Startups Making $50k+/mo

Los co-founded BuildGrowScale.com, a digital education company, and launched two mastermind groups targeting high-revenue entrepreneurs. The Black Label mastermind (for media/product businesses) started in December 2014 with a $500 live event that converted 5 attendees into $18,000/year members; it now has 37 members paying $24,000 annually, generating ~$888k ARR. He built the initial 25,000-person email list through webinars, achieving a breakeven model that qualified leads while building audience.

Referral Rock is a SaaS platform that helps businesses design, launch, and manage customer referral programs. Founded by Josh Ho in December 2013 after overhearing a conversation at a car dealership, the company grew from 500 free users to $70K MRR through bootstrapped, organic growth driven by inbound marketing, content, and inside sales. Today the 14-person remote team operates at near 5% churn by focusing on customer success and consultative selling.

WP Buffs is a productized service business in the WordPress space founded by Joe Howard. He bootstrapped the company from $0 to over $70,000/month in revenue by finding paying customers within days of launch and focusing on raising prices to increase profitability. The business emphasizes simplicity as a core operational principle.

CakeEquity is a cap table management platform for startup founders built by Kim Hansen after struggling with equity management in his previous ventures. The company launched in 2019, pivoted from blockchain, and achieved $70K MRR with 650 paying customers through a product-led growth shift and strategic partnerships. They've raised $4.5M total ($500K pre-seed, $1M seed, $3M series round) and are expanding globally across the US, UK, and Singapore.

I am IP is a B2B enterprise SaaS platform founded in 2014 that helps technology companies and IP managers streamline patent management. Currently generating approximately $70,000 in monthly recurring revenue ($840,000 annualized) across nearly 100 customers, the company has raised $3 million in equity funding and maintains a healthy 1% annual gross revenue churn. Dimitri Yanokaro leads the 20-person team with a sales-heavy acquisition strategy combining cold outreach, word-of-mouth referrals, and organic content marketing, achieving strong unit economics with a $3,000 customer acquisition cost for $10,000 annual contracts.

Intermix is a SaaS platform that provides visibility into data pipelines and lakes, helping enterprise data teams monitor and optimize their cloud data infrastructure. Launched in late 2016, the company achieved its first dollar of revenue within six months by leveraging founder network and cold outreach. Growing at over 12% monthly with 25 customers, $1M ARR, and 100% net revenue retention, Intermix has raised $5M across two rounds and is approaching profitability with healthy 4-month payback periods on customer acquisition.

UrbanHire is a recruitment SaaS platform founded in 2016 focused on bulk hiring for high-turnover industries like banking. Currently generating ~$70k MRR from 168 paying customers out of 3,600 total users, with 80% retention. The company is pivoting from pure SaaS to an insurance broker model with tech components, targeting Indonesian mid-market companies with integrated HRIS and benefits administration services.

Convey is a micro-learning SaaS platform launched in 2016 by Steven Rine (who taught himself to code in 2009) that helps companies make corporate training engaging through personalized, timely messaging. The company has bootstrapped to ~$845K ARR with ~100 enterprise customers paying ~$700/month each, and achieved healthy unit economics with a 29-month LTV and sub-month payback period. Revenue churn improved from 15% monthly (2017) to 7%, driven by better customer fit, enterprise focus, and proactive onboarding with instructional designer support.

TransTutors is an AI-assisted tutoring platform that helps college students with homework and assignments through a $20/month subscription model. Founded in August 2014 by Aditya Singhal, the company achieved over $1 million in revenue in 2015 and was doing $60-80k MRR by early 2016 with approximately 3,000 active paying monthly subscribers. The company grew through organic search traffic from 2 billion monthly Google searches by college students seeking homework help, and was raising a $500k convertible note from 500 Startups at a $2.5M cap.

Fizzle is a membership-based training platform for independent entrepreneurs launched by Corbett Barr in late 2012. With 2,000 active members paying $35/month, the company generates approximately $70,000 in monthly recurring revenue through content marketing (blog, free guides, and a weekly podcast that reaches 10,000 listeners) which accounts for over 60% of signups. The team of four maintains a 60-65% free trial to paid conversion rate and achieves steady growth by focusing on simplicity, transparency, and delivering genuine value to aspiring business builders.

Josh Pigford built Bear Metrics in just 7-8 days in November 2013 to solve his own pain point: tracking key SaaS metrics from Stripe data. He launched directly on Twitter without a landing page or beta, sold his first $250/month customer within 8 days, and grew to $14k MRR in 6 months. By 2017, Bear Metrics had reached $70k MRR through a combination of strategic partnerships (like Buffer), transparency (public dashboards), and content marketing, while raising $800k from the Stripe Platform Fund.

SheetGo is a SaaS product that enhances Google Sheets functionality and automation. The company has achieved $70k in monthly recurring revenue by helping users get more value from Google Sheets.

Cladwell is a B2C SaaS platform founded in 2014 by Blake Smith that helps people build minimalist, high-quality wardrobes through personalized tools and advice. Starting from just $1,000 in first-year revenue, Blake pivoted from failing affiliate and dropshipping models to a subscription model (charging $15-21/quarter) and achieved 11,500+ paying customers by March 2016, generating $69,000 MRR with a $17 CAC. The company raised $1.8M in funding and scaled through paid advertising on fashion-focused platforms, with women representing 60% of their customer base despite the original men's-focused launch.

Metrilo is an e-commerce CRM, analytics, and email automation platform founded by Murray Ivanov in April 2014. The company grew from 18k MRR (120 customers) to 67k MRR (450 customers) in 12 months—a 3.2x increase—primarily through paid Facebook ads spending $20-45k monthly. With a healthy 4-month payback period, 4% monthly logo churn, and 1.2x net MRR expansion, Metrilo is a profitable bootstrapped startup planning a $1.2-1.3M Series A raise in 2018.

ParkBench is a SaaS platform that creates and maintains neighborhood-focused websites for real estate agents, helping them differentiate themselves as community-embedded professionals. Founded by Amanda Newman in 2014, the company grew from a personal marketing idea into a thriving business, achieving $450K in first-year revenue and $880K in 2015, with 215+ paying customers by mid-2016. The company recently found explosive growth through Facebook advertising, generating 30 leads daily with a $5K spend yielding $55K in revenue within three weeks.

Smartling is a SaaS platform that helps enterprise companies translate digital content across multiple languages at scale. Founded in 2009 by Jack Weldy, a former Air Force pilot and serial entrepreneur, the company has grown to ~500 enterprise customers generating approximately $800k ARR with a team of 200 full-time employees and 10,000 contracted translators worldwide. The company has raised $63M in capital and maintains healthy SaaS metrics with 90-92% revenue retention and 18-24 month payback periods.

WorkFlowy is a freemium productivity app that lets users organize information through infinitely nestable bullet-point lists with focus and zoom capabilities. Founded by Jesse Patel and co-founder Mike MacGirvin, the company grew organically to 800k ARR and over 100,000 active users through word-of-mouth and high user retention (3+ year average user lifetime), without raising external funding or doing traditional marketing.

Nick Cullen launched Second Flight Consultancy in 2014 after leaving a six-figure financial services job at age 22 where he felt unfulfilled. Starting with just $12k in first-year revenue (2014), he grew the agency to $175k in 2015 and was on track for $1.3M in 2016 with $60-100k monthly recurring revenue from ~20-30 agency clients. He achieved this growth through an AI-powered LinkedIn sales robot, strategic remote team of 10, and a complementary coaching academy generating 30% of revenue.

Matt Verlaque left his job as a fireman to build UPlaunch with cofounder Jake. As a first-time founder with no coding experience, he learned to code while building the business and overcame an initial stagnant business model to achieve profitability. The company now generates over $65,000/month in revenue.

Quick Legal, founded by Derek Bluford in early 2015, is an on-demand legal advice platform connecting users with attorneys via FaceTime, voice calls, and instant messaging. The company generates $65,000 monthly revenue from 130+ attorney subscribers paying $500/month, achieving this through referral-based growth with no paid marketing. With a $12 million pre-money valuation and a pending acquisition offer in the $14 million range, Derek is holding out for greater potential as he scales toward 2,500 attorneys through strategic partnerships.