Founder stories
Founder stories
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122 stories found
Sebastian Röhl
German Developer Reaches $10K MRR After 2.5 Years with Habit App
I'm a 29-year-old software engineer from Germany who left my full-time job to dedicate one year to building my own projects. The Grind My MRR gr...
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
Mobile AppProductivity🇺🇸 US
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...
$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
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...
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Dmytro Krasun
3 years to $10K MRR, 8 more months to $20K - slow growth is valid
ScreenshotOne took 3 years to reach $10K MRR and another 8 months to hit $20K. Long, slow growth is a valid path to success. The Long Road Many...
$10K MRR in 4 years·Solo
API / Developer ToolDeveloper Tools🇺🇦 UA
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...
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
Allison Seboldt
Building a niche product that went viral on Reddit
I built Fantasy Congress as a side project - a fantasy sports game but for politics. It went viral and taught me everything about building in public....
First Customer in 7 days·Solo
SaaSEducation🇺🇸 US
Pat Walls
Starter Story Founder Builds SaaS: $1K MRR Harder Than Expected
Pat Walls, founder of Starter Story, worked on Pigeon for over a year as a side project. Different Challenge Reaching $1K MRR was significant be...
$1K MRR in 10 months·Solo
SaaSMarketing🇺🇸 US
Kyle Nolan
Side Project Financial Planner: 2+ Years to $10K MRR
Kyle built ProjectionLab because he wanted a better plan for his own financial future. There were 0 paid users when he posted to Hacker News. Hacke...
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Elie Steinbock
Open Source Email Assistant: Scratch Own Itch to $10K+ MRR
When running a previous business, Elie spent way too much time on email. He thought, 'Why can't an AI do this for me?' First Mover Elie was a fi...
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
Erwin Lengkeek
Built Browser Extension in 1 Week, Made $30K/Year Building in Public
Erwin had two failed projects before Tailscan. He gave himself a week to build something and showcase it on Twitter. Viral Demo His demo got 70,...
First Customer in 21 days·Solo
Chrome ExtensionDeveloper Tools🇺🇸 US
ME
Mustafa Ergisi
Data Analyst Builds AI2SQL to $1K MRR in 15 Months
Mustafa Ergisi, a former data analyst from Istanbul, was frustrated spending countless hours optimizing SQL queries manually. With a background in mac...
$1K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
Elston Baretto
Simple HTML Hosting: 18 Months to First 50 Customers, Now $10K MRR
Elston launched Tiiny Host with a simple hypothesis: there are customers who just want a simple tool to quickly host HTML content. SEO Takes Time...
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
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...
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
JB
Josef Büttgen
12x12 Challenge: From Dwindling Runway to $10K MRR in 14 Months
Josef taught himself to code at age 13. He freelanced until he saved enough runway to commit to entrepreneurship. The Challenge His first produc...
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 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.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSFinance🇨🇦 CA
Andy Cloke
Solo founder bootstraps Airtable API tool to $10K MRR in 2 years
Data Fetcher recently hit $10k MRR. It's still 100% bootstrapped with one full-time team member (me!). Background I studied engineering at unive...
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSDeveloper Tools🇬🇧 GB
Kevin Conti
Paid newsletter to $10K MRR in just 5 months through community engagement
Kevin turned his SaaS research into a newsletter, growing from $0 to $10K MRR in 5 months by building in public on Indie Hackers.
$10K MRR in 5 months·Solo
Info ProductEducation🇺🇸 US
MC
Maciej Cupial
From Bankruptcy to $100K ARR: A 2.5 Year Struggle
Maciej Cupial from Poland had a background as a programmer and entrepreneur. After a challenging 2.5 years building Calendesk, he finally reached $100...
$100K ARR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇵🇱 PL
Ali Salah
Status Page SaaS: Learning Customer Support While Reaching $1K MRR
Ali Salah built Instatus, a service for creating status pages. Reaching $1K MRR was his goal for 2020. Product-Market Fit Initially offered a fr...
$1K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
Julien Nahum
Bootstrapped a Notion form builder from $0 to $10K MRR in one year
Julien built NotionForms to solve his own problem, reaching $10K MRR in 12 months through Product Hunt and SEO.
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇫🇷 FR
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 4 years·Solo
Chrome ExtensionProductivity🇮🇳 IN
Thomas Sanlis
After 30 failed projects, French dev builds $10K/mo Product Hunt alternative
Thomas failed 30 projects before Uneed. Six years later, he runs it full-time at $10K/month.
$10K MRR in 6 years·Solo
MarketplaceMarketing🇫🇷 FR
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.
$10K MRR in 1 year·Solo
MarketplaceMarketing🇷🇴 RO
Alex Le
Picture ItAcquired a Shopify app and grew it to $3,500 MRR as a solopreneur
Alex acquired an existing Shopify app and scaled it to $3,500 MRR through product improvements and customer focus.
$1K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
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A note on these stories: The founders featured here represent those who publicly shared their success. Not every startup succeeds, and timelines vary widely. These stories are meant to inspire and educate, not to set expectations.
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