Build in Public

Stripo is an email template builder founded by Dmytro Kudrenko in February 2017 that has grown to $533K monthly revenue and over 1 million users. The platform allows marketers to create professional emails without coding and integrates with 80+ marketing automation platforms including Mailchimp and Gmail. Surprisingly, about 30% of their clients use Stripo for business correspondence rather than marketing.

Man of Many is a men's lifestyle blog founded by Scott Purcell in 2012 that has grown from a part-time hobby to one of the world's largest men's lifestyle sites. The bootstrapped company now reaches over 2 million readers monthly and generates over $4M per year in revenue with a team of 13 employees.

Justin Welsh built a $2M annual revenue solopreneur business creating knowledge products and digital courses that teach entrepreneurs how to leverage social media. His business is fueled by his massive social media following of 380K on LinkedIn and 330K on Twitter, plus an 80K subscriber newsletter called The Saturday Solopreneur.

Sheets & Giggles is a pun-based, eco-friendly bedding brand founded by Colin McIntosh that launched in May 2018 on Indiegogo. The company makes lyocell bed sheets from eucalyptus trees and achieved nearly $500K in revenue in their first 6 months with over 6,000 orders, now generating $200K monthly revenue.

David Bressler founded Formula Bot (Excelformulabot) in July 2022 as an AI-powered tool that translates text instructions into Excel formulas. The SaaS operates on a freemium model with unlimited access costing $6.99/month, reaching $23K monthly revenue by targeting the billion Excel users worldwide.

Kristin Hanes started The Wayward Home in June 2017 as a blog and podcast dedicated to helping people achieve alternative living dreams like van life and RVing. The content business now generates $20K per month in revenue with startup costs of only $50, serving readers who want freedom from traditional 9-5 life or affordable ways to explore and live.

Mikkel Malmberg built 10er as a Danish alternative to Patreon for podcast creators, starting with his own comedy podcast. The platform grew to over 136 projects through word-of-mouth among podcasters and reached nearly $2,000/month in recurring revenue while being run as a side project alongside his full-time job at Elastic.

Nate Baker founded Qualia, a title software platform, at 21 with no real estate experience by finding his first customer through network selling at a conference. He embedded himself and his first 25 employees in that customer's basement to learn the industry, used multi-year upfront contracts to generate cash flow, and grew from $45K ARR to $100M ARR with 600 employees and $200M+ raised.

OMNEX is a tool built by Modar Ja to reduce context switching by bringing scattered tools like email, Slack, calendar, docs, and tasks into one place. The product is in early beta stage and seeking user feedback through Indie Hackers community, with the founder positioning it as a re-entry screen to reconnect different work pieces rather than a full replacement for existing tools.

ABBY was a documentation and evaluation service for A/B tests built by Andy Goldschmidt after seeing the need for better test documentation at Jimdo. Despite getting 100 sign-ups from a Product Hunt launch that brought 20k visitors, the product failed because users didn't understand its value and it required too much user education in a competitive market dominated by Google Analytics and Optimizely.

Adproval was a marketplace connecting bloggers and influencers with brands, founded by Matthew Anderson in 2011. Despite raising $300k and eventually generating over $200k in annual revenue through consulting services, the company failed after 6 years due to poor revenue model focusing on small commissions, lack of focus on the advertiser side, and founder burnout from depression and anxiety.

AKKO is the 'Spotify for protection plans' that bundles device protection for phones, laptops, TVs and up to 25 other items. Founded by Jared Brier and Eric Schneider, they pivoted from a smart lock product to building a B2B2C platform that now serves customers in all 50 states and Canada with 500+ repair shop partnerships. They recently raised $3M in seed funding from Fika Ventures and Pear VC and have grown to 20+ team members.