Founder stories
Browse Stories
Solo founder $100K ARR Stories
83 Solo founders who reached $100K ARR
Key Statistics
Stories
83
Avg Time
3 years
Fastest
7 days
Solo
100%
Top growth channel
SEO / Content (21)
Filter further:via SEO / Content (21)|via Communities (19)|via Twitter / X (18)|via Word of mouth (9)
ML
Marc Lou
From Paris waiter to $250K in 5 months selling a code boilerplate
My journey took me from being a Paris waiter to an $80,000/month solopreneur over seven years of persistence. After 17 failed projects, I found succes...
$240K/yr·$100K ARR in 5 months·Solo
Info productDeveloper tools🇫🇷 FR
DP
Danny Postma
How I made $100K in 2 weeks with an AI headshot tool
After selling my previous AI company Headlime for seven figures, I took time off in 2021. I was growing increasingly bored when an idea struck me: why...
$3.6M/yr·$100K ARR in 14 days·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇳🇱 NL
AJ
$1K on launch day to $1M ARR with zero marketing spend
Carrd launched on Product Hunt and made $1K on day one. It grew to over $1M ARR with absolutely zero marketing spend. The Launch Product Hunt la...
$2M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
EG
Eran Galperin
After failed VC startup, bootstrapped gym software to $3M ARR and 8-figure exit
After a failed VC-backed startup, I bootstrapped Gymdesk while working a day job. 4 years to $12K MRR, then accelerated to $3M ARR. Learning from F...
sold for $32.5M·$100K ARR in 8 years·Solo
SaaSHealth & wellness🇺🇸 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
AT
Alex Turnbull
Journey to $100K blog series with radical transparency built $5M ARR
Our "Journey to $100K" blog series with radical transparency got featured in 100+ publications and built Groove to $5M ARR. Radical Transparency...
$5M/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Tim Soulo
CMO who led Ahrefs marketing to $100M+ ARR with zero sales team
Tim Soulo joined Ahrefs as CMO (Ahrefs was founded by Dmytro Gerasymenko) and led the marketing strategy that grew the company to $100M+ ARR with no s...
$150M/yr·$100K ARR in 10 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇸🇬 SG
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
Adriaan van Rossum
Privacy-First Analytics: From Tenerife Idea to $100K ARR
Adriaan van Rossum came up with the idea for Simple Analytics while on holiday in Tenerife. He wanted to build a privacy-first analytics tool as fast...
$813K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSDeveloper tools🇳🇱 NL
Adam Enfroy
Digital Marketer Launches Blog, Hits $100K/Month in 2 Years
Adam launched AdamEnfroy.com in January 2019 as a side project while working full-time as a Digital Marketing Director. Aggressive Growth He sta...
$5.7M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
OtherContent 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
AL
Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Neuroscientist Launches Mindful Productivity Community, $100K ARR in 22 Months
Anne-Laure Le Cunff sent her first Maker Mind newsletter in July 2019. Ness Labs started as free content and community. Pivot to paid In 2019 mo...
$352K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productContent creationLondon, UK
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
Yasser Elsaid
College Student Reaches $64K MRR in 6 Months with AI Chatbot Platform
Just a few months ago I was in my 4th year of college, interning at FAANG companies like Meta and Tesla. Then I placed my side hustle in front of the...
$8M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 months·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
GR
Guilherme Rizzo
21-Year-Old Self-Taught Brazilian Developer Makes $100K with CSS Extension
I'm from Brazil and built CSS Scan because I always wanted to know what border-radius, box-shadow, or font-family an element I see has. Fast Progre...
$48K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Chrome extensionDeveloper toolsBrazil (now Taiwan)
JO
Jordan O'Connor
Solo Dad Builds $42K/Month Chrome Extension with $1/Day Pricing
I'm the self-proclaimed 'winner of Indie Hackers' - if you filter for solo founders with verified Stripe revenue, I come up at the top. Simple Valu...
$420K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Chrome extensionE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Aurelian Amacker
$20M ARR Solo Founder Built All-in-One Marketing Platform
I built Systeme.io to $20M ARR as a solo founder. The platform helps entrepreneurs build sales funnels, email marketing campaigns, and sell digital pr...
$20.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Jen Yip
Solo female founder built a budgeting app to $45K+ ARR while traveling the world
Jen quit her job at Twitter, traveled the world, and built Lunch Money as a company of one to 1000+ paying users.
$408K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSFinance🇨🇦 CA
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
Rosie Sherry
How an introvert built a $1.2M/year testing community over 12 years
Started as a free forum in 2007. 12 years later: $1.2M ARR from conferences, memberships, and courses.
$600K/yr·$100K ARR in 12 years·Solo
OtherEducation🇬🇧 GB
Rob Hope
How a South African designer built $100K/year from website curation
Started curating single-page websites in 2008. Cross-promotion between projects grew to $100K+/year.
$10K MRR in 9 years·Solo
OtherDesign🇿🇦 ZA
Jay Clouse
How a newsletter grew into a $500K/year creator business in 3 years
Started with a blog nobody read. Rebranded to Creator Science and built to $500K/year through newsletter, podcast, and community.
$800K/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
AB
Andy Beohar
Tech Employee Quits to Build $275K MRR Marketing Agency
Andy left his tech job in 2014 and bootstrapped SevenAtoms to $275K MRR with a 90% client retention rate.
$3.3M/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
Agency / serviceMarketing🇺🇸 US
Nathan Latka
Podcast Host Turns Interview Data into $150K MRR SaaS in 100 Days
Nathan turned his podcast interview data into Getlatka, reaching $20K/month in 100 days and $150K MRR within a year.
$1.8M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Ellen Yin
Corporate Marketer Quits Job, Pre-Sells Course, Reaches 7 Figures
Ellen pre-sold her first program with zero content, then built it based on customer feedback to reach 7-figure lifetime revenue.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Pieter Levels
Pieter Levels Builds Photo AI to $150K/Month in Under 3 Years
After Nomad List, Pieter built Photo AI using PHP/jQuery to $150K/month - 87% profit margin, 100% bootstrapped.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🌍 Remote
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
AJ
AJ Built Carrd to $1M+ ARR as a Solo Side Project
AJ built Carrd as the most ambitious solo project he had ever taken on, spending about a year on it to test if people wanted one-page websites. Now it powers 3.3M+ sites with 2.2M+ users.
$2M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSDesign🇺🇸 US
AW
Ania Wysocka
How I Built a 2M+ User Anxiety App With Zero Employees
Ania started having panic attacks in her final year of university. She built the app she wished existed.
$1.2M/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇨🇦 CA
Joseph Mambwe
GymStreak
How I Bootstrapped a $2.5M/Year Fitness App With Zero Employees
Joseph taught himself to code while at Cambridge and built a fitness app empire with just contractors.
$2.5M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇬🇧 GB
ML
Mike Lee
MyFitnessPal: From Personal Diet Tracker to $475M Acquisition
Mike Lee built a calorie counter to lose weight for his wedding, then bootstrapped it to 80M+ users.
sold for $475M·$100K ARR in 7 years·Solo
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇺🇸 US
David Holz
Midjourney: The Bootstrapped AI Art Revolution That Said No to Apple Twice
David Holz bootstrapped Midjourney to profitability within months, building a billion-dollar AI art platform on Discord without VC funding.
$500M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 months·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
JD
Jimmy Daly
Superpath: The $500K Content Marketing Community That Costs $500/Month to Run
Jimmy Daly built Superpath into a $500K business with just $500/month in operating costs using no-code tools and community-led growth.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
OtherMarketing🇺🇸 US
JC
Jake Cooper
Railway: Making Cloud Deployment Simple After Getting Laid Off from Uber
After Uber sold Jump to Lime and laid off his team, Jake Cooper built Railway to solve the infrastructure headaches he kept running into with every project.
$10M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
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
Ben Jabbawy
Privy
How Privy Reached 500K Merchants and a $120M Exit
Ben Jabbawy built Privy into the #1 Shopify sales app with 500K+ merchants, driving $6B+ in eCommerce sales before a successful exit.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Chris Koh
GemPages
How a Developer Built GemPages to 100K+ Shopify Merchants
Chris Koh spent years working with eSellers before writing the first code for GemPages, a Shopify page builder now used by 100K+ merchants.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇻🇳 VN
Sahil Lavingia
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company: The Gumroad Story
Sahil Lavingia left Pinterest before vesting, raised $8M, laid off 75% of staff, then rebuilt Gumroad as a profitable "small" business.
$23.8M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Ankur Nagpal
From Side Project to $250M Exit: The Teachable Story
Ankur Nagpal started Teachable at 24, grew it to 30 million students, then sold it for $250M - and was completely burned out.
sold for $250M·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
Spencer Fry
Building Since Age 11: How Spencer Fry Created Podia After Three Exits
Spencer Fry built his first internet business at 11, had three exits, then started Podia to help creators make a living doing what they love.
$811K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
SB
Simon Beckerman
From Magazine Publisher to $1.6B Fashion Marketplace: The Depop Story
Simon Beckerman created Depop to let people buy and sell clothes on a social marketplace. The app attracted Gen Z and sold to Etsy for $1.6 billion.
sold for $1.6B·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
MarketplaceE-commerce🇬🇧 GB
Amir Salihefendic
How a Student's Side Project Became a $20M ARR Bootstrapped Productivity Empire
Amir Salihefendic built Todoist as a side project to manage his own tasks as a student. 17 years later it's a fully bootstrapped, $20M+ ARR company used by 30 million people.
$26.5M/yr·$100K ARR in 7 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🌍 Remote
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
Matt Kepnes
From Hospital Admin to 7-Figure Travel Empire: The Nomadic Matt Story
Matt Kepnes quit his hospital admin job after a trip to Thailand opened his eyes. His travel blog became Nomadic Matt — one of the world's largest travel media brands with over 1 million monthly readers.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
Info productTravel🌍 Remote
Andrew Henderson
How a 22-Year-Old's Tax Bill Built a Global Nomad Advisory Empire
Andrew Henderson built a radio broadcasting empire at 22, then faced a 43% tax bill that changed his worldview. He founded Nomad Capitalist to share what he discovered — and built a 60-person global advisory brand.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Agency / serviceTravel🌍 Remote
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
Jan Oberhauser
n8n: Solo Founder Side Project to $2.5B Open-Source Automation Platform
Jan Oberhauser, a VFX pipeline engineer, started coding n8n in his Berlin apartment after work. His first hire was a developer evangelist. Now it's worth $2.5B with 150K GitHub stars.
$40M/yr·$100K ARR in 7 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇩🇪 DE
Andrew Mason
Descript: The Groupon Founder Who Built a $550M AI Video Editor by Editing Audio Like Text
After founding Groupon ($16B IPO) and watching it unravel, Andrew Mason built Descript — an AI video editor that lets you edit media by editing text. He acquired a voice-cloning AI startup and rebuilt the product from scratch.
$55M/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
Brett Williams
DesignJoy: How Brett Williams Built a $1.5M/Year Design Agency of One — Zero Employees, $95/Month in Tools
Brett Williams had been designing since 2009. In 2017 he launched DesignJoy, a subscription design service. Building in public on Twitter from early 2022 filled a 100+ company waitlist in three weeks and let him double his prices. By 2022, he broke $1.5M ARR as a true agency of one.
$1.7M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
Agency / serviceDesign🇺🇸 US
Codie Sanchez
Contrarian Thinking: How Codie Sanchez Built a 750K-Subscriber Newsletter and $100M+ Business Portfolio from Scratch
Codie Sanchez went from Goldman Sachs to building Contrarian Thinking — a newsletter that hit 10K subscribers in 30 days. She parlayed that audience into courses, community, and a holding company that now does 9 figures in revenue.
$49.2M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Info productFinance🇺🇸 US
Jack Butcher
Visualize Value: How Jack Butcher Went from a Honda Factory to $180K/Month Through Daily Visual Posts
Jack Butcher assembled cars at a Honda factory, talked his way into design school, spent 8 years at agencies, then burned out running his own. In January 2019, he started posting simple visuals on Twitter. Within 18 months: $180K/month.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Dan Koe
Dan Koe: 6 Failed Businesses, Then $3.3M/Year from Writing 2 Hours Per Day
Dan Koe tried fitness YouTube, dropshipping, a Facebook ads agency, and two e-commerce brands — all failed. Then he started writing on Twitter. Within 4 years: $3.3M/year and 3.4M followers.
$4.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
Info productEducation🇺🇸 US
Wes Bos
Wes Bos: How a Canadian Developer Built a $10M+ Course Business Teaching JavaScript to 500,000 People
Wes Bos started teaching at a coding bootcamp, then launched "React for Beginners" — 2,300 students in 3 weeks. His free JavaScript30 challenge attracted 754K+ sign-ups. Total: $10M+ in course revenue from Hamilton, Ontario.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productEducation🇨🇦 CA
BL
Brian Lam
How a Gizmodo Editor Built the Internet's Most Trusted Product Review Site — Then Sold It to the NYT for $30M
Brian Lam left Gizmodo, moved to a surf shack in Hawaii, and launched Wirecutter. The NYT bought it for ~$30M in 2016.
sold for $30M·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
OtherContent creation🇺🇸 US
Noah Kagan
How Employee #30 at Facebook Built AppSumo into an $80M+ Deal Marketplace After Getting Fired
Noah Kagan was fired from Facebook before the IPO. He launched AppSumo with a Reddit post and a $12K deal — building it into $80M+ annual revenue.
$80M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
MarketplaceE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Jack Friks
how jack friks built post bridge to $11k mrr by undercutting bloated schedulers
Tired of paying for overpriced social schedulers, Jack Friks shipped his own simple tool in about a month and built it in public to roughly $11k MRR.
$492K/yr·$100K ARR in 7 months·Solo
SaaSMarketingOshawa, Ontario, Canada
Eric Alli
how a solo theme maker stacked productized services to reach $20k mrr
Eric Alli sold themes for over a decade, watched WordPress sales dry up, then rebuilt on Ghost and reached $20k a month, with custom build services making up three quarters of it.
$240K/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Info productDesignSan Francisco, USA
SK
Sumit Kumar
how Parqet reached 15k MRR in a year by serving only German investors
Sumit Kumar built a portfolio tracker to scratch his own itch, then kept it deliberately narrow: one country, one language, one currency. That focus took Parqet to €15k MRR in its first year.
$1.3M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSFinanceHamburg, Germany
Matt McGarry
how matt mcgarry turned a newsletter into a 7-figure education business
Matt McGarry launched Newsletter Operator in January 2023 with a tweet and a 1,300-follower audience. Within a year and a half it grew past 25,000 subscribers and supported a 7-figure business built on courses and an agency.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info productContent creation🇺🇸 US
AF
Andrew Fennell
how a recruiter grew standout cv to £40k mrr on seo alone
Andrew Fennell knew nothing about SEO when he launched StandOut CV. A decade of slow, compounding content and careful link building took the CV builder past 23,000 paying customers and £40K MRR with no paid ads.
$480K/yr·$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇬🇧 GB
MN
Mako Nguyen
how mako nguyen took robopost to a self-reported $55k mrr in a year on meta ads
A solo software engineer in Japan built a social media scheduler in two months, then leaned hard on Meta Ads to grow Robopost to a self-reported $55k MRR in its first year.
$660K/yr·$100K ARR in 7 months·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇯🇵 JP
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
Sina Sinry
how sina sinry built flibbo to $55k mrr without writing code
A former Shopify dropshipper wrapped top AI models into one mobile app and grew it to around $55K MRR and 500K+ users, all without coding himself.
$660K/yr·$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
Mobile appContent creationMENA region
RW
Richard Wang
how richard reached 30k mrr with a reddit marketing tool
After shutting down an AI product nobody wanted, Richard Wang spent a month answering Reddit marketing questions, gathered 300 people who shared the same pain, and only then built Leadmore AI. More than ten of them paid in week one.
$360K/yr·$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSMarketing
Ruslan Leteyski
Checkout X
Bootstrapping Checkout X to €600k MRR before Shopify shut it down
Ruslan Leteyski turned a workaround built for a doomed online pharmacy into a one-page Shopify checkout that reached 6,000 merchants and €600k MRR, all without ads or the App Store.
$7.2M/yr·$100K ARR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSE-commerceSofia, Bulgaria
MD
Mat De Sousa
how mat de sousa bootstrapped widebundle to $25k mrr as a student
After three failed Shopify apps, an engineering student built a bundling app in two weeks and grew it to $25,134 MRR in under a year with no paid ads.
$302K/yr·$100K ARR in 10 months·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇫🇷 FR
OZ
Orel Zilberman
after 600 days and zero dollars, writestack became a $110k a year tool for substack writers
Orel Zilberman burned through roughly $70,000 and a dozen failed products before a tool for Substack creators finally started paying. Here is how he got there.
$110K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSContent creation🇮🇱 IL
Josh Pigford
how josh pigford turned down millions, then sold baremetrics for $4m
Josh Pigford built Baremetrics in days to scratch his own itch, grew it past $1.5M ARR, walked away from a deal that collapsed at the finish line, then sold a year later for $4 million in cash.
sold for $4M·$100K ARR in 5 months·Solo
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
David Bressler
how a non-coder built an ai excel tool to $20k in two months
David Bressler spent his paternity leave building an AI Excel formula tool with no-code Bubble, then watched influencers turn it into a fast-growing freemium business.
$500K/yr·$100K ARR in 4 months·Solo
SaaSAI / MLOrlando, Florida
RC
Reilly Chase
how reilly chase landed hostifi's first 11 customers in three weeks
With an IT background but no SaaS experience, Reilly Chase built a UniFi hosting tool, launched it with a single tweet, and found his first 11 paying customers in three weeks by going where Ubiquiti users actually hung out.
$3M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSDeveloper tools🇺🇸 US
MP
Miquel Palet
Leaving a VC-Backed Edtech to Bootstrap Zernio to $1M ARR in 10 Months
Miquel Palet left a venture-backed edtech path, built a focused developer API in a weekend, and used bottom-of-funnel SEO plus paid ads to bootstrap Zernio to $1M ARR in about 10 months.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 10 months·Solo
API / developer toolDeveloper tools
Giulio Greco
How a 17-year-old founder took ForgeGUI to $100K ARR by serving game developers' UI bottleneck
Giulio Greco focused ForgeGUI on the game-developer asset bottleneck, then used demos and community loops to reach a reported $100K ARR roughly six weeks after launch.
$100K/yr·$100K ARR in 1 month·Solo
SaaSDesign🇺🇸 US
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
Andrew Gazdecki
From cold emails to $200,000 ARR in exactly one year, and profit five years later
Andrew Gazdecki seeded a two sided marketplace with cold calls and cold emails, hit $200,000 in ARR exactly one year after launching on Product Hunt, and reported his first profitable year in 2025.
$6.1M/yr·$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
MarketplaceFinance
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
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
IK
Ivan Kutskir
Four years and 7,000 hours before Photopea made a dollar
Ivan Kutskir built a browser based Photoshop alternative alone for four years without earning anything, then found that five cents per user hour adds up.
$1M/yr·$100K ARR in 7 years·Solo
SaaSDesign🇨🇿 CZ
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
Matt Paulson
The stock ratings email that turned into a $50 million media company
Matt Paulson built a daily stock ratings email to keep an ad network happy. The paid version sold 12 subscriptions its first weekend and became MarketBeat.
$50M/yr·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
Info productFinance🇺🇸 US
Patrick Campbell
Patrick Campbell wrote an ebook, then sold pricing audits to ProfitWell's first 20 customers
Patrick Campbell cashed out his 401k in 2012, wrote an ebook about SaaS pricing and turned free pricing audits into the first 20 customers of Price Intelligently. He sold the company, by then ProfitWell, to Paddle for over $200 million.
sold for $200M·$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
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