Side Project Startups

CROSSNET is a four-way volleyball net company founded by Chris Meade and two childhood friends that grew from a late-night brainstorming session to a $300k/month business in less than two years. The team built the product by prototyping with Walmart nets, iterating with manufacturers for a year, and strategically distributing units to influencers who created engaging content. Their growth came from repurposing influencer videos into Facebook and Instagram ads while continuously optimizing their Shopify store with conversion tools like Privy, Klaviyo, Hotjar, and Carthook.

Software Engineering Daily is a podcast hosted by Jeff Meyerson that averages 20,000 downloads per day. The podcast generates close to $60,000/month in advertising revenue, demonstrating a successful monetization model for content-driven indie projects. Jeff shares insights on podcast production, guest interviewing, audience growth, and landing advertising partnerships.

ClickMinded is an SEO education and training business founded by Tommy Griffith that grew from a side project to generating over $40,000/month in revenue. Griffith built the business by teaching SEO knowledge and bootstrapping an email list, eventually reaching six figures in revenue and replacing his full-time salary. The company demonstrates the power of content-driven, expertise-based SaaS businesses that scale through educational positioning.

Dream Client Academy is a marketing consulting firm founded by Alex Albarran at age 21, grown from $0 to $31,000/month in monthly revenue as of February 2020. The business started as a side project helping local business owners with social media advertising while running a food delivery company, eventually becoming the primary focus due to better margins and alignment with Alex's strengths. The firm achieved rapid growth through paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram, generating a 7:1 return on ad spend with a scalable and predictable customer acquisition model.

AJ bootstrapped Carrd from a side project to $1M ARR with just a 2-person team by focusing ruthlessly on product over marketing. The freemium model at $19/year pricing and viral 'Made with Carrd' links on every free site created a powerful network effect that grew the platform to 4 million websites. He later raised $2M not for capital, but to access AWS engineers and experienced advisors while maintaining the lean, profitable business model.

Dick At Your Door is an e-commerce novelty product company selling chocolate penises, started as a joke between friends in a garage in 2016. The business grew to $25k/month ($300k/year ARR) primarily through viral social media content, PR coverage (notably a Huffington Post feature that provided initial traction), and word-of-mouth marketing. Adam attributes the rapid scaling to the viral nature of the product, strong content marketing around chocolate and pranks, and persistent outreach to press and marketing partners.

Milo is a content and newsletter platform for freelancers, founders, and creative entrepreneurs, started in 2009 as a side project called GraphicDesignBlender.com. It took 4-5 years before generating meaningful revenue, but now generates $8,000/month through sponsorships from relevant SaaS companies. With 30,000 email subscribers growing by 1,500/month, Preston has built a profitable business working only 5-8 hours per week while maintaining a full-time job.

John Nastor launched Hack the Entrepreneur podcast on September 5th and grew from 2,600 downloads in month one to 56,000 in month two through aggressive content production (3 episodes/week) and strategic partnerships. He built an email list of 943 engaged subscribers and generates consistent revenue through mid-roll ad spots ($300 per episode) on Midroll.com, earning enough to support a full-time living with a team of VAs, editors, and designers. He later partnered with Copy Blogger Media to create Showrunner.fm, a podcasting course and companion podcast.

Weekend Club is a weekend co-working space for bootstrappers and indie founders that evolved organically from a popular London Indie Hackers meetup called IndieBeers. The founder, who transitioned from ad agencies to tech as a Product Manager and UX Researcher, leveraged their community leadership to launch the venture, which currently generates $2,000 MRR.

Livestorm grew from $2M to $9M ARR in one year but nearly collapsed after expanding too broadly into meetings and sales demos, becoming a smaller version of Zoom. After a failed Series C, founder Gilles Bertaux rebuilt product-market fit by narrowing focus to enterprise webinars for European marketers in banking and pharma. The company now generates nearly $20M ARR with 3,500 customers, shifting from 85% monthly self-serve to predominantly enterprise annual contracts.

The SaaS Podcast, hosted by Omar Khan since 2014, has become a go-to resource for founders building SaaS businesses. Now at episode 300, the podcast features interviews with proven founders and industry experts sharing strategies and insights. The show has built a strong community through consistent, valuable content and genuine storytelling that resonates with early-stage founders.

Morning Brew is a business news newsletter founded by Austin Rief in college. Built with authenticity as a core value rather than immediate monetization focus, the newsletter grew through word-of-mouth referrals and Twitter engagement, with subscribers becoming brand ambassadors for the product.

Ajay Goel is an experienced entrepreneur who previously built Jangomail, an email marketing application that grew to over $5M in annual revenue before being sold to a private equity firm. He has since launched GMass, his second venture, after retiring and later deciding to return to building businesses.

Zamir Khan built Memento (formerly VidHug), a B2C product with a one-time payment model that defied typical SaaS wisdom. After years of slow growth, the pandemic triggered a surge that eventually led to a life-changing exit. His story demonstrates that unconventional business models and timing can still lead to success despite breaking traditional SaaS rules.

Postpone is a social media scheduling tool founded by Grant McConnaughey that grew from a New Year's resolution project to mid-six figures in ARR. The startup achieved strong growth through lean launching, doing things that didn't scale, and strategic pricing increases, while navigating platform risks with Reddit and Twitter. Grant joined TinySeed to accelerate growth with full-time focus.

Tom Merritt is a prolific content creator who hosts multiple podcasts including Daily Tech News Show, which has been running consistently for 10 years. He went independent in 2013 and was an early adopter of Patreon, building a sustainable business around creating daily content with discipline and process. Tom uses tools like ElevenLabs for his workflow and maintains a remarkable streak of consistent daily publishing without missing episodes.

Bluetick is a SaaS tool that Mike Taber bootstrapped as a side project alongside his podcast co-hosting duties. Over 15 months, it evolved from a side hustle to a profitable, full-time business, with Mike pivoting the product to better serve agencies at scale.

Colin Gray built The Podcast Host as a hobby project that grew into an audience, then launched Alitu as a SaaS product on top of that existing user base. The episode covers his journey from hobby hosting business to managing eight businesses simultaneously, eventually focusing on SaaS.

Flagsmith is a bootstrapped SaaS feature flag platform founded by Ben Rometsch after a decade running a software agency in London. The company grew from a cost-effective open-source side project to a significant software business used by major companies, driven by slow, sustainable growth without VC backing.

Randy Hetrick, former Navy SEAL and founder of TRX suspension training, launched Outfit, a mobile gym service that brings workouts to customers. The venture represents Hetrick's expansion into on-demand fitness services. Limited traction details are available in this source material.