subscription Startups

Churnly.ai is a SaaS analytics platform launched in June 2018 that helps companies understand and reduce customer churn using machine learning. Founded by Adam, a veteran entrepreneur who previously led user-generated content at The Guardian and built Blotter, the company spent $300K developing the MVP and has grown to 20 paying customers averaging $900/month in revenue. Currently generating ~$18K MRR with a 12-person team, the company is bootstrapped and burning $40K/month as it scales product and sales.

GitLab is a single-application DevOps platform used by over 100,000 organizations and 10,000 paying customers. The company has raised $468 million in total funding, with their latest Series E round of $268 million at a $2.75 billion post-money valuation, positioning them for an IPO or direct listing in 2020. GitLab demonstrates exceptional unit economics with 150%+ net revenue retention, 72% of ARR from enterprise customers, and plans to break $200M ARR by next year.

UTM.io is a SaaS tool that simplifies UTM link building for marketing teams. Launched as an internal tool within consulting agency F and Amazing, it was rebranded 18 months prior to this interview as a standalone product. The company has grown from $500 MRR a year ago to $3,400 MRR today (15-20% month-over-month growth) across 100 customers, though it faces a significant churn problem and is shifting upmarket toward enterprise customers.

Engage Rocket is a SaaS platform using real-time analytics to help mid-market enterprises (500-5,000 employees) improve talent retention and productivity. Founded in October 2016 by Chi-Tung Leong, the company grew from zero to $60,000 MRR through content marketing, PR, and community building, with a 101% net revenue retention rate and 9-month CAC payback period. The company has raised $1.1M seed funding and is currently raising a $3-5M Series A round.

Avanshor is a SaaS booking engine for tours and activity operators, positioned as 'Shopify for tours and activities.' Launched in May 2019, the company has grown to 150 active paying customers at $25/month ($4K MRR) through word-of-mouth and organic SEO, while bootstrapping with revenue from their agency business (Aikhaal) which generated $400K annually. They've identified onboarding as their key challenge, improving monthly churn from initial high levels to 10%.

Let's Chat is a SaaS messaging platform launched in May 2019 by serial entrepreneur Ankesh Kumar that enables outbound salespeople to embed interactive chatbots directly into cold emails, allowing prospects to engage in real-time conversations without leaving their inbox. Currently pre-revenue with a $5,000/month burn rate and a team of two, the company is growing through cold outreach with a 50% email open rate and 10% chatbot engagement rate—significantly above industry averages. Kumar is focused on landing five paying customers by year-end and building partnership integrations with platforms like Salesforce, Sales Loft, and Outreach before aggressively scaling.

Veed is a bootstrapped online video editing platform founded by Saba Kanajad and co-founder Tim that has grown to $1.3M ARR in under 2 years. The company uses a freemium model with a watermark on free videos, driving conversions to paid plans ($15-$30/month), and has gained traction primarily through content marketing and SEO. With 5,500 customers, a team of 20, and consistent daily YouTube uploads, Veed has achieved profitability while reinvesting 30% of profits back into growth.

Madwire is a comprehensive SaaS platform for small businesses (1-100 employees) that combines CRM, payments, invoicing, billing, e-commerce, and multi-channel marketing tools in a single platform. Founded in 2009, the company has grown to $120M ARR serving 20,000 customers with an average revenue per user of $500/month, while maintaining strong unit economics ($3,000-$4,000 CAC with 3-month payback) and recently turning profitable with a focus on reaching 15-20% EBITDA margins. The company is exploring an IPO within 12-18 months without having raised substantial capital beyond an initial $7.5M.

Jazz HR is a recruiting software platform for small businesses (25-500 employees) that replaces manual hiring workflows using Office tools with an affordable, easy-to-use SaaS solution. Founded in 2009 and led by CEO Pete Lampson since December 2015, the company grew from 3,500 to nearly 7,000 customers in 20 months without raising additional capital. Jazz HR operates at break-even while reinvesting all profits into growth, with 50% of new business now coming from indirect channel partnerships with payroll and HCM companies.

Rock Content is a Brazilian SaaS company offering a suite of content marketing solutions including a talent marketplace (Visually), content platform (Rock Studio), WordPress-based CMS (Stage), and interactive content tool (Ion). The company grew from $13M ARR in 2019 to ~$24-25M ARR in 2020, scaling from 1,500 customers with $2K ACV to 2,000+ customers with $20K ACV through a strategic shift to enterprise sales and multiple acquisitions. With 400 employees across 10 countries and 94% revenue retention plus 100% net revenue retention in their strongest month, Rock Content is executing a sophisticated SaaS playbook with strong expansion revenue.

Edusigne is a French SaaS platform that digitizes attendance sheets and enables online signing for training courses. Launched in March 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, the company grew to 300 customers in just 4 months, achieving $10,000 MRR and 80% profit margins. With only one engineer and a bootstrapped, equity-based team structure, they've built sustainable organic growth primarily through SEO, targeting French keywords, with plans to expand internationally through partnerships.

Koala Rank is a bootstrapped content marketing agency founded by Arigato Loporte in January 2020, serving small B2B firms and SaaS companies. Starting with $3,500 from his best month on Fiverr, the founder built an all-in-one content marketing service that creates strategies, editorial calendars, and produces optimized content. The company currently has 5 paying customers generating approximately $4,000 MRR, with traffic driven primarily through SEO (ranking #1 for 'is blogging dead') and guest posting partnerships.

RightKit is a bootstrapped social media automation platform built around four core tools (RightTag, RightWrite, RightForage, RightBoost) plus an API with 19 endpoints that help marketers automate hashtag generation, image tagging, and other repetitive tasks. Founded by Saul Fleischman in January 2012, the company has grown to 431,000 registered users from 20-25 million site visits, with the API now being the primary revenue driver after originally starting with RightTag as a browser extension.

VidLive is a micro-SaaS tool that auto-embeds Facebook Live videos on websites using a single embed code that updates for every live stream, eliminating the need to manually grab a new code each time. Founded by Sean North in late 2018 as a side project while working full-time as a developer, the company grew to 450 paying customers ($3,100/month MRR) by leveraging organic search and a strong product-market fit with churches. Growth accelerated dramatically during COVID lockdowns, with roughly half of all customers signing up in the last two to three months of the interview period.

Sanity Desk is a SaaS platform targeting experts, coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs by providing an integrated tech stack to eliminate tool sprawl. Launched in October 2019, the company reached 50+ customers generating $12,500 MRR ($150k ARR) within a year, leveraging founder Sam Krohlin's existing marketing agency audience and Facebook ads. The company has raised $1.2M in total funding ($450k external + $750k from the legacy agency) and uses a creative revenue-based financing model to accelerate customer acquisition.

NailedTED is an employee engagement SaaS platform founded by Jose Andres and two co-founders in Madrid. Launched in October 2019, the company charges €4 per month per employee and has grown to 50 customers with 4,000 seats across their platform in under a year. With $144,000 ARR and a lean team of six (three engineers), they're bootstrapped with a conscious decision to burn capital (~$12,000/month) to fuel growth through direct outreach and prospecting.

Dan Martell founded SaaS Academy three years ago (around 2021) after building multiple venture-backed exits (Flowtown, Clarity.fm) and becoming deeply involved in angel investing. Starting from his personal YouTube channel where he shares founder advice, he scaled SaaS Academy into one of the largest B2B SaaS coaching businesses in the world, serving close to 3,000 paid founders through group coaching, training, and in-person events. The business model combines free content distribution with premium group coaching programs for founders doing $5M+ ARR.

Hold It is a SaaS platform launched in January 2017 that serves small businesses (1-20 employees) with an all-in-one business operating system covering invoicing, accounting, CRM, HR, project management, and inventory management. The company grew from $2M ARR in 2019 to $3.4M ARR by 2020 through primarily paid advertising channels, serving 9,000 customers at an average of $47/month. They recently partnered with Stripe to launch Hold It Payments, processing $4 billion in GMV and creating a new fintech revenue stream.

90.io is a bootstrapped SaaS platform built by veteran entrepreneur Mark Abbott that provides an integrated suite of tools (meeting, planning, goal-setting, feedback, process management) designed to help companies build on the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) framework. With 1,920 paying customers at $140 average monthly revenue and $250K MRR, the company has achieved impressive unit economics ($3M ARR from a bootstrapped model with only 50% net burn between $50-100K monthly) and exceptional retention with 136-140% net revenue retention, primarily driven by organic growth within entrepreneurial communities like EOS coaching networks and organizations like Vistage and YPO.

Appify is a no-code platform that enables businesses to build custom mobile and desktop apps without hiring developers, similar to how Squarespace democratized website creation. Founded in 2017 and led by CEO Jen Grant (formerly CMO at Looker), the company has 45 customers and raised $11.45 million in Series A funding plus extension. With 45 employees and a revenue run rate targeting a quarter million dollars by end of year, Appify is focusing on field sales and field service sectors while building out their sales team to scale beyond early adopters.