Browse Case Studies

Stephanie Harbert and Rich Galdrakus built Binomial, a GPU-optimized image and texture compression product for game developers. Starting from burnout and consulting work, they discovered the product opportunity when a client requested compression software. After prototyping for 3-4 months while maintaining their networking and conference presence, Netflix's engineering team discovered their work through Rich's blog and became their first major customer, providing financial backing to complete the product. Today, as a lean two-person team, they negotiate seven-figure deals with major gaming companies.

Tremendous is a B2B payout and incentive platform that grew out of Gift Rocket, the founders' earlier consumer gifting startup. After realizing businesses were using Gift Rocket repeatedly for market research incentives and referral programs—unlike consumers with low retention—the team pivoted and focused on the B2B use case. Through direct sales to market research firms and other businesses, the company scaled to eight-figure annual revenue, remains profitable, and is fully founder-owned after buying back investor equity.

Japan Dev is a curated job board for English-speaking software developers seeking work in Japan, founded by Eric Turner in 2019. Starting from a personal pain point during his own job search in Tokyo, Eric bootstrapped the two-sided marketplace to $83k ARR with just his wife as his co-founder, using a unique per-hire revenue model (companies only pay when they successfully hire) instead of traditional job posting fees. Growth came primarily through SEO and organic discovery as developers Googled for English jobs in Japan.