Startups Making $50k+/mo

JobPath is a SaaS-enabled marketplace that connects nonprofits, governments, and companies to support diversity and inclusion hiring. Founded in 2013 and pivoted to a licensing/SaaS model in 2018, the company grew from $600k ARR last year to $1.2M ARR this year while remaining bootstrapped. They serve 25 customers (major cities, nonprofits, and enterprises like Amazon, Uber, and Apple) and have 200,000 active job seekers in their system.

Attraction is an industrial IoT and SaaS platform that helps frontline workers and maintenance managers predict and prevent machinery breakdowns through sensor monitoring and asset management software. The company grew from $10,000 MRR a year ago to $100,000 MRR today (10x growth), with 100 customers managing approximately 4,000 sensors across industries like aerospace. They raised a $3.7M seed round at a $15-20M valuation and are experiencing strong unit economics with 118% net dollar retention.

Rippleworks is a people analytics SaaS platform launched in 2018 that helps organizations understand employee sentiment and optimize workforce motivation and retention. Starting with athletic teams, they've scaled to 50 customers including police forces, production studios, and high-performing teams, generating over $100k MRR with an average customer paying ~$2,000/month for $4-8 per user licenses. The team of 35 (including 15 engineers) is expanding their sales organization and planning to launch NLP-powered features to drive toward their 10x revenue scaling goal.

Rostrefi is a volunteer management SaaS platform launched in 2015 by Shannon Gove and Bennett Merriman that evolved from their event staffing company Event Workforce. Currently serving 100-150 customers with roughly $100,000 in monthly SaaS revenue, the company is transitioning from event-focused work to recurring SaaS, with SaaS now representing 60% of revenue. They raised $2 million AUD (approximately $1.3 million USD) at the end of 2019 and are aggressively expanding their team to drive growth.

Good United, founded by Nick Black in 2015, helps large nonprofits manage peer-to-peer Facebook fundraisers through a usage-based SaaS model. After two failed product pivots, the company found product-market fit in July and now serves 20 nonprofit customers generating approximately $100,000 MRR ($1.2M ARR). The company is cash-positive with a team of 5 full-time employees and 15 contractors based in Charleston, South Carolina, and has raised $1M in capital.

GroupFio is a bootstrapped SaaS platform that helps retailers and distributors manage omnichannel commerce and increase profitable sales through data analytics. Founded in 2010 by Ravi Srinivasan, the company has grown to 75 customers generating $100k MRR with 45 team members, achieving profitability with ~10% EBITDA margins and 5% annual revenue churn. They employ a targeted LinkedIn outreach strategy focusing on mid-market retailers ($50M-$500M revenue) experiencing omnichannel challenges, with high-touch implementation fees ($70k-$100k) driving quick customer payback.

OrderMark, founded by 26-year-old Alex Cantree in January 2017, solves the problem of managing multiple online ordering platforms for restaurants by consolidating them into a single dashboard and printer. Starting from $1,500/month in November 2017, the company grew to $100,000/month in revenue with 1,000 paying restaurants averaging $100-150/month, achieving less than 2% monthly churn. The company has raised $12.6 million in capital (including a $9.5 million Series A in September) and employs 60 people across LA and Denver.

Connect Insights is a bootstrapped social listening and analytics SaaS platform founded by Samir Narkar. Starting from side projects in 2013, the company reached profitability immediately and now serves 90 customers with ~$100K MRR and 90% annual logo retention. Growth has been driven primarily by word-of-mouth and online advertising, with a lean 26-person team across India.

Intellibrand is a B2B SaaS platform launched in 2015 that helps e-commerce brands optimize pricing, assortment, and trade marketing through data analytics and sales intelligence. The company has grown from $5K MRR to $100K MRR in three years, serving 40 major enterprise customers like Nestlé and Reckitt at an average of $2,500/month each. With a $3,000 customer acquisition cost and two-month payback period, they've raised $1.5M and are targeting $200K MRR by end of 2018 while expanding into Latin American markets.

Buzz Builder is a SaaS platform for sales reps and entrepreneurs to find and connect with customers using cold email campaigns and website analytics. Founded by Jake Atwood in 2013 after 5 years of development, the company is now bootstrapped and generating ~$100K MRR ($1.2M ARR) with 1,500 total seats across 700 customers. Growth has been driven by referrals, SEO, and the team dogfooding their own outbound email product.

Geniebelts is a Copenhagen-based SaaS platform built by six co-founders from diverse backgrounds to solve communication and collaboration challenges in the construction industry. Starting with a free platform that attracted 10,000 users in 2014, the company now serves nearly 200 paying customers across 40+ countries, growing from €10,000 MRR in December 2016 to €100,000+ MRR by late 2017 with a 149% negative churn rate. The company raised €4 million in external funding a year prior to this interview and achieved a 7-8 month payback period with €4,500 customer acquisition cost.

Muscat is a marketing performance management SaaS platform founded in 2014 by Oscar Nelson and a co-founder. After bootstrapping for a year with $200k in personal savings, they launched a beta product in 2015 with $100k in revenue, then grew 5x to $500k in 2016. By mid-2017, they reached $100k MRR with 60 customers and a $25k average annual contract value, having raised $1.2M from angels and seed funds.

Your Social Voice is a done-for-you digital marketing agency founded by Kim Barrett that grew from near-zero to $450k in revenue in 2015 and is on track for $110k MRR by October 2016. The agency uses Facebook lead generation and content retargeting to drive leads for clients through tiered service packages ranging from $4,400 to $11k AUD monthly. With a 80% month-to-month retention rate and 25 active clients, Kim scaled the business using owned Facebook lead gen, two full-time salespeople on commission, and a distributed team across Perth, Philippines, and Africa.

Aircall is a cloud-based phone support software founded by Olivier R. Payees that launched in June 2015. The company grew from $10,000 in first month revenue to ~$100,000 MRR by December 2015 (30% month-over-month growth) through a combination of direct outreach and strategic product integrations. They've achieved negative churn and recently raised $2.8M in seed funding on top of an initial $500K investment.

Spring Leap is a marketplace of 180,000 advertising agency experts offering faster market research and creative testing compared to traditional firms. Founded by serial entrepreneur Iran Ayel, the company launched an MVP in January 2015, generating $20,000 in the first month and scaling to highs of $100,000 per month by the time of this interview. The business charges $50-$150 per expert per hour with markups, and has attracted enterprise clients like Unilever and Sony while preparing to raise a $2.5M seed round at an $8M pre-money valuation.

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.

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.

Rank K.O. is a reputation management and monitoring service founded by Chris San Filippo that helps brands control how they appear online. Operating for one year with 50 active customers paying $1,000-$5,000 monthly (averaging ~$2,000-$2,500), the company generates approximately $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Chris acquired the first customer through Facebook ads targeting real estate agents and has since built partnerships with PR firms and criminal defense attorneys to drive growth.

ClaimCompass helps travelers automatically process flight disruption claims and receive compensation up to $700 per flight, taking a commission from successful cases. Founded in 2015 by Alexander Sumin and others, the company raised $200K from 500 Startups in October 2016 and grew 10x within months through aggressive paid advertising and a successful Product Hunt launch that generated 1,500 free leads.

Financer.com is a financial comparison and education platform founded by Johannes Larsson that has grown to $100k/month revenue across 26 global markets. The startup succeeded by focusing heavily on SEO and content marketing, building valuable educational content that ranks highly in search results. Johannes bootstrapped the business without external investment, leveraging his years of experience with affiliate marketing and website building.