other Startups

Buddha Doodles is a creative project turned full-time business founded by illustrator Molly Hahn in 2011 as a daily meditative practice following personal hardship. Starting with free daily sketches on Tumblr and building an email list to 13,000 subscribers, Molly launched a gift shop in May 2013 that now generates $22,000-$28,000 monthly through merchandise sales, prints, cards, and other products. The community has grown to over 200,000 followers across platforms, with Facebook being the primary driver of growth at 160,000+ fans.

Rich Brooks founded Flight New Media in 1997 as a web design and marketing agency in Portland, Maine, growing it from a solo operation in his living room to a full-service digital marketing firm serving small businesses and nonprofits. He later launched the Agents of Change conference in 2012 as a complement to his agency, running it profitably with 375-400 attendees and generating approximately $40,000 in annual profit while also securing $10,000-$30,000 in annual business from conference connections.

Jeff Bullis built a personal brand and content empire by consistently blogging 5 times per week while working a full-time day job at a digital agency, waking up at 4:30 AM for 4 years to fuel his passion. He grew his blog to 250,000 unique monthly visitors, 70,000 email subscribers, and 350,000 Twitter followers, eventually transitioning to full-time content creation and monetization through speaking engagements ($10,000 per keynote), affiliate marketing, and digital products.

Morgan James Publishing is a hybrid traditional/self-publishing house founded by David Hancock that focuses on entrepreneurial authors. The company publishes approximately 135 titles per year from over 5,000 submissions, with a business model that pays authors 20-30% on physical book sales and 50-50 splits on ebooks. Notable authors published include Jeff Walker (Launch), Joel Combs (The AdSense Code), and Brendan Burchard (The Millionaire Messenger).

Grom (formerly U-Creat 3D) is a 3D printing company founded in 2012 that delivers customizable 3D printed accessories through major retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Overstock. Co-founded by Vincent Vandepel with a 50-50 equity split, the company generated $85K in revenue in 2015 and projected $1.2M for 2016, fueled by large retail partnerships and a unique hybrid manufacturing model combining Asian production with US on-demand 3D printing. Having raised $180K on a convertible note, the founders aimed to raise $750K in seed funding at a $6M valuation to reach $2-2.2M revenue within 18 months.

Mark Gunye is a serial entrepreneur who operates two businesses: Gunye Tumie Inc., a family-run electronics components sales organization processing $2-4 million monthly in transaction volume with 2-5% margins, and Bridge Equity Group, a real estate fix-and-flip and multi-family acquisition business in Northern California. He generates approximately $100-200K+ profit per real estate deal (averaging 6 deals annually) by identifying undervalued properties through MLS listings, agents, and wholesalers, then adding value through renovations and strategic improvements before resale.

Vroom is an online used car retailer founded by Alon Block in August 2013 that sells cars directly to consumers, buys cars from consumers, and facilitates financing entirely online. By January 2016, just 2.5 years after launch, the combined business (which acquired Texas Direct Auto in late 2015) generated $900 million in revenue with approximately 500 employees, growing from essentially zero through operational excellence, software-driven reconditioning processes, and a focus on high-volume, efficient business model similar to Amazon and Costco.

Magic City Ford, run by serial entrepreneur Cameron Johnson, is a car dealership in Roanoke, Virginia generating close to $80 million in annual revenue. The business was founded by Cameron's great grandfather in 1938 and has been sustained through consistent hustle and staying power. Cameron has optimized customer acquisition to around $350 per sale by shifting away from traditional newspaper advertising toward a multi-channel approach (50% online, 20% radio, 20% TV, 10% direct mail), with online advertising driving the highest ROI through Google Ads and lead tracking.

Carrie Wilkerson launched The Barefoot Executive in August 2007 as an online brand built on conducting interviews with influential business leaders, positioning herself as an expert by funneling information rather than creating it. Within 4-5 months, she received an inbound call from a corporate direct selling company offering her $2,000 to deliver a 60-minute keynote speech, marking the start of her lucrative speaking career. Between 2007 and 2014, her keynoting and associated revenue streams (book deals, audience contracts, consulting) generated well over $1 million, while she maintained work-life balance by working strategically around her four children's schedules.

Franklin Cole is a sales funnel architect and advertising strategist who helps high-revenue entrepreneurs ($10M+) scale their businesses through strategic Facebook advertising and funnel optimization. He generates revenue through monthly retainers plus performance-based compensation, and has driven over $40 million in combined client revenue by spending $3-3.5 million on ad campaigns—demonstrating a 12x+ ROI. His approach focuses on mapping profitability paths before spending any money and optimizing for revenue-per-lead metrics.

Jamie Turner is the CEO of 60 Second Communications, a full-service marketing agency that has helped major brands like Coca-Cola and AT&T with complex marketing problems. He built thought leadership through his blog 60 Second Marketer and speaking engagements, starting with free university gigs 15 years ago and eventually commanding $5,000+ per speaking engagement. Speaking now comprises approximately 25% of his annual revenue, which exceeds $100,000 per year from speaking alone.

Angelo Ramora built Ohio Cash Flow, a real estate investment company that buys distressed properties, renovates them, tenants them, and sells them to passive investors across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Starting from a failed highly-leveraged approach at age 23 that lost $3-4k monthly, he pivoted to cash-flow focused investing and scaled to 7 closed deals generating $210k in profit by January 2016, with a goal of 250+ deals that year. The company operates two offices with 10 full-time staff and provides end-to-end property management services to investors seeking passive real estate income.

Rumber is a manufacturing company founded in 1991 that produces composite boards from recycled tires and plastic for industrial applications including military, oil field, transportation, and marine industries. Brian Adams acquired the company in 2012 for $5 million when the original owner became ill, and has since grown it into an efficiency machine producing 30,000 pounds per day with a 2016 revenue goal of $10 million.

Cohesity is an enterprise storage company founded by Mohit Rahn, the inventor of hyperconvergence, in June 2013. The company raised $15M Series A from Sequoia and Wing Ventures in November 2013, and $55M Series B in May 2015, achieving a pre-money valuation between $150M-$500M. As of October 2015 (two months after GA), the company had generated under $10M in revenue.

Phenom is a community platform for young athletes (13-18) to share their athletic gear and game stories, launched in September 2014 by college athlete Brian Vernon and co-founder Mike. With 60,000 registered users and 25,000 monthly actives, they've built a B2B2C model where brands like Wilson Sporting Goods pay for grassroots athlete product feedback and consumer behavior insights. The team raised $700k and operates lean with a 4-person core team in San Francisco through 500 Startups Batch 16.

Vector Media Group is a bootstrapped web development and digital marketing agency founded by Matt Weinberg in high school around 2000, initially as a computer repair service before pivoting to web design and online marketing. Now 32 employees strong and generating $6 million in annual revenue, the company serves enterprise clients including Google, the Associated Press, and Columbia University, offering web development, design, branding, and ad spend management services. The agency has been on the Inc. 5,000 list for three consecutive years and has been profitable every month since inception without taking outside funding.

NowThis is a digital-first news and media company focused on creating short-form video content for social platforms. As of January 2016, they achieve approximately 1 billion monthly views across all channels and had just closed a $16 million funding round with a team of about 50 full-time employees. Their success comes from data-driven content optimization, particularly on Facebook video, where they've pioneered techniques like volume-agnostic videos with on-screen text and close-up interview formats designed for mobile consumption.

OutCold is an experiential marketing agency founded by Fritz Heffinger that specializes in creating mobile brand experiences using converted shipping containers and vintage vehicles. The agency did $2.5M in revenue in 2015 and works with major brands like Nordstrom, creating immersive on-the-road campaigns that prioritize authentic consumer interaction over traditional media buying. Fritz aims to scale the agency to $10-15M within 2-3 years as brands shift budgets toward experiential and guerrilla marketing.

Gerard Adams co-founded Elite Daily, a content-focused online publication targeting millennials, initially bootstrapped with $60,000 of his own capital. The site grew to 80 million unique visitors at the time of acquisition by Daily Mail, generating approximately $20 million in annual revenue through display and native advertising. Elite Daily's growth was driven by high-volume content creation (80 articles per day), trend-based writing, and strategic use of social platforms to distribute content.

Michael Slavin built US Emerald Energy, an oil and gas exploration company that brings investors into drilling partnerships, after recovering from bankruptcy post-military service. Starting with $203,000 raised from four people (including a stranger met at a gas station) in his first week and a half, he grew the company to $1 million in profit within 3.5 years. The company has operated for over 23 years, maintaining an 85-90% success rate on wells by focusing on PUD (Proved Undeveloped) reserves with 3D seismic data, and profiting from both investor management fees (20%) and direct well ownership stakes.