Own Pain Startups

Clap is an asynchronous meeting platform founded by Pierre Tuzovic and Robin that allows teams to share video updates, collect in-context feedback, and make decisions without being in the same room at the same time. After a viral LinkedIn announcement in January 2024 that garnered 45,000 views, the startup raised $3 million at a $17.5M post-money valuation while still in private beta with 3,000 waitlist signups and 100 monthly active users.

Suzie is an enterprise market research SaaS platform serving large CPG, food and beverage, and consumer technology brands. The company grew from 250 enterprise customers in 2019 to 350 customers with ARR flirting with $40 million, achieving 70-75% year-over-year growth through expanding into new industries, identifying new use cases, and dramatically scaling their sales team from 65 to 200 people. Matt Brittney raised a $46 million Series D (majority on balance sheet) and is targeting an IPO, with a goal of reaching $100 million ARR with $250k-$400k ACV.

FullFunnel.io is a B2B marketing consultancy founded by Andrey Zinkovic that generated €250k in revenue in 2020 through 27 consulting projects and coaching 51 startups from European accelerators. The founder is simultaneously bootstrapping a SaaS product called ROI Plan to help B2B companies manage marketing plans, which has 3 paying customers paying lifetime deals ranging from €150-€200. The agency revenue funds the SaaS development with a team of 2 full-time founders and 4 part-time developers in Poland, with a goal to reach €100k ARR for ROI Plan by the end of the year.

Divvy modernizes finance for businesses by combining expense management software and corporate cards into a single platform, offered free to SMBs while monetizing through credit card interchange fees (200-300 basis points). Founded by Alex Bean and Blake in 2017, the company grew from 1,000 customers in 2019 to over 10,000 customers today, with 100% year-over-year revenue growth and a clear path to $100M+ ARR within two years, processing between $1B-$100B in annual spend across their customer base.

ThinkOutLoud.io is a bootstrapped SaaS product being built by Jim (a UX designer and coach) and his technical co-founder Scott to democratize user testing. Launched in private beta in May 2021 with 30 beta signups, the founders are approaching this as a lifestyle business, dedicating only 8 hours per week while Jim generates $5.3K/month from his UX coaching and design services agency. They aim to acquire 10 paying customers by end of year with a freemium pricing model determined by user feedback.

GAIF is a micro private equity fund built by AI researcher Simon Gillett that invests in Amazon sellers. The fund operates ATEM, a free proprietary demand forecasting and analytics tool for Amazon merchants that uses the same technology as Amazon.com, serving as a warm lead generation engine. With $20M+ in capital raised, the fund has deployed capital into at least one acquisition (Territory, an industrial supplies brand) and tracks hundreds of thousands of SKUs worth nine figures in GMV annually.

Realink is a B2B SaaS platform providing virtual touring and leasing solutions for multifamily property managers. Founded by Matt Weirich in 2014 after he experienced the inefficiency of residential real estate search, the company initially targeted residential brokerages before pivoting to multifamily in 2015. The company experienced explosive growth during COVID-19, growing from $1M ARR in January 2020 to $4.5M by year-end, and reaching approximately $5.5M ARR by 2021.

Crowley Carbon, founded in 2011, operates an IoT and software platform called Clarity that helps manufacturing plants optimize energy efficiency and operations. The company installs low-cost wireless sensors throughout factories and uses AI/ML to identify savings opportunities, operating in 4,000+ factories across 23 countries. The flagship customer alone generates $3M annual revenue while saving $100M annually, and the energy efficiency business alone now exceeds $100M in annual revenue.

FISNA is a CAD search engine SaaS platform launched in 2015 that helps engineers and manufacturers find similar designs in their database to avoid redesigning from scratch. Originally built to detect IP theft in 3D designs, the company pivoted to engineering after customers saw its value for manufacturing. With 15 team members in Ohio and $2M raised from high-net-worth individuals, FISNA is targeting enterprise customers at $2,500 per user annually, currently serving around 50 organizations with approximately 15 paying customers and pushing toward $1M ARR.

Rocked is an e-commerce platform that optimizes the transaction moment—the critical point at checkout where brands can upsell or cross-sell products. Founded in 2012 by Bruce Buchanan (formerly of Jetstar), the company powers 3,000 enterprise clients across 16 countries with three revenue streams: advertising, product rev-share (distributed commerce), and SaaS. In 2021, Rocked achieved $170M in revenue with $90M gross profit, growing 35-40% year-over-year even through COVID's impact on travel and ticketing verticals.

Accuant is a digital identity and fraud prevention SaaS platform serving both SMB and enterprise customers globally, processing hundreds of millions of identity verifications annually. The company generates 60-70% of revenue from SaaS and uses a hybrid go-to-market combining large OEM partnerships and direct sales. Currently targeting 40-50% year-over-year revenue growth with 180 employees and net revenue retention above 100%.

Armbrust American is a US-based surgical mask and PPE manufacturer founded by Lloyd Armbrust in May 2020, reaching $10 million in revenue within six months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lloyd raised $5 million in a weekend to build a vertically integrated manufacturing operation from polypropylene pellets to finished masks, achieving peak production of 1 million masks per day with a unit cost of 5 cents. The company pioneered a royalty-based investor structure and direct-to-consumer sales model that cuts out traditional middlemen in manufacturing distribution.

Raffle AI, founded in July 2018 by Suzanne Luritsen and a professor from DTU, provides AI-powered intelligent search tools for customer service automation. The company reduced customer service calls, live chats, and emails by 24% while saving employees 80% of internal search time. With 7 enterprise customers paying $35,000 annually on average (~$245k run rate), they've raised $3.5M across three rounds and are targeting $1.5M ARR by Q1-Q3 2021 to pursue a $10M Series A.

Silenz is a bootstrapped SaaS company providing anti-piracy license compliance and software monetization technology for on-premise software vendors. Founded by Ted Morocco (formerly of AWR Corporation, acquired by National Instruments for $57M+ earn-out) and Chris Louton in 2014, Silenz grew from $1M ARR in 2015 to $10M ARR target in 2020 with consistent 50-70% YoY growth, achieving profitability in 2018 and maintaining a sticky business model with 100% gross retention and 125% net revenue retention.

Doist, founded in 2007 by Amir Salihefendic as a side project, bootstrapped Todoist to $14M ARR with 200,000+ customers through native mobile apps and organic growth. The company remains fully remote, 100% bootstrapped, and profitable from early years, with founder declining acquisition offers to pursue a $100M revenue goal within five years. They recently launched Twist, an asynchronous communication tool, generating $600K annually.

Dan Martell founded SaaS Academy three years ago (around 2021) after building multiple venture-backed exits (Flowtown, Clarity.fm) and becoming deeply involved in angel investing. Starting from his personal YouTube channel where he shares founder advice, he scaled SaaS Academy into one of the largest B2B SaaS coaching businesses in the world, serving close to 3,000 paid founders through group coaching, training, and in-person events. The business model combines free content distribution with premium group coaching programs for founders doing $5M+ ARR.

RightKit is a bootstrapped social media automation platform built around four core tools (RightTag, RightWrite, RightForage, RightBoost) plus an API with 19 endpoints that help marketers automate hashtag generation, image tagging, and other repetitive tasks. Founded by Saul Fleischman in January 2012, the company has grown to 431,000 registered users from 20-25 million site visits, with the API now being the primary revenue driver after originally starting with RightTag as a browser extension.

Vaporware is a B2B SaaS consultancy founded in 2013 that helps entrepreneurs take their ideas to market using lean practices and fixed-budget, flexible-scope projects. The agency operates with specialized pods (product manager, designer, and developers) to build MVPs and test specific hypotheses, with projects ranging from $25K to $100K+. As of 2019, the agency had 8 employees and generated $1.2M in annual revenue, offering unique benefits like 40-hour work weeks and revenue-sharing programs.

Visibly is a search intelligence platform that helps brands understand their complete footprint across search results, including PR hits, e-commerce listings, ads, and reviews—not just their own website rankings. Founded by PR agency owner Chris Dickey, the product launched in beta in July 2020 with 1,000 free signups in three weeks after he spent 18 months and $800,000 developing it. Pre-revenue at launch, the team of 6 was burning $30-40k/month with plans to monetize via freemium model in fall 2020.

Veed is a bootstrapped online video editing platform founded by Saba Kanajad and co-founder Tim that has grown to $1.3M ARR in under 2 years. The company uses a freemium model with a watermark on free videos, driving conversions to paid plans ($15-$30/month), and has gained traction primarily through content marketing and SEO. With 5,500 customers, a team of 20, and consistent daily YouTube uploads, Veed has achieved profitability while reinvesting 30% of profits back into growth.