason Leow's coding practice turned into Plugins For Carrd
Jason Leow built tiny Vue apps to teach himself to code, then noticed they filled gaps in Carrd. Three months of free plugins later he charged for the first one, and year one closed at $1,099.
$5K/yr·$100 MRR in 4 months·Solo
OtherDesign🇸🇬 SG
Josh Comeau
How Josh Comeau pre-sold $577,000 of a half-finished CSS course in one week
A repetitive strain injury pushed Josh Comeau out of a $165,000 engineering job. Seven months later he opened pre-orders for an unfinished CSS course, aimed at $50,000, and closed the week at $577,000.
$100K ARR in 8 months·Solo
Info productEducation
Justin Mares
Justin Mares took nearly $500 in two weeks before Kettle & Fire had any bone broth to sell
Before quitting his job in April 2014, Justin Mares put a $29.99 bone broth page online with a PayPal checkout and about $50 of Bing ads. Two weeks later he had taken nearly $500 for a product that did not exist.
$100M/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
MB
Mike Beckham
Six months of research, then the first Simple Modern bottle sold
Mike Beckham and two co-founders put $200,000 into a drinkware brand competing with Yeti. The first bottle sold about six months later, and 24 million followed in seven years.
$200M/yr·First customer in 7 months·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
MC
Mike Cessario
Mike Cessario spent 14 months building an audience for Liquid Death before there was a can to sell
Liquid Death was a Facebook page and a fake commercial for over a year before it was a product. By the time the first cans shipped in January 2019, the brand already had 100,000 followers and less than $10k of paid media behind it.
$263M/yr·First customer in 1 year·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Moiz Ali
Native sold 60 deodorants before it owned a single one
Moiz Ali launched Native on Product Hunt in July 2015 with no inventory, no factory and a formula bought from an Etsy seller. He placed his first production order only after 60 units were already sold.
sold for $100M·First customer in 1 days·Solo
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Peter Askew
He bought an expired domain for $2,200, then went looking for a farmer
Peter Askew won VidaliaOnions.com at auction with a bid he expected to lose, spent a month working out what to do with it, then partnered with a Georgia onion farmer. They forecast 50 orders in season one and shipped over 600.
First customer in 1 month·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
RB
Ryan Bartlett
$26,000 in month one: how Ryan Bartlett started True Classic as a side project
Three friends put a few thousand dollars into a t-shirt brand in late 2019. Bartlett says the first month brought $26,000 and 651 orders.
$10K MRR in 1 month·Team
OtherE-commerce🇺🇸 US
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Quick Stats
Stories61
Avg Time1 year
Fastest0 days
Technical48%