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$10K MRR via Word of mouth
12 founders who reached $10K MRR using Word of mouth
Key Statistics
Stories
12
Avg Time
3 years
Fastest
4 months
Solo
25%
Top growth channel
Word of mouth (12)
Justin Duke
Built newsletter tool while at Stripe, grew to $392K/year solo
I built Buttondown as a side project while working at Stripe. 5-10% month-over-month growth for years led to $392K/year. Side Project First I sc...
$900K/yr·$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Lukas Böhler
From running an agency to $10K MRR with a bug reporting tool in 1 year
Welcome to our journey! We launched BugBattle (now Gleap) and reached $10,000 in MRR exactly one year later - much longer than we initially thought....
$770K/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇦🇹 AT
Alex Tew
From Million Dollar Homepage to $2B Meditation Empire
Alex Tew started meditating as a teenager, built the viral Million Dollar Homepage, then channeled that success into co-founding Calm.
$227M/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇺🇸 US
Andy Puddicombe
Buddhist Monk Builds $250M+ Meditation App Empire
Andy Puddicombe spent 10 years as a Buddhist monk, then co-founded Headspace with Rich Pierson to bring meditation to millions.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Team
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇬🇧 GB
MR
Mikael Robertsson
Flightradar24: How Two Aviation Geeks Built the World's Flight Tracker
A hobby project tracking aircraft in Sweden became the #1 flight tracking app in 130+ countries.
$41.4M/yr·$10K MRR in 8 years·Team
Mobile appTravel🇸🇪 SE
Mike McDerment
From Parents Basement to $50M Revenue: The FreshBooks Story
Mike McDerment accidentally saved over an invoice and built FreshBooks to solve his own pain, bootstrapping for 3.5 years from his parents basement to reach $50M+ in annual revenue.
$10K MRR in 3 years·Team
SaaSFinance🇨🇦 CA
Justin Duke
Building a Successful Newsletter Business by Building Less
Justin Duke built Buttondown as a side project at Stripe into a profitable, solo-run business with a handful of contractors - without raising VC.
$900K/yr·$10K MRR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSContent creation🇺🇸 US
OG
Ondrej Gazda
Make (Integromat): Bootstrapped from Prague to $107M Acquisition
A team from Prague spent 4 years building before they launched publicly. Zero VC funding. $10M revenue. Acquired by Celonis for $107M.
sold for $100M·$10K MRR in 8 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇨🇿 CZ
Thomas Paul Mann
Raycast: 21 months free before monetizing, from 130 to hundreds of thousands of daily users
Thomas Paul Mann and Petr Nikolaev left Facebook to build a Mac launcher. They gave it away free for 3 years, grew through pure word of mouth, and built an extension ecosystem with 20K+ developer contributors.
$10K MRR in 4 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper tools🇬🇧 GB
Nic Polotnianko
how nic polotnianko grew blogtopin to $15k mrr after four years of failed products
A Ukrainian software engineer spent four years shipping products that went nowhere, then built a Pinterest automation tool to scratch his own itch and grew it past $15k MRR.
$180K/yr·$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSMarketingDnipro, Ukraine
AR
Alex Rainey & Mike Heap
how My AskAI used $5k pre-sales to reach $14k MRR in months
Alex Rainey and Mike Heap tested My AskAI with a $99 pre-sale before the full product existed, generated about $5k from 50+ buyers, then used Product Hunt, word of mouth, and Google search to reach about $14k MRR by May 2023.
$10K MRR in 4 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇬🇧 GB
Sam Corcos
How Levels Health went from a $389 beta to a $12,482 month in 158 days
Sam Corcos publishes Levels Health's monthly investor updates in public, so the early revenue line can be read directly instead of reconstructed. It runs $6,774, $4,507, $7,221, $12,482.
$21.1M/yr·$10K MRR in 5 months·Team
Mobile appHealth & wellness🇺🇸 US
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Quick Stats
Stories12
Avg Time3 years
Fastest4 months
Technical75%