free Startups

Whitson Gordon is editor-in-chief of How To Geek, having built his career from a 2009 internship at Lifehacker where he grew the publication from 4 million monthly uniques to 15 million. He attributes growth to a balance of quality content (50%) and effective marketing tactics (50%), emphasizing strong headlines, strategic linking, and multi-channel promotion. Now running How To Geek, he applies the same content-first philosophy while maintaining editorial independence from revenue operations.

Emerson Spartz is a viral media entrepreneur who started MuggleNet at age 12, growing it to 50 million monthly page views through link swaps, content curation, and recruiting a 120-person team. He later founded Dose, a data-driven content platform that now reaches 15 million unique monthly visitors and 27 million social followers with just 6 writers and 50 total employees by leveraging machine learning algorithms (Kepler, Dante, Lindell, Lovelace, Darwin) to predict viral content and optimize headlines and thumbnails. The company has raised $35 million and monetizes through programmatic advertising while building native advertising products for brands.

New Story is a nonprofit that transforms slums into sustainable communities by building homes for $6,000 each through a digital crowdfunding platform. In 17 months, Brett Hagler and his 6-person team generated over $3 million in donation revenue, built 4 communities with over 300 homes, and secured backing from philanthropist 'investor donors.' The company differentiates itself through radical transparency—donors see exact family profiles and know exactly where their money goes.

Zcash is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that adds enhanced data security to Bitcoin by protecting transaction confidentiality and preventing pattern analysis. Founded by Zouko Wilcoxie, it raised $3 million from Silicon Valley angels and launched as an independent blockchain in October 2016, quickly achieving global adoption with daily transaction volumes around $20 million across 15-20 international exchanges. The project has gained significant traction through mining accessibility worldwide and strategic partnerships including JP Morgan's blockchain security solution.

FreeConferenceCalled.com, founded by David Erickson in October 2001 with a $10 domain purchase, grew to become a dominant conferencing platform serving 40 million monthly users and processing 1 million conference calls per day. The company monetizes through terminating access fees from telecom carriers rather than charging end users, enabling completely free conferencing and achieving 100%+ profit margins in early years. Now at 140 employees and over $100 million in annual revenue, the company remains bootstrapped and debt-free, having rejected a $250 million acquisition offer.

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.

Zen Founder is a podcast hosted by clinical psychologist Sherry Walling that focuses on entrepreneur mental health and wellness. Walling also wrote a book titled "Touching Two Worlds: A Guide To Finding Hope In The Aftermath of Loss" in which she shares her personal journey coping with the loss of her father to cancer and her brother to suicide, offering practical suggestions for others navigating similar grief.

The Tropical MBA is a podcast and newsletter founded by Dan and Ian that shares insights on entrepreneurship and wealth-building patterns observed from hundreds of coached entrepreneurs. The show distributes educational content through weekly episodes and exclusive resources, with notable past guests including Cal Newport, David Heinemeier Hansson, and Seth Godin.

Brian Lam founded The Wirecutter in 2011 as a product review blog focused on quality, meticulous research, and user trust rather than clickbait. Despite early skepticism from business partners about brief posts and infrequent publishing, the site's targeted approach resonated with users, leading to growing traffic and revenue. The New York Times acquired Wirecutter for $30 million in 2016 and rebranded it under the Wirecutter name.

MKBHD is a YouTube-based content creation business founded by Marques Brownlee in 2009, starting with product reviews for tech products. The channel has grown to over 16 million subscribers and 3 billion total views, expanding beyond reviews to include interviews with notable figures like Kobe Bryant, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. Brownlee transformed his passion for technology and desire to educate consumers into a lucrative and sustainable business.

CreativeMornings is a free, community-driven event series founded by Tina Roth-Eisenberg that brings local creatives together. Starting from a co-working space in New York City, the platform has grown to over 200 chapters worldwide through organic community building and collaboration.

Dhar Mann Studios is a content creation powerhouse that produces bite-sized, live-action morality tales. Despite initial criticism and slow adoption, the channel has grown to 60 billion views across YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms, with a full production studio in Burbank and dozens of employees.

The CMO Podcast, hosted by Jim Stengel (former P&G Global Marketing Officer), is a show featuring interviews with marketing leaders about modern brand marketing. The podcast is produced by Wondery and has achieved distribution on major platforms including Amazon, with episodes recorded in front of live audiences at industry events like Cannes Lions.

Skype was a peer-to-peer voice communication service launched by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that allowed free voice calls over the internet. The service grew virally to connect hundreds of millions of users globally and was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion, demonstrating the massive market value of internet-based communication.

Snapchat began as a Stanford design project by Evan Spiegel and rapidly became one of the world's most-used social media platforms. The company achieved such significant traction that Mark Zuckerberg made a multi-billion dollar acquisition offer within two years, which Spiegel declined. Today, Snap is valued at over $13 billion with ambitions extending beyond its flagship mobile app.

Khan Academy is a free, non-profit educational platform founded by Sal Khan in 2009 that offers hundreds of tutorials in fifty languages. Starting from helping cousins with math homework, Khan posted tutorials on YouTube which went viral, eventually reaching 170 million monthly global users and becoming one of the world's most trusted teaching tools.

MicroConf's State of Independent SaaS Survey is a community-driven research initiative focused on indie-funded SaaS founders. The annual report provides benchmarks, insights, and best practices to level the playing field between bootstrapped and venture-funded SaaS businesses. It leverages the indie SaaS community to gather data and create actionable intelligence for independent founders.

Financial Samurai is one of the longest-running and most popular personal finance blogs, founded by Sam Dogen over 13 years ago. Sam has personally written over 2,500 essays and published a Wall Street Journal Bestselling book, building a lifestyle business focused on helping people achieve financial freedom through relentless content execution.

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.

Famous Birthdays is a massive content platform focused on digital celebrities that generates multiple billions of pageviews annually. Founded by Evan Britton, the site was bootstrapped to profitability without any external investment, driven by a laser-focused approach and refusal to diversify into adjacent opportunities.