Medium Startups
4 case studies with real revenue and traction data from medium startups.
Artmap Inc (AMI) is a content network platform founded by David Smook that operates 20,000+ contributing writers and reaches a quarter million daily readers with 600,000 subscribers and 10+ million monthly page views. The flagship publication, Hacker Noon, grew by prioritizing writer autonomy, strong calls-to-action, and SEO-driven distribution over viral engagement. David bootstrapped the business by initially consulting for startups, then gradually shifted resources toward building the media properties once he saw their superior long-term potential.
Learn UX is an online education platform founded by Greg Rog offering high-quality video courses on UI/UX design tools like Sketch, Framer, and Adobe XD. Greg invested approximately 1,000 hours upfront creating premium content before launch, focusing on real-world examples and practical approaches. The platform now generates over $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue while requiring only about one day per month of maintenance work, achieved through extensive automation using no-code tools like Zapier and Integromat.
Jason Zook is a creative entrepreneur who sold his last name twice (first for $45,000 to headsets.com) and is known for making over a million dollars wearing t-shirts for brands. His latest venture, Buy My Future, launched with a unique 60-day transparent journal on Medium documenting the entire project, followed by 44 customer interviews to craft messaging. In just two weeks, he sold 165 lifetime access units at $1,000 each, generating $165,000 in revenue with $120,000 in profit after $8,900 in expenses, building a community around guaranteed access to his future projects.
Presley is a bootstrapped B2B SaaS platform combining CRM, email outreach, and content publishing for corporate PR and communications. Launched in 2010 as a hobby project, it became a paying business in 2014 and has grown to 300+ customers with 0.94% monthly revenue churn and healthy unit economics. The company is on track to reach $1.6M+ ARR with a 15-person fully remote team based in Brussels.