Founder stories
Browse Stories
Co-Founderss Using Communities
53 Co-Founderss who succeeded with Communities
Key Statistics
Stories
53
Avg Time
2 years
Fastest
1 days
Solo
0%
Top growth channel
Communities (53)
KY
Kalo Yankulov
From idea to exit: How I launched, grew and sold my first micro SaaS
Back in late 2016, we launched HeadReach, a sales tool for lead generation. It's a SaaS that helps you find emails of people you want to sell to. Thin...
$1K MRR in 3 months·Team
SaaSMarketing🇧🇬 BG
Arvid Kahl
From $0 to $55K MRR in 2 years, then a life-changing exit
My partner Danielle was an online English teacher. Every day after teaching, she'd spend hours writing personalized feedback for each student. I watch...
$10K MRR in 2 years·Team
SaaSEducation🇩🇪 DE
Rob Walling
Bootstrapped to acquisition: Drip sold to Leadpages
I bootstrapped Drip from zero to acquisition by Leadpages. The key was focusing on a specific niche and building in public. The Pivot Drip start...
$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Uku Täht
Built a privacy-first analytics tool to $3.1M ARR with 10 people
Plausible grew to $3.1M ARR as a privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. The privacy focus isn't a gimmick - it's our core value. The Slow S...
$3.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Wade Foster
Found customers in help forums, charged $100 for beta, built to $140M ARR
Zapier started by finding customers in help forums. We charged $100 for beta access to filter for committed users. With only $1.4M in funding, we buil...
$420M/yr·$100K ARR in 10 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Lukas Hermann
Built first version in a weekend, now €20K MRR with 85% profit margin
Stagetimer started as a weekend project. I posted it on Reddit and it took off. Now doing €20K MRR with 85% profit margin. The Reddit Launch I b...
$300K/yr·$10K MRR in 3 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
Paul Copplestone
Ten-fold jump in hosted databases after an accidental Hacker News launch
We launched accidentally on Hacker News on 27 May 2020 and the number of databases we hosted jumped ten-fold overnight. The "Open Source Firebase Alte...
$70M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Snow Lee
3x Founder Pivots from DevOps AI to Communication Tool, Hits $400K ARR
Snow Lee is a 3x founder from South Korea who moved his family to California. He received $660K in pre-seed funding. The Pivot First version was...
$400K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 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
CM
Chris Mason
From $0 to $1K in Revenue in 30 Days by Validating Before Building
Chris and his co-founder validated demand first by talking to WooCommerce store owners, then built One Click Upsells to $1K in 30 days.
$1K MRR in 1 month·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Arvid Kahl
Arvid Kahl Built FeedbackPanda to $55K MRR in 2 Years, Then Sold It
Arvid and his partner Danielle built FeedbackPanda for online ESL teachers, reaching $55K MRR before selling for a life-changing amount.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSEducation🇩🇪 DE
Justin Jackson
Justin Jackson Built Transistor to $1M+ ARR by Building in Public
After years of solo projects, Justin teamed up with Jon Buda to build Transistor.fm, documenting the journey publicly on their "Build Your SaaS" podcast.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSContent creation🇨🇦 CA
Uku Taht & Marko Saric
Plausible Analytics: From $400 MRR to $500K ARR as Open Source
Uku and Marko built an open source, privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. One blog post changed their trajectory.
$3.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇪🇪 EE
Mati Staniszewski & Piotr Dąbkowski
ElevenLabs: From Polish High School Friends to $1B+ AI Voice Platform
Mati and Piotr, childhood friends from Poland, built ElevenLabs to fix robotic AI voices and reached 1M users in 5 months after beta launch.
$330M/yr·$100K ARR in 9 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Dave Rogenmoser, Chris Hull & JP Morgan
Jasper: From 0 to 100K Customers in Under 2 Years, Unicorn in 18 Months
Dave Rogenmoser launched Conversion.ai and grew to 100K paying customers in under 2 years, reaching unicorn status in 18 months.
$100K ARR in 2 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Cristóbal Valenzuela
Runway: From NYU Research Project to Hollywood's AI Video Tool
Cristóbal Valenzuela started Runway as a NYU research project and grew it into the AI platform behind Oscar-winning films like "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
$90M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Rand Fishkin & Casey Henry
SparkToro: How the Moz Founder Built a Calmer Company After VC Burnout
After building Moz to $30M ARR then stepping down, Rand Fishkin bootstrapped SparkToro to 1,000+ paying customers with a radically different approach.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Colin Nederkoorn
Customer.io: From 5 Customers at $10/Month to $70M ARR Over a Decade
Colin Nederkoorn started Customer.io with 5 customers paying $10/month and grew it to $70M ARR over 10 years through patient, methodical growth.
$100M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Patrick Woods
Orbit
Orbit: Creating the Community Growth Category and Raising $22M
Patrick Woods created the Orbit Model for developer relations, then built Orbit to help teams manage communities - raising $22M in the process.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
David Cramer & Chris Jennings
Sentry: From Open Source Side Project to $3B Error Monitoring Platform
David Cramer started Sentry as django-db-log in 2008. Five years of open source work led to product-market fit from day one when they launched the cloud service.
$128M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Henrique Dubugras & Pedro Franceschi
From YC VR Pivot to Billion-Dollar Fintech: The Brex Story
These 22-year-old Brazilian founders pivoted from VR in Y Combinator to build Brex, solving their own pain of not getting a corporate credit card despite having funding.
$700M/yr·$100K ARR in 6 months·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Justin Jackson & Jon Buda
How We Built a $1M+ ARR Podcast Hosting Business as a Calm Company
Justin Jackson and Jon Buda built Transistor to over $1M ARR while documenting everything publicly on their "Build Your SaaS" podcast.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSContent creation🇨🇦 CA
Andrew Bialecki & Ed Hallen
Klaviyo
How Klaviyo Bootstrapped to $1M ARR Before Raising
Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen bootstrapped Klaviyo to over $1M ARR before raising, eventually building a $6B+ public company.
$1.2B/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
David Stefanides & Marek Hrabě
How Mockuuups Built a Self-Funded Mockup Empire from Frustration
David and Marek turned their frustration with low-quality mockups into a profitable, self-funded design tool with 5000+ mockups.
$660K/yr·$10K MRR in 8 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇨🇿 CZ
Henrique Dubugras & Pedro Franceschi
From Brazilian Teen Hackers to $12B Fintech: The Brex Story
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi started working together at 16 and built Brex to $12B valuation.
sold for $5.2B·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Tobi Lütke
ShopifyFrom Snowboard Shop to $200B E-Commerce Empire: How Tobi Built Shopify
Tobi Lütke built Shopify because he wanted to sell snowboards online and hated the existing software.
$11.6B/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇨🇦 CA
MF
Mark Forrester, Magnus Jepson & Adii Pienaar
Three Strangers From Three Continents Built the World's Most Popular E-Commerce Platform
Mark Forrester met his co-founders in an online forum, launched WooThemes, then WooCommerce - acquired by Automattic for $30M+.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇬🇧 GB
Kenny Rueter & Travis Rosser
From Backyard Sprinkler to $500M+ Creator Platform: The Kajabi Story
Kenny Rueter wanted to sell a sprinkler toy for kids, realized selling information was easier, and built Kajabi into a platform that has paid creators $500M+.
$75M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
Vlad Magdalin
From Freelancer to $4B Founder: The Webflow Story
Vlad Magdalin started as a freelance web designer, frustrated with the gap between design and code. After two failed startups, he built Webflow into a $4B company.
$213M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇺🇸 US
Koen Bok
From Facebook Exit to $2B Design Tool: The Framer Story
Koen Bok sold his first company Sofa to Facebook, then built Framer from a JavaScript library into a $2B AI-powered website builder.
$50M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇳🇱 NL
RK
Rob Kalin
Building the Handmade Marketplace: How Etsy Created a $45B Community
Rob Kalin built Etsy as a cheaper alternative to eBay for handmade goods. The marketplace is now worth $45 billion and changed how makers sell their work.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
MarketplaceE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Amjad Masad
Replit: 9 Years of Grinding, 4 YC Rejections, Then $70M ARR When AI Hit
Amjad Masad was rejected from YC four times and was stuck at $2.8M ARR after 8 years. When he launched Replit Agent, revenue exploded 25x in 12 months.
$300M/yr·$100K ARR in 9 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
Demi Guo
Pika: Two Stanford PhD Dropouts Built a $470M AI Video Generator with 500K Discord Members in 4 Months
Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng dropped out of Stanford's AI PhD program after being frustrated with existing AI video tools. They launched Pika on Discord, hit 500K members in 4 months, and raised $135M — all with a team of 13.
$10K MRR in 10 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Young Zhao
Opus Clip: $1M ARR in Its First Month After Beta Launch — How a Failed Livestreaming Tool Pivoted to 10M Users
Young Zhao's AI livestreaming tool had only 200 users after 3 months. But one tiny clipping feature users kept asking about became Opus Clip — hitting $1M ARR in its first month after beta launch and 10M users within 2 years.
$20M/yr·$10K MRR in 2 months·Team
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
Dan Anisse
Relume: From Webflow Agency to $1.8M ARR SaaS — Bootstrapped, 41K+ Users, Zero Outside Funding
Dan Anisse and Adam Mura ran a Webflow agency and kept building the same components. They productized the work into Relume — a component library that grew to 41K+ users, $150K MRR, and an AI site builder, all bootstrapped.
$3.3M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇦🇺 AU
Grant LaFontaine
How Whatnot Turned Livestream Auctions into a $3.7B Collectibles Marketplace
Grant LaFontaine saw Pokémon card sellers going live on Instagram with clunky workarounds. He built Whatnot — a dedicated live auction platform. Result: $3.7B valuation, 200K+ sellers.
$1B/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
MarketplaceE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Christine Yen
How Honeycomb Created the Observability Category and Built a $200M+ Developer Tools Company
Christine Yen and Charity Majors didn't just build a product — they created the "observability" category. By writing, speaking, and defining the space, Honeycomb became the category leader. Result: $200M+ in funding, used by Slack, Vanguard, and HelloFresh.
$43.6M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
PR
Peer Richelsen
How Peer Richelsen Built an Open-Source Calendly Alternative with 20K+ GitHub Stars
Peer Richelsen launched Calendso as an open-source Calendly alternative, attracted 20K+ GitHub stars, rebranded to Cal.com, and raised $32M.
$5M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSProductivity🇩🇪 DE
ZM
Zuhayeer Musa & Zaheer Mohiuddin
How Two Engineers Built Levels.fyi into the Definitive Tech Compensation Platform With Zero Marketing Spend
Two software engineers built a side project to map compensation levels across tech companies. Word spread on Blind and HN. Now Levels.fyi dominates tech compensation data.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
AV
Aurelio Volle
how a lawyer and a developer bootstrapped wp umbrella to $110k mrr
Aurelio Volle and his co-founder lived on French unemployment support while reinvesting every euro into WP Umbrella, a WordPress maintenance tool that grew to $110K MRR without outside funding.
$1.3M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇫🇷 FR
Junaid Ansari
how two freelancers turned Draftss into a 7-figure productized design service
Junaid Ansari and his cofounder packaged their freelance design and code work into a flat monthly subscription, then grew it to a 75-person bootstrapped team serving thousands of founders.
$996K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
Agency / serviceDesignMumbai, India
John O'Nolan
how john o'nolan bootstrapped ghost to $10m arr as a non-profit
Rejected by Y Combinator twice, John O'Nolan crowdfunded Ghost on Kickstarter and built it into a $10M ARR open source publishing platform owned by a non-profit foundation.
$10.8M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSContent creation🌍 Remote
MH
Michele Hansen
A side-project API that only needed to cover server costs
Michele and Mathias Hansen launched Geocodio as a side project in January 2014. A roughly $30 first month covered their small DigitalOcean server bill and proved strangers would pay.
First customer in 1 month·Team
API / developer toolDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
PH
Peter Hrbacik
how Peter Hrbacik turned KWFinder into a $223k/mo SEO suite
After years of failed prototypes and freelance work, Peter Hrbacik built KWFinder in about a month, launched it to Hacker News and Reddit, and grew the simple SEO tool into Mangools, a bootstrapped suite reporting roughly $223k/month by 2018.
$2.7M/yr·$1K MRR in 5 months·Team
SaaSMarketing🇸🇰 SK
Anatoly Pashias & Nick Nicolaou
How Motionvid.ai used a 21-day MVP and AppSumo launch to reach $7.8K MRR
Anatoly Pashias and Nick Nicolaou built Motionvid.ai from a filmmaker's motion-design bottleneck, launched a 21-day MVP through AppSumo, and grew the AI video tool to about $7.8K MRR without relying on paid ads.
$93K/yr·$1K MRR in 8 months·Team
SaaSContent creationLimassol, Cyprus
Christian Rac & Braylin Byrd
How two Division I track athletes built 3AK Track & Field to verified $10K MRR
Christian Rac and Braylin Byrd turned a 150K-follower track audience into a subscription training app, building with Rork and ChatGPT instead of custom code and later showing $10,045 MRR on TrustMRR.
$121K/yr·$10K MRR in 8 months·Team
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇺🇸 US
KO
Kylan O'Connor, Jayden Francis, Justin Rausch & Parker May
How RidePal turned a niche mountain-biking app into 35 paying Android customers on day one
RidePal did not start with a broad fitness app. The team built directly for mountain bikers, shared beta versions in rider communities, and saw 35 paying Android customers on launch day.
First customer in 1 days·Team
Mobile appHealth & wellnessSan Francisco, United States
AB
Alex Bouaziz
Deel rebuilt its product in ten days and hit $5,000 a month by demo day
Deel's first product had no buyers. A pivot ten days before Y Combinator's demo day put 290 contractors and $5,000 a month on the board.
$1B/yr·$1K MRR in 2 months·Team
SaaSFinance🌍 Remote
Brian Chesky
Three airbeds paid the rent, then Airbnb went a year with no traction
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia had paying guests within a week of the idea because a design conference had sold out every hotel in San Francisco. Turning that weekend into a company took a year of failed launches, credit card debt and cereal money.
$12.2B/yr·First customer in 7 days·Team
MarketplaceTravelSan Francisco, USA
Eric Migicovsky
Beeper charged $10 a month from its first public day
Eric Migicovsky named Beeper in public in July 2020 and launched it on Hacker News 195 days later as a paid chat app at $10 a month. Automattic bought it in April 2024.
First customer in 7 months·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
Julian Hearn
Two orders on day one: how Julian Hearn started Huel from his garage
Huel's website went live with no buzz at all and took two orders on the first day. Julian Hearn packed them himself, and says revenue reached £9 million two years later.
$103M/yr·First customer in 1 days·Team
OtherHealth & wellness🇬🇧 GB
Victor Cardenas
Slash sold a $100 a month card to sneaker resellers and hit $5m ARR in 11 months
Victor Cardenas and Kevin Bai spent a year failing before a handful of sneaker resellers told them exactly what to build and what they would pay. Eleven months after that pivot, Slash was at $5 million in ARR.
$150M/yr·$100K ARR in 11 months·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Yahya Mokhtarzada
Two years free, then the last chance subscription that saved Truebill
Truebill spent two years as a free app whose founders assumed nobody would pay a subscription to cancel subscriptions. The premium tier they shipped as a last resort converted at 3.5 times what Yahya Mokhtarzada expected.
sold for $1.3B·First customer in 2 years·Team
Mobile appFinance🇺🇸 US
Have a similar story?
Share your revenue journey and inspire other founders.
Quick Stats
Stories53
Avg Time2 years
Fastest1 days
Technical91%
Data Report
Compare Growth Channels