SaaS Startups

Aunchport is a 10-year-old SaaS platform founded by Landon Ray that helps entrepreneurs remove the burden of technology to focus on building their businesses. Starting from hundreds of thousands of dollars invested over 5 years of failure from 2004-2009, the company exploded in 2009 and has grown to serve 6,000+ paying customers with approximately $14-20 million in annual recurring revenue, 100 employees, and profitability—all while maintaining very limited external investment.

Hay-O is a Facebook app SaaS platform built by Nathan Lacka that grew to over 10,000 paying customers and $5 million in sales over five years. The company raised $2.5 million in venture capital and received an acquisition offer from a major competitor, prompting Lacka to transparently involve the entire team in the exit decision-making process as a learning experience.

Joseph Michael built Learn Scrivener Fast, a one-time-purchase online course teaching writers how to master Scrivener software, generating $500,000 in revenue in 2015 (averaging $40-42k/month). Starting from a $60k/year casino job with no email list, he grew the business through strategic JV partnerships with influential writers, leveraging a 30% conversion rate on webinars and building a targeted email list of 60,000+ subscribers. His model demonstrates how teaching strategy around an existing tool can be more profitable than the software itself.

Hayo is a self-service subscription platform for running giveaways and social marketing promotions, primarily targeting the SMB market. The founder Nathan Latka received acquisition interest from multiple competitors including Vodago, ultimately signing a letter of intent with one buyer and proceeding through due diligence to sell the company before age 30.

Clue is a period tracking and fertility app founded by Aida Tannen that has grown to nearly 3 million monthly active users across 180+ countries. The company raised $10 million from Union Square Ventures and other investors while remaining pre-revenue, strategically focusing on user growth before monetization. With a team of 24, Clue is one of the most popular health and fitness apps globally, particularly in the US, Germany, France, and Mexico.

The Foundation is a 6-month SaaS education program founded by Dane Maxwell that teaches aspiring entrepreneurs how to build lucrative software companies from scratch. With approximately 1,400 students trained over four years and total revenue between $5-6 million, the program focuses on integrating emotional, logical, and physical development alongside business fundamentals. While less than 10% of students graduate with 10 paying customers within six months, 40% launch with at least one paying customer, and the program maintains an impressive 8/10 Net Promoter Score.

Kevin Wilkie's Nitro Marketing generates over $4 million annually by teaching people how to start local marketing consulting businesses. He uses a sophisticated webinar funnel that generates 30% of sales during the live event and 70% through replays and recordings, with a recent webinar converting 398 attendees into 170 sales ($126,000). His growth is driven by affiliate partnerships that promote the webinars to their audiences in exchange for 50% commission on sales.

Flourish and Thrive Academy is an online education platform founded by Tracy Matthews, a jewelry designer with 20+ years of industry experience. After her first jewelry brand failed despite nearly $1 million in sales due to poor business structure, she built an academy to teach emerging jewelry designers business skills, marketing, and operations. The academy has grown to 800 students in three years using a Facebook ad-driven funnel ($500/month spend generating ~1,000 monthly opt-ins) and webinar-based sales, with both one-time courses ($795 generating $160,000 from 245 signups) and newly launched subscription offerings ($49-$78/month).

Sean Malarkey founded Inspired Marketing, an e-learning company selling digital marketing courses focused on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. The flagship LinkedIn Influence course has generated over $2 million in revenue with over 20,000 customers, driven primarily through 60-70% affiliate commissions and 30-40% direct marketing through Facebook ads and funnel optimization. The business generates approximately $40,000 monthly from the LinkedIn course alone, representing about 25% of total company revenue.

Sue Zimmerman built a multi-million dollar business selling online Instagram marketing courses and coaching services. Her flagship "Insta Results" course priced at $997 generated approximately $67,000 from 67 sales in one year, though total course revenue exceeded $300,000+ when including her lower-priced offerings. Her primary growth channels were speaking engagements, podcast interviews, and strategic email list building (4,900 subscribers from a single strategy guide funnel), focusing on relationship building before conversion.

Kristi Zouki left a six-figure salary at Procter & Gamble to found Knowledge Hound, a SaaS platform that solves 'corporate amnesia' by making companies' market research searchable and discoverable. The platform had grown with double-digit growth rates for three years by 2016, with a goal to hit $5 million in annual revenue by the end of that year.

Cellbreaker was a venture-backed startup co-founded by Jules Hill, who joined the company as COO after graduating from a top-5 business school. The company raised approximately $50K initially and was accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator program in California, which brought an additional $100K investment. Jules eventually left the company after 2 years due to slowed growth caused by legal negotiations with cell phone carriers and potential acquisition talks, though he retains about 1% equity on a vesting schedule.

HEO (formerly Fanpage Factory and Le Jour) is a SaaS platform for social marketing and promotions that was successfully acquired by Vodago, a 9+ year old social marketing promotions platform focused on enterprises and large brands. Nathan, the founder, grew HEO to the point of acquisition through content marketing, particularly via his highly-ranked podcast (number one on Inc., Business, Success, and Huffington Post) and webinars, attracting early customers like Su who became early advocates.

Gusto is a SaaS platform helping small businesses manage payroll, HR, benefits, and health insurance. Founded by Josh Reeves (who previously co-founded Unwrap, acquired in 2010), Gusto has grown to over 25,000 paid customers with a 98% conversion rate from free trial to paid status, serving companies with 1-100 employees at $29/month plus $6 per employee.

Project Repat turns customers' old t-shirts into quilts made in the USA with recycled plastic bottle fleece. Starting with just $25k in seed funding and $8k in the bank, Nathan Rothstein and his co-founder scaled from struggling with a Groupon viral moment in August 2012 (selling 2,000 quilts in a week) to $750k in revenue by November 2015. They aggressively scaled through Facebook ads and email marketing (Klaviyo), reinvesting heavily into customer acquisition to dominate the blue ocean market of affordable t-shirt quilts.

Latergram is a freemium SaaS platform that allows users to schedule and post to Instagram, launched in May 2014 by Matt Smith and co-founders. Starting with 20,000 signups at launch through heavy PR and founder outreach, the company grew to nearly 500,000 users and 3,000-4,000 paying customers generating $50,000 MRR by January 2016. The company raised a $1.2M seed round from investors including Rocket Ship and angels like Heaton Shaw and Aspect Ventures, aiming to reach $1M ARR in 2016 with 25-30% month-over-month growth.

Coach.me is a marketplace for digital, message-based coaching launched in January 2015 by Tony Stubblebine (former head of engineering at Odeo, Jack Dorsey's early employer). The platform takes a 50% cut when it brings clients and 10-30% when coaches bring their own, generating $82k (2014), $650k (2015), and projected $2M (2016). Growth came through validating the coaching model with Tim Ferriss, then focusing relentlessly on improving client lifetime value from $42/year to $90+/year as the product quality improved.

Aircall is a cloud-based phone support software founded by Olivier R. Payees that launched in June 2015. The company grew from $10,000 in first month revenue to ~$100,000 MRR by December 2015 (30% month-over-month growth) through a combination of direct outreach and strategic product integrations. They've achieved negative churn and recently raised $2.8M in seed funding on top of an initial $500K investment.

Cohesity is an enterprise storage company founded by Mohit Rahn, the inventor of hyperconvergence, in June 2013. The company raised $15M Series A from Sequoia and Wing Ventures in November 2013, and $55M Series B in May 2015, achieving a pre-money valuation between $150M-$500M. As of October 2015 (two months after GA), the company had generated under $10M in revenue.

Awesome Web is a freelance marketplace SaaS that flipped the traditional model by charging freelancers ($27/month subscription) instead of clients, eliminating the 10-40% percentage fees charged by competitors like Upwork and Elance. Founded in September 2014 by Nick Tart and co-founders with existing audiences, the platform grew to 1,100 paying freelancer members generating approximately $25,000 MRR by early 2016, with an initial investment of $30,000 from idea to MVP.