Startups Making $10k - $50k/mo

Less Doing is a SaaS-based virtual assistant and on-demand project management service founded by Ari Maizel in August 2015. The company grew from zero to ~$46,000 MRR in less than a year through a combination of Ari's bestselling productivity book, podcast (30,000 monthly downloads), and speaking engagements. With 170 customers paying $149/month plus $50/hour for services, Less Doing achieved hockey-stick growth while remaining completely bootstrapped and profitable from day one.

Jason Grishkoff launched Submit Hub in November 2014 as a solution to the overwhelming number of music submissions he received at Indie Shuffle, his popular music blog. Within 8 months, Submit Hub reached $46,000 MRR by connecting musicians with industry professionals (blogs, labels, radio stations) and incentivizing those professionals to listen. The platform grew to ~250 other platforms using Submit Hub and fundamentally changed how music discovery works in the industry.

Ali Ispahani built MassMobileApps in 2014 to solve his own problem as a retail clothing store owner seeking a mobile solution to connect with customers and increase sales. Growing from $25-26k MRR a year ago to $45k MRR today through a white-label reseller model ($35k), direct-to-business sales ($7k), and custom work ($3-4k), the platform now serves 250+ paying customers. 100% bootstrapped and built with a lean outsourced team of 7 developers in India plus Ali wearing most hats locally, the company is scaling through organic growth and word-of-mouth with plans to upsell an embedded e-commerce solution.

Shine is a pre-hire recruitment and screening SaaS platform founded by David Koppel in 2016 that uses video interviewing and values-based recruitment to reduce time and cost to hire by up to 70%. With 55 paying customers at $10k ARR each, the company has grown from $30k MRR to $45-50k MRR year-over-year with negative 5% net revenue churn and strong expansion revenue. They recently raised a $350k seed round and operate lean with a 10-person team in the UK, focusing on outbound sales and partnerships to scale.

Invisible Collector, founded in January 2016 by Pedro Mendes, is an AI-powered SaaS platform that helps utility companies and professional credit collection agencies collect debts faster through preemptive and reactive customer outreach. After a year of development with test customers, they launched commercially in November 2016 and grew to 15 customers paying an average of $3,000/month ($45k MRR) through LinkedIn-based cold outreach to CFOs and IT managers. The bootstrapped team of 6 (based in Portugal and Spain) is already cash-flow positive and is raising $500k at a $1.5M pre-money valuation to shift from direct sales to online marketing channels.

Forever Labs is a Y Combinator-backed longevity company that stores patients' stem cells via a 15-minute outpatient bone marrow aspiration procedure for $2,500 upfront plus $250/year in storage fees (or $7,000 lifetime). Founded in 2015 by Steven Klausenitzer and Dr. Mark Katakowski, the company has nearly 200 paying customers across nine states with credentialed physicians from top universities (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc.), generating ~$45k/month in recurring revenue from storage fees and referrals.

Colin Gray built Alitu, a simple podcast editing SaaS app, on top of an existing audience he'd cultivated through thepodcasthost.com (a content site, blog, courses, and podcast about podcasting). After launching in June 2018 with a large existing audience, growth was slower than expected—reaching only $3,000 MRR after 6 months and $8,000 after a year—because his audience was too technical and preferred DIY solutions. By pivoting content to attract non-technical entrepreneurs and solo founders, Alitu grew to $45,000 MRR within two years, with significant acceleration during COVID.

Dill Mill is a matchmaking app for South Asians founded by K.J. Singh in late 2014, disrupting the broken arranged marriage model. The freemium app with a 10 daily likes limit and $10/month premium subscription has grown organically to nearly 1 million downloads and approximately 4,400 paying customers, generating around $44k/month in revenue ($528k annualized). Having raised $3.8M across two funding rounds (via SAFEs), the 9-person team is targeting $1M annual run rate by end of 2016.

Custom Hub is a membership and billing management SaaS platform originally built in 2009 as a utility for Infusionsoft users. After being acquired by Infusionsoft (Keep) in 2011 for $1-2M and growing to $1.5M ARR, the product was shelved. The founders bought it back in 2018 for ~$750K (30% cash upfront, 70% over time), completely rebuilt the platform, and are now scaling with $43K MRR, 560 customers, and plans for a $1M seed round at $10M valuation.

Reflect is a note-taking app built by Alex McCaw, the former CEO of Clearbit, who left a 200-person SaaS company to bootstrap and code daily on this consumer product. After nearly going broke during development, the team raised $1M from customers via crowdfunding with a dividend model promising to return profits to investors. Currently generating $43K MRR with 2,000+ customers and growing 15% month-over-month through organic growth and word-of-mouth.

Demio is a bootstrapped webinar platform built by David Abrams and his co-founder after losing $100K to a bad development agency and rebuilding from scratch. By stripping to a true MVP (reliable video streaming plus marketing integrations), running a 3-month free beta with 1,000 users, and launching with affiliate-driven annual sales, they reached $42K MRR. The journey demonstrates the value of slow hiring, product focus, and community validation over rushed scaling.

Target Recruit is a bootstrapped SaaS applicant tracking system and vendor management system built on Salesforce, launched in 2008 by Rina Gupta. The company serves 300 customers primarily in staffing and healthcare industries, generating approximately $400-500K in monthly revenue with 30% year-over-year growth. With a team of 50 spanning California and India, Target Recruit demonstrates strong retention rates (80%+ for mid to large customers) and leverages the Salesforce AppExchange as its primary growth driver.

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.

Das-services.com is an AI training and automation company founded by Aaron Vitas that helps mid-market tourism, retail, service, and real estate businesses implement AI solutions. The company operates a hybrid model combining high-ticket services (AI Maximizer, Das Training) with SaaS products (Das Hub and Das Content Manager). With combined revenue projected at $500K+ for the year and the content manager generating $179/user/month with 218 people on the waitlist, Das is scaling rapidly just 8 weeks after SaaS launch.

Tweet Hunter is a bootstrapped SaaS that helps people build and monetize Twitter audiences. Co-founders Thomas Jacquesson and Tibo grew the product from zero to $41K/month in roughly a year through organic launches, free side products, and a key partnership with Twitter growth expert JK Molina. The tool now includes scheduling, automations, and a searchable tweet library, with the team aiming for $1M ARR.

Store Mapper was a bootstrapped micro-SaaS that provided store locator functionality for e-commerce merchants, built by Tyler Trinkus over five years (2011-2016). Starting with an MVP coded on a 30-hour flight, the product grew from 5 paying customers in the first 24 hours to $40K MRR through platform parasitism (Shopify App Store), organic search, and a viral referral loop. Tyler maintained <1% monthly churn by obsessively optimizing onboarding, providing exceptional customer service, and adding features only when necessary—eventually selling the profitable, sustainable business after five years.

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.

Avestor is a FinTech platform launched in 2019 that enables GPs to create customizable private funds where LPs can pick and choose individual investments across asset classes like real estate, music rights, and judgments. With 100 funds on the platform managing $60M in AUM across 30 active funds, Avestor generates revenue through 30-50 basis points on AUM plus a $400/month minimum membership fee, resulting in $40K+ MRR. Growth has been primarily organic through word-of-mouth and podcast appearances, with recent paid ads on Facebook beginning to scale.

MyLands is a SaaS platform helping independent consultants build better businesses by handling backend operations like taxes, bookkeeping, invoicing, and lead generation. Founded by Bradley Jacobs in 2020, the company grew from $8,000 MRR a year ago to $40,000 MRR today with over 800 customers paying an average of $50/month. Growth was driven primarily through consistent LinkedIn content marketing, SEO, word-of-mouth referrals, and a referral program, with Bradley writing almost daily posts to a 13,400-follower audience.

Ocale.ai is a control tower platform for operations teams managing mobile assets (delivery, ride-sharing, logistics). Founded in 2019 by Aditi Sinha and Rishabh, the company launched its product in August 2020 and has grown from ~$1,000 MRR to $40,000 MRR in one year. They've raised a $1.3M seed round and are planning to raise Series A as they approach $1M ARR with a team of 20 (11 engineers).