Newsletter/Media$500,000/mo
PW
Pat Walls
Starter Story
Pat Walls Built Starter Story Into A $6M/Year Media Business
Started
2017
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
Founders Atlas
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All StoriesNewsletter/MediaSaaSE-CommerceService BusinessMarketplaceCommunity/EducationCommunity/MediaContent/CourseSaaS / WordPressSaaS / MarketingDeveloper Tools / Open SourceEducation / No-CodeMedia / Product ManagementSaaS / Social MediaDeveloper ToolsCreator Economy / EducationEducation / Developer ToolsEducation / DesignMedia / Education / InvestingEducation / Digital ProductsEducation / MarketingE-commerce / GroomingEducation / Creator EconomyE-Commerce / MusicEducation / NewsletterMedia / Business EducationJob Board / HR Tech
SaaS$250,000/mo
PL
Pieter Levels
Nomad List / Remote OK
Pieter Levels Built A $3M/Year Empire From A Backpack
The Dutch developer who challenged himself to launch 12 startups in 12 months and ended up building some of the most iconic bootstrapped products on the internet, all while traveling the world solo.
Started
2014
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
SaaS$137,000/mo
TD
Tony Dinh
TypingMind
Tony Dinh Went From Fired To $137K/Month With TypingMind
A Vietnamese developer who got laid off, built a Twitter analytics tool, sold it for $128K, then caught the AI wave and built TypingMind into a $1.6M per year product, all as a solo founder.
Started
2023
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
SaaS$100,000/mo
ML
Marc Lou
ShipFast
Marc Lou Ships 16 Products And Hits $100K/Month From Bali
From depressed and living with his parents to Product Hunt's Maker of the Year. A French developer who moved to Bali, launched 16 products in two years, and built a portfolio generating over $100K per month.
Started
2023
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
E-Commerce$250,000/mo
JV
Jaimee Vilela
Cooki Haircare
Jaimee Vilela Grew Cooki Haircare From $170K To $3M In One Year
After being diagnosed with Stage 4 endometriosis, a former beauty marketing professional bought a small shampoo bar business and scaled it to $3 million per year using Meta ads and email, with no outside funding and no agencies.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$15,000
Growth
Facebook/Meta Ads
SaaS$333,000/mo
AG
Amar Ghose
ZenMaid
Amar Ghose Bootstrapped ZenMaid To $4M/Year While Traveling 35+ Countries
A non-technical founder who started his own maid service, built scheduling software to solve his own problem, and grew it into a $4M per year SaaS serving 3,000 cleaning companies, all while working remotely from around the world.
Started
2013
Startup Cost
$5,000
Growth
Content Marketing
SaaS$50,000/mo
TT
Tyler Tringas
Storemapper
Tyler Tringas Built Storemapper On A 30-Hour Flight And Sold It
A developer who built a niche SaaS for store locators during a single flight from San Francisco to Buenos Aires, grew it to $50K MRR as a solo founder, sold the company, and then started a fund to help other bootstrappers.
Started
2013
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
SaaS$30,000/mo
JP
Josh Pigford
Baremetrics
Josh Pigford Built Baremetrics In 8 Days And Sold It For $4M
A serial maker who needed a way to track his SaaS metrics, built a Stripe analytics dashboard in 8 days, grew it to $30K MRR, then sold the whole company for $4 million after 7 years.
Started
2013
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Transparency
SaaS$55,000/mo
AK&DS
Arvid Kahl & Danielle Simpson
FeedbackPanda
Arvid Kahl And Danielle Simpson Built FeedbackPanda And Sold It For A Life-Changing Exit
A developer and an online English teacher built a tool that automated student feedback for ESL teachers, grew it to $55K MRR in two years, and sold it for a reported mid-seven figures.
Started
2017
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Community
Service Business$400,000/mo
NH
Nick Huber
Storage Squad / Bolt Storage
Nick Huber Started With A $1,500 Cargo Van And Built A Storage Empire
A college student who started lugging boxes for other students with a cheap cargo van, grew it into a multi-million dollar storage operation, sold it, and then built a portfolio of 60 self-storage facilities worth over $30 million.
Started
2015
Startup Cost
$1,500
Growth
Door-to-Door
SaaS$100,000/mo
DP
Danny Postma
HeadshotPro
Danny Postma Built HeadshotPro To $100K/Month In 3 Months
A Dutch designer and indie hacker who sold his first SaaS for $1M, then rode the AI wave to build an AI headshot generator that hit $100K monthly revenue faster than almost any bootstrapped product in history.
Started
2023
Startup Cost
$500
Growth
SEO
SaaS$50,000/mo
JY
Jon Yongfook
Bannerbear
Jon Yongfook Bootstrapped Bannerbear To $50K MRR Solo
A Malaysian-Japanese founder and serial entrepreneur who built an API for auto-generating images and videos, grew it to $50K MRR as a solo founder, and did it all transparently on Twitter.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
SaaS$175,000/mo
MM&FM
Marie Martens & Filip Minev
Tally
Marie Martens And Filip Minev Built Tally To $175K MRR From Belgium
A Belgian couple who built a free-to-use form builder as an alternative to Typeform and Google Forms, grew it to $175K MRR with a freemium model, and did it with a tiny team from Antwerp.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Product-Led Growth
Marketplace$1,200,000/mo
SL
Sahil Lavingia
Gumroad
Sahil Lavingia Took Gumroad From VC Failure To Profitable Creator Platform
A former Pinterest employee who raised $8M in venture capital, nearly killed his company by chasing growth, then downsized to a team of one, rebuilt as a bootstrapped business, and grew Gumroad to profitability serving 150,000+ creators.
Started
2011
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Creator Network Effects
Community/Education$125,000/mo
RS
Rosie Sherry
Ministry of Testing
Rosie Sherry Turned A Testing Community Into A $1.5M/Year Business
A software tester turned community builder who started a small forum for QA professionals, grew it into the world's largest testing community, and built a business around events, courses, and memberships that generates $1.5M per year.
Started
2007
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Community-Led Growth
Newsletter/Media$20,000/mo
DR
Dru Riley
Trends.vc
Dru Riley Built Trends.vc To $20K+ MRR With Deep Market Research
A developer turned researcher who built a premium newsletter analyzing market trends and startup opportunities, grew it to $20K+ MRR through meticulous research that founders and investors pay for.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
Community/Media$8,000/mo
CA
Courtland Allen
Indie Hackers
Courtland Allen Built Indie Hackers And Sold It To Stripe
A developer who couldn't find honest revenue data from bootstrapped founders, so he started interviewing them himself. The community he built around those interviews became so influential that Stripe acquired it.
Started
2016
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Content
SaaS$140,000/mo
AG
Ajay Goel
GMass
Ajay Goel Built GMass To $140K MRR As A Gmail Plugin
A serial entrepreneur who built a Chrome extension that turns Gmail into a mass email tool, grew it to $140K MRR with no sales team, and proved that browser extensions can be real businesses.
Started
2015
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
SaaS$208,000/mo
TH
Todd Hooper
Prerender.io
Todd Hooper Solo-Bootstrapped Prerender.io To $2.5M ARR
A solo founder who identified a technical SEO problem that JavaScript-heavy websites face, built an infrastructure product to solve it, and grew it to $2.5M in annual recurring revenue as essentially a one-person company.
Started
2013
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
Content/Course$8,000/mo
SS
Steph Smith
Doing Content Right
Steph Smith Made $130K From An Ebook And Built A Portfolio Career
A remote worker and indie creator who wrote an ebook about content marketing, earned $130K from it, built multiple income streams, and became one of the most visible examples of the portfolio creator career.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
SaaS$83,000/mo
WW&OM
Wilson Wilson & Olly Meakings
Senja
Wilson Wilson And Olly Meakings Bootstrapped Senja To $1M ARR
A 19-year-old developer from Nigeria and a seasoned London marketer who met online and never worked in the same room together built a testimonial collection tool to $1M ARR with zero funding and zero employees.
Started
2022
Startup Cost
$35
Growth
SEO
SaaS$1,000,000/mo
TL
Tibo Louis-Lucas
TweetHunter & Taplio
Tibo Louis-Lucas Built And Sold TweetHunter For $10M Then Did It Again
A French indie hacker who went from bankruptcy to building two social media SaaS tools, selling them for $10 million, and then launching five more AI products simultaneously targeting $100K MRR each.
Started
2021
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
SaaS$166,000/mo
RW
Rob Walling
Drip
Rob Walling Bootstrapped Drip To 8 Figures And Changed SaaS Forever
A serial bootstrapper who built six companies, five without funding, and turned a simple email widget into a marketing automation platform that sold for eight figures to Leadpages, then created the ecosystem that supports thousands of indie SaaS founders.
Started
2012
Startup Cost
$50,000
Growth
Content Marketing
SaaS / WordPress$110K/mo
AV
Aurelio Volle
WP Umbrella
From EU Lobbyist to Building a $110K/Month WordPress Management SaaS with His Childhood Friend
How Aurelio Volle left the world of European Union lobbying, teamed up with his childhood best friend as CTO, and bootstrapped WP Umbrella from $7K to $110K MRR in under three years.
Started
2021
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Content Marketing & Word of Mouth
SaaS / Marketing$40K/mo
KY
Kaloyan Yankulov
Encharge
From $1,000 in the Bank to Building a Marketing Automation SaaS and Selling It for $2M
How Kaloyan Yankulov started Encharge with almost nothing, grew it to $40K MRR through pure SEO, and sold the business for $2 million in 2024 -- after already building and selling HeadReach before it.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$1,000
Growth
SEO
Developer Tools / Open Source$80K/mo
MP
Mike Perham
Sidekiq
How a Solo Developer Built a Ruby Background Processing Tool Into an $80K/Month Business Used by Fortune 100 Companies
Mike Perham spent 18 months working full-time while building Sidekiq on the side, then turned an open source project into an $80K MRR solo business with customers including Heroku, New Relic, and Fortune 100 enterprises.
Started
2012
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Open Source Community & Word of Mouth
Education / No-Code$33K/mo
BT
Ben Tossell
Makerpad
From Product Hunt Community Manager to Building a No-Code Education Empire Acquired by Zapier
How Ben Tossell turned his passion for no-code tools into a thriving education platform with 10,000+ members — built entirely without writing code.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$500
Growth
Community & Content
Media / Product Management$210K/mo
LR
Lenny Rachitsky
Lenny's Newsletter
From Airbnb Product Lead to Building the Most Popular Product Management Newsletter in the World
How Lenny Rachitsky accidentally stumbled into a $2.5M+ newsletter business after a Medium post went semi-viral — and never looked back.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Word of Mouth & Quality Content
SaaS / Social Media$350K/mo
LR
Laura Roeder
MeetEdgar
How a Self-Taught Web Designer Built a $4.2M ARR SaaS Competing Against a $300M-Funded Giant
Laura Roeder bootstrapped MeetEdgar into a profitable social media scheduling tool — without a sales team, without investors, and without missing a single Wednesday newsletter since 2009.
Started
2014
Startup Cost
$25K
Growth
Content Marketing & Email List
Developer Tools$7K/mo
CZ
Cory Zue
SaaS Pegasus
Former CTO Turned Solopreneur Who Now Earns More Selling a Django Boilerplate Than He Did Running Engineering
How Cory Zue scratched his own itch by turning copy-pasted Django code into a one-person product doing $84K+ in revenue — more than his CTO salary.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO & Content Marketing
Developer Tools / Open Source$350K/mo
AW
Adam Wathan
Tailwind CSS / Tailwind UI
How a Side Project CSS Framework Became a $4M+/Year Business That Changed How Developers Write Styles
Adam Wathan turned an opinionated approach to CSS into the most popular utility-first framework in the world — then built a commercial UI component library that did $500K on launch day.
Started
2017
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Open Source Community & Content
Creator Economy / Education$420K/mo
JW
Justin Welsh
The Saturday Solopreneur
From Burnout and Panic Attacks to Building a $5M/Year One-Person Business with Zero Employees
How Justin Welsh walked away from a corporate career helping build billion-dollar startups, rebuilt from burnout, and created a solopreneur empire generating $5M/year at 90% profit margins.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$500
Growth
Social Media Content & Newsletter
SaaS$500,000/mo
NN
Natalie Nagele
Wildbit (Postmark)
Natalie Nagele Built Wildbit Into A Calm Company Powerhouse
A co-founder who spent over two decades building a portfolio of developer tools used by 100,000+ companies, proved that strict 40-hour workweeks and no overtime culture can produce multi-million dollar ARR, and ultimately sold key assets to ActiveCampaign.
Started
2000
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Cross-selling to existing customers
Newsletter/Media$83,000/mo
KB
Katelyn Bourgoin
Why We Buy
Katelyn Bourgoin Turned Buyer Psychology Into A $1M/Year Newsletter
A 4x founder who went bankrupt after her VC-backed startup failed, rebuilt from nothing with a buyer psychology newsletter, and grew it to over $1M per year in revenue with 220K+ subscribers.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
SaaS$500,000/mo
PG
Peldi Guilizzoni
Balsamiq
Peldi Guilizzoni Built Balsamiq To $6M/Year From His Kitchen Table
An Italian software engineer who left a senior role at Adobe, built a wireframing tool alone in his kitchen from 8pm to midnight, and grew it to $6M+ per year with zero VC, no formal marketing, and a small remote team.
Started
2008
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Word of Mouth
SaaS$42,000/mo
AH
Amy Hoy
Noko (formerly Freckle)
Amy Hoy Bootstrapped Noko And Stacking The Bricks To $500K/Year
A developer-turned-entrepreneur who built a time tracking SaaS on the side, grew it to $500K per year on haphazard part-time marketing, then turned her bootstrapping methodology into a successful education business.
Started
2008
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Content Marketing
SaaS$200,000/mo
MH
Michele Hansen
Geocodio
Michele Hansen Grew Geocodio From $28 To Multi-Million ARR
A husband-and-wife team who launched a geocoding API as a side project in 2014, earned $28.29 their first month, and patiently grew it into a multi-million dollar bootstrapped SaaS while working evenings and weekends for years.
Started
2014
Startup Cost
$20
Growth
SEO
SaaS$167,000/mo
RF
Rand Fishkin
SparkToro
Rand Fishkin Built SparkToro As The Anti-Moz
After building Moz to $50M+ in revenue and 200+ employees, stepping down during a depression, and leaving the company, Rand started SparkToro as the deliberate opposite: a profitable 3-person startup earning $2M per year on 30-hour workweeks.
Started
2018
Startup Cost
$1,300,000
Growth
Content Marketing
Education / Developer Tools$250,000/mo
WB
Wes Bos
Wes Bos Courses
Wes Bos Turned Web Dev Education Into A Multi-Million Dollar Empire
A Canadian web developer who started recording coding tutorials from his home office, built a massive YouTube and podcast following, and turned premium courses into a multi-million dollar solo education business without venture capital or a sales team.
Started
2014
Startup Cost
$2,000
Growth
YouTube
Education / Design$200,000/mo
JB
Jack Butcher
Visualize Value
Jack Butcher Turned Simple Visuals Into A Multi-Million Dollar Brand
A former creative director at major ad agencies who was burning out on client work, started posting minimalist black-and-white graphics on Twitter explaining business concepts, and built a multi-million dollar digital products empire in under three years.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
Media / Education / Investing$300,000/mo
SB
Sahil Bloom
Sahil Bloom Media
Sahil Bloom Built A Media Empire From Twitter Threads
A former private equity investor who started writing Twitter threads about mental models and business frameworks during the pandemic, grew to 1.5M+ followers, and built a diversified media and investment business generating millions per year.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
Education / Digital Products$35,000/mo
DV
Daniel Vassallo
Small Bets (Portfolio)
Daniel Vassallo Quit Amazon To Build A Portfolio Of Small Bets
A senior Amazon Web Services engineer who walked away from $1M+ in unvested stock to pursue independent work, then built a portfolio of small digital products and a community generating $400K+ per year by rejecting the single-big-bet startup model.
Started
2019
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
Education / Marketing$30,000/mo
HD
Harry Dry
Marketing Examples
Harry Dry Built Marketing Examples Into The Go-To Resource For Marketers
A self-taught marketer from England who failed at his first startup, started collecting real-world marketing breakdowns on a simple website, and grew it into one of the most respected marketing education brands on the internet with 100K+ newsletter subscribers.
Started
2018
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Twitter/X
E-commerce / Grooming$400,000/mo
EB
Eric Bandholz
Beardbrand
Eric Bandholz Grew Beardbrand From A YouTube Channel To A Grooming Empire
A corporate finance professional who started a blog and YouTube channel about beard culture, turned it into a men's grooming brand doing $100K+ per month in DTC revenue, and built one of the most recognizable brands in the men's grooming space without retail distribution.
Started
2012
Startup Cost
$30,000
Growth
YouTube
Education / Creator Economy$350,000/mo
AA
Ali Abdaal
Part-Time YouTuber Academy
Ali Abdaal Built Part-Time YouTuber Academy To $350K/Month
A Cambridge-trained doctor who started making YouTube videos about studying, grew to 5M+ subscribers, and turned his knowledge of YouTube growth into a cohort-based course generating $350K per month — all while still seeing patients part-time.
Started
2017
Startup Cost
$500
Growth
YouTube
E-Commerce / Music$330,000/mo
DS
Derek Sivers
CD Baby
Derek Sivers Built CD Baby From A Favor Into A $22M Exit
A professional musician who built a website to sell his own CD, started helping friends sell theirs, and accidentally created the largest online retailer of independent music — processing $100M+ in sales before selling the company for $22M.
Started
1998
Startup Cost
$500
Growth
Word of Mouth
Education / Newsletter$50,000/mo
SG&PH
Sinem Günel & Philip Hofmacher
Write Build Scale
Sinem Günel And Philip Hofmacher Built Write Build Scale To $50K/Month
A couple who went from earning $500/month writing on Medium to building a $50K/month education business teaching writers how to monetize on Substack — all before turning 30.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Substack
Media / Business Education$400,000/mo
CS
Codie Sanchez
Contrarian Thinking
Codie Sanchez Built Contrarian Thinking To $400K/Month
A former Wall Street institutional investor who built a newsletter empire around buying 'boring businesses' like laundromats and car washes, growing to 500K+ subscribers and $400K/month through content, courses, and deal flow.
Started
2020
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Social Media (Twitter/X, YouTube, TikTok)
Job Board / HR Tech$20,000/mo
LT
Lynne Tye
Key Values
Lynne Tye Built Key Values To $20K/Month As A Solo Founder
A software engineer who dropped out of Y Combinator with a different startup, pivoted to a developer job board that matches engineers with companies based on cultural values, and grew it to $20K/month completely solo from San Francisco.
Started
2018
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
SEO
SaaS$45,000/mo
DC
Damon Chen
Testimonial.to
Damon Chen Built Testimonial.to To $45K MRR As A Solo Founder
A software engineer who quit his job, tried multiple failed projects, then built a video testimonial collection tool that grew to $45K MRR through a relentless build-in-public approach and obsessive focus on user experience.
Started
2021
Startup Cost
$0
Growth
Build in Public (Twitter/X)
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