iOS Startups

Alex Fishman founded Bugsy, a crash reporting tool for iOS and Android apps that records video, network activity, and logs leading up to a crash. The company started in January 2016, launched beta customers in April 2016, and began charging around December 2016 using a freemium model priced by app user count. As of January 2017 the founder said only under 100 customers were paying, with about 1,100 total sign-ups.

Notion.ai, led by Guy Souter, is building an AI intelligence layer on top of digital communications, starting with iOS and Android email clients and an Alexa skill. The company was pre-revenue at the time of the interview, had raised around $10 million in early-stage capital, and reported tens of thousands of downloads with over 1,000 new downloads per day in the most recent month.

SignEasy is a cloud-based app for e-signing, sending, and managing documents from smartphones, tablets, and the web, founded by Sunil after a document-signing problem while traveling in Mexico. It launched in July 2010 as a free product, moved to a one-time paid model, and later adopted freemium subscriptions. As of late 2016 it reported about 4 million downloads, roughly 130,000 paid users, and around $200K in monthly recurring revenue, with nearly all growth coming from App Store search.

PolyMail is a standalone email client for business users that works with existing Gmail and Outlook accounts and adds message tracking, follow-up reminders, and contact enrichment. It launched on Product Hunt in December 2015 after a private alpha community, reached about 20,000 daily active users and over 150,000 total downloads, and planned a freemium Pro tier.

Reyes Labs is a bootstrapped custom software agency founded in 2003 that builds iPhone, iPad, Android, and web applications for startups and Fortune 500 companies. The firm lost money in its first year on roughly $15,000 in revenue, grew to nearly $9 million in 2015, and was on track for $13 million in 2016 with about 80 employees. It has stayed cash-flow positive and profitable without taking outside funding.

Proven is a small business hiring tool that lets businesses like restaurants and retail shops distribute job postings to multiple job sites and collaborate on hiring, including from mobile apps. After pivoting several times since its 2009 founding and dropping a direct sales model, it shifted to a content-driven organic traffic strategy, reaching about $1 million in 2015 revenue and roughly $150,000 in revenue in August 2016 with 10 employees and a self-funded, profitable business.

Karma Circles is a peer-to-peer mentoring app founded in January 2015 by Deepak Ghul, with a free consumer version and a paid enterprise version for business schools and corporates. As of the interview it had no revenue, was running pilots that were not yet paying, and had raised $100,000 from six angel investors. The six-person engineering team is mostly in India with a burn of about $3,000 per month.

MeisterLabs, run by Michael Hollauf from Vienna, makes the mind mapping tool MindMeister (about 5 million registered users and roughly 30,000 paying customers) and the newer collaborative task manager MeisterTask. The combined business was reported at about $250,000 in monthly recurring revenue, with a freemium model where paid features like unlimited integrations drive conversion of roughly 0.8 to 1% of free users.

Yottio was a mobile-first broadcast television platform that enabled mass video participation with moderation and HD broadcast-quality output. The company achieved $200k in revenue over two years and received a $20M acquisition offer, but ultimately failed due to inability to close new customers quickly enough, insufficient capital for physical demos, and unexpected co-founder liabilities that consumed 40% of revenue.

Swipes was a productivity task management app that achieved significant early success with 500,000+ users and multiple awards, including first place at the Evernote Platform Award. However, after 6 years of operation, the founders failed to achieve sustainable product-market fit or a viable business model, ultimately shutting down in June 2019 due to founder burnout and resource exhaustion.

SimpleLogin is an open-source email alias service that protects user privacy by allowing them to create different email identities for each website. Founded by Son NK after being inspired by Edward Snowden's documentary, the bootstrapped SaaS grew organically through content marketing and endorsements from privacy influencers to reach $3,000 MRR with approximately 1,000 subscribers.

Siempo was a public benefit corporation that built a humane smartphone interface to combat digital addiction and promote mental wellbeing. Despite raising $1.1M over four years, securing significant PR coverage (TechCrunch, broadcast TV, awards), and launching a well-received Beta in March 2018, the company failed to achieve product-market fit and dissolved in 2020. Key challenges included platform limitations on iOS, inability to fundraise effectively despite cultural momentum around digital wellness, and insufficient product validation.

Scalefusion is a mobile device management platform helping SMBs configure and secure employee devices without IT expertise. After 3 failed startup attempts, founder Harishanker Kannan leveraged his kiosk technology experience to build a simple, affordable solution that grew organically to $400k/month through SEO and customer support excellence.

Pathways is a pain-therapy app founded by Sandip Sekhon after he cured his own chronic repetitive strain injury using evidence-based mind-body techniques. Starting at $5k/month MRR through freemium subscription, the app uses a natural approach to help chronic pain patients, backed by a money-back guarantee. Growth came initially through Facebook ads, with organic app subscriber growth and recently an in-depth blog strategy beginning to drive meaningful traffic.

Habitify is a multi-platform habit tracker app that grew from $0 revenue in its first 6 months to $21K/month with 1M downloads. After struggling initially with no sales, the app gained traction through a Product Hunt launch, followed by an Apple App Store feature that drove exponential growth. The team discovered that content marketing and affiliate marketing provided sustainable, long-term growth with superior customer lifetime value compared to paid advertising.

Bluetik.io is a cold and warm email follow-up SaaS tool built by Mike Taber, a former co-host of Startup for the Rest of Us. After nearly a year of working behind the scenes on a potential partnership with a complementary field sales CRM product, Mike is now exploring a 3-4 month trial partnership that could lead to merger, tight integration, or a "done for you" service offering Bluetik to the CRM's existing customer base. The company operates on a $50-$500/month subscription model and is currently evaluating an AppSumo deal while managing recurring annual Google security audits.

Presence is a data and engagement platform for college student affairs, founded by Reuben Pressman in late 2012 and launched in May 2014. The company started with a simple MVP—swiping student IDs at events to collect participation data—and grew to serve over 110 institutions across 35+ states and multiple countries by achieving strong word-of-mouth traction. With 22 employees, just under $2M in funding raised, and a mission-driven culture hiring education professionals, Presence demonstrates how deep domain expertise, customer obsession, and a focus on solving real problems can drive sustainable growth even from outside major tech hubs.

Cuddli was a dating app designed specifically for geeks that grew to 100,000 users through earned media and in-person community engagement at geek events. Despite achieving category leadership and strong product-market fit, the startup failed to find a sustainable monetization strategy and ran out of personal runway after four years of bootstrapped operations. The founders ultimately shut down rather than compromise their values by selling to unethical acquirers.

Cesar Kuriyama created One Second Every Day, a video journaling app, after taking a year off work inspired by a Stefan Sagmeister TED talk on sabbaticals. He pitched his mockup at a TED audition and gave a main-stage TED talk that went viral (2M+ views), validating the idea before building. He raised $20K through a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign (11,281 backers) and launched the app in January 2013, achieving 50,000 downloads on day one through organic word-of-mouth and the free 24-hour launch window.

Stockalarm is a mobile and web app that sends real-time alerts to traders when their watched stocks hit specified prices, eliminating the need for constant manual monitoring. Yahya Bakur joined the project in early 2019 when it had under $100 MRR, and through a combination of rapid feature development, community engagement, and strong SEO optimization, grew it to $20K MRR by 2024. Yahya quit his $250K/year Amazon job to go full-time on the product, which now has 170K newsletter subscribers and a 4.8-star rating with 6,000 app store reviews.