Founder stories
Founder stories
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238 stories found
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
Dagobert Renouf
Left $100K dev job to bootstrap a logo startup with his wife
Dagobert quit his high-paying job to build Logology with his designer wife, growing from $300 to $3K/month using only Twitter.
$1K MRR in 2 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇫🇷 FR
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
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
Allison Seboldt
How a Political Science major built a $2K/month fantasy politics game
Started as a free MVP in 2018. Two years later, first paid customers. One year after that, $2K revenue months.
$1K MRR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSEducation🇺🇸 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
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.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
Info ProductEducation🇺🇸 US
Spencer Fry
How a bootstrapped portfolio platform grew to $55K MRR and a life-changing exit
Built the first online portfolio platform for designers in 2005. Bootstrapped to $55K MRR, then sold to private equity.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇺🇸 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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