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27 stories found
Dan Shipper
how dan shipper's newsletter audience funded a $1.2m suite of ai apps
Dan Shipper grew Every from a paid newsletter into four in-house AI products doing about $1.2M ARR, using the audience he built as the launch channel for everything that followed.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSProductivityNew York, USA
Nico Jeannen
how nico jeannen grew talknotes from an idea to a $200k exit in a year
Nico Jeannen built TalkNotes after a bad experience with Google Docs transcription, soft-launched it on Twitter, hit number one on Product Hunt, and sold it for $200,000 about a year later.
$1K MRR in 3 months·Solo
SaaSProductivityBangkok, Thailand
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.
$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇬🇧 GB
JI
James Ivings
how leave me alone reached $10k mrr by unsubscribing people from spam in the open
James Ivings and Danielle Johnson launched a one-click email unsubscribe tool on Product Hunt in 2019, then grew it to around $10k MRR while publishing every metric on a public open-startup page.
$10K MRR in 7 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🌍 Remote
UM
Uri Merhav
pdf-redact.com
how uri merhav shipped a paid pdf tool in under a day
A DocuPanda cofounder set out to prove you can build a small SaaS that takes real money in under 24 hours, and walked through doing exactly that with a PDF redaction tool.
First Customer in 1 days·Solo
SaaSProductivityNew York City, United States
Thomas Frank
how thomas frank reached $1m a 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.
$100K ARR in 4 months·Solo
Info ProductProductivityColorado, USA
Dominik Sobe
how dominik sobe turned notion into a $3k mrr help center business
A self-taught Austrian developer needed a help center for his app, hated every option, and built one on top of Notion instead. HelpKit hit $3K MRR and 130+ customers within roughly a year.
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🌍 Remote
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.
$100K ARR in 7 years·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇩🇪 DE
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.
$10K MRR in 8 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇨🇿 CZ
Sam Liang
Otter.ai: From Google Maps "Blue Dot" to $100M ARR Meeting AI with 35 Million Users
Sam Liang built the "blue dot" at Google Maps, then founded Otter.ai to solve his own meeting problem. A Zoom partnership, free tier that undercut $1/minute competitors, and journalist evangelists drove 35M users.
$100K ARR in 9 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 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.
$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
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.
$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.
$100K ARR in 5 years·Solo
Info ProductProductivitySan Francisco, CA
SK
Shahed Khan
How 9 Months of Failure and 2 Pivots Led to a $975M Exit
Shahed Khan and his co-founders pivoted twice before landing on Loom. The async video platform was acquired by Atlassian for $975 million.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 US
LR
Luca Restagno
Software Engineer Turned Solopreneur Shares First Year Journey to $1.5K MRR
Luca documented his solopreneur journey publicly on Twitter, reaching $1.5K MRR in his first year while working a day job.
$1K MRR in 1 year·Solo
SaaSProductivity🇮🇹 IT
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 4 years·Solo
Chrome ExtensionProductivity🇮🇳 IN
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
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
Elie Steinbock
Inbox Zero
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
Iuliia Shnai
After 11 Failed Products: Open Source DocSend Alternative to $45K MRR
In 2023, Iuliia built 10 products. Her partner Marc launched Papermark - a simple open-source DocSend alternative. The first version took one weekend....
$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
SaaSProductivity🇩🇪 DE
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
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
Ivan Zhao
Rebuilt the product 4 times, moved to Japan, now $567M ARR
We rebuilt Notion 4 times before it worked. At one point, we moved to Japan to rewrite the entire tech stack. Now we're at $567M ARR with 30M+ users....
$100K ARR in 8 years·Team
SaaSProductivity🇺🇸 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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