Web technologies Startups

Ivan Kutskir built Photopea, a free advanced photo editor, starting as a PSD viewer in 2013 while studying computer science. Operating solo and funded entirely by ad revenue, Photopea now generates $100,000/month from 10 million monthly visits and 1.5 million hours of monthly usage, with virtually no operational costs.

Fresh Chat (formerly Konotor, later Hotline.io) is a modern messaging platform that helps businesses communicate with customers across mobile apps and web. Founded by Sri Ganesan and co-founders in 2012, the startup initially pivoted from a WhatsApp competitor to an in-app messaging solution. After bootstrapping and winning a $125k Qualcomm prize, the team grew through content marketing and cold outreach, eventually reaching product-market fit. The company was acquired by Freshdesk in December 2015 and rebranded as Fresh Chat, seeing exponential growth when they finally prioritized web alongside mobile—generating more revenue in three months than the previous product's entire lifetime.