Founder stories
227 stories found
Julien built NotionForms to solve his own problem, reaching $10K MRR in 12 months through Product Hunt and SEO.
Built to solve his own problem with Notion navigation, Gourav kept Notion Boost open-source while still earning $9K+ through premium features.
Thomas failed 30 projects before Uneed. Six years later, he runs it full-time at $10K/month.
Sergiu created a meta-directory listing AI tool directories, reaching $10K revenue by helping AI startups get discovered.
Started with 10 friends uploading MP3s to a Google Drive folder. Now doing $1.1M ARR by cold emailing 100,000 people per month.
Started as scripts to catch domains for myself. Two years later, $125K/month revenue with zero employees.
Started as a free MVP in 2018. Two years later, first paid customers. One year after that, $2K revenue months.
Left Amazon with 150 Twitter followers. Three years later, $1M in cumulative revenue from info products and community.
After 80+ failed projects, one finally went viral. 4 million page views in 4 weeks, $4K/month in ad revenue, then sold.
Started as a free forum in 2007. 12 years later: $1.2M ARR from conferences, memberships, and courses.
Started curating single-page websites in 2008. Cross-promotion between projects grew to $100K+/year.
Started with a blog nobody read. Rebranded to Creator Science and built to $500K/year through newsletter, podcast, and community.
Built the first online portfolio platform for designers in 2005. Bootstrapped to $55K MRR, then sold to private equity.
After building Ministry of Testing to $1.2M, Rosie started Rosieland to teach community building. Reached $10K/month in 2.5 years.
Marie discovered Notion in 2018 and started sharing tips on YouTube. When her audience asked for a course, she launched Notion Mastery to $40K/month.
Victoria built a WordPress blog with only 89 posts and 15,000 monthly visits to reach $1K/month from affiliate marketing.
Andy left his tech job in 2014 and bootstrapped SevenAtoms to $275K MRR with a 90% client retention rate.
Derryck recognized the growing demand for SEO content and built Big Star Copywriting to $30K/month, surviving the 2008 crash.
Steph leveraged her experience leading content at The Hustle to launch Doing Content Right, earning $40K in the first month.
Nathan turned his podcast interview data into Getlatka, reaching $20K/month in 100 days and $150K MRR within a year.
Ellen pre-sold her first program with zero content, then built it based on customer feedback to reach 7-figure lifetime revenue.
Sumit saw colleagues struggling with Excel and built TrumpExcel to 1M+ monthly pageviews and $10K/month revenue.
Mayank and co-founders leveraged 10+ years of digital marketing experience to build Scalenut to $100K MRR in one year.
Substack found the perfect first customer in Bill Bishop, who generated $100K+ in revenue on his first day going paid.
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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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