SaaS Startups

Kim Garst built a social media consulting and training business centered around her Social Selling Inner Circle membership ($47/month). She uses a funnel approach starting with free value-driven e-books (generating ~12,000 leads/month via Facebook offers), converting to a $9 mini-course, then upselling to her membership. With 560 members and 85-87% monthly retention, the Inner Circle generates over $26k MRR.

Heathen Shaw built three SaaS companies: self-funded Crazy Egg (heatmaps for website analytics since 2005), venture-backed KISSmetrics (customer analytics), and QuickSprout (content marketing software and services marketplace). QuickSprout generates 600-700k monthly visits through content marketing, with an email list exceeding 100,000 subscribers, and converts traffic to email at 2-8% rates before monetizing through approved marketing services partnerships and upcoming software tools.

Todd Herman, a performance coach to self-made billionaires and Fortune 50 executives, launched his 90 Day Year online course program in May/June 2014 with zero existing email list. He invested $56,000 in Facebook and YouTube advertising with aggressive retargeting to build a 20,000-person opt-in list, then converted them through a three-video content funnel and sales letter, generating $556,000 in total revenue ($200,000 from a last-minute 12-payment option launch).

Justin Mears joined Exceptional, a SaaS company, in 2012 as director of revenue when it was doing ~$700K ARR. He helped scale it to $1.9M ARR in one year before Rackspace acquired it for $12 million in 2013. Mears later co-authored the book 'Traction,' which sold 38,000 copies self-published and secured a six-figure advance from Portfolio Random House for a 2024 relaunch.

Jake Cohen is Director of Customer Marketing at Data Gravity, a fast-growing startup. Previously, he was Director of Strategy at CBS where he was responsible for $62 million in annual sales through the Altitude Group, which sold integrated multimedia campaigns to major brands like Allstate and American Express. Before Data Gravity, he co-founded Privy, a marketing software for brick-and-mortar businesses to track online marketing activities to in-store sales.

Jordan Gray is a sex and relationship coach who built a seven-figure business primarily through content marketing and syndication. Over 2.5 years, he wrote 10 books and ~250 articles, syndicating 180+ pieces across major publications (Entrepreneur.com, Cosmo, Thought Catalog) that funnel traffic back to his website where customers discover his $97 Supercharge Your Sex Life video course.

Neville Medhora built CopywritingCourse.com to teach email copywriting after discovering its transformative power while running HouseOfRave.com, an e-commerce business. His first compelling email generated 120 orders in two hours from a list of 7,500 people, convincing him of copywriting's ROI. Today, CopywritingCourse.com has grown to 21,000 email subscribers, with Neville focused on list-building as his primary growth lever.

Peter Shankman built Harro, an advertising-based SaaS platform, from his couch with his two cats while working under the LLC 'Two Cats and a Cup of Coffee LLC.' The company grew to nearly $2 million in annual revenue through word-of-mouth and audience building before he sold it to Vocus. Since then, Shankman has leveraged his audience across email, social media, and his personal brand to sell high-ticket items like $600 mastermind seats and bestselling books.

Due is an online invoicing and time-tracking platform founded by Murray Newlands that helps freelancers and small businesses manage invoices and get paid. After just three months, the company had 75,000 registered users with over 500 paying customers, primarily acquired through content marketing including a 7,000-word freelancer guide and strategic media placements on Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, and Time. The team is bootstrapped, self-funded, and focused on building partnerships and differentiating features before a full market launch.

Slide Rule is an online educational institution founded in 2013 that teaches data science and UX design paired with one-on-one mentorship from industry experts. The company generates approximately $100,000 MRR ($1.2M ARR) through a $300/month subscription model with courses lasting 2-3 months. They've grown to nearly 1,000 total students through content marketing, particularly blog posts that rank on the front page of Google for searches like 'Learn UX Design,' with an email list of 80-90k free users converting at 2-3% monthly.

Quick Legal, founded by Derek Bluford in early 2015, is an on-demand legal advice platform connecting users with attorneys via FaceTime, voice calls, and instant messaging. The company generates $65,000 monthly revenue from 130+ attorney subscribers paying $500/month, achieving this through referral-based growth with no paid marketing. With a $12 million pre-money valuation and a pending acquisition offer in the $14 million range, Derek is holding out for greater potential as he scales toward 2,500 attorneys through strategic partnerships.

BrainChase is an online learning platform that gamifies education through a semester-long adventure treasure hunt, curating the best third-party curriculum providers. The company grew from 500 participants in summer 2014 to 2,000 in summer 2015 (generating ~$400K in revenue), and is expanding from a seasonal summer model to year-round offerings through after-school and school district partnerships.

Hampus Jacobson, the founder of TAT (acquired by BlackBerry for $150M in 2010), launched Brisk—a B2C2B sales process acceleration tool that nudges sales reps on next steps. By October, Brisk had $7,000 MRR across ~1,000 seats from 380+ companies at $39/user/year, with large enterprise pilots for 200-400 licenses driven by single power users converting their teams.

Sellbreaker is a legal-tech SaaS platform founded by John Colgan that helps consumers cancel cell phone contracts without paying early termination fees by identifying carrier breaches in contracts. The company charges 35% of the savings (ETF amounts) and achieved a $13 million annual run rate by August 2015 with 13,000 users, maintaining a 100% success rate. Colgan raised just under $300,000 in convertible notes (partly from 500 Startups) and planned to expand to other consumer contracts under a new vertical-agnostic brand called Vito.

Amy Schmetawa built Savvy Sexy Social, a video content strategy platform, starting with YouTube videos in 2008 and growing a community of 2+ million views. She transitioned from hourly consulting to a membership model (Social Authority Membership, launched May 2015) at $59/month to work only with committed clients willing to execute. Within five months (October 2015), the membership was generating $5K/month with plans to phase out lower-tier offerings and focus on annual premium memberships.

Amy Porterfield launched her Profit Lab program in May 2017, a course teaching social media sales funnel creation, generating almost $1 million in revenue over a 20-day launch period. The success came from a strategic combination of 25% affiliate sales (from 8 carefully selected partners), cold traffic ads, retargeting, and email marketing to her 180,000-person list. Notably, 30% of sales came in the final two days, and one-third of customers never attended a webinar, purchasing directly from email sequences.

Matt Galant is a serial entrepreneur who has generated over 7 million leads across multiple industries (primarily guitar instruction and fitness supplements). His supplement company (Masszymes) grossed $280,000 in October with a net profit of $52,000, primarily through an affiliate model paying 30% commission for life. He built Gold Lantern, a SaaS tool that tracks lead value over specific time periods (30, 90, 180, 365 days) to help optimize marketing spend and identify break-even points.

Whiplash is an order fulfillment and shipping service for e-commerce companies founded by James Marks and two co-founders. The company generates approximately $100k in monthly recurring revenue from 157 customers, with October gross revenue of $330k including carrier fees. They are bootstrapped with three warehouses, recently joined 500 Startups, and are planning to raise $2M at an 8-10M cap valuation to scale their sales efforts.

Kimra Luna launched Be True Brand U, a $2,000 digital course program, in May 2014 and generated $880,000 in first-year revenue (May 2014-February 2015) through a combination of Facebook ads and webinars. She grew her email list from 5,000 to 10,000+ people and built a 20,000-member Facebook community, using a strategy of list-building with a free mini course, retargeting existing audience members through webinars, and aggressive email campaigns on launch closing days.

Batchbook is a SaaS CRM platform founded by Pam O'Hara in 2006 to help small businesses manage customer relationships. The company bootstrapped to over 10,000 paying customers with an average monthly spend of $42 per customer and above 95% retention rates, using word-of-mouth and targeted paid social as primary growth channels.