Founder stories
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204 stories found
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
Alex Belogubov
From Failed Launch to $10K MRR and 6-Figure Exit
Alex initially launched Replyze in October 2023 on Product Hunt, but it was unsuccessful. Ready to sell for $20-25K, he received an interesting offer....
$10K MRR in 8 months·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 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
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...
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSDeveloper Tools🇳🇱 NL
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
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
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....
$10K MRR in 1 year·Team
SaaSDeveloper Tools🇦🇹 AT
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
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
Cody Schneider
From Google Drive folder to $1.1M ARR: How we built Swell AI with degenerate growth tactics
Started with 10 friends uploading MP3s to a Google Drive folder. Now doing $1.1M ARR by cold emailing 100,000 people per month.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSAI / ML🇺🇸 US
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.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Solo
Info ProductEducation🇺🇸 US
Mubashar Iqbal
How building 120+ side projects led to a viral hit with 14M page views
After 80+ failed projects, one finally went viral. 4 million page views in 4 weeks, $4K/month in ad revenue, then sold.
$10K MRR in 2 months·Team
OtherEducation🇺🇸 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.
$100K ARR in 12 years·Solo
OtherEducation🇬🇧 GB
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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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