Founder stories
Founder stories
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238 stories found
Immad Akhund
After Selling Heyzap for $45M, Building a Bank for Startups
Immad Akhund left Google and sold his first startup for $45M before building Mercury, the go-to banking platform for startups valued at $3.5B.
$100K ARR in 6 months·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
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
Shalom Stark
Growing to 200,000 Users Without Any Marketing: The Invoice Ninja Story
Shalom Stark bootstrapped Invoice Ninja to 200,000+ users through open source, SEO, and word of mouth - without spending on marketing.
$10K MRR in 3 years·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Justin Jackson & Jon Buda
How We Built a $1M+ ARR Podcast Hosting Business as a Calm Company
Justin Jackson and Jon Buda built Transistor to over $1M ARR while documenting everything publicly on their "Build Your SaaS" podcast.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSContent Creation🇨🇦 CA
Justin Duke
Building a Successful Newsletter Business by Building Less
Justin Duke built Buttondown as a side project at Stripe into a profitable business with half a dozen employees - without raising VC.
$10K MRR in 5 years·Solo
SaaSContent Creation🇺🇸 US
Justin Moore
From $5M in Sponsorships to Teaching Creators How to Land Deals
Justin Moore made over $5M in sponsorships himself before building Creator Wizard to help other creators do the same.
$10K MRR in 3 years·Solo
Info ProductContent Creation🇺🇸 US
Samy Dindane & Yannick Veys
From a Tweet to 7-Figure SaaS: The Hypefury Story
Samy Dindane and Yannick Veys scaled Hypefury from a tweet asking about thread scheduling to a 7-figure bootstrapped business.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSContent Creation🌍 Remote
Julia Enthoven & Eric Lu
Building a Viral Video Editor with the "Watermark Growth Hack"
Julia Enthoven and Eric Lu bootstrapped Kapwing to 100,000+ users using SEO and the viral watermark strategy.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Team
SaaSContent CreationSan Francisco, CA
YE
Yoni Elbaz & Moran Benisty
Loox
How Two Sears R&D Engineers Built a $15M+ ARR Shopify App
Yoni Elbaz and Moran Benisty met at Sears R&D in Israel and bootstrapped Loox to $15M+ ARR without paying themselves for 15 months.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇮🇱 IL
Ben Jabbawy
Privy
How Privy Reached 500K Merchants and a $120M Exit
Ben Jabbawy built Privy into the #1 Shopify sales app with 500K+ merchants, driving $6B+ in eCommerce sales before a successful exit.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
MB
Maxx Blank, AJ Orbach & Ivan Chernykh
Triple Whale
From Internal Tool to $50M+ SaaS: The Triple Whale Story
The Triple Whale founders built an analytics tool for their own DTC brand, then spun it into a 5,000+ customer SaaS with Shopify as an investor.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
Chris Koh
GemPages
How a Developer Built GemPages to 100K+ Shopify Merchants
Chris Koh spent years working with eSellers before writing the first code for GemPages, a Shopify page builder now used by 100K+ merchants.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Solo
SaaSE-commerce🇻🇳 VN
Andrew Bialecki & Ed Hallen
Klaviyo
How Klaviyo Bootstrapped to $1M ARR Before Raising
Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen bootstrapped Klaviyo to over $1M ARR before raising, eventually building a $6B+ public company.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSE-commerce🇺🇸 US
David Stefanides & Marek Hrabě
How Mockuuups Built a Self-Funded Mockup Empire from Frustration
David and Marek turned their frustration with low-quality mockups into a profitable, self-funded design tool with 5000+ mockups.
$10K MRR in 8 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇨🇿 CZ
Fabrizio Bianchi
How a Weekend Project Became a 3M+ User Color Tool
Fabrizio Bianchi built Coolors in a weekend in 2014, and it grew to 3M+ users through viral simplicity.
$10K MRR in 4 years·Solo
SaaSDesign🇮🇹 IT
Satya Rajpurohit
How ITF Built a $2M/Year Font Empire for Indian Languages
Satya Rajpurohit co-founded Indian Type Foundry in 2009 and now designs fonts for Apple, Google, Samsung, and 300+ Fortune 500 clients.
$100K ARR in 10 years·Team
SaaSDesign🇮🇳 IN
MC
Michael Cameron & Bernie Tschirren
How Two Ex-Microsoft Engineers Built Rome2rio to a $40M Exit
Michael Cameron and Bernie Tschirren built Rome2rio from their parents' living room to 10M+ monthly visitors before selling to Omio.
$100K ARR in 8 years·Team
SaaSTravel🇦🇺 AU
Frederic Lalonde
How Hopper Pivoted from Blog Aggregator to $1B+ Travel App
Frederic Lalonde built Hopper through a scary pivot - from travel blog aggregator to AI-powered booking app with $1B+ in sales.
$100K ARR in 10 years·Team
Mobile AppTravel🇨🇦 CA
AZ
Aktarer Zaman
How a 22-Year-Old Built Skiplagged and Beat United Airlines in Court
Aktarer Zaman built Skiplagged at 20, got sued by United Airlines and Orbitz, and won - now helping millions find cheaper flights.
$10K MRR in 2 years·Solo
SaaSTravel🇺🇸 US
Varun Khona
How Headout Grew from 0 to $130M Revenue in Under 4 Years
Varun Khona built Headout from a 500 Startups incubation to $130M+ revenue, pioneering the managed experiences model.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
MarketplaceTravel🇺🇸 US
Kirk Simpson & James Lochrie
From Near Bankruptcy to $400M Exit: The Wave Accounting Story
Kirk Simpson built Wave through a near-bankruptcy experience to a $400M acquisition by H&R Block - all while giving software away free.
$100K ARR in 4 years·Team
SaaSFinance🇨🇦 CA
Waseem Daher, Jessica McKellar & Jeff Arnold
Three-Time Founders Built a $1.2B Bookkeeping Company by Doing the Work Themselves
Waseem Daher and co-founders built their third company after Oracle said their internal bookkeeping tools should have been their actual product.
$100K ARR in 2 years·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Henrique Dubugras & Pedro Franceschi
From Brazilian Teen Hackers to $12B Fintech: The Brex Story
Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi started working together at 16 and built Brex to $12B valuation.
$100K ARR in 1 year·Team
SaaSFinance🇺🇸 US
Andy Puddicombe & Richard Pierson
From Buddhist Monk to $3B Meditation Empire: The Headspace Story
Andy Puddicombe spent 10 years as a Buddhist monk before co-founding Headspace, now valued at over $3 billion.
$100K ARR in 3 years·Team
Mobile AppHealth & Wellness🇬🇧 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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