SaaS Startups

Cool Leaf is a B2B SaaS platform that helps mid-sized businesses and Fortune 500 companies organize, communicate, and track employee engagement efforts. Founded in 2011 by Prem Bhatian and co-founder John, the company has evolved from an initial B2C focus to a successful B2B enterprise with 26 active customers paying an average of $25-30k annually. By March 2016, Cool Leaf had raised $800k in funding (including from 500 Startups), generated less than $500k in 2015 revenue, and was aiming to hit $1M ARR by end of 2016.

Pixie is an image optimization SaaS platform launched in 2014 by Holly Cardew that helps e-commerce merchants automatically edit and optimize product photos for multiple platforms within 24 hours. The company is self-funded with $150k in angel investment, operates with a distributed team of 16 (plus 100+ freelance designers), and is processing hundreds of thousands of images with over 7,000 customers. Holly grew the company to breakeven by 2015 and found the most explosive growth through an affiliate program that generated 1,000 signups and 70 paying customers in just three weeks.

GetResource.io is a recruiting automation SaaS founded by Troy Salton that automates outbound sourcing for growing technology companies, charging $5,000-$8,500/month. With three co-founders and $125K from 500 Startups accelerator, the company operates profitably with approximately 10 customers and generates around $50K in monthly revenue through word-of-mouth and network-based sales.

Yo Shirt is a mobile app enabling users to design and order custom on-demand apparel directly from their iOS device. Founded in 2014 by Ben Williamson (former senior-level Apple engineer), the company raised $1.1M in a priced equity round in early 2015 and reached $3M in revenue by end of 2015, with projections to hit $10M in 2016. Growth was driven primarily through strategic brand partnerships (notably Fallout Boy, which generated over 1,000 units in a single tour activation) and organic marketing including Apple App Store features.

Mojio is a connected car platform launched in 2012 and backed by Deutsche Telekom and Amazon that enables existing cars to connect to the internet. Kenny Hawke, who previously took iGo public in 1999, took over as CEO in fall 2015 and has landed major contracts including rollouts with Deutsche Telekom in Europe and a North American carrier. The company operates on a revenue-share model with telecom operators and projects to have millions of units installed within 2-3 years.

Carnivore Club is a subscription meat box service founded by serial entrepreneur Tim Ray in September 2013, launching via Indiegogo crowdfunding. By February 2016 (approximately 2.5 years after launch), the company was shipping over 5,500 boxes monthly and generated $1.3M in revenue in 2015, with projections of $2.2M for 2016. The company bootstrapped with $100K from Ray's previous exit and achieved profitability while maintaining 35% gross margins, primarily through podcast advertising to reach their core audience of down-to-earth, blue-collar customers.

Lisa Song Sutton is a multi-business entrepreneur who built a portfolio of companies including a real estate firm (Sutton and Chase) that generated $7 million in transactions over 11 months, Sin City Cupcakes which did nearly $1 million in revenue in 2015, and a television show called Live with Lisa. Her latest venture is Brand Bridge Org, a tech company that donates 100% of profits to entrepreneurship-focused entities.

DataNyze is a B2B sales intelligence platform founded by Ilya Semin in 2012 (officially launched January 2014) that helps enterprise software sales teams prepare for calls and identify high-potential leads. Starting from $50,000 in first-year revenue with mostly word-of-mouth growth, the company raised $1.8M in July 2014 from investors including Mark Cuban and Google Ventures, and grew to $6M ARR by end of 2015 with a 7% month-over-month revenue growth rate and less than 1% monthly churn.

Bitfusion is an enterprise SaaS company founded in January 2015 by three ex-Intel/Dell/Samsung engineers that pools idle compute resources in data centers to create supercomputer-level performance. After raising $1.5M in seed funding through Y Combinator's SAFE framework in April 2015, they launched their product in November 2015 and acquired 6 pilot customers and 2 signed contracts within 3 months by strategically targeting enterprises with short sales cycles. With 9 total employees and customers ranging from cloud service providers to Shell, they generate between $100k-$500k in annual revenue per customer.

Todd Tresetter is a hedge fund manager who retired at 35 and launched Financial Mentor (financialmentor.com) to teach unconventional investment and retirement planning strategies. Starting as a boutique coaching practice, the platform has grown significantly through word-of-mouth, with Todd now converting one-on-one coaching into scalable courses. The site offers free resources including an ebook and a 52-week financial freedom course to build community and provide value-based education.

We Love Numbers is a SaaS-based bookkeeping and financial advisory platform founded by Finn Kelly in March 2015. After one year, the company grew to 50 paying customers with $50,000 MRR at an average price of $1,000/month, targeting food & beverage, tech, and professional services sectors. Planning to raise $750K on a $6M pre-money valuation to accelerate growth.

Call Loop is a voice and text messaging platform founded in 2009 and soft-launched in 2011 by Chris Brisson and co-founders. The company operates on a usage-based model where customers buy credits in bulk or pay monthly depending on their use case. By 2015, Call Loop had generated $385,000 in top-line revenue and was on track to exceed $450,000 in 2016, serving 2,000-3,000 total customers and sending 300,000-400,000 text messages monthly.

Screw the Nine to Five is a membership-based education platform co-founded by Jill and Josh Stanton in April 2013 that teaches entrepreneurs how to scale their online businesses through community, sales funnels, and strategic marketing. As of March 2016, they had 361 paying members at $69/month (plus $169 join fee) generating approximately $31k MRR, with an additional $6,107 in monthly revenue from introductory tripwire offers. They deliberately shut down their podcast (which had reached 32,000 downloads per month) to focus on higher-converting content marketing channels like blog posts and lead magnets, demonstrating disciplined prioritization of growth levers.

Nexar is an AI-powered dash cam app that uses smartphone sensors and machine learning to detect driving behavior, capture license plates, and create driver scores. Launched 9 months prior to this interview, the app had already captured approximately 80,000 license plates daily across Tel Aviv, San Francisco, and New York. The company raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Olive VC and is building a valuable crowdsourced road mapping data asset that surpassed Google Street View's coverage in just nine months.

Alpha Rank is a data science SaaS company founded by 26-year-old Brian Lay that uses time-series analysis to infer network structures and identify influential customers for brands. Drawing from his background in epidemiology and observations of human behavior patterns, Brian created a tool that scores customer influence and predicts network lifetime value. As of 2016, the company had raised $500,000 from angels and VCs, was in private beta doing free case studies, and remained pre-revenue while building out the technology with a team of seven engineers.

Bridgecrest Medical is a B2B SaaS company founded by 25-year-old Nathan Clair that uses wearable technology and IoT analytics to predict worker fatigue and prevent accidents at heavy industry sites like mining, trucking, and oil and gas operations. Launched in late 2015 after raising $1.3M, the company has grown to 10-20 employees with 10-20 enterprise customers paying five to six figure annual contracts with zero churn. The business demonstrates strong product-market fit with multi-year contract commitments and partnerships with industry majors like Barrick Gold.

AMP Live, founded by Eddie Vaca in 2014, is a live video distribution platform that connects broadcasters with audiences in real time. The company generated $1.3M in revenue in 2015 and was on track to reach ~$3.9M in 2016 by selling audience delivery services to major brands like Microsoft, Salesforce, Martha Stewart, and Home Depot. Eddie bootstrapped the company with a small $100K friends and family round and built it into an enterprise direct-sales operation using outbound sales tools.

Heather Ann Havenwood built DatingTriggers.com, an information marketing business teaching men dating skills, generating approximately $250,000 in revenue in 2015. The core product is a $47 one-time offer (Dating Up program) with an email list of 25,000 subscribers, but 80% of revenue comes from affiliate marketing partnerships where she earns ~$300-900 per day through email promotions, leveraging her expertise in email marketing and relationships rather than funnel creation.

Loot is a platform helping brands engage customers through incentivized user-generated content at scale, enabling micro-influencer marketing. Founded in 2012 by Nicholas Haas at age 22, the company grew from $200 in first-year revenue to over $500,000 by 2015, using a usage-based pricing model where brands pay a multiple of the rewards given to users. Nicholas also experimented with e-commerce through a side project called Startup Drugs, which generated mid-five figures in monthly revenue through Facebook ads.

Kat Lotozo built a seven-figure online business empire starting from a fitness blog in 2007, scaling to $80,000/month before pivoting to business coaching in 2012. She launched The Tribe membership in July 2015 with 24,000 email subscribers, and by March 2016 had 150+ paying members generating over $500,000 in revenue in just 8 months. Her growth is driven by prolific content creation (3-6 daily emails with 2,500+ word posts, 47+ self-published books, and 4-5 weekly podcast episodes) and word-of-mouth referrals, with total 2015 revenue exceeding $1 million.